just got to thinking how long can the watchtower peddle the 'soon' story with any credibility?.
i would say there are the oldtimer or born ins in the 70+ age group - they possibly remember the 2nd world war, and maybe joined for 1975 or made life affecting decisions meaning they are so commited with 'nowhere else to go' that they have surrendered to the resurrection hope.. then you have the '1986 international year of peace, the 1914+70 year' generation crowd.
people in their 40s and 50s now.
We converts were the disaffected people "the man with the writer's inkhorn" was looking for, i.e., those "sighing and crying" about the condition of our lives. For me, one of the benefits of being a JW as a teenager (from age 15) was the illusion that there were people who cared about me and my well-being and having teenage friends to do things with on weekends.
I came from an uneducated and unambitious family, so the dubs seemed normal to me.
i have recently been using the expression "people not of our faith" and it shocks me to be corrected everytime by, "you mean worldly".
i dont really like the word worldly because i feel it is a degrading word to describe people we love so much that we try to find them in the ministry.
below are a couple of quotes from recent watchtowers that really give us the esscence of the word worldly as far as the watchtower is concerned.. janusz, who lives in eastern europe, became engrossed in his gardening business.
When I googled "definition of worldly," here's what I got:
1. Of or concerned with material values or ordinary life rather than a spiritual existence
2. Experienced and sophisticated
For most of us (including Jehovah's witnesses), it's necessary to be "worldly" in order to feed, house and clothe ourselves. Experience and sophistication are the long-term benefits.
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And they were not even Christians . . .
This is the 21st century, people! It's time we accept people for who they are (unless they're hurting themselves or others).
The article confirmed my belief about one thing: The same thugs would be in charge regardless of the form of government. Most of them have no philosophy, just self-promotion and self-absorbtion/narcissism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig9ce55wbty.
American schools are still run, as far as I know, on the factory model although we live in a high-tech society. Everything is regimented and lowbrow for people who are going to sort screws for a living. Why does an assembly line worker need to be creative?
As Pink Floyd so aptly put it, "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control."
I was reading a novel once in which a upper class English "gentleman" was arguing against allowing "the great unwashed" to learn to read. He said that no man who could read would ever go down into a coal mine.
So, if we teach kids to think and come up with new ideas, they might have a sense of self-worth and not settle for living on minimum wage with government subsidies or being controlled by their corporate masters.
as most of us know, the society is spending 10's of millions of dollars on a giant, state of the art, secluded bunker country club headquarters in very remote, isolated warwick ny.. the question that "some" have is, why?
if armageddon is coming "very soon", why go to all that time & effort & expense?
why have thousands of jws dedicating their time to this massive effort instead of the "lifesaving ministry"?.
In the early '70's a married sister from another state moved to where I was living to stay with her parents because her husband wouldn't fix up their property or hire anyone to do so. Why should he when Armageddon should be here by 1975?
She told us that she had pointed out to him that the Society was improving buildings and purchasing new ones as well. I think that's around the time they bought the Squibb Building in New York.
History is repeating itself here. Are they going to buy weapons and build walls, too? I remember a long-ago book study where there was a smug comment by the Israelites in the Old Testament that they were in a "wide-mouthed cooking pot" or some such nonsense. They felt protected from attack from the outside, in any case. The ending of the matter was that they needed to escape the city, but there was no way out. Does anyone remember this and which publication it was in?
It gets curiouser and curiouiser.
She appears to be uneducated and rough around the edges, to say the least. She's entirely out of her element. At least she's 27 years old and has time to learn a few things. When does she start?
for a year now, i have been handling the accounts.
we have 6 elders and 7 ms, and none of them ( i am not serving), want to do the accounts, so they asked me to do it.
here is what i have noticed.. 4 elderly sisters cover the whole congregation in donations monthly!
We're living in difficult economic times. I know I don't have as much money as I used to.
ever since i was a little boy i've been aware of this vague story about my older sister having some issues at birth, but never knew the details.. yesterday i was having a conversation with a much older cousin, who is a non-practicing jw about different watchtower issues.
while discussing the blood issue she totally came out with the story about my sister, which i never knew before.. when my sister was born some 40 years ago, my mother had the delivery at home with the help of a midwife.
i'm not entirely sure why this decision was made instead of going to a hospital.
Your uncle is my hero!
When a parent refuses medical treatment for a child, it should be prosecuted as a crime. Everyone who is related to JW's should know how to get a court order in a situation such as this one.
Your sister is a lucky girl.
JW'S BELIEVE IN HUMAN SACRIFICE!
being raised as a jw i feel dirty even posting here.
my life growing up was one filled with fear.
armageddon was preached to us day/night.
Most families are dysfunctional to some extent. Some are much more so that others.
My family were not JW's, but there was still favoritism based on other criteria than behavior.
I assure you that you are not alone. Thanks for sharing your story. I am not surprised because I learned very young that life is not fair.
i'm retired now and worried about losing my mind!
you have to keep exercising your brain to prevent dementia and similar stuff.
use it or lose it!.
I am also retired, and working on my brain. I recently joined Lumosity. They had a special, $90 or so for two years. I have been doing their brain exercises for about a month. I am slow (after all, I'm from Tennessee), but flexibility is my strongest point brain-wise. After that, it's memory and problem solving.
I also do sudoku puzzles, crossword puzzles, play online trivia games and read as much as I can.
I have a recommendation for your French studies if you have some cash. Look on e-bay first. "French in Action" is a series of videos/DVD's with textbook and workbook that you can buy and learn the essentials of French. A telecourse was taught on PBS using these materials. The teacher is Pierre Capretz, a Yale professor (now probably retired). Yale allegedly has the best French program in the U.S. I follow along in the textbook as I watch the episodes. I love language, and if I had the means, I woud learn every language I could.
