Posts by Gargamel

15

What's your passion???

by Faith after Deception in

yesterday, i was feeling very blue.

this is quite unusual for me, as i tend to be quite an upbeat, positive person, so spells of sadness or depression take me by surprise and are a real shock to the system.

you know, i don’t believe in “putting on a face” or pretending to be ok; this “fake it ’til you make it” malarkey has never been something i’ve liked.

Gargamel

In recent years I have become passionate about writing. It's not new as it was always part of me, but it became buried under years of difficult life events.

It was re-triggered a couple of years ago. Like many former JWs, I didn't receive the education that I desired and deserved, I would have done very well academically, but I was 15 in 1972, three years before the system was going to crash down around us. In those days you could still leave school at 15 in the UK, so I did. I was top of the class in German and Spanish, and very close to it in English. Even my maths was in the top 10 per cent.

I went back to school for evening classes (in my late fifties) to study for maths and English GCSEs (the exams that 16 year olds take). Let's just say that even after forty years without any schooling, I clearly undersold myself.

So now I write when I'm not too tired. I'm not bothered about it being commercially viable - just as well really! I just enjoy doing it.

I'll probably go down the self-publishing on Kindle route eventually, but I don't hold out any realistic hopes of making a living from it.

I enjoy trying my hand at playing with poetry. Creativity has been stifled of late by fatigue. When that happens, I just critique other people's work as it's all part of the learning curve.

Most of all - IT'S FUN!

17

JW over-rode our Choice of Funeral music

by snugglebunny in

jw
friends

a few years on and the funeral of my jw momma still galls me.

she left instructions for which kingdom songs to be sung and we gladly abided by her wishes.

the funeral was held in a public crematorium, not a kingdom hall.

Gargamel

"So as momma's executors, we just sent the local KH the money that she'd willed to them. We didn't get an acknowledgement."

---------------------

I'm thinking that it might have been better to hold the money in a safe account until they asked for it.

I wonder if not communicating with the disfellowshipped still counts when they want money from them.

I'm not suggesting stealing it or using it for one's own purposes, merely to delay paying in order to force them to communicate.

72

Single Sisters Over A Certain Age Group Getting A Bad Rap

by HiddlesWife in

i'm new here; one of my relatives was a member on this forum a few years ago and told me about it.

anyways, as a sister who has been in the org since childhood and now in her late 40's (plus as a woman of color), i have noticed that a number of brothers have an ageist attitude.

they are very accepting of young women under 26 and rejecting women over that age, particularly those in their 30's and over.. is this an unspoken mindset from wthq (specifically from bethel), or is it that quite a number of males (sorry, i'm not sexist here) have this type of mentality?

Gargamel

Although it's generally worse in religions, women have always had a pretty raw deal.

Voting was a classic example (in the UK). Some even adopted male pen names in order to have written work published.

Having two world wars in the 20th century changed things as women took on many roles that were traditionally men's. More reliable contraception possibly accelerated the process too.

19

Can JWs Use Corporal Punishment On Their Children?

by minimus in

jw
friends

can a parent slap or use a "rod of discipline" on their kids?

i know it's politically incorrect and perhaps illegal, but is it a personal decision based upon the scriptures or is it taboo these days?.

Gargamel

I don't know if things have changed in the UK.

I left the org, and was pressured out of the family home, in 1973. I was 16. Although I got away lightly with physical punishments, I heard plenty of whackings from the back room and toilet areas. It sometimes seemed like a competition to see who could make their kids scream the loudest.

My younger sister fell foul of my father's smackings a few times. I don't know if it got worse as she was only 9 when I was shown the exit door. I can still picture a day (at home) when my father was whacking her for some misdemeanour. Naturally, she started crying. He then continued to hit her because she was crying. Logic check: Hit a kid. Kid cries. Hit kid for crying.

19

Your opinion about dating sites?

by nevaagain in

jw
friends

i have been a jw all my life, while i also have a "spiritual divorce", which means i can remarry a jw again.

i am not sure if i want to go that route again and dating in the jw world feels like a struggle sometimes.

with all the rules.

Gargamel

My take on this, which may or may not be right for you:

Live your life doing the social things that interest you and make you happy. It doesn't matter what they are- writing club (local library?), reading group, badminton club, rambling/hiking etc. etc.

You may not meet anyone suitable for a while that way, but you will feel happy. Potential partners (unless they are co-dependent masochists) are more attracted to happy people.

If your needs are more about "friends with benefits" or just sexual, than about a long-term, committed relationship, at least be honest with her about it. If it's more about sexual curiosity (quite possible for someone from a religion that believes in heavy repression), maybe it would be better to avoid the risk of hurting someone and simply go and pay someone for the experience(s).

