Domestic violence should be reported to the police, not the elders who's primary goal is protecting a group image rather than life and limb of the individual.
very neat comment !
Once there was a sister in my hall who had an abusive husband, One evening he pushed her right thru a storm door !
She called the elders instead of the police
They are divorced now, and their whole family is majorly F****d up !
there was a lady in my old hall who claimed to have chemical sensitivity syndrome.
She went to the hall for years before she decided that she had this, then all of a sudden she was wearing a full lenght white plastic suit with a full face respirator.
She couldn't live in her apartment building anymore because they sprayed for bugs and( she decided she was allergic to the stuff) and the PO helped
direct her and her unbeliving husband to purchase a house.
The small house was a wreck, and for four months people from the hall went over (after service and meetings) and helped gut / clean / disinfect / and remodel the house (free labor, and much of the material donated by people from the hall).
Her husband attended meetings during those months, and when the house was complete and they moved in, suddenly the CSS went away, hubby quit attending the hall, and they received basically a brand new house courtesy of the congregation !
When I would drive by months later, I could see that they had three televisions set up in the living room so that Mr. lazybut could watch his football, or baseball games!
'waiting for the real life'.
they exploit the biblical text to mean in essence that jw's 'put off' normal human life until the new world.. i never thought of the damage that does until i began to review my life history.
i have discovered that i am 35 years behind.
Or how about the single sister, now in her mid-40s, who made all the "right" decisions? She turned down the scholarships and pioneered right out of high school. She didn't pursue courtship because she wanted to "put kingdom interests first" and why get married now, when she could wait a few years and get a perfect man in the new system? Now, decades have passed and all she has to show for it is a four-door car, a one-bedroom apartment, a few cleaning jobs, and 25 years of full-time service.
This fits several ladies who I know in the JW religion to a T !!
"the way of the truth is the best way of living.. no better way can there be found.".
remember that?
it's the opening line to 'make the truth your own'.
Jomavrick said :
All religion is the invention of man (usually men) and is 100% subjected to the filtration of men. It is unprovable in all aspects, hence using the word "Truth" is an errant use of the word.
Yes,I appreciate the fact how you hit the nail on the head with this statement, for years I heard the word "truth" associated with the jw teachings.
And it gradually hardens your heart, because you look at every other religious teaching as an "untruth", hence evil.
Several months ago I attended a grief support group at a local hospital for six weeks, (my Mom died ) and as an ex-witness I was shocked at the amount of hardness on my part. Listening to other attendees talk about their beliefs of life after death jump started a part of me that belittled what they were saying in an unconcious manner.
But after two weeks I realised that their individual beliefs were much better then the hardcore jw way of thinking, and I found out for myself that their spiritual belief was helping them in an honest/realistic way, unlike the witness "one belief fits all, if you dont believe than you are spiritually weak" mentality.
yes, the term "truth" can be a comfort to some, but examining it honestly can be quite a shock if you do it with your eyes wide open.
do you remember how you once answered questions like; "do you really believe that god will destroy everyone but jehovah's witnesses"?
if you were like me you'd have looked your questioner in the eye and, in all honesty, said "no".
if necessary i'd have gone on to explain that "jehovah offers everyone the opportunity to live forever, our preaching work is an attempt to give all nations .
Wow, this is a really interesting post I am enjoying it immensly !!
outlaw's post about convention food reminded me of my family's experiences camping for the conventions.
fortunately, they did this before i came along.
but, it seems the whole congregation stayed at one campground.
Back then i just accepted it, we could have stayed at a hotel but this was an "encouraging experience" made us more appreciative
of what we had at home. There were a whole bunch of witnesses staying in the livestock area then, and the funny thing is that
it seemed normal for all of them
outlaw's post about convention food reminded me of my family's experiences camping for the conventions.
fortunately, they did this before i came along.
but, it seems the whole congregation stayed at one campground.
One year we went to the Billings Montana assembly (late 70's) and stayed in a tent in the livestock area
Showers were taken in the area where the livestock was hosed down.
I look back and just shudder at the experience .
in a time before many of you were born... assemblys had a great food... i left before the food started getting bad... .
i am totally amazed at reading... how food at assemblys got worse and worse... until finally food was`nt served at all... .
back in the day... food at assemblys was pretty dam good... there was quality cooking back then... jehovah`s witness`s actually looked forward to meals at assemblys... .
During the 70's at the janesville WI. assembly hall attendees would buy a plastic token with the wt logo on it to get a fully-cooked lunch.
There would be things like greek salads, fried chicken, and salsbury steak for lunch.
At 5 in the morning brothers would arrive to start cooking breakfast, the plastic tokens would buy a full breakfast also:
pancakes, bacon, sausage, sara lee pastry, orange juice, milk, coffee. The after lunch paper tickets could be purchased in case you wanted
something like ice cream, cookies, fruit, or soda.
I would work in the kitchen and get a bag or two of leftover's Sunday evening before we left,,,, man that was a neat time.
Too bad they had to end it.
i was thinking about some stupid non-sensical answers i have heard over the years.
"we all know the blue whale is the biggest fish"
"we were on the ministry and met a coloured couple.
I wonder if it is a Jewish name? Omnipotenstein?
ha ha !! very funny
a jw associate emailed this to me.
exudes of typical jw smugness towards "worldly" folks.
has this been your experience in the borg?.
FRIENDS: will visit you in the hospital when you're sick
Theocratic FRIENDS: will cut your grass and clean your house
then come spend the night with you in the hospital and cook for you
when you come home
My mother was bedridden for six months, not one visit, or encouraging phone call from the "Theocratic friends" at her hall !
A year ago there was a sister in our old hall who had surgery and couldn;t get up for months, my wife had her hairdresser go over and fix her hair up nicely.
Guess what happened ?
The elders counseled her on it, saying that "theocratic activities/actions, should have been her focus in helping this older sister !!
