I think people on the outside are much more honest. I say this because a person outside the JWs is just who they appear to be. Whether that person is good or bad, or at least appears to you to be good or bad, they are who they are. A person inside the org is fundamentally no different than the person they would be outside the organization, except they wrap themselves in a disguise of religious piety which is designed to have everyone else believe they are all inherently good, or at least better than people who don't wear the cloak of religion. Lots of bad people shroud themselves in a protective layer of religion to diffuse suspicion about their true personality or intentions. The BTK killer was one of those people. Dennis Rader not only was a local law enforcement officer, but he was an official in his church for years. As far as anybody knew, Dennis Rader was a fine, upstanding, church-going, God-fearing man. Appearances are often deceiving.
Dorktacular
JoinedPosts by Dorktacular
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55
Did you find worldly people as bad as the JW's made them out to be??
by karter inas a jw we were always told worldly people were bad always out for what they could get out of you.
as for me iv'e made some good friends not anything as bad as the jw's said they woul'd be.
what about you ?????????
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32
what do you love?
by odie67 inwhat do you love?
what moves your soul and/or inspires you to the point of complete happiness?.
i had the pleasure of meeting a young man at a party, he was so into the music...it was amazing watching him.
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Dorktacular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt3WQ7OE9s8
Here's a good song about what I love...
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What kind of food should I feed my wonderful cat?
by Fisherman ini was feeding my great cat dry food but now i give it both fncy fest and dry.
any brands of foods or what should i feed it so that he is healthy and lives a good long time?
maybe he can make it into the new order.. much appreciate info and any info about cats so that i can help my cat to be very happy and healthy.. thanks..
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Dorktacular
I say feed the cat Hormel Chili and beer.
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Has any Assembly or Convention been cancelled due to bad weather?
by VM44 indoes anyone know if an assembly or convention, particulary ones held in stadiums, had to be cancelled because of bad weather?.
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Dorktacular
I've never experienced an assembly being canceled, but we almost got snowed-in during an assembly in Monroe, NY when I was a kid. That slippery ride home was fun and potentially deadly. Yay!
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To all "born-in" DF'd/DA'd posters.....
by DublDipd indo you feel that we will ever be free from the mental damage imposed by our parents?
i have been df'd for over 17 years.
basically, my entire family still remain active jw's.
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Dorktacular
DublDipd, you will never completely get over losing your old family and friends. But, what you can do is create your very own new family and set of close friends. Marry, have kids, and be the best damned spouse and parent you know how to be. Make lots of friends and treat them like your family.
I had a close older friend (he's dead now). Mr. Horowitz was put in a Nazi concentration camp along with his entire family when he was 10 years old. He was the only survivor out of all of his friends and family. After the war, fate deposited him here in the United States, and after years of hard work he eventually retired to the same neighborhood where I grew up in New Jersey. He would talk about his family every once in a while and what happened to them and to him. I asked him once if he ever got over losing his entire family. He said to me that it always hurts to lose a family memeber. He told me that one day I would lose family members too and that I would hurt and miss them. He said that when he thinks of them, he only thought of the good things, the good times they shared and the happiness they shared, and that always made him feel fortunate to have known them, no matter how briefly. He also said that he had many friends and a wife, children and grandchildren that he never would have had if the bad things that happened to him when he was a young boy never occured. As he pointed to the serial number tattoo on his arm, he said "You will always carry reminders of the bad things that happened to you in the past". He then pointed to the large family portrait above his mantle and said, "Just try to make the things that remind of the good things bigger than the things that remind you of bad". He told me shortly before he died that he had a good life and that he was happy. Can you imagine being put in a concentration camp, losing your entire family and then telling someone years later that you had a good life and that you were happy? It took me a long time to understand what he meant and where he was comming from.
I'm now in my 30s and without writing my entire autobiography, let's just say that I have been through quite a lot. I have seen other people who have had similar situations to mine crumble and give up on everything. But, I didn't give up, no matter how bad things got. Now I'm just a few short years outside of what I hope was the worst part of my life (I say I hope it was the worst part of my life, because I damn sure don't want to experience anything worse than what I've already been through). Today, I'm happy. Rather than feeling sorry for things that happened to me, I prefer to feel like I emerged triumphant from an epic battle. I feel like the bad crap that I went through before was the test of hardship I had to undergo to earn the life that I have now. In some small way, I now know what Mr. Horowitz meant when he said some of the things he said to me when I was young. A wise man, Mr. Horowitz was. At least that's how he would have said it.
