Posts by geodude

54

Name 3 Movies You Have Seen At Least 3 Times

by minimus in

jw
friends

goodfellas.

one flew over the cuckoos nest.

casino.

geodude

It's A Wonderful Life

Princess Bride

War of the Worlds (actually, both versions, the 1950s and the Spielberg version. One thing the JWs inculcated in me was a love of apocalyptic movies!)

42

Name one POSITIVE thing you took from your experience as a Witness

by geodude in

i was thinking about this at work the other day, and realized the one positive thing i can truly credit the jws with: .

i have no fear of public speaking.

i was a shy kid, fat, clumsy, with crooked glasses and worse teeth, who wore hand-me-downs in one of the wealthiest counties in all of america, who sat still while classmates got up to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegiance.

geodude

I thought of something else "positive." For a little while when I was 13 to 14 I had a writing bug - science fiction- and would try my hand at short stories. But I couldn't type worth shit, and I'd lose patience trying to write them out by hand, ..so I'd abandon the project. One time, I had an idea for a story during the first hour of the Thursday night meeting. So I started writing on the 2 index cards my dad gave me to take Bible "notes" (for a while he actually collected them from me and my brothers, but we'd just use them to draw on so he gave up). I filled both sides of the index cards and thought "this is awesome! I'm trapped here anyway, let's use the time!" I got a little spiral bound pocket notebook and wrote every two hour meeting we had, for a while. I'd actually regret it when the meeting was over...That first story I started eventually won me a class award in a creative writing course senior year (yes, I kept it and recycled it! I realized I had few original ideas and lost interest in writing.)

22

Expect 90% of pimi's to go down with the ship here's why

by nowwhat? in

i have been feeding my very pimi brother tidbits and clippings of all the csa issues coming to light the last five years and all the org's business dealings of hundreds of closed halls congs dissolving etc.

and reminding him of all the failed prophecies etc etc.

although he would listen and acknowledge.

geodude

The second surprising thing is that, when the Nazis actually lost the war, the German people gave up the Nazi ideology without any struggle at all.

There's a phenomenon I read about recently- perhaps you're familiar with it, I can't seem to remember the psychological nomenclature- whereby NO one or only a few folks are entirely convinced of their shared belief system. But the group dynamic makes everyone want to one-up each other in demonstrations of belief. It's how you convince otherwise rational people to become vicious monsters- thereby deflecting attention away from doubts others may have about your commitment to the cause. I think by the end of WWII, a lot of Germans must have been disillusioned, but you never knew if your neighbor or your boss was going to rat you out, so you kept your doubts on hold and your right arm held up high...until the enforcement mechanism of your ideology was utterly destroyed.

I'm also reminded of a book "Red China Blues" about Canadian citizen Jan Wong, a Canadian of Chinese descent, who went to China as a starry-eyed Maoist in 1972 at the height of the Cultural Revolution. She gradually became disillusioned with the worker's paradise, and when free market reforms came in, she said it felt like she'd been the butt of a nationwide practical joke, where she was the only one who didn't get it. EVERYONE was lying through their teeth at factory criticism meetings, and smiling about how happy they were.

42

Name one POSITIVE thing you took from your experience as a Witness

by geodude in

i was thinking about this at work the other day, and realized the one positive thing i can truly credit the jws with: .

i have no fear of public speaking.

i was a shy kid, fat, clumsy, with crooked glasses and worse teeth, who wore hand-me-downs in one of the wealthiest counties in all of america, who sat still while classmates got up to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegiance.

geodude

Thoroughly inoculated against any other form of religious expression...

...and as such, feel zero urge to burden myself that way.

