at what point in the average person's life does he/she reach a crossroads between purposeful pursuit of a life's goal and mad fanaticism?.
we have all known these automatons; these uber-witnesses.. we might even have been one ourselves!.
the uber-witness can make an excuse for any watchtower mistake at the crack of a whip!.
@Terry:
Males can aspire to be a BIG fish in the small pond of the Kingdom Hall with noblesse oblige the order of the day.
That wasn't my desire at all. Even though I was much more qualified than 99% of the elders I ever met, I had no desire to be in their shoes. I was perfectly happy to help out with the more mundane things. I think I just needed some structure in my life. Probably would have been better to be in the military.
it is xmas time and perfumes and colognes are on the list.
what do you really love for a scent if you were being given a gift?.
@LV101: even with the strips, it still seems that I need to wear it for at least 20 minutes before declaring it 'safe'. I tried a lot of stuff travelling, initially good, but later not. I'm not allergic to anything that I know of and quite tolerant of others fragrances, but it seems I can only tolerate a few on myself.
it is xmas time and perfumes and colognes are on the list.
what do you really love for a scent if you were being given a gift?.
Acqua di gio. It was light enough not to give me a severe headache within 10 minutes and the girls at the strip clubs loved it. Most of the other stuff, no matter how much I liked it after giving it a go, always led to personal uncomfort (as in headache). Anyone else have this problem?
at what point in the average person's life does he/she reach a crossroads between purposeful pursuit of a life's goal and mad fanaticism?.
we have all known these automatons; these uber-witnesses.. we might even have been one ourselves!.
the uber-witness can make an excuse for any watchtower mistake at the crack of a whip!.
Do you know why you were susceptible?
That is the $64,000 question that has been bouncing around in my head for quite some time. From an outsider's POV, at the age of 18 (back in 1975), I had it made. Full scholarship to UVA (University of Virginia), star athlete in track, all the girls... I lacked nothing, or so I thought. I wasn't raised a witness. How could I end up wasting over 30 years of my life in a cult? I'll try to write out how I 'think' it happened over the weekend (offline) and post it later. And the really sad thing is that I was never 'all-in'.
Always enjoy your thought-provoking posts. Not sure most of the time how to reply...
doing some research as to what qualifications someone needs to meet to become an elder, i came up with one conclusion: it's who you know and is very subjective.. funny thing is too, if you searc the wt online library there are not recent articles that describe and outline the requirements.
which makes me think that there were too many requirements and as we all know, it is based now on how close you are with the current co and not necessarily on being a model jw in the congo.
so the borg decided to leave it up all to the co and not tell the rest what to look for on these appointed men.. you could do your hours, be early to the meetings, be prepared, keep your car and house clean, family in good reputation, etc but if you are in the circle then you can forget it.
I would never have made a good elder. I was too concerned with actually helping people that needed help. I think my biggest penalty was that I did not comment enough at meetings.
as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.
im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.
http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.
While the JW's have backed away publicly from the earth is only 6000 years old and they do admit that the earth is however many billions of years old, they still hang onto the idea that life and the creative days in genesis are still only (possibly) some 10's of thousands of years (very generous of them). As mentioned above, most JW's have no idea what the current teaching is and frankly don't care.
Same stance regarding regarding things like pyramids of Giza. General hand waving but avoiding the topic (as in: some say the pyramids of Giza were built xxxx years ago). So sad, so dishonest. This is what frustrated me the most: why can't we dsicuss the available evidence?
a scandal is brewing in the uk.
for many years gangs of asian men engaged in rape and torture of young girls who were in the "so-called" care system.
it is believed there were around 1,400 victims in north west england, focussed on the town of rotherham.. if reports are to be believed, social workers, police and the cpc knew it was happening and everybody failed to act for one simple reason.
Ok. Thanks for clearing that up. Uk could be a pretty cool place with all the diversity but it seems that there is in fact, some benefit to living in a predominantly white, Catholic country (Poland). I just need to make sure that all the neighbors know I am no longer a JW because when we first got here, I was. And they knew it.
a scandal is brewing in the uk.
for many years gangs of asian men engaged in rape and torture of young girls who were in the "so-called" care system.
it is believed there were around 1,400 victims in north west england, focussed on the town of rotherham.. if reports are to be believed, social workers, police and the cpc knew it was happening and everybody failed to act for one simple reason.
Just curious.... Are the people investigating this in the UK afraid of being labeled racists, or are they just afraid of Muslims in general (as in getting your head chopped off)?
it is killing me now that i am awake, having kids in school and having to be jws.
birthdays, christmas, thanksgiving, having to go home or be left out because their teachers know they are witnesses and/or have kids from the school in their class or grade.
it's a small town so the other jws in the hall know what's going on since their kids are in the same school.
I agree with Apognophos. He is sitting on the fence. He needs some help to break out of that 'comfort zone'. The organ transplant issue might be a good topic to encourage him to investigate.
I don't agree with the don't push it suggestions. Why make the children suffer for possibly several more years especially when he isn't even fully on-board? Maybe you should read the scripture JW's often refer to when they have to deal with fence sitters...
it is killing me now that i am awake, having kids in school and having to be jws.
birthdays, christmas, thanksgiving, having to go home or be left out because their teachers know they are witnesses and/or have kids from the school in their class or grade.
it's a small town so the other jws in the hall know what's going on since their kids are in the same school.
You are so close to the rest of your life. Hang in there. If he needs an event to experience the dark side of the borg, find some recent teaching that he can't accept and ask him to present his ideas to the elder body. For example: new understanding of 'this generation' or the impossibilty of a global flood in 2370BCE. For me, the biggest issue was that I wasn't allowed to disagree with anything. That is not a search for 'truth'.
You need to push him to 'man-up' for your children's sake.
