I've gone to the Memorial from time to time, if my dad asks me to. He gets so emotional about that, as if in the JW world, if I come to that one meeting, there's a slim chance I can be saved at the big A. Ha! If that's true, why are they all busting their asses to go to 3 meetings/week and field service?
Posts by jws
-
25Does anyone here still go to the meetings
by Brandy5 ini was just wondering if anyone here still go to the meetings.
if so why do you attened?
eddited to add are you married to an active jw .
-
-
-
6
JWs in Carolton, Texas
by coolmama inim seeking active or inactive jws in carolton, texas for friendship, male gays preferable.
ive just been reinstated after 6 years of disfellow.
the circumstances of my disfellowship and reinstatement is one for the books but better wait for the movie my daughter is scriptwriting.
-
-
jws
Don't know about the rest of you, but this sounds like a very suspicious request. A person isn't even living here - isn't even living in this country, and is looking to meet friends from a specific town that she can't even spell, doesn't care if they're active or inactive JWs, and is specifically is looking for gay males.
That seems terribly odd. If you're just looking for friends, why do they have to come from Carrollton? Why not Richardson? Dallas? Paris? London? Why so much interest in one little Dallas suburb? Did you pick it, blindfolded, off of a map?
Why would an active JW be looking for friendship with inactive JWs? Not that it doesn't happen, but it's not allowed within JW rules - especially association with a gay person. Any JW should know that JWs shun gays. And an active gay man would probably not be an active JW, so you could almost assume inactive.
It looks to me like she knows who she's looking for and thinks he's in Carrollton and knows he was, at some point, a JW. Not that that's innapropriate to be looking for somebody in this section. If this were sincere, she could have said something like I'm looking for a guy who used to be at my hall. He's gay, he's about 30, 6 foot tall, blond hair, and I think he moved to Carrollton Texas. I'm so-and-so and he was my friend and I miss him and I'd like to get back in touch with him.
Instead, there's this ruse of looking for friendship. It's seems deceitful. It's possible that this man is hiding from 'coolmama' for whatever reason. Maybe it's a very good one. Is 'coolmama' an Ex-lover? A Stalker? Someone trying to draw out this man?
Be careful of providing this info or responding if you are this person.
-
17
JW alternatives to holidays
by YellowLab ineven though you couldn't celebrate holidays growing up as a jw, did your parents ever have alternatives instead?
in my case, we never celebrated christmas, we had "surprise day" usually a week before.
instead of celebrating thanksgiving, we would have a turkey dinner a few weeks later.
-
-
jws
Our parents were pretty faithful to the "getting us things any time of the year" thing - within their means. My dad supported the family and money was OK, but not abundant.
We had family dinners on Thanksgiving several times (back when we had Friday night meetings). It was a day everyone had off work and the turkeys were usually on sale. We were told it wasn't a Thanksgiving dinner, but aside from that, it was everything but. I think when the cong. changed meeting night to Thursdays, we had it either on the weekend or on Wednesday night so you could stay up a little late.
-
6
Trying to get my own records
by sony inhey any suggestions in retrieving my own congregation records, i live in a different city now, have nothing to do with them but want my records!!!
anybody have suggestions on getting them sent to my new "congregation" which would be the po box of a roommate!
?
-
-
jws
If you execute this plan, you NO LONGER EXIST IN THE WATCHTOWER RECORD SYSTEM!!!!!
Is this true? That records are only kept locally? I thought I remembered discussions regarding SilentLambs that talked about people inside the headquarters running across reports and such. Is it possible records are also kept at headquarters?
Cool idea though. I'd love to see what mine say.
Any idea whether elders are proactive in this regard? Upon news of my move (my father is still attending), would they find out my new address, seek out the local cong. and transfer my records? To a hall I've never attended and has no idea who I am? When I first moved here, I moved into apartments, then after a few months, bought a house several miles away in a completely different congregation's territory. Having no contact with either congregation, my records could be lost who knows where?
Out of curiosity, from your friend who got a hold of his records, what was in them? Aside from maybe service records, did they keep secret notes about him?
-
37
Do you ever think about returning to Jehovah
by ikhandi inmaybe i was just curious to hear what they were going to discuss.
i went to the two day circuit assembly.
for those who wonder, its theme was taken from psalms 37:3 it's theme trust in jehovah and do good.
-
-
jws
The "Jehovah's Witnesses", never had any special favor with God, so why would returning there be like returning to God? They are a man-made organization who has continually proven over the years that they are not divinely directed. Be it failed prophesies, doctrinal flip-flops, or merely policies which cost lives or cause hurt.
I might go back, but only undercover to stir up things and cause mischief. I know better about them and can no longer swallow their lies.
Inspirational Circuit Assemblies????? Were you drinking? Have you ever been to other churches? Try them sometime. I went to others. Some are very boring, but that aside, you can feel the love. In many cases, you can feel so much more emotion. Just in the singing alone, you can feel how jazzed-up the people are. It's not some mumble-along, plodding JW songbook song.
Since leaving, I feel so free. I can read a scripture and ponder what it might mean without Watchtower blinders. I also feel free to explore other commentaries. I feel free to open my mind and learn. I feel much closer to God than I did as a JW.
Step back before it's too late and you serve the rest of your life in an organization that preaches works and loyalty to them, not the grace of God.
