Posts by shopaholic

31

Getting married too young

by freedomfighter in

have noticed an inevitable trend in australia.

(probably is all over the world).

as a jw u can't have sex before marriage right?

shopaholic

I honestly think that if say I had been to university, if I was renting a niceish flat, if I had a car, some nice clothes and some disposeable income, when I met anyone I would be thinking "what can this person bring to the table", and if I already had a nice little life going on I would have been more picky about a them having a personality I respected and looked up to.

Very,very,very true. Most of my friends were married by the time they were 21 or 22, at which time I was just graduating from college. I never met anyone in the truth that could at least match what I could "bring to the table" at 22, not even the older guys. I met plenty of non-JWs that could but of course I didn't go that route. Yes, most witnesses get married too, too young especially for all that's available for them today. BTW, some of my friends are still in their original marriage and others are working on their 2nd or 3rd one. Several of them have said they got married for sex and if they had a second chance, they would have waited several years before getting married and would marry someone else. How sad is that?

38

Anyone else feel like an emotional mutant at this time of year?

by tall penguin in

jw
friends

i've been attempting to infiltrate my friend's christmas traditions in an attempt to understand and appreciate the holiday.

i only had christmas until i was 5 when my mom converted to jw.

before that, christmas was really big in our house.

shopaholic

As an atheist, I don't go for the religious overtones of the holidays, but I'm looking for the cultural "feel" of the season. I send seasonal cards to friends and colleagues. I try to bake some nice goodies to enjoy during family time. We put up a tree, but there is no crèche, and our decorations are more about winter than they are about "Christmas".

I always wondered what atheist did about Christmas. I'm not an atheist, yet, but do like your approach...cultural feel of the season and winter decorations. I think I'll give that try, especially since for a number of years, I've wanted to put up snowflake decorations and huge Frosty sticker on window. After we stopped celebrating christmas my mom continued to play winter songs, but got a lot of slack from the "JWs" telling us the songs were Satan's way of trying to lure us back to Christmas and the world. My mom wasn't totally brain dead...to this day she plays winter songs during this time of year.

38

Anyone else feel like an emotional mutant at this time of year?

by tall penguin in

jw
friends

i've been attempting to infiltrate my friend's christmas traditions in an attempt to understand and appreciate the holiday.

i only had christmas until i was 5 when my mom converted to jw.

before that, christmas was really big in our house.

shopaholic

How does one go from politely not attending any the christmas functions at work or at the invite of casual associates to all of a sudden attending them without some sort of explanation that isn't talked about and then shared with every JW that knocks on their doors that they knew someone that was a witness and now they're not, oh yeah, her name is Shopoholic, do you know her and then not have 13 elders calling at my door to "encourage me"? I used to get that in service all the time and the person working along with me would be sure to pass along the name of the person so that they could be hunted down.

Tall peguin, I agree that no matter how hard you try to assimilate that you still feel like an outsider looking in. My family also celebrated christmas when I was a kid. I remember opening presents, baking cookies for Santa and everything. Then several months later my mom told us we were to no longer say the pledge at school and that was followed up by her telling us that my sister would not have a birthday party and when Dec came back around, yep, no christmas. What was I supposed to do? I too was only 5 years old.

37

Has WTS abandoned "house to house" ministry?

by ozziepost in

many years ago now i remember hearing harold king sing the song he had composed whilst incarcerated for his beliefs in china; it was called "house to house".. nowadays it doesn't seem as though it's in favor.

notice its own description of its ministry which the wts has placed on its website:.

jehovah's witnesses are probably best known for their person-to-person ministry.

shopaholic

She had never heard of Jehovah's Witnesses! I was stunned. All this preaching work, all over the globe, in twohundredandumpteen countries and territories...

I believe most people do not know or have never knowingly heard of Jehovah's Witnesses. I know plenty of people, even in US metropolitan areas that had no idea who the JWs were and have never had a JW knock on their door or ring them.

When raised as one of JWs, you think that you belong to a super-religion that reigns supreme. Once you get out of your bubble and branch out in life, you realize that the Witnesses are not that big or well-known but their tight social network causes them to appear larger then they actually are.

And yes, no one is at home these days. Most pioneers don't actually place their mags with people, they typically off-load stacks in waiting rooms and bus terminals. This is interesting because other folks are wondering what they are doing wrong and why they can't place any mags. If they only knew that all they had to do was stop by their local dental office, bus terminal, gym (not joking) or cafe, etc and simply drop off their mags. Oh the other thing now, if your drop-off spot has been hit by another pioneer, is to stick any two mags in the door of not-at-homes. You can empty your bag within an hour.

15

New light re: baptism?

by behemot in

i heard rumors that "new light" is coming re: baptism.. it seems that those who got baptised without inner conviction or real dedication and / or cooled off afterwards, could get re-baptised.. anyone else heard something similar?.

behemot.

shopaholic

This is not new.

I've worked the baptism a number of times at the assemblies and conventions for the women. Before they walk out, I asked their age and if they had been baptized as a JW in the past. I've only come across a few that had been baptized before and they had all been folks that had been disfellowshipped in the past. The final list given to the baptismal overseer is a list containing age and whether or not the person had been baptized before, no names or cong were to be noted.

