Posts by charonsdog

37

Thank you, George Couch!

by charonsdog in

i just thought i'd share this story from my past.. back in the 80s i remember the big problem seemed to be about music.

(today, it's tight pants, i guess) the organization, society, whatever they were calling themselves, were always going on about the music we listened to.

disco, heavy metal, the whole "backwards masking" thing...couldn't escape hearing or reading about how satan was corrupting us unless we were listening to kingdom melodies or elevator music.. i was assigned to wtf in the late 80s and remember one of the articles stating that "young people know that the rhythm of rock music is the rhythm of sexual intercourse.

charonsdog

I'm pretty sure the "Another One Bites the Dust" thing was pretty widespread. Don't know if it was from an actual outline for the CO's, but I remember that one being talked about a LOT in the congregations in Northern Florida.

Now, I didn't hear this next one personally, but at a local gathering I went to, one of my friends was telling the story of a visiting elder spending a great deal of his 45-minute lecture dissecting Don McLean's "American Pie" and actually "explaining" it and how it was dangerous. Hell, even Don McLean didn't explain it until decades later, and it was still pretty much ambiguous.

21

Fake News By Jehovah’s Witnesses 🐑

by minimus in

jw
friends

much has been said about “fake news”.

regarding the witnesses, they would always ask, “ did you hear the latest”?.

since the witnesses claim to have the “truth”, can you express anything that turned out to be truly “fake news”?

charonsdog

I keep thinking about how the Donald screams "fake news" every time something critical is reported about him, but eats up the fawning, positive stories. Reminds me of the GB/WTB&TS. They herald any news story that paints them in a good light, but if anything is said that is not positive, then we were not to listen to or read it, because it was an attack from Jehovah's enemies.

4

Why were the Israelites so deplorable?

by eyeuse2badub in

what made the israelites so deplorable?.

i started thinking about how the bible describes ‘god’s people’, the israelites.

most of the time god was very pissed off at them.

charonsdog

Whenever my mom would decry some book or movie that I was into as "too violent for Christians", I would always point her to the scriptures like the one Betheliesalot posted. Samuel hacking Agag "to pieces". Ehud opening up Eglon's belly with a short sword so his intestines (and their contents) came spilling out. I especially liked the one where Phinehas "took a lance" and proceeded to kill Zimri and Cozbi (the Midianite chick) inside their tent while they were engaged in some hanky panky. The account (which my FATHER assigned me to read for the old #2 talk when I was TEN YEARS OLD) stated that Zimri was pierced through the head and Cozbi through "her genital parts". Anyone want to ponder about how many thrusts of the lance that took? And why?

The Israelites' YHWH was a bloodthirsty SOB.

30

I want to understand British references to your countries.

by compound complex in

jw
friends

greetings, friends across the two ponds:.

of course, as per other posters' recommendations, i could google this; i have and remain, not totally confused, but wanting the straight dope as well as nuanced meaning.

i'm both curious and needing to know for purposes of editing works of american and british writers.

charonsdog

stan livedeath... Aren't you aware that the entire reason the colonies rose up and tossed you redcoats out was so that we could pronounce our words any damn way we please? And drink coffee instead of tea? ;-)

8

Just thinking.....i

by Bigdummy in

jw
friends

i made a couple of comments the other day on this forum and i hadn’t realized it had.

been so long.

my history shows i joined 3 years ago.

charonsdog

I recall several BOE meetings where the PO would assign the local needs part to be about meeting attendance. Over and over and over. Meeting attendance. Why is our meeting attendance down?

I proffered that our meetings were boring. The ones who don't come weren't likely to hear the local needs part about needing to be there, and the ones who faithfully showed up were probably sick and tired of hearing the same browbeating about the need to be there. I suggested that instead of handwringing about the fact that people were missing, we should be giving them a reason to want to show up. And hey, how about personal visits? Not to go tell them that they need to be at the meetings. But to go check on them and see what it was THEY needed.

I was shot down. Nope. We're gonna keep harping on meeting attendance.

And why was meeting attendance so important to the BOE? Because the CO would be knocking the heads of the service committee if the numbers weren't good. Why? Because he wanted to look good in front of his boss, of course. Even if it wasn't a pack of lies and misinterpretations, there wasn't any real love in the congregations. If there was, then there probably wouldn't be such a problem with getting people to come.

17

What's out there?

by Jrjw in

someone asked me what does the world have to offer if left the truth?

'coz i'm still in the process of leaving i just said i don't feel i fit in the truth or the world.

she's known me for 12 years and she's the 3rd person recently to say i've changed.

charonsdog

Back in 2013, I separated from my wife and moved into the city of Chicago, where I attempted my short fade. I didn't know anyone in the city. All of my friends were still out in the suburbs at my old congregation. I made new friends in a few different ways.

I went to open, social gatherings. For instance, there were free dancing classes held in a city park. I made a very good friend there. I discovered a supper club-type group. I have several good friends from that. I took a chance on a travel group that hosted strangers who were visiting from other countries or states. I have dozens of friends all over the world now, and it was very instrumental in my decision to leave my comfort zone in the States and move to southeast Asia. I met new people at bars, restaurants, parks. One of the good things that I personally took away from being raised JW was the ability to talk to others, start conversations, find common ground. And when you aren't starting those conversations with an agenda of selling them on the "truth", you can completely relax and actually enjoy getting to know them and share your honest points of view.

You have the tools to make friends. Now go create the opportunities!

