we have lonely old folks and even some not so old.. they know the gb are not who they claim to be.. but they stay in the congregation because they are lonely.
i wonder what percentage of jws this is the case, i would guess a lot.
.
BluesBrother - “…There was an old maxim that used to be common.. they said ‘it is better to be wrong and inside the Truth than to be right and outside it’…”
It was more of an attitude than an axiom where I grew up, but yeah, I remember that.
And it may well have had an element of actual, lower-case-t truth to it, too, considering just how fucking bonkers the 60s, 70s (and, to a lesser degree, the 80s) actually were.
These days, though?
Not so much.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/01072024-russia-further-jail-term-for-answering-fellow-prisoners-questions-about-faith/.
july 1, 2024. by f18news.
by victoria arnold.
I used to scratch my head whenever a government acted in a heavy-handed manner towards any kind of fringe group…
…I’d wanna ask, “don’t you idiots realize that this’ll stroke the persecution complex, convince the victims that they were right all along, and end up causing an uptick in zealotry, fanaticism, and (actual) extremist behaviour?”
And then I finally realized that governments like Putin’s Russia absolutely realize that, and that’s why they’re heavy-handed…
…authoritarian regimes need “enemies” to justify their existence and actions, and JWs come almost tailor-made for that kind of role.
after a jehovah's witness secretly confronted a foster child, eunice spry was jailed for torturing three children; she is now set to be released from prison and re-homed near her victims.
uk.
(warning - graphic pictures and story).
The knee-jerk rejection of anything negative is fear-based.
However, I do remember the first time I realized that it was statistically impossible for all bad news to be false…
…therefore, some of it had to be true…
…but more importantly, wilfully refusing to even consider that possibility was potentially dangerous.
it was the summer of '72.
i was 24 but had been the presiding overseer or congregation servant of a small congregation in the county seat of an arkansas county for about 3 years.. my regular pioneer wife of nearly four years was big and pregnant, with our attempts at birth control unsuccessful.. one of my wife's several bible studies was with a young woman named brenda whom my wife had encountered in door to door work.. brenda had two young children she could barely handle and was married to a very countryfied arkie named henry who worked as a chicken catcher, one of the most difficult jobs at the local chicken plant.. brenda eventually revealed that she'd been raised as a jw, but was never baptized, having left home to marry henry at age 14. she spoke of her family in texas, mentioning her mother and two older sisters, all jws she said.. one morning, just before the meeting for field service, we noticed a small car in kingdom hall parking lot.
my wife and i were parked to one side of the hall in our aluminum nashua house trailer.. two young women got out of the car and soon joined us for the meeting for service, identifying themselves as brenda's sisters from texas.. the two girls, ages 17 and 20, were distractingly beautiful, with the eldest decked out like a magnificent southern belle including hat and heels, her high-end clothing accentuating her very obvious curves.. with no one else showing up for field service, it ended up just the four of us in the car group with the two texas girls in the back seat.. starting our time at a not-at-home, the 20 year old asked if she could accompany me to "hear my presentation.
Either that, or you experience it, and end up wondering WTF the big deal was.
😏
after a jehovah's witness secretly confronted a foster child, eunice spry was jailed for torturing three children; she is now set to be released from prison and re-homed near her victims.
uk.
(warning - graphic pictures and story).
This reminds me of that guy in Germany… Fritz something-or-other… who’d kept his biological daughter locked up in his basement for twenty-something years and used her as a sex slave.
And his wife was supposedly clueless about the whole thing.
I think he died in prison.
it was the summer of '72.
i was 24 but had been the presiding overseer or congregation servant of a small congregation in the county seat of an arkansas county for about 3 years.. my regular pioneer wife of nearly four years was big and pregnant, with our attempts at birth control unsuccessful.. one of my wife's several bible studies was with a young woman named brenda whom my wife had encountered in door to door work.. brenda had two young children she could barely handle and was married to a very countryfied arkie named henry who worked as a chicken catcher, one of the most difficult jobs at the local chicken plant.. brenda eventually revealed that she'd been raised as a jw, but was never baptized, having left home to marry henry at age 14. she spoke of her family in texas, mentioning her mother and two older sisters, all jws she said.. one morning, just before the meeting for field service, we noticed a small car in kingdom hall parking lot.
my wife and i were parked to one side of the hall in our aluminum nashua house trailer.. two young women got out of the car and soon joined us for the meeting for service, identifying themselves as brenda's sisters from texas.. the two girls, ages 17 and 20, were distractingly beautiful, with the eldest decked out like a magnificent southern belle including hat and heels, her high-end clothing accentuating her very obvious curves.. with no one else showing up for field service, it ended up just the four of us in the car group with the two texas girls in the back seat.. starting our time at a not-at-home, the 20 year old asked if she could accompany me to "hear my presentation.
Looking back, there’ve been one or two “worldy” women who expressed an interest in me, but I was too clueless to recognize it for what it was till long after the fact.
(I’ve always had difficulty believing women find me physically attractive, even despite the fact that my wife insists I am. Seriously.)
great photo, doykl.
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/6277858037596160/je-sus-making-comeback-2024-convention.
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5102163622100992/visited-auschwitz-two-days-ago.
re. Ron‘s Santa Herd pic…
It’s actually kinda freaky how well that comes together.
I’m actually imagining Sammy coming across it, sighing wistfully, and thinking “…in another life…”
😏
i think someone else noticed this here recently.
i wondered when i signed on today july 9, 2024, that even the avatars were missing.
does simon know?
This place will never be normal.
Nor should it be.
😏
i was thinking about the male children ( even unbaptized ) being placed ahead of the sisters.
; and i thought the jw were raising a bunch of misogynist.
would these kids not feel more important than their mothers let alone other women.
You know you got problems when both answers are wrong. 😏
i think someone else noticed this here recently.
i wondered when i signed on today july 9, 2024, that even the avatars were missing.
does simon know?
I haven’t been able to post functioning GIFs in years.
