what qualities would you say they share w/ other high control groups?.
@ Mad Sweeney: Yes, I do see how some groups have become high control. Nice thing about AA is you get to choose your own meetings. Go to a different one if you don't like the way one group is run. Or better yet: start your own!
Try doing that in a cult!
what qualities would you say they share w/ other high control groups?.
Lots of judgmental people in AA meetings. Uh, hello! Lots of judgmental people everywhere---including occasionally on this board. What the heck--I've been know to be judgmental from time to time myself. I'm just trying to get better!
There are as many kinds of AA meetings as there are kinds of drunks. Some people are always attracted to moral certainty and high control. That doesn't mean I have to play along. And just because someone tells me I have to do something doesn't mean they are right. I will never again surrender responsibililty for myself to anyone or anything---including alcohol.
Bottom line: If you don't find what you need in one meeting, try another. If AA isn't doing it for you, try something else. Just don't give up and drink yourself to death while trashing everything worthwhile in life. AA's 12 steps are a "suggested" program of recovery. My higher power is a trio of ideals: honesty, unselfishness, kindness. I never live up to those ideals, because guess what? They're greater than me. That makes them ideals. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying.
(Coming up on 24 years clean and sober.)
it strikes me that jw's don't believe any of this stuff the wtbs is putting out anymore.
i never see them anywhere..
I see them in my neighborhood all the time, but I'll be doggoned if I can figure out what they're doing, because they never come to the door. There was a car group parked down from my house on Saturday and I saw them walking around, but never saw them approach a door.
In fact, I see JWs all the time in the downtown area, but they're generally just walking slow, chatting with each other, and holding up the magazines so passersby can see the titles.
I don't know if this is something new, or just something that happens in Sacramento, but I know what my JW great-grandma and grandma would have said about doing that and counting time for it!
hello friends -.
i would like to share a news article from cnn i thought was interesting.
i'm 'spritual but not religious' person who still believes in god almighty and jesus as his son.
I agree with chickpea. Bollocks! (Boy, that sounded funny coming from me!)
The people who suggest that "spiritual but not religious" is self-absorbed are simply upset because their pews aren't full. One doesn't mean the other. It's quite possible to be engaged in community and working for others without an organized church to put you up to it; atheists do it all the time!
No one "needs" doctrine and organization. If you like it, fine. But the historical relationship between church and community is not the end-all and be-all of community. People can build community without a church---or a government, for that matter---telling them how to do it.
ok, you asked for it and here it is.
i'm going to try and embed the video but who knows?
just look under truthbookblues and it will be the video on the home page.. .
OMG! I remember this--especially the scene with the boys drinking in the convertible. Oh, and that dinner table fight? Perfect depiction of my JW family, except that Dad was usually flinging the food-filled plate at a wall.
just sharing something that occurred to me this weekend.. i love to go to bookstores.
barnes and noble's is the one closest to where i live, although there are a couple of independent bookstores downtown that i like as well.. i have to admit that at times, i feel overwhelmed when i look at all the books.
next to rush limbaugh's latest is al franken's latest.
I try to read the "opposite" opinion regularly (although "opposite" assumes there are only two sides to an issue, when in fact there are a multitude of ways of seeing). However, when it comes to the far-wings of anything, I tend to get the books from the library, so the chattering class isn't making any money off me!
the new light on the generation gives us even further reason not to watch star trek re-runs.. the title "star trek - the next generation" misleads people about the real meaning of what is meant by a "generation".. evidently the lives of starfleet officers who served aboard uss enterprise ncc-1701 would overlap with those who served aboard the uss enterprise ncc-1701-d. since spock and mccoy's life overlapped with picard's, they were contemporaries, and thus of the same generation.. if the producers of the show were truly sincere in advocating the truth, they would have titled the show "star trek - the contemporary overlapping generation continued".. my dear brothers and sisters: let us be resolved never to be deceived the by the deceptive entertainment of this world!.
[ applause ].
I love it! (And that's a useful explanation, given how many JWs I know that are total Trekkers!)
http://www.waitingforarmageddon.com/.
"[the film] serves as an absorbing snapshot of america's highly influential, reportedly 50-million-strong evangelical christian movement.
" (source).
It was fantastic, although it concentrated on the evangelical christian idea of armageddon. The parts about radical right-wing christians allying with radical right-wing jews to attempt to destroy the dome of the rock was pretty scary, though.
Definitely worth seeing.
does anyone remember seeing the witness movie called "heritage" ?
it was made in the early 60's and they used to show it once a year at the kh when i was a kid.
(with guilty minds, we were secretly glad to see the projector set up in the middle section of the hall because it meant we didn't have to sit through another long boring talk.. even as a little kid i could see the one sided propaganda basicaly showing how empty "worldly" peoples lives were compared to ours and if you were a witness your family life would be idyllic like on "leave it to beaver".
Yep, one of the Portland, OR stations showed it as part of the old public service requirements. I remember we were so excited to see it on television (as if TV lends credibility)!
Well, what did I know? I was a little kid.
Call my mom and pretend I don't know it's Mother's Day. She gets upset if I acknowledge Mother's Day, and she gets upset if I forget her. So this way, she can have the best of the JW-both-worlds.
