Anything that alludes to the end of the world will get them going. If some scientist says that gnat farts are going to rise 90% due to global warming, Witnesses will start screaming, "Yes, it's ARMAGEDDON, finally!" Then they'll use some essentially meaningless scripture to support that either Jesus, John or Isaiah predicted gnat farts are a sign of the end.
mindmelda
JoinedPosts by mindmelda
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84
The Witnesses are freaking out
by Sour Grapes ini still go to a few meetings a month just to keep members of my family happy.. the witnesses seemed to be getting all worked up about how close the end.
it sorta feels like the 1975 era only 35 years later.
the brother who gave.
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22
The assembly mating game
by mutinyinheaven ini haven't been on the board for a while, but i thought you'd dig this.. it was taped last week at a reading from my novel.
the first part is about the hot girls at assemblies and how we'd sit through doom and gloom talks.
part 2 is a scene where gabe is found out for having a girlfriend.. http://vimeo.com/12066637.
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mindmelda
LOL...I remember single brothers who'd say they were going to be "poultry inspectors" at assemblies.
They were "Checkin' out the chicks".
Assemblies are just big meat markets for single Witnesses who are tired of being single, and girls always fretted about their hair, clothes, makeup and weight like they were going to a prom or on a date.
If you were an unattractive teenager, I'm sure that assemblies were horrible experiences of realizing that you were being ignored on the sexual attaction level.
Everywhere you go at that age, it's high school.
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Should I Remain Married to a Disfellowshipped Jehovah's Witness?
by Dogpatch inin response to my article entitled, "should i divorce my jehovah's witness mate?
the only comfort i can find in these stories is the fact that i no longer feel alone in this very confusing time.. .
i have been in a relationship for the last 15 years with a disfellowshipped jw.
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mindmelda
Wow, this guy has some serious addictive personality traits! He needs AA and an addiction counselor, not JWs. They function like prison in keeping you straight, but as soon as you think you're out of prison (aka disfellowshipped) you run amuck because the jailer is gone.
He's just replaced one addiction for another, in my humble, untrained and busybody opinion.
I'm an expert on addiction by virtue of having lived with a family full of addicts, though, who made me think that because I was the only one who wanted to NOT have one that I was WEIRD.
My brother is alcoholic/drug addict who in spite of years of JW BS about addiction was only able to get sober after going to AA and NA and getting professional counseling, which tells me that their ability to keep you on the straight and narrow isn't a good or healthy way, they just give you another addiction, being in a cult, and keep you too scared of being DF'd to indulge.
My mother is a rage-aholic who is also agoraphobic and OCD and thinks she's just fine because Jehovah loves her because she preaches at people incessantly (by phone or letter, she doesn't leave the house hardly at all), even though she's like living with a powder keg in a room full of lit matches. Everything that isn't perfect sets her off. My dad spends all his time ignoring her by playing golf 4 times a week with his worldly buddies, and he's always stayed away from her by virtue of work and sports, which makes him sort of a work and play aholic.
Well, I had one addiction, JWs, but I got better. *G* Probably food too, I've struggled with compulsive eating a time or two. I usually manage to realize I'm doing it before I get too far, though...I can gain 20 lbs in no time binge eating when I get depressed, then I knock it off.
But, man, I'd run as far away from this guy as I could. It wasn't being disfellowshipped that made him a craptastic husband, and he's still a mess. Getting reinstated is just trading one problem for another.
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FASCINATING debate: do we actually know what JESUS taught at all??
by Terry inthis debate is quite thrilling.. .
start at three minutes and forty two seconds where bart ehrman begins speaking.
then, if you find this compelling, go back and watch all the debate.. .
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mindmelda
I didn't get back to this thread until now, but, no, I think secular humanism pretty much demonstrates that people can be good or "moral" without benefit of Christ.
What belief in any religion or philosophy that has elements of humanism built into it is give a person a structured way to express that, and an organized way if they wish. I was discussing that with someone the other day, and what it seems to me is that many people use religion that way, but they may not necessarily believe in every tenet or dogma or their chosen faith, but enough that it doesn't create that much dissonance for them. They use it as a means to express their spirituality, their morality, their altruism, whatever qualities of an esoteric nature that appeal to them.
But, from what I read, what we call "morality" is simply an innate trait to help us form social bonds and then we intelligently form social constructs to encourage it. Even chimps have the rudiments of it, they can and do behave altruistically in certain situations. Anything that increases survival tends to remain and dominate as a trait, and there's a mathematical dynamic that proves that any action that benefits both yourself AND others is the one that tends to persist, as it gives everyone a leg up, in terms of survival. (True economically, socially and in evolutionary terms.)
Evolution tends to support that sort of thing...social creatures, who became social in the first place because there's safety and comfort in numbers, socially oriented creatures tend to kick social misfits to the curb and they get less chance to breed, survive and pass on their traits.