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Hello.
by wanderlustguy injust wanted to say hi.
i do check in a lot, but haven't had a lot to say.
sometimes life sends you little reminders that you had better not get to cocky...you don't know sh*t.. i've got the message this time, dammit.
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Dorktacular
Sparkplug, I wish I wrote that song. It was awesome. I think I'll tune up the ol' guitar and play it for my wife tonight! Yee Haw!
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What did you think in -95?
by Samuel Thorsen inwhen i first read about wts having "new ligth" on the 1914-generation issue in the newspaper i was shocked.
(some evil apostates had been helpful and informed the paper weeks before i got my november issues of the wt.).
my thoughts was.
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Dorktacular
The 1995 "new light" is what drove the final nail in the WBTS coffin for me. I knew that anything the organization published could not be the truth. I spent most of my teenage years fearing destruction by an impending armageddon. By some people's calculations, armageddon would happen no later than my high school graduation! Virtually everyone born in or before 1914 is dead now, so Millions Now Living Are All Dead! Ha Ha. I'm still alive. Screw you, Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, screw you right up your silly bungholes!
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How come the women's restrooms always stink at assemblies....
by tan ini mean i use public restrooms...even gas station restrooms on occassions and they never smelled like the assembly bathrooms.
i thought that they were suppose to be clean people????.
just thought i'd ask....
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Dorktacular
Dorktacular's Public Restroom Manifesto!!!
Hmmm, interesting post! I am a frequent user of restrooms, and I know many people who also use the restroom. In addition, I've spent a few years cleaning public restrooms. A few comments or observations, if I may:
1. The toilet seat works in both directions. If it's down and you need it to be up, you can lift it up! There's no majic button and you don't have to ask permission. Alternately, if the toilet seat is up and you need it to be down, just put it down! Men have long ago mastered the art of operating a toilet bowl seat. My wife used to bitch about me leaving the toilet seat up until I started bitching at her for leaving it down. I have a really bad back and sometimes it really hurts to reach down in the middle of the night to raise the seat. Normally, it wouldn't occur to me to scold my spouse about the toilet seat, but I did so just to make a point. She stopped bitching about the position of the toilet seat after she heard me bitch about it a few times and realized how rediculous it sounds.
2. It has been my experience that women's restrooms are dirtier because most women are borderline-neurotic about public restrooms. Even Howard Hughes would flinch at the obsessive-compulsive type behavior exhibited by the typical western female when confronted with a public restroom! The problem is they think they're all gonna catch syphigohnnaherpeaids or sabre-toothed crotch crickets from the public toilet seat, so they "hover" over it while trying to pee by sonar. They just move their asses around until they hear pee-hitting-water. Wherever else their pee lands is not their problem, as they don't plan on revisiting that restroom again. Ever. They also don't want to touch the stall doors, garbage cans, or anything else, so they cover their hands in toilet paper mittens to avoid touching anything. When they reach the door to the restroom, they open it with their TP mittens and then throw the mitten towards the garbage can as the door closes behind them. I have yet to determine why some women leave their discarded feminie hygeine items on the restroom floor or, even better, draped across the toilet seat. Perhaps it's some form of obscure feminist artistry, only to be understood and appreciated by other feminists? I don't know, and I'm pretty sure I don't wanna know. Sometimes it's best to remain ignorant.
3. Men, I'm pretty sure that most of us have penises. I haven't checked everybody to make sure, and I have no desire to do so, but still I'm pretty sure. I've got one. I take it with me everywhere. Which means, when I use a public restroom and I have to pee, I use the urinal. Not the top of the urinal, not the floor directly below the urinal, not the wall to the side of the urinal. The urinal is a wonderful device which, if used properly, insures the rapid, efficient disposal of male-generated urine. Learn to use one properly. Barring some sort of physical or mental disability, you should be peeing in the urinal! Also men, when you are in a public restroom and you have access to urinals, why do some of you insist on peeing in the toilet bowl in the stalls? And, to make things even better, why do you insist on pissing on the toilet seat? I think any man caught pissing on the toilet seat of a public restroom ought to have his penis license revoked and his pants and/or shirt should be used to wipe his pee off of the toilet seat. Also, I think urinals are great. When I get rich, I'm going to have one installed in my very own Man-Bathroom. I think I will invent a similar device for use by women. If you want to know why such a device is desperately needed, please read item number 2.
