Posts by Threestars

Hang in there--these feelings are normal. When my eldest daughter left home I felt the same. It's part of the natural cycle, though. (BTW, she still calls me when she's sick and wants me to come over and make her tea and soup even though she's married with a baby now)

Young people also have to go through that stage of withdrawal from the parent/parents and they truly need this in order to become fully functioning adults. Think of it as a Blessing. It means that you have been a successful parent and that your child is moving ahead to the next stage. My girls all distanced themselves from me for a time and yes, it hurt my feelings terribly, but that changes soon and they "come back". After the first one I realized this and I was better able to deal with that distancing and their often obnoxious and rude comments..

My youngest child, and my only son, has schizophrenia and has been very sick since he was twelve years old. He's eighteen now and I am daily reminded that he will probalby never, ever, be able to take care of himself. He never made it past the eighth grade and has been hospitalized numerous times and if I weren't here to watch out for him and make sure he takes his meds he would be on the streets, or worse. Be happy and proud for your wonderful son. This all just proves that he is doing fine!

18

Accent

by area0dude in

jw
friends

my dear forumites, i have just decided to present my background first so that my fellow forumites can help me.

i am an immigrant worker who is now permanently based in north america.

i started learning english when i was 8 at a rural african school.

Threestars

I communicated by e-mail with a writer friend from Yorkshire a while back and we had no problem. Then, he called me on the phone and he may as well have been speaking in a foreign language. I kept saying "huh?" and felt terrible about it so I finally just started saying "oh yes" to everything. We went back to written communication.

I taught writing skills to ESL students at a local university a few years ago and most of my students had pretty heavy accents. When I absolutely could not understand what they were trying to tell me I would have them write it down. It always worked.

27

Assembly talks-WHy did they talk so loud at the end!?

by themonster123 in

jw
friends

whenever i would go to conventions, i thought it was weird how at the end of the brothers' talks (especially the older ones like from the governing body or whatever), they would start getting louder and louder and louder.

ie; "in this time of the end, we need to keep on the watch for our adversary satan is roaring about like a lion!!!!

do you agree??".

Threestars

I think I once heard old Fred Franz the Oracle speak when I was really little and he hollered almost through his whole speech. It's definitely a fire-and-brimstone/Holy-Roller technique, one designed to excite emotion in the listeners.

53

If most here R anti jw why bother writing mean hurtful and prejudges posts?

by ayhra in

if most people are anti or ex jw why bother if you dont believe in it why waste your time writing mean hurtful and prejudges posts and set up a entire web site and forum dedicated to them.

its a religion not a cult and people write about jw's as a whole everyone is an individual and just like the rest of the world there are nice caring people as well as bad awful people.

jehovah witnesses dont set up web sites saying and exploting awful things that non jw's do to them, such as teasing bashing raping even murder..

Threestars

Can anyone say "illiterate"? Some of you folks have spent quite a bit of time writing some nice rebuttals to ayira or whatever's post. I really wouldn't waste my time if I were you.

Is it just me--or have the publications become more simplified in recent years in terms of vocabulary and such? I seem to remember when I was a kid that the Watchtower, at least, was written at something above third grade level.

11

The "perfect human" being ...

by Frequent_Fader_Miles in

according to the jw belief, what definition/explanation were you given for the concept of "human perfection"?

what exactly would make a "perfect human" ... well... perfect?.

i remember once when i was a child, my mom told me that when i decided on my adult profession, i should make sure it's one i would be able to use in the "new system".

Threestars

I always had a scientific bent as a kid and I once told my Dad that when Adam and Eve sinned Jehovah went in and removed a little teensy piece of their DNA strand, thus making them age and die instead of rejuvenating forever. And of course this would explain why it got passed on to the whole human race. After Armageddon, Jehovah would just have to go in there and re-insert that pesky little strand.

Then, after the water canopy fell during the flood, the UV rays were hitting the humans so much stronger that the life-spans were shortened up to under a hundrend years. He thought that was pretty cool and said that oneday, in the new system, I might have a place in their "scientific" community.

My Mom now tells people that "science" dragged me away from the "Truth"

No wonder they discourage higher education.

1

Great Tribulation Story

by Threestars in

jw
friends

the other day i read a great sci-fi story posted in one of these forums about a guy who time-travelled into the future, found out the borg was false, and then came back and was dfed.

i can't find it now.

does anyone know where it is or who posted it?

Threestars

The other day I read a great sci-fi story posted in one of these forums about a guy who time-travelled into the future, found out the borg was false, and then came back and was DFed. I can't find it now. Does anyone know where it is or who posted it? thanx.

