http://www.opednews.com/sykescathryn_100104_separation.htm
the separation of church and state: one wall that needs to remain standing.
by cathryn sykes .
Here's my version of the pledge, which I can recite in good conscience:
"I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the Republic that it established; one Nation out of many Peoples, with Liberty and Justice for all."
I have it on a poster in my office.
Jankyn
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this is from the web site, something awful, which contains a lot of fun (and sick) parodies:.
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2394&p=11.
This is from the web site, Something Awful, which contains a lot of fun (and sick) parodies:
http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=2394&p=11
this is from the "best of sacramento" issue of the sacramento news & review, the local alternative paper.. .
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-09-30/sbestof16.asp.
best place to pick up a watchtower magazine.
Yeah, they like to hang out around (believe it or not!) the Cathedral...and I've seen 'em regularly at the coffee shop that used to be Metro Expresso (can't remember what the new owners call it).
Jankyn
this is from the "best of sacramento" issue of the sacramento news & review, the local alternative paper.. .
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-09-30/sbestof16.asp.
best place to pick up a watchtower magazine.
This is from the "Best of Sacramento" issue of the Sacramento News & Review, the local alternative paper.
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-09-30/sbestof16.asp
Best place to pick up a Watchtower magazine
K Street Mall in the early morning
In the 1930s and 1940s, Jehovah?s Witnesses did their street preaching with speaker trucks and sandwich boards that proclaimed, ?Religion is a snare and a racket!? The end may (still) be near, but the rhetoric?s been toned down a bit. Early on most weekday mornings, impeccably dressed and quietly polite evangelists stand in pairs and small groups on the K Street Mall, offering recent issues of the Watchtower. Unlike the early-bird panhandlers, who occasionally rant about impending doom while requesting spare change, at least these folks want to give you something before the world goes up in flames. Either way, the mall?s sunrise crowd is sure that Armageddon?s coming, probably, real soon, any time now.
K Street Mall.
I'll bet it came from their resident ex-JW writer--she wrote on the pledge of allegiance last fall. Anyway, apparently she doesn't know that the dubs on the K Street mall are passing out Awake!
Jankyn
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just wondering who may have and what they thought of it.. thanks orbi
While I intend to pick up the Langone book and see what he actually says about AA, my immediate response is that the difference between AA and cult is that, when you decide to leave AA, they let you. No shunning. Nobody chasing you down to find out what you're doing so they can disfellowship you. Oh, and they don't ask you to give them all your time and money, either. Most places, a buck a meeting is still the standard, and you don't have to sell anything.
Yeah, if you leave, some idiots will watch gleefully to see how long it takes you to drink, but there are idiots everywhere.
As a long-time AA member (18 years continuous sobriety), I recognize the danger of overzealousness among the "true believers." Perhaps it's having survived a JW upbringing, but the fervor of the zealous is crap no matter what they're zealous about.
That said, I was unable to quit drinking on my own. AA made it possible, and in addition, has taught me some skills that make my life successful. It works for me. I have real issues with court-ordering people to AA meetings because I believe it's a violation of the 1st Amendment. While AA makes the distinction between the spiritual and the religious, I'm a firm believer that no one should be forced to believe!
I also know plenty of people who've found their way out of alcoholic hell without AA. I, too, have heard the statistic that 5% of the drunks who make it to AA recover, and 5% of the drunks who don't go to AA recover. Cool. That's 5% of all drunks who find some way to stop drinking.
What we should really be doing is looking for treatment of alcoholism/drug addiction that has a success rate higher than 5%. While I'm glad to have enjoyed this much sobriety and look forward to staying sober until I die of something other than alcoholism, I'd really like to see an approach that will work for more people. I'm tired of seeing wonderful people who want to stop continuing to drink themselves to death. Alcoholism is the one disease (and even if it's a mental illness, it's a disease) where we blame the victim for their failure to recover. When someone relapses, we say, "Oh, he just hadn't hit bottom," or "She wasn't ready yet." (Well, actually, I don't say that--but some people do). We'd never say that about the person who had a recurrance of cancer.
So here's a vote in favor of more research and treatment options for those who suffer. Meanwhile, I'm going to keep going to meetings. And if you want to stop drinking and can't, for crying out loud, try something! Anything! And keep trying! And if you try AA, take what's useful and ignore the rest.
Pax,
Jankyn
mt father became a jw during the second world war .
he was conscientous objector before that.he is now 85 years old and i left jw 2 years ago.. on monday i went out with him and something he said just set me off.
in 15 minuted i told him about raymond franz, carl olof johnson, 607bce.
This is a tough nut, but in spite of identifying big-time with Nos's description (Mom's been a dedicated JW for 50 years this month, has been clinically depressed for at least the last 40 years and never sought treatment due to the WT's position on therapy)--I have to come down on the side of Mulan's prudent advice.
I've dealt with the honesty issue by simply responding to Mom's "What do you think?" sort of questions ("What do you think about the state of the world? Doesn't it look like this system is getting closer and closer to the end?") with this: "You don't really want to know what I think, because I don't agree with you at all on this topic. Let's not argue. Let's talk about something else."