So, all in all, it has been my experience that the women's restrooms are the filthiest, which is ironic, because from what I understand all of this filthiness is generated by the average woman's desire to not come in contact with filth by any means necessary. Even if that means generating more filthy obstacles for their female counterparts.
Finally, a word about taking children of the opposite sex into public restrooms: I was a single dad for 5 years. I never once took my little girl into a men's room. If I went on a long trip somewhere, I would not pee until I got were I was going. If she had to use the rest room, I made sure I found a "family" restroom somewhere were there weren't other people hanging around so she can have some privacy. I can't imagine as a father dragging my little girl into a public men's room. I didn't think it was appropriate and I sure didn't want to explain to a toddler why that man has a sausage sticking out of his pants! I understand that there are times when taking your child in a public restroom is unavoidable, but I think too many parents are taking children that are way too old into the "wrong" restroom. If your kid is 10 and they haven't mastered using the restroom by themselves, you might want to hire a tutor or something! My daughter is now 8 and she uses the public restroom by herself, but rest assured, daddy is always just outside the door waiting for her to emerge, lest some weirdo decide to snatch her up and carry her off into the adjacent men's room! I don't care if I look creepy hanging outside the lady's room. At least I'm not looking really creepy by taking a little girl into the men's room!
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Real Estate, Good Time To Buy?
by Indo_Dude inis anyone else planning on buying in the near future?
with the bubble in real estate finally popping, when do you think prices will hit bottom?.
when my grandmother died, she left a small amount of money to me which will pay off my school loans, and leave me with some left over for a downpayment.
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Dorktacular
Now is definitely time to buy. My wife and I purchased a house in September. This house would have been way out of our price range 2 years ago, but in September we got the house for 35% less than asking price, which was already significantly below the original asking price that was established 2 years ago. My advice is buy now, but only if you plan on living in the home for at least 5 years. By then, the market should have corrected itself and stablilized. If you're thinking of buying a house as an investment or to "flip" it, think long and hard about that because you may have to hang on to the house for months or years longer than desired. Scrutinize everything. Check the neighborhood. Check the county tax office and see what houses in the neigborhood have been selling for. See how many homes have been sold and how many times. Don't rush in to buy a house in a neighborhood where "turnover" is an issue. Just because the neighboring houses are clean and quiet now doesn't mean that they'll stay that way when people are constantly moving in and out. Check the local police blotter to see what crime or disturbances, if any, occur in your prospective neighborhood. Drive through the neighborhood at different times of day/night and different days of the week. You don't want to buy a house in a neighborhood that looks nice, only to find out after you've moved in that your neighbor is a long-haul trucker and likes to park his rig in front of your house when he's home once a week! Or, even better, you find out your neighbors are Jehovah's Witnesses and they like to get their field service time started every Saturday morning by knocking on your door! Find out what schools your kids will be going to and research the reputation of those schools. Even if you don't have kids, access to schools and school reputation are big factors when selling the home in the future. Finally, if there's something you don't like about the home or the neighborhood, don't settle unless the price is just too good to pass up. The market is such that you can be extremely picky and pretty much get any consessions from the seller that you want.
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How do you handle ... being shunned?
by Awakened at Gilead inmy da announcement was last tuesday, so i have been on the official jw shun list for about a week now.... i am curious how you handle shunning.my situation:.
i have spoken with my family (my parents and 1 brother) and discussed whether they will shun me.
i explained that biblically they should not shun me since i am not an antichrist, and i have not rejected the teaching that jesus cam in the flesh.
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Dorktacular
I'm glad when most of them shun me, because most of the people who do the shunning weren't worth talking to, anyway. I still talk to a couple decent people who are in, and we don't typically talk about religion, it's just friendly, like friends should be.
The way I see it is if some ass hat wants to shun me, then that's one less ass hat that I have to deal with that day. And it makes making my Christmas card list a lot easier.