18

Women.....................A JWs view

by vitty in

jw
friends

i was just hopping the boards and came across this discussion on e-mans site.

its just so unbelievable how the (men?

) in the org still view women!

Threestars

OMFG!! I get so ANGRY still when I think about that hogwash, although to be fair it's not just the dubs. The notion of women's subjection is very pervasive in our society and it's difficult to avoid. I raised (I thought) my daughters to be independent thinkers and my eldest is now married to a man who, though not a dub, thinks along those same lines. I just want to shake some sense into her! At least she will be able to get a divorce without a lot of malarky when she finally does come to her senses. In the meantime, I wrote this sarcastic sonnet for her:

ORIGINAL SIN

When Eve gathered apples and tempted man
in the biblical garden of Eden,
perhaps her antics were part of the plan
to make Adam deposit his seed in
her pot, her cauldron, coy witch that she was
and in lack of that tubular tater
he coddled and hoarded, simply because
he had one and she didn’t; but later
he developed a taste for fruit salads
it seems, and Eve got her vegetable stew,
giving birth to the race and to ballads
that praise his harvest, but paint her the shrew.
So carve those apples and be a good wife!
(We have what’s needed and do wield a knife)

(thanx Frannie--your tip on posting from the PM box works.)

25

Do JW's still believe this?

by ctrx in

i remember overhearing a discussion my parents had in the mid 1970's.

it was about who would be resurrected after armageddon.

supposedly, those who heard of "the truth" and rejected it were dead forever, but those who had never had a chance to hear it would be resurrected for a second chance to submit to jehovah/the watchtower society.. .

Threestars

It is very confusing--but I think an important point being made here is that the org keeps all its members in a state of fear one way or another. My Mom recently told me that she had always hoped armageddon wouldn't come soon because she wanted all her family to have the chance for paradise and most of them were either never a JW or DFed (like 2, sometimes 3 of her kids).

Then I had an amazing talk with my currently active JW brother who does talk to me. He was in town to visit our Mom and came to my house. I knew what was coming by the "look" on his face. Sure enough, he began by asking me why he and I had grown up with the same teachings and it had stuck with him but not me. (BTW he has been DFed 3 times and is on wife #4--he had to do the old commit adultery, get DFed, get remarried to the one you want, and then get reinstated routine that so many of them go through. I don't disdain him for this--I feel sorry for him) I won't go into all the bickering back and forth we had, but what he said at the end of our conversation just blew me away.

Our mother is in her mid eighties and in poor health. She is inactive and only goes to the Memorial. She herself tells me that she is doomed. My only sister is inactive but still claims to be a JW. My other brother is Dfed, as I am. Our Dad died fifteen years ago--still an active JW. Anyway, my JW brother at the end of our conversation put his arms afound me and was crying quietly. He said:

"Please, please honey, think about what I've said. I don't want to have to tell Dad in the new system that I'm the only one here."

Now, I can understand his attitude about my DFed bro and me--and maybe, possibly my sister, but what kind of mentality asumes that God is going to murder an 85 year old woman who has been a good person her entire life, never cheated on her husband, did her best to raise her kids, never cheated, lied or stole a thing--she is honest to a fault--and at this point her only sin is that she does not attend meetings or go in field service because of physical fraility and extreme shyness?

16

First time back in a Kingdom Hall in over 25 years

by I quit! in

jw
friends

yesterday was the first time i stepped into a kingdom hall in over twenty- five years.

i went there to attend my sister-in-law's funeral.

on the program they had a picture of her as a pretty young woman about the time i met her and my wife.

Threestars

My Dad converted to the cult when I was 5 and dragged the rest of us along. At that time "armageddon" was supposed to be immanent within a few months. My parents had just lost my younger sister to meningitis and I know that this was the "hook" that kept my poor Dad going for over 30 years--that he was going to be able to see his little girl again soon. He, unlike my Mom, never truly accepted her death or went through the standard grieving process. My Mom confided to me that even though she did beleive in the ressurection (I think she's lying to me about that though) it didn't really offer her any comfort for the loss of her child. She had to get over it and move on as people must do when losing a child.

It was heartbreaking watching my Dad and caring for him during his final illness. He was SO frightened and amazed that he was dying. To comfort him in those last hours I told him not to be frightened--he was going to soon see his daughter again and I think it helped but inwardly I was raging at that stupid cult and all of his wasted years.

I was his hospice caregiver and it was mind-boggling how the JWs stared right past me during their visits. The morning he died a bunch of them trailed in to see my Mom and not a one offered a word of comfort to me or even acknowledged my presense. I think that is when it was truly hammered home to me that this is a sick and twisted religion.