Oh yeah. This goes for almost any groupthink situation. About 27 years ago, a guy at work invited me to a "sales meeting." My boss and a couple of other company owners (in an environmental remediation company- I'm a geologist) were doing this thing...so we had lunch together, along with a couple of other strangers. They were all dressed in sports jackets and ties, and carried identical Daytimers. Well, the "sales meeting" was a pitch for- you guessed it- Amway. I watched a half hour presentation, and at the first opportunity, "faded." The initial gut reaction is what I trust. If everyone is smiling and nodding to nonsense, then I'm outta there. I tried a Tony Robbins seminar (not one where he attended) and pretty much had the same response. I WAS however, able to take a few things away from that experience I found useful. Yeah, not much of a group thinker.

42

Name one POSITIVE thing you took from your experience as a Witness

by geodude in

i was thinking about this at work the other day, and realized the one positive thing i can truly credit the jws with: .

i have no fear of public speaking.

i was a shy kid, fat, clumsy, with crooked glasses and worse teeth, who wore hand-me-downs in one of the wealthiest counties in all of america, who sat still while classmates got up to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegiance.

geodude

I was thinking about this at work the other day, and realized the ONE positive thing I can truly credit the JWs with:

I have NO fear of public speaking.

I was a shy kid, fat, clumsy, with crooked glasses and worse teeth, who wore hand-me-downs in one of the wealthiest counties in all of America, who sat still while classmates got up to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegiance.

But those Witness fuckers forced me on stage at least once a month in a comparatively "safe" space to talk about something I had to pretend enthusiasm for, and I actually tried to get them involved, usually with jokes (it was always frowned upon-there was the assignment on self-abuse from one of the "youth books" erroneously assigned to me, a 13 year old. I deliberately used the phrases "in the ONE hand" and "in the OTHER hand" until my brother's friend John snorted so loudly he had to leave.) And then they would criticise you publicly (actually, they stopped that practice in the '70s as it was too embarrassing)- but they did give you feedback, some of it even valuable, and it inured me to a fear of public speaking. I've had classmates and business colleagues literally (and I don't mean the ignorant usage of "literally" where folks actually mean "figuratively") physically paralyzed by the prospect of getting up in front of a bunch of people and talking. I just put my head down for a minute, collect myself, and stand up. So that's ONE good thing. Anyone else?

25

JW old books and mags selling hot on ebay

by JimmyYoung in

so i have an eye out for a couple of the more nefarious jw books from the past.

i look on ebay etsy and others.

i see that the older books are selling for a good price.

geodude

When we moved mom into a rest home, she had a bunch of old, old, JW shit. I remember our hall (in the secondary study room) had books dated from before, during, and after World War I. THAT crap is probably worth a bit now...when I went to that hall for my dad's funeral, I noticed all of the old "reference" materials were gone, and the shelved filled with fake flowers. Ya know, don't want to "stumble" the newly brainwashed by showing them how these ridiculous beliefs were first incubated....

2

If you have an Apostafest -why not have an APOSTAPALOOZA??

by geodude in

jw
friends

i just had to say it.....

geodude

I just had to say it....

61

My daughter (JW) just called .......

by mouthy in

after all these years!!!!

she is 63 yrs old still a jw.. has shunned me for years.. she lives in montreal me in ontario... .

last week i got the urge to send her a lovely card just to tell her i love her .

geodude

That's great news. It's been my experience that even the WTBTS can't suppress normal human emotions and contact forever.

25

Embarrassing Moments on the Platform

by HintOfLime in

i was thinking the other day about a potential answer to the frequent party question 'what was your most embarrassing moment?'.

immediately my mind went to my last experience on the theocratic school.

as an aspiring ms, i volunteered at the last minute to give a #4 talk on a particular individual (ignorant of what i was about to get myself into).

geodude

I think I was 11 or 12 when I had to switch talks and give one from some publication for teenagers. I was pretty big, so I don't think that the elder in charge knew that I was too young to give the talk. I also picked the wrong chapter which somehow tied into "self-abuse" (or whackin' off -I was so innocent, I hadn't even discovered the joys of "knowing" oneself) The talk was really meant for an elder to give. I pretty much followed verbatim until the masturbation part when I started mixing things up. Thank god it was in the library and not the main hall - I do remember some analogy about keeping oneself clean where I kept using the phrase "But on the other HAND.." which made my brothers and their friends blow snot out their noses... I kept going getting more flustered and embarassed until the elder in charge, who'd gone to the bathroom during my talk, came back in with an alarmed look on his face, and pointed to his watch. He actually started criticizing me about gestures and hand movements, which just made my brothers blow more mucus, and teh elder's face turn red. I didn't know what I'd done wrong until my brothers told me at home. At least Dad was giving a talk in the other hall, and didn't see it.