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Was There Anything You Liked About Being A Jehovah's Witness???
by minimus inanything at all???
?.
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mindmelda
I never minded seeing men in nice suits, but over the years, I saw some brothers in some suits that looked like they'd mugged a clown. I'll never forget when an elder showed up in a new suit for the Memorial that had a huge tractor tire check on it, in mustard gold and olive green. It was the 70s. He looked like a sleazeball used car salesman and thought he looked great.
I had to bite my lip not to giggle every time I looked at him during the Memorial.
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Was There Anything You Liked About Being A Jehovah's Witness???
by minimus inanything at all???
?.
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mindmelda
Conventions were a lot more fun back in the 70s. I always worked in food service and the food WAS good. They'd use Witnesses who worked as top notch restaurant chefs and such.
I worked in restaurants back then as a cook, so I did that and didn't have to listen to the boring programs. I pretty much only showed up for the drama at the big assemblies.
Leave it to the WTS to take the only fun thing out of the conventions. My husband quit going when they quit having work too...he can't sit for long without dying of boredom and always preferred working at assemblies.
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mindmelda
I have a doctor's note and everything.
I've decided to be proud of my insanity, it's kind of a battle scar. I got my wounds honorably fighting the WTS and family insanity.
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46
How do you help a girl having panic attacks?
by Cagefighter ini am so inlove with this woman.... we have been dating for six months and she is finally starting to let me in.
she is the portrait of sweet country feminitiy and i am a masculine little macho but smart and sweet meat head.. she called me the other night having a panic attack.
well she texted b/c she couldn't talk.
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mindmelda
Well, I already know that years of being a Witless left me with a whopping case of PTSD...it's a total mind f**k excuse my French, trying to be a Witness, and worse for some of us than others. I really think I loved being a Witness, or the idea of it, at first, because I was used to being controlled by an OCD mother who was emotionally abusive. Same ol, same ol! Everything rigid, controlled, and you got rejection and rage if you deviate one iota from the program that is designed to keep everyone and everything perfect. Except it doesn't of course.
I always sucked at being a Witness, and thought it was my fault (of course, it couldn't be that the wise, wonderful and all knowing OZ is wrong!), so I had chronic and self abusing guilt until I literally had two "breakdowns". I contemplated suicide quite a bit at one point, thinking that was the way to just wake up in the New System as I'd never be good enough to do it through the works and behavior required of Witnesses.
Only the thought of my children being without a mother when they were little stopped me from doing myself in properly. I try not to think about how ridiculous it all was, because it will make you insane with rage thinking about how these crazy beliefs have such power over you and they're utter nonsense, once you step outside of the Witness mentality.
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Why the Numbers Keep Increasing
by Georgiegirl inhave you ever read that riddle that asks if you would rather have a million dollars or a penny doubled every day for 30 days?
it shows how the penny eventually adds up over $5 million dollars in the course of month.. i think that's what's happening with the wtbs - it's not (obviously!!!
) holy spirit or anything other than simple incremental increase.
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mindmelda
If a significant number of people lie on their FS reports like I did, the numbers are way off. LOL
I just did it to keep everyone off my back for a while, I got so tired of all that crap, then I quit going entirely, so no problem, I didn't have to hear it anymore. My husband always refused to count time on principle, he always thought it was stupid and wrong, like punching the God time clock. He told the elders that when they asked why he never turned in time.
They said,"You'll never get privileges if you don't."
He said,"Take your privileges and shove em."
They didn't say much to him about time after that...lol.
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OMG! I am 50 this year! Why am I freaking out? Anger - how do you cope?
by hamsterbait ini was told when i hit thirty and was catastrophising, "just wait till you are 40, it just gets better.".
ha!.
i am fifty in a few weeks.
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mindmelda
I agree Jaguar bass. Sometimes I think we get mad at aging because we start grieving in advance about dying, which admittedly becomes more possible every year we're alive, them's just the breaks. Anger is one stage of grief. You just have to get past it, and people usually do.
Then you move on to depression and bargaining and finally some sort of resolution. I've resolved to make the most of my last 25 or 35 years on earth, and have more fun than people should be allowed to have.
I sing, dance, listen to loud music, and do some of the fun things I used to needlessly deny myself. I enjoy my body, my hobbies, my friend and my family.
Reincarnation is as good as any other belief, whatever makes your hair blow back in the wind. I'm not afraid of dying anymore either. I see death all the time as a CNA taking care of the elderly. For most of the very old, it's a damned relief, its no fun being inside a body that doesn't work anymore. I always think of them as being free of all that now. I don't mind being free of the mortal shell when it's time now either. It's just the way things are, and a waste of time getting your panties in a knot over it now. On to the next thing, whatever it is.