52

What Made You Decide To Finally Leave The Organization?

by minimus in

jw
friends

was there one certain event or was it more a cumulative thing?.

charonsdog

Lots and lots of cumulative stuff. The "generation" change of '95 really pissed me off, although it took me a while to realize how much. I remember having a sit-down with the C.O. several months after I had stepped down as an elder. I flat out told him that I doubted that the "slave" could be trusted as leaders of our faith, because they waited until it was painfully obvious to anyone who was paying attention that the generation was passing away before they suddenly got "new light". That's not leadership. I remember saying something about the emperor's new clothes, and that everyone could see the man was naked. The only person who was willing to speak up about it was a kid, and in the real story, they probably just killed the kid for saying the truth.

I answered the door to a couple of Mormons and decided to witness to them a bit. They were the first to tell me that 607 was NOT the year of Babylon's fall and Jewish release. I just knew they were wrong, but my uncle, who was a highly-respected elder told me that the secular date didn't agree with the JW date. That shook me pretty hard.

Honestly, I was a terrible student. I barely read the literature unless I had to conduct a meeting. I think if I had been paying attention and actually reading the crap, I would have seen them for what they were earlier. It took a couple of years of seeing a psychologist to deal with my depression before I could actually hear myself saying that I didn't believe any of it, and that I needed to get out of my awful marriage. I separated, moved to the city, attempted a fade (before I even knew that term), but ultimately decided that I was tired of lying about who I was. I asked my wife for a divorce and told her she had grounds to remarry. I never answered any calls from the elders, and was eventually read out at the meeting (at my old congregation, no less) as no longer being a JW.

I no longer have my parents or my children in my life. It hurts, but it was worth it.

37

Thank you, George Couch!

by charonsdog in

i just thought i'd share this story from my past.. back in the 80s i remember the big problem seemed to be about music.

(today, it's tight pants, i guess) the organization, society, whatever they were calling themselves, were always going on about the music we listened to.

disco, heavy metal, the whole "backwards masking" thing...couldn't escape hearing or reading about how satan was corrupting us unless we were listening to kingdom melodies or elevator music.. i was assigned to wtf in the late 80s and remember one of the articles stating that "young people know that the rhythm of rock music is the rhythm of sexual intercourse.

charonsdog

You horrible monster, smiddy! Tossing out KISS? Lol. I remember vividly the time when my brother picked up a copy of Def Leppard's "Hysteria" album. My dad almost shit kittens. Of course he had no idea what the music was, the cover was enough to produce a reaction.

I waited until later in life to begin collecting music. The main reason was because I was always poor. Poor pioneer, penniless Bethelite, poverty-stricken new husband and father. Eventually, I got a job that paid well, and had some discretionary income which I could spend on myself. I started buying all of the music I had wanted as a kid. KISS included. Unfortunately, investing in CDs wasn't the wisest decision. I had to give all of them away when I got rid of everything last year before my overseas move. Thank goodness for Spotify!

18

My childhood home, 60 years later. What about yours?

by compound complex in

jw
friends

greetings, former children:.

i really miss my childhood home, which we left in 1960. dad sold it for some 12,000 dollars; it recently sold for somewhere under 1.5 million.

it's only a tiny bungalow but in a prosperous bay area town, not too far from san francisco, california.. the art and literature that are so important to me -- and for many others of us -- got their start in my heart and mind here in the california mountains.

charonsdog

I had too many childhood homes. We kept moving to "where the need was greater", but I had the feeling that it was more than that. I think my mom, who is a staunch, ex-Catholic witness, would see the hypocrisy in the local bodies of elders and convince my dad that we needed to go to another congregation where the elders would be more Christlike. My dad served as an elder, too, and I remember him being upset by some of the actions of the others, although he never talked about it openly in front of us.

At any rate, I can count six places I lived before I turned 19. No pictures to show, but a few months ago, on a whim, I Google-mapped one of the homes we occupied from 1975-1981. I got the street address, and mailed them a postcard from Thailand, where I now reside. Don't know if they got it. The street view of the home on the maps app showed that they cut down all of the big trees, filled in the in-ground pool we build, and put up a really ugly fence. Pity. The neighborhood really went downhill. Or I just have romantic memories of the place.

37

Thank you, George Couch!

by charonsdog in

i just thought i'd share this story from my past.. back in the 80s i remember the big problem seemed to be about music.

(today, it's tight pants, i guess) the organization, society, whatever they were calling themselves, were always going on about the music we listened to.

disco, heavy metal, the whole "backwards masking" thing...couldn't escape hearing or reading about how satan was corrupting us unless we were listening to kingdom melodies or elevator music.. i was assigned to wtf in the late 80s and remember one of the articles stating that "young people know that the rhythm of rock music is the rhythm of sexual intercourse.

charonsdog

Yeah, about that whole backwards music stuff. The only way you could play it backwards (that I'm aware of) would be to use a phonograph and records. But I clearly recall an elder valiantly attempting to explain to the crowd at a circuit assembly in Panama City, Florida that you didn't have to actually play the music backward to be affected. He said (I shit you not) that our ears work the same way our eyes do. When our eye sees an image, it actually transmits a mirror-image to our brain, which must then reverse the image for us to process it properly. According to this elder's "science", our ears also inverted the sound waves and our brains understood the backward message before flipping the sound. I was probably 12 or 13 at the time, and a true believer...but even I recognized this as complete horseshit. I can't believe the other 3,000 in attendance let that go over their heads.