one thing this site has made me reflect on the baptism practice in jw land.. many of us were raised in the religion, thus you were given the pressure early on to shoot for baptism as a goal.. i remember feeling bad because i waited until the ripe old age of 14 to take the plunge.. looking back, i realize that when i was 14, i didnt even know what my favorite color was, let alone have enough knowledge to make a life altering decision.
yet, growing up in that climate, i would say anyone who waited past their early teens to get baptised was viewed with great suspicion and was likely to be viewed as "bad association".
kids who took the dip at 8-9 years of age were viewed as "wise beyond their years" and the like.. how old were some of you when you were baptised, and what are your feelings on the matter?.
Like many of you, I was 12.
I was already having doubts and hoped that it would somehow magically "fix" me and make me feel more spiritual. Plus there was the added bonus of having all attention on me for a day and getting to "celebrate" at my favorite restaurant with my parents after the assembly.
during conan o'brien's finale he showed a quick string of clips from the past year on his show.
one of them looked like two jws on stilts holding a gigantic watchtower.
i never saw this sketch the first time it aired and i haven't been able to find it on youtube.
i always found it very patronising, particulay as most of the jw's who did that treated me very badly and not like a sister at all!.
i also hated when brothers would say " i've met a lovely sister and i'm planning to marry her!
" sounds so incestuous!
I knew a P.O. who ONLY addressed his wife as "Sister". Not by her first name, not by "honey" or "sweetie" or anything endearing like that. There would be a gathering for lunch or something and he'd turn to his wife and go "Sister, would you please grab me a lemonade?" or something similar. It always skeeved me out soooo much. It was incredibly demeaning and just uck.
(Oh, and I HATED being called "sister").
I'm visiting the UK at the moment and the bed and breakfast I was staying at in Scotland served me blood pudding one morning (the owners had found out in a conversation that I was a former JW, and I think they were curious to see how I'd react).
It was like overcoming the final hurdle, haha. I think the last vestige of JW-ness in me wanted to upchuck it a bit, but once I got through the first couple of bites I realized it actually tasted pretty good!
i was raised in from about 10. mum contacted by door to door work.
oz.
Born in, fourth generation. Both great-grandparents "of the anointed".
well....the fiance and i set up the xmas tree last night.
i've been out for seven years now and amazingly this is my first tree.
it's pretty cool actually!
Congrats! I've been fading for several years, but this will be my first time actually celebrating Xmas, too! I'm taking the opportunity to sneak to Scotland and surprise my fiancé for the occasion :)
over the last 3 years i've gotten much faster at making a wt article look "studied".. .
how fast can you get one ready for inspection by snoopy elders and microphone handlers?.
.
Ugh. I used to just highlight/underline the right answer and the scriptures (took me about 5 minutes), but my mom got wise to it and insisted that I rewrite the answers to all of the questions "in my own words" as well as looking up and summarizing the unquoted scriptures in the margins. My Watchtower would look like some kind of freaking scientific diagram afterward, with all the scribbled notes. And it took at least two hours that way.
When you're 18 and your mom is still threatening to whip you with a spatula if you don't study the Watchtower correctly, you know it's time to get the hell out of there. So I did. And she wonders to this day why I can't stand her.
i think the verdict was not based on anti-americasim as the boyfriend was italian and was also convicted.. i think the irresponsible journalisam and charactor assasination on a persons character to sell newspapers and gain t.v ratings reflect badly on english journalisam.
i think this must have effected the thinking of a jury allowed to be exposed to such media frency.. sadly english jounalisam has been responsible for helping convict innocent people in the past.
the wimbeldon common murder and false conviction of colin stagg was a classic example.. i also remember how in america (many years ago)a au-pair from england was convicted of shaking a baby to death.
@aSphereisnotaCircle
I believe that 30 years is considered a life sentence in Italy. So they gave her just shy of that.
Obviously, she's getting a lot more sympathetic press in America than in other countries (for instance, I believe the UK coverage of the event was less sensational/biased and mainly tried to focus on the evidence presented). I'm not sure whether she's guilty or not (I read up the landslide of circumstantial evidence against her and I tend towards thinking that she was involved in some way), but guilty or innocent, the issue seems to be whether the Italian justice system gave her a fair trial, and of course, "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" is a tall order.
The trial was given very sensationalist news coverage in Italy, and this may well have influenced the verdict. I have read that there is a high percentage of overturn on appeal in the Italian justice system. Despite my personal thoughts on her guilt or innocence, I think what will happen is that she will appeal and be freed within a couple of years.
funny thought this morning, while seeing the movie trailer for robin williams and john travolta's new flick, old dogs.
in the movie, they accidentally end up in the gorilla enclosure at the zoo while trying to rescue a child who is stuck in the zoo after hours.
the trailer shows one of the men being cradled in the arms of the seated gorilla--the actor's "singing" soothes the gorilla.. it occurred to me then that the paradise pictures by the society always have lions and cheetahs and elephants... but no gorillas that i remember!!
That's too funny. As a kid, I wanted a pet gorilla and a pet orca when Paradise came.
i saw this article today on brianna karp, an ex-jw doing her best to overcome financial adversity.
thought i'd share.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/30/americas-new-homeless.
i'm one of america's new homelessbrianna karp lost her job, is broke and is now living in a trailer but she's not beaten yet.
Thank you for the welcome! I even get Peter Pan :) And I'm doing well, thanks. Making it work, and looks like in a month-ish I will no longer be homeless, so woohoo!
~Bri