Yes, I'm angry because of all she's given up to live in service to a book-publishing company, and I'm mad as hell that this sorry excuse for a religion hasn't given her any comfort at all, has in fact made her feel like somehow she's to blame for her depression and for the fact that none of her kids became JWs. But I also recognize that her belief system is so ingrained--and that the process of coming out of the Tower is so psychologically disruptive and painful--that forcing the issue might be too much for her to take. She's passively attempting suicide (refusing to make changes in her behavior and get medical treatment that could prolong her life)--I suspect if I made a concerted effort at this point to disrupt her belief system, she might actively attempt suicide.
It's frustrating. But I have to make a decision about whether a damaged relationship with my mother is better than none at all. I've had friends--and even a therapist--suggest that my mother is so "toxic," I'd be better off if I ended the relationship. That smacks of shunning. I want to be better than that. So I try to wage love, while keeping my boundaries as firmly in place as I can. Not perfect, but better than it might be.
Jankyn
so my wife is standing at the door, waiting for me to finish my morning ablutions so that we can go out, and she asks me to go to the door.
i met a very friendly couple who wanted to talk to me about jehovah.
i informed them that i was raised as a jehovah's witness and that i had been disfellowshipped for about (and i had to think about this) five years now.. and the dude was offended by my existence.
Must have been a busy Sunday, as my "territory" came up, too, Czar. When I came home from the gym yesterday morning, there was a car group fanning out in my neighborhood. I went up the stairs to my building right behind two young sisters, impeccably dressed in the pastel, flowery, almost-stylish Witness way. I asked if I might help them, they launched into their spiel, I said "Jehovah's Witnesses?" to which they answered, "Yes."
Then I said, "I can spot Witnesses a mile away. I hope you have a very nice day, but Apartment A is not interested. If you want to wake up my neighbors, be my guest, but I can't vouch for how polite they'll be this early on a Sunday morning." (The other folks in my building are NOT early risers on Sunday, due to a great deal of happy-making on Saturday night!).
They were a bit taken aback, but I didn't stick around to chat--all sweaty and in need of morning ablutions, as Czar might say.
There's a certain freedom in not feeling compelled to discuss anything with them, you know. And it's a security building, so they'll have to get one of my neighbors to let them in--not very damn likely. I love my neighbors, but this building is a hotbed of free-thinkers.
Jankyn
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a 3 - wheeler pick-up truck?.
englishman.
Yup, looks like a Cushman. In our part of the world, they're used by meter maids (ooops, I mean "parking enforcement officers") to look for illegally parked vehicles.
Many moons ago, I had that job for a couple of years. The Cushman was a lot of fun--3 speed, with a surprising amount of get-up-and-go. Very top heavy, though, and rough to drive in high winds.
Jankyn (formerly known as "Lovely Rita")
if you didn't know that the watchtower society published the awake magazine, you might.
think it was published by some semi-liberal born again group.
doesn't give a realistic representation of most witness families i'm aware of.. .
Yep, Metatron, if all JWs took a good look around and saw the "youth drain" in action, it might change some of their attitudes.
Of the kids I grew up with, at adulthood:
P* family (two boys, one girl)--one boy still in
R* family (one boy, one girl)--no kids in
W* family (one boy, one girl)--girl still in
M* family (two girls)--both in
W2* family (two boys, four girls)--one boy and three girls in
H* family (one boy, four girls)--no kids in
H2* family (two boys)--no kids in
I* family (four girls)--one girl in
S* family (one boy, one girl)--no kids in
C* family (one boy, three girls)--no kids in
W3* family (two boys, one girl)--no kids in
my family (two boys, one girl)--no kids in
So, a congregation that had 38 kids in it when I was a child ended up with 9 still JWs as adults. According to my math, that's less than 25% retention--and at least two of those women still in (my cousins) would leave if it weren't for their husbands.
Of course, I'm math impaired. I'm sure the Borg can work it out to some sort of glorious increase.
Jankyn, strictly right brain class
Edited to add: I don't think the JWs will take a good look around, because those in my parents' generation can't bear it. I know my mother thinks we left because of her failure as a parent, and not because of the organization's failure to provide any kind of spiritual "nourishment."
Also, I think it's important to note that, in all of those cases where kids have left, there are now incredible stresses on the family structure: situations where parents are shunning kids, siblings are shunning siblings, and, in at least one situation, a woman was barred from attending her grandmother's funeral. Frankly, it sucks.
if you are a young person, you also need to face the fact that you will never grow old in this present system of things?
.all evidence in fulfillment of bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to end in a few years?
as a young person you will never fulfill any career that this system offers.
I was nine years old, and I remember that. It gave me a jolt--I, too, am now older than my parents were when this prediction was made.
My main gripe was that I'd never get a driver's license. I've been driving for 29 years. Wow.
As for tunes from that long ago age, I remember the theme from "Hawaii Five-O" was extremely popular at the time, and we were allowed to listen to it because it was an instrumental, with no "bad" lyrics.
Like many folks on this board, I really feel that my parents got screwed. They believed they'd never grow old; now, they are feeling all the infirmaties of age, without even the comfort of remembering all the good things they did--they kept putting it off until the "new system." My mom really just wanted to go to Hawaii (hence, the "Hawaii Five-O" theme). She was always planning to go after Armageddon. Crap.
Jankyn