-
52
Wasting Time In The Ministry--How Did You Do It??
by minimus ini know of a couple of elders that regularly went out in the ministry throughout the week.
no matter which street they were on, they always seemed to be near the same spot.
someone here talked about the michael jackson moonwalk.
-
-
jws
Sometimes we'd do laudromats. Go in, leave a couple of magazines, drive to the next one. So, about one minute's time, no talking to anyone and then another 5-10 minutes to drive to another one. Lots of "placements" and almost no effort.
One guy, we'd just drive down the street and size up the house. If they didn't look home, we'd pencil that house in. Otherwise, we'd chalk it up to not-interested.
-
33
Deprogramming your "Last Days" phobia...
by logansrun inraised in a religion that preached a massive, theocratic holocaust for the majority of mankind can leave you with more than a few mental and emotional scars.
i remember being terrified on new years eve in 1986 (i was 9 yrs old) because of all the talk that that year was the "international year of peace.
" i was conditioned to look at world events as being a sign that the end is near, sound familiar?
-
-
jws
I think by reading Carl Olaf Jonsson's books, I've realized that every age thinks the end is going to be in their time and have been doing such since the time of Jesus. Almost everybody who believes in such a thing hopes that it will come in their lifetime. And we also believe that things are always getting worse. Somehow when we look back in time 10, 20, 30 years, everything looks more innocent. Could it be that it was us that was more innocent and now we're more understanding of what is really happening? That these things were always happening?
The next thing would be whether or not you believe in the Bible. The Bible talks of Jesus' return. It also talks about some pretty fantastic stuff in Revelation. Whether literal or figurative, some major stuff is predicted. Just because the WTBS is misguided doesn't mean the Bible doesn't speak of some of these things.
Since leaving the JWs, I still believe the Bible, but no longer believe their chronological predictions. Now I no longer stress of expecting the end at any moment and whether I will survive or wont because I didn't get enough hours in field service last month. If it happens in my lifetime it does. If there's another plan, so be it. I realize that things aren't so bad today and the Bible talks of a lot worse. Just live each day and let whatever happens happen.
-
36
What was Columbia's mission?
by Xander inamazing with all the coverage of 'what went wrong', etc, no one has bothered to ask what columbia's mission was.. here is an article put up after the launch but before the disaster:.
http://www.eprairie.com/news/viewnews.asp?newsletterid=4411.
tidbits:.
-
-
jws
I doubt we would have cheap Personal Computers by now if it wasn't for the space program.
I attended a programming class back in '96 with 3 members of NASA from Houston. From what they said, NASA seems way behind in some of these areas. In some cases, they said they still had XTs in use. Sounded like a typical government agency. Working with archaic machines and their hands tied by budgets and red tape. Made me start to wonder about NASA. Sort of shattered some of my illusions of it being a cool place to work. On the engineering end, however, I still believe they are the brightest in the world.
As for experiments, I've heard a lot of talk today about the old disposable rocket type missions being a lot cheaper than using the shuttle, although not as glamorous. And it's also been suggested that robots could be performing a lot of these experiments, risking no human lives.
I certainly hope this incident doesn't curtail our space program. But maybe the way we approach it might need to be rethought. Maybe scrap the shuttle for a few years until we know more about what we're doing and perhaps make more use of robotics.
-
28
District Assembly Instructions
by RubaDub inam i too thin-skinned or does anyone find that annual km insert dealing with the district assembly offensive???.
i mean, having to read and comment on those same things every year about not cooking in your hotel room, not to steal food if breakfast is offered, not to poop in the sinks, or whatever they say.
if you have to give those "reminders," it makes you wonder about the people you are sitting next to during the sessions.. *****rub a dub
-
-
jws
Does anyone remember the smell of assemblies?
I remember my dad would work in expediting, and in food service. I still distinctly remember the smell of garbage out in the hot sun that permiated certain areas of the assembly hall.
As for the seating thing, I remember in Wisconsin, our congregation would get assigned a certain section to clean. Though we weren't assigned to sit there, many people did. Maybe so they didn't have to get up and move so far afterwards or maybe to help make sure it was clean to begin with. I sat anyplace else. Who wants to sit with the same people you sit with every at every meeting the rest of the year. Plus, if I dozed off, it would be strangers taking note, not people I knew.
-
18
JW or Catholic scandal worse?
by JH indo you think that the pedophile problem in the watchtower organization is just as important as in the catholic church?
if we knew the statistics, and found out that there were a lot fewer pedophiles in the watchtower org.
than in other religions, would this be a victory on their part?
-
-
jws
I think in terms of the public, the Catholic thing is getting a lot more press and people are a lot more aware of it. If it weren't for this board and knowing when things were coming on to watch, I'd have never heard of a JW scandal. Whenever something happens with the Catholics, it's front page news. So in terms of the public awareness, it seems to me the Catholics are taking a much bigger hit.
In terms of members, however, I think maybe the JWs are going to lose more faith in their religion. I don't know whether the recent scandal with the Catholics was so shocking. The whole priest and alter boys thing was a stereotype of catholic priests for as far back as I can remember. The fact that the church helped hide it was the scandal. On the other hand, with the JWs, I don't think they ever had that reputation. Not only does it come out that it is occuring on a wide scale, it also comes out that it's being covered up. To the average JW, finding out it's happening so widely has got to shake your faith. Whereas I'd have to guess that Catholics have gotten somewhat prepared for it.