Whichever route you take, I certainly feel that it's better to date initially with a view to discovering yourself without making promises that yu may later need to break.

Above all, enjoy the journey and - be safe (but not so much that you can't experiment).

20

Dodgy poetry

by Gargamel in

it is a stretch to call my dodgy poetry 'entertainment' but i wasn't sure where else to put it.. .

self-fulfilling prophecy.

precipitation.

Gargamel

This is an example of a poetry form called etheree. The syllable count on each line ranges from 1-10, or 10-1 if preferred. I can't centre text on here so imagine it centred:

Suffer Little Children

Predictions of apocalypse abound.
Terrify your toddlers lest they leave.
Immerse them in the name of men,
drunk with dreams, blood-sodden thugs,
self-delusion oozing
from misleading mouths.
You prey on babes
to obtain
holy
love.

15

£1 million pound fine

by pepperheart in

hi a court in the uk in loughborough have fined the jws over £1 million pounds for the court costs for a child abuse case in loughborough in the east midlands..

Gargamel

Indeed, not a fine but compensation + costs.

I doubt that anything can really be true compensation, but at least it could go some way to making restitution for the lost income caused by disturbance to her education - or pay for her adult education. It will also assist with any therapy costs if she chooses to go outside the NHS for help.

I was surprised to see that leave to appeal was denied, but without seeing detailed reasons, it's not possible to comment in-depth on that.

44

What crime should elders report?

by kramer in

jw
friends

so, i am trying to get my head around what the right position of elders should be when they come across crime is.. i think i get the issuess around clergy confidentiality - and how that might potentially be breached when they talk about it to other elders, let alone the police.. but if people are saying that elders - or clergy of another faith should report crime to the police when it is confessed to the, then where are the boundaries.. so if someone says they should report to police on a confessed example of child abuse, that's one thing.. how about reporting to police consensual sex between a 19year old and 15 year old - which is statutory rape in the uk.

how about criminal fraud if they come across it.

assault on a congregant?.

Gargamel

A very thought-provoking question, and I don't suppose I have an answer.

For a start, I feel that if a crime is in danger of being repeated it should qualify; people who interfere sexually with children are usually repeat offenders.

And then there is a crime where repetition wouldn't be likely to occur (perhaps murdering someone in anger), but the seriousness overcomes being forgiven without legal restitution being made (i.e. probably a lengthy term of imprisonment in this case).

I suppose that if someone drove recklessly while angry and there were no consequences, that need not be reported, especially if they went for therapeutic help on anger management. But if there were consequences like injuring or killing another, again the seriousness ought to take precedence.

If it came to stealing something minor from a shop, undetected, and someone was genuinely remorseful, personally I think that could be dealt with in-house - maybe by making financial restitution anonymously and stripping of "privileges".

No hard and fast rules perhaps, but I suppose the problem would be about leaving such decisions in the hands of people who know the perpetrator personally and who would be biased about bringing a bad name on the organisation.

10

Graph of world population (from 10,001BC to 2015)

by Fernando in

jw
friends

what do you make of this graph?.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=graph+population+of+earth.

.

Gargamel

What I make of it is that humanity was struggling while still emerging from the ice age but gradually found its feet. As conditions improved, the birth rates and death rates approximately matched. 40+ was regarded as old age and many children died from disease. Even until the early 1900s, it was normal for at least one child in a family to die. There were higher birth rates generally, but people lived shorter lives on average. There was a time when being born at the start of winter was practically a death sentence. The spike at the end of the graph is probably attributable to better medicine, diet, sanitation etc. as people live longer on average and childhood death, particularly in wealthier parts of the world, has slowed to a relative trickle. The escalation in population has also taken place against a backdrop of vastly improved contraception. There have, apparently, been signs of population growth slowing. There may be several reasons for this. China, which once contained one third of the world's population, initiated a one child per family norm by making it unviable to have a second. I believe this has recently been relaxed. Although other nations haven't been so up front about it, there seems to have been some tinkering to make families less affordable. This can cause some resentment because rich bastards can have as many kids as they wish,

44

i'm leaving this site forever

by stan livedeath in

as the title says--i'm out of here for good.. the site is full of atheists, communists, 7th day adventists, creationists, believers, deceivers, receivers, football supporters,.

dodgy types, cantleave---and assorted wankers.. so no place for me--because i'm none of the above so dont fit in.

so--this is goodbye forever my friends--its been almost average knowing you.

Gargamel

Blessed are the window cleaners.