Billy the Ex-Bethelite

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Posts by Billy the Ex-Bethelite

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  42

  Patterson vs Walkill vs Warwick

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i understand that warwick is to be the new world headquarters of jws, patterson is an educational complex, and walkill is a literature production center.

  will patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of warwick?

  if not, what will happen to it?

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  when was your last time at Wallkill?

  Time for the ad hominem attacks, eh? I disprove your HUGE nonsense so now you are looking to find some way to discredit me. Silly apologist, get back on topic.
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  18

  A coming out story to my mother.

  by JennyBoo in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so i actually came out to my mother a few days ago.

  told her how i really felt about being a jw (jehovah's witness) and how i wasn't straight.

  i wasn't surprised by the disapproving response i got because really, i wasn't expecting any more.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Welcome JennyBoo!

  She only hopes that I do not turn my back on Jehovah in the end.

  That's the tricky part. Since Jehovah is invisible, it's so hard to be sure that I've really turned my back on him! Dang it! Jehovah, show yourself so that I can clearly turn my back on you!

  And then there's the tricky part about "the end". Is the end soon as in "next month", or soon as in "overlapping generations from now." That why JWs call them "the Last Days", because they last...

  ...and last...

  ...and last...

  ...and last...
  
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  42

  Patterson vs Walkill vs Warwick

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i understand that warwick is to be the new world headquarters of jws, patterson is an educational complex, and walkill is a literature production center.

  will patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of warwick?

  if not, what will happen to it?

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  who was talking about people? not me

  Oh, right, you mean it's HUGE INVISIBLY!

  Because the visible part is not that impressive.
  
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  42

  Patterson vs Walkill vs Warwick

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i understand that warwick is to be the new world headquarters of jws, patterson is an educational complex, and walkill is a literature production center.

  will patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of warwick?

  if not, what will happen to it?

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Wallkill and Patterson are both HUGE

  Ah hahahahahahahaha!

  Patterson is about a thousand people. The largest cruise ship in the world carries about 6000 people. Even the 50th largest cruise ship in the world carries about 3000 people. To call them "HUGE" is even more naive than I was as a JW.
  

  The printing and distribution at Wallkill may be impressive, but now that I've been out at university and working outside WTland, the scale of WT isn't much of a blip on the screen of the rest of the world.
  
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  42

  Patterson vs Walkill vs Warwick

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i understand that warwick is to be the new world headquarters of jws, patterson is an educational complex, and walkill is a literature production center.

  will patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of warwick?

  if not, what will happen to it?

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Orchards, not orchids. They also still have orchards and beef at Patterson, I believe. The slaughterhouse is at Wallkill. At least it was. I've been gone from there about a decade now. So I really don't know the latest... or really care that much anymore.
  

  They used to raise a lot of different vegetables at Wallkill and had their own canary... oops, I mean cannery. But they stopped that around 1990 because it was cheaper to buy than to maintain everything and do all the work. They used to raise their own chickens (eggs and meat) and pork, but that eventually phased out. And the dairy also was phased out. It simply became cheaper and easier to buy. I was around when they built the Food Warehouse where they did the bulk receiving of nourishing and affordable food from "Satan's world".

  So they still do some farming there at Wallkill, but it's not like the old days when they were preparing themselves for the new world by trying to grow all their own food.
  
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  30

  Introducing myself

  by maksutov in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  my name is russ, i'm 40 years old, from the uk, and i left the jws nearly 5 years ago.

  i've been a member of the yuku board throughout that time, so there are probably some on here who know me already.

  there seems to be more activity over here at the moment, so i thought i'd pop in and say hi.i was raised as a jw, started questioning it when i was 16, but there was no internet back then (well, no www anyway) so i got sucked right in and got baptized when i was 18. auxiliary pioneered on and off for a couple of years, then became a ministerial servant.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Greetings!

  Eventually admitted to myself that I no longer believed, and felt the weight lift off my shoulders - no more depression (I was "cured by Satan" according to my dad).

  Sometimes I have dreams where I'm still "in" or still a bethelite. When I wake up, even on a cold early morning for work, I get such a feeling of relief and joy that it was just a nightmare and I'm not a depressed JW anymore. I'm thinking of getting a copy of my degree to hang on the ceiling over my bed so I can see it every morning and it's something WT can never take away! So, "Thank You Satan!... or Thank You Santa!... or Thank You University!"
  
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  27

  Letter From My Elder Uncle

  by freemindfade in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ok guys, this is long, so i am sorry, but i think it is important to publish.

  this is a glimpse into a 4 page letter (love that song) from my uber elder uncle.

  as some of you may know i got tired of being in an email chain and finally lost it and lashed out.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Looks like he sent you 4 pages of CRAZY!

  Like you don't already know what JWs believe? And now he is going to tell you what you believe?

  I think this says it all:
  

  My sweet mommy and so many others are losing their grip on reality and slipping away in dementia
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  42

  Patterson vs Walkill vs Warwick

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i understand that warwick is to be the new world headquarters of jws, patterson is an educational complex, and walkill is a literature production center.

  will patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of warwick?

  if not, what will happen to it?

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Will Patterson continue to be used as it is now after the completion of Warwick? If not, what will happen to it?
  