12

Any Old TImers remember Awake (early 1960's) saying JW's could vote ?

by ShirleyW in

b-deserters post reminded me of something that was posted quite some time ago, matter of fact, it could've been posted on tishies board, if some of us here remember her website.

a poster on her website quoted the exact date of an awake magazine going back to the early 1960's which clearly stated that jw's could vote if they wanted to, conscious was not mentioned in the article !!.

i went down to my mother's basement, looked up the exact date that was mentioned, and sure enough there it was in plain black and white, jw's had the vote!!

shopaholic

I had similar questions about voting and someone on this board pointed me to '99 mag as well. Blondie is absolutely right, a JW (in the US for instance) can vote but if its found out there may be consequences. It really depends on your BOE, my friend's dad was disfellowshipped a few years ago for voting. Someone saw him coming out of a building where voting stations had been set-up and the drama began from there. Anyway, he was df'd because voting showed that he did not trust God's Kingdom and believe in Jehovah's promises.

FYI....I'm voting in the next election!

34

Watched TV evangelists for the first time today

by shopaholic in

jw
friends

i was flipping through the channels while doing cardio and i decided to hear what a couple of these people had to say.

while i've determined that i'm agnostic, this one guy was pretty good...he was practical and funny.

he made the bible seem more like a good self-help book than a "book laws to be obeyed or else you'll die".

shopaholic

Sorry for the late response but was I out ..well..shopping. The preacher I saw is named David Jeremiah or something like that. But I know witnesses that have mentioned Joel Osten and said that he would make a good witness if he had the "truth" and when I found out who he was, I was surprised that several witness I knew watched his program from time to time. He has a book with daily thoughts and I usually read several pages whenever I stop by Borders...its pretty good. I'll lookout for his program.

I recently wondered why they do not use the television media to broadcast a show.

I've at times wondered the same thing. However, maybe this means I'm making progess towards freedom because in the past I would have NEVER watched anything like this. It felt very liberating.

34

Watched TV evangelists for the first time today

by shopaholic in

jw
friends

i was flipping through the channels while doing cardio and i decided to hear what a couple of these people had to say.

while i've determined that i'm agnostic, this one guy was pretty good...he was practical and funny.

he made the bible seem more like a good self-help book than a "book laws to be obeyed or else you'll die".

shopaholic

I was flipping through the channels while doing cardio and I decided to hear what a couple of these people had to say. While I've determined that I'm agnostic, this one guy was pretty good...he was practical and funny. He made the bible seem more like a good self-help book than a "book laws to be obeyed or else you'll die". He also explained a couple of scriptures really well and highlighted parts typically passed over by JWs, which was very interesting. There was another guy that was so boring I almost fell asleep on the treadmill so I flipped back to the other guy.

This is the first time I've ever watched church on TV in my life. He said a few things that made me uncomfortable, like "God takes people" but other than that it felt like a motivational seminar. I watched for about 15 minutes. I don't see myself going to church or getting involved with any religion anytime soon but I'm open to watching church TV for about 15-20 minutes if someone good is on.

I knew a few JWs that would give their talks in a lively fashion but they would always get told that it was "too churchy" and to tone it down.

17

Post YOUR future Watchtower Qoutes 2050 and beyond!

by Witness 007 in

watchtower 2055 feb 1st "theodore jarcz the last member of the anionted died today when his robotic heart and kidneys gave out, he was 130 years old.".

watchtower 2060 feb 1st "the faithful great crowd class has through careful study found that "this generation" refers not to the annionted but to the "pepsi generation" who will not die out before armegedon.".

watchtower 2090 feb 1st "this generation refers to the robotic generation of 2040 which will not power down till the great tribulation arrives.".

shopaholic

Watchtower Jun 2, 2053
Arranging contributions to the world wide work with Direct Debit.

Isn't this available now? I'm sure it is...I think this has been around for several months already.

56

hardest conversation of my life

by metaspy in

moments ago, i talked to my mom.. i told her that i was taking some time off from going to meetings and service.. the conversation went down hill from there.. as her usual she just dismissed my reasons as if they meant nothing.. i pointed to the child molestations as my main reason for leaving.. "you are being over-sensitive", "jehovah takes care of things in his own time", "rely on jehovah".

those were the catch phrases of the conversation.. a new one was: "what have you been reading?".

i have a hard time standing up to my mother.

shopaholic

I told her that I was taking some time off from going to meetings and service.

Very good phrasing. I'm going to use those words if I ever get questioned directly. If it helps, I've found it useful to change the subject to something else or just say "um-hmm" or some other sound that means I'm listening but I'm careful not to get sucked into any conversations regarding the KH or JW stuff. I also try to call my family regularly to talk about other things, like if I saw something cool they may like or to share the latest family gossip. As long as I keep in touch and initiate the conversations, I don't get as many suspicious questions.

But I also know that it depends on your family, the number of brothers/sisters you have and how many of them are active witnesses, how close you are to your parents and your emotional makeup. If you're close to your family, you don't want to hurt them even if it means your freedom and I understand that dilemma. Just stand your ground and know that you don't have to answer every time your mom calls. Try initiating some of the conversations, don't talk about JW stuff, don't try to explain anything...just let her know you as her son and not her JW son.

This is going to be my plan of attack as I'm going to tell my family that I'm "taking time off" after my visit in a couple of weeks, as I feel like I'm being a coward by leading to them believe that I'm still very active. Although I think they have some idea.

Metaspy, stay strong and live each vibrant day with your eyes wide open.

May you find peace in your journey,

S.