31

I can't imagine doing THAT in my wildest dreams.....

by AK - Jeff in

putting on a three piece suit to spend a 90 degree summer day knocking on doors and trespassing!dragging an entire family, including babies and young children to three or four day meetings in an outdoor stadium, living in a seedy motel room for the week.getting home from work and spending the next six hours cramming for a 'theocratic review', getting the entire family ready to go, gulping down dinner, and speeding off to the hall, and then finally getting home around 11 pm, hurrying off to bed so that everyone could get up for work and school in the morning!going to school to explain to the teachers why little johnny can't color pictures of santa, salute the flag of his country, eat birthday cake with all the other 5 year olds, bow his head when prayer is offered, or exchange valentines with all the cute 5 year old girls in class.

and then explaining with grace why he is not immersed in a cult!well, on and on!

these things were typical of my witness life - now i cannot imagine ever doing such silly things, and especially thinking that somehow they would bring pleasure to my god!.

geodude

In July 1969 I was 8 years old...we'd been promised a trip to Disneyland after the Assembly at Dodgers Stadium so I was actually looking forward to the 7 hour drive from the SF Bay Area down to LA. Besides the Dramas, (which were always overacted but entertaining) the only things I enjoyed at these mammoth 7 day Borefests were captioning the literature illustrations with stupid comments (e.g.Jesus saying to the Pharisees "I'm right, you're wrong, neener-neener-neener!") and eating as many of the crappy ice-cream treats sold during lunch time as one could stand.

Things started in a spectacular fashion after leaving the empty rental house we were put up at (the JW residents just let us have it, no beds, furniture, or electricity - we slept on blankets and sleeping bags. The gas was on so we at least we had oatmeal in the morning.) We took our frozen bread and bologna sandwiches (we made them in the Bay Area and took them to LA) piled into the car and drove to the stadium. It was the first time I ever saw smog - this yellow cloud hanging over the parking lot obscuring the sun and turning everything a sickly heptatitis color. When clambered out of the car, my eyes immediately started burning - I couldn't keep them open, it was like tear gas. We choked our way in from the parking lot to the stadium, found seats, and then tried to stay awake during the ass-and-mind benumbing drone of several speaker telling us the end was only 6 years away (all of which was denied by the WTBTS in 1975 when nothing actually happened. One of the many times the JW's took a "course-correction" to guide them closer to the truth and plausible deniability.) By the second day, I found that I could squeeze beneath the seats and catch a pretty good nap after counting the gum and archealogical food debris trapped beneath us. Dad, who was an Elder and had some vague duty during the Assembly days, left after the first or second talk to go do his...duty, whatever the hell that was. Probably just walking around with a sign saying "Quiet Please." My brother's and I roamed the parking lot unattended during lunch and found nothing of interest going on at all....

One of those nights Dad took us to Bob's Big Boy for burgers and shakes (at Mom's insistence) and we watched the first moon landing on a store TV. I don't remember if it was live or a replay, but it was pretty cool. The highlight of the trip, because Dad decided we couldn't afford Disneyland and left the last day of the Assembly. Even Mom was disappointed. It was a pattern to be repeated a few more times before we wised up - Dad never ONCE took us on a "vacation" that wasn't either an Assembly or visit with his JW parents. LA was the last time we took that long of a trip, too. I don't recall going anywhere except Richmond, Oakland, or San Francisco after that.

I left the witnesses in 1980 right before my 19th birthday, unbaptized, unrepentant, and free, free, free. I hate the MFs.