  Frankly, I don't think WT has a plan for us to try to figure out. They've drawn up all kinds of plans along the way when I was in bethel for developing property they had in Brooklyn (local opposition was making it impossible, so not only didn't they continue to build, they saw how much money they could get when they sold Furman and have just continued to $ell, $ell, $ell.) They've drawn up plans to expand Patterson (I think it was simply too expensive and complex to expand on a hillside in the NYC watershed area). They had extensive plans to build a Patterson-sized facility up at South Lansing Kingdom Farm (halfway between the existing New York facilities and Canada branch... and in the middle of nowhere with no clear purpose for the property. I think that was around the time they decided to build the Sands building, which sucked up a ton of money. Construction in Brooklyn turned out to be much more profitable than building anywhere else.). Anyway, my point being that they never seemed to me to be operating with much of a plan beyond a few years and completing whatever they started building.
  

  As far as Patterson, the other facilities aren't designed to take Legal, Art, Service, Audio/Video, and the classes, so I don't see anything changing there. And I don't see much of a market for someone to buy the property. It's not like their Brooklyn properties where they are in the middle of a hot property market. For someone to buy Patterson, they would have to be prepared to take on the waste water complexities and maintenance headaches of a bunch of ugly-ass concrete buildings. The most likely purchaser would be another cult.
  

  Wasn't it originally the intent for the GB to be at Patterson (but now Warwick)? It seems that Patterson will be overkill after the completion of Warwick.

  Yes, originally the GB was intended to move up to Patterson, but a few years into construction and they decided the area was dullsville. GB 1.0 was accustomed to the excitement of the city and surrounded by a huge bethel family of the thousands. They seemed to connect with the needs of NYC congregations and many of them would go out preaching right on the promenade. Moving to Patterson seemed too remote, too small, and out of touch for them. I was there when the change of plans came along and the GB decided to stay in Columbia Heights.

  But for GB 2.0, they seem to dig the luxury and remoteness of the Warwick compound. I think they decided on Warwick in order to distance themselves from Legal and Service at Patterson, and inky book printing and shipping at Wallkill. And the sick and elderly will spend their remaining days at Patterson and Wallkill, not Warwick.

  So in answering your question, Warwick would have been overkill because it would have been very cheap and easy to move the GB to Patterson or Wallkill, but GB 2.0 clearly didn't want either place. They want a new place just for them and without any connection to GB 1.0.
  

  Also, what is the future of Walkill? It seems that printed literature is becoming less common in JWdom. Will there be a need for a complex as large as Walkill?

  Wallkill has turned into a crazy complex of the original, poorly designed structures with more and more buildings added on here and there with a maze of passages connecting most. It started as a farm, that turned into a factory, that also became something of a retirement village. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but it always kinda creeped me out because it had such a "this is a cobbled together, yet very expensive, mess" kind of feel.

  Wallkills future? Like I said, even WT doesn't know. But it's clear enough that the GB doesn't want to live there. And I don't know who would buy it. Again, maybe they could find another printing-based cult that would be interested in buying.
  
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  19

  People calling me... >.<

  by Garrett in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  oh my god!.

  it is currently almost midnight where i live and i have now been spammed 3 times in a row by an unknown number.

  first my home phone and then my cell phone.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  I am 100% sure it is someone from the congregation because no one else has my number

  Perhaps it is a JW. But when you have phone numbers, anybody can call them. About a fourth of my calls are wrong numbers.
  
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  40

  What is dating as a JW like

  by UFCFan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  first off i want to say that i'm a teenager which makes my situation interesting.

  i don't want to give too many details in case someone i know reads this but i'm between 14 and 18, homeschooled, and i've been awake for around one or one and a half years.

  i already have a plan to attend usc or wisconsin university if i'm smart enough to get in and then move to san jose and try and get a job working for a hs football team or with a soccer team, since i want to coach sports or be an agent.. now, this all sounds great in theory but there's one thing i've been thinking about that makes me doubt my plan.

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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  What's it like dating as a witness?

  To some extent it depends on the congregation and your family. I've known plenty that were disastrous, as you've described. And if you so much as touch her boob, you could find yourself being harassed by the BoE. And if you don't touch her boob, but someone else says they saw you touch her boob, you could find yourself being harassed by the BoE.
  

  Would it be worth it to stay home a few more years?

  Not in my opinion. The way your plans sound, you need to keep moving ahead. If this relationship doesn't work out, those years will be wasted. If this relationship does work out, you will have to be prepared to "stay home" forever, give up all the other things you want and live as someone you really aren't, and you will never get to know any of the other "worldly" women that would love you for who you really are.
  

  And how's strong is the pressure to get married?

  It won't just be pressure that your relationship will be chaperoned and headed to a wedding, you will be pressured to be a MS and "do more" in the congregation.

  There's a girl in my congregation who's the same age as me and I really like her. Not like a crush that you have for a month or two and then move on, I've liked her since I met her which was 3+ years ago.

  I don't want to come across as belittling your feelings, and I have known plenty of couples that have been together since preteenage. But in my experience, although I had plenty of heartbreak with "sisters", I'm now very glad that I dodged every one of those bullets!