Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

I've been reminded that I did not really give a direct answer to some of IW2K's questions, which were ...

Quote: " Was your struggle difficult or nearly impossible, or did you just decide that the struggle wasn't worth it, and you decided that you just didn't want to do this anymore? Also, did you feel that you experienced Isaiah 40:29-31, or did you feel that you didn't and that you had a much more tremendous struggle compared to heterosexual JWs? "

I called my friend for his answer, and again (as with most things human) his comments were not concise. But summing up he felt that that the whole religious experience was pointless.

He said there were many good things about his religious experience with the Jws! There were many happy times. But in the end he badly hurt someone he loved, and also badly hurt his children. He sometimes hates himself for this. In fact, when first 'outed' he planned suicide*, and came close to killing himself.

Why didn't he? Purely by accident, one day he stopped to assists a young Asian guy who looked seriously troubled. He got involved with the young man, found he was also gay, but an illegal migrant. In helping him, he came to understand himself better, fell in love with him - and they are still together some 3 decades on.

So a short answer to your questions IW2K, is that it was not worth it, and he wishes he'd never heard of the bible, religion etc.

*Research has found that attempted suicide rates and suicidal ideation among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth are significantly higher than among the general population.[1][2]

Slurce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_among_LGBT_youth

54

Is AI going to change the world?

by Reasonfirst in

jw
friends

had lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.

of one of australia's best universities.

he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.

Reasonfirst

Maybe this will become a problematical area for AI.

https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/ai-plus-robotics-equals-fierce-new-weaponry/

Imagine armed AI+ robots cruising the streets as police auxiliaries?

Imagine an AI+robot in the hands of crime gangs?

54

Is AI going to change the world?

by Reasonfirst in

jw
friends

had lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.

of one of australia's best universities.

he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.

Reasonfirst

Another development:

AI system self-organizes to develop features of brains of complex organisms

Date:: November 20, 2023
Source:: University of Cambridge
Summary:: Scientists have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system -- in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints -- allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order to solve tasks

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231120124246.htm

Quote:

With their system, however, the physical constraint meant that the further away two nodes were, the more difficult it was to build a connection between the two nodes in response to the feedback. In the human brain, connections that span a large physical distance are expensive to form and maintain.

When the system was asked to perform the task under these constraints, it used some of the same tricks used by real human brains to solve the task. For example, to get around the constraints, the artificial systems started to develop hubs -- highly connected nodes that act as conduits for passing information across the network.

More surprising, however, was that the response profiles of individual nodes themselves began to change: in other words, rather than having a system where each node codes for one particular property of the maze task, like the goal location or the next choice, nodes developed a flexible coding scheme.

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

Final comment:

As you say, "Well, it sounds like Isaiah 40:29-31 didn't help him since I'm pretty such most JWs have tried to apply those verses to themselves."

Of course, it's not just the Isaiah text that promises help. And, my friend did think that he had changed, other wise he claims he would never have married.

Likely, he merely suppressed his same sex desires, if something is part of us (whatever the causes of homosexual desire) it would indeed take a miracle to change, and miracles are rationed in today's world.

Christianity makes many claims, few seem to come true. Armageddon and associated promises have been predicted many times through the centuries, but all were fake.

Even the topic of this thread, that homosexuals must change has a problem, many cultures do not condemn same sex activity. Some years back, during the Asian history degree I studied. One of the lecturers has been studying, is the Japanese movement called Shonen Ai. Last century, a number of Japanese women, dissatisfied with traditional Japanese marriage relationships, began studying gay relationships. Developing out of that are images called yaoi, and illustrated literature called Mangas. These are now known throughout the world, with millions of readers in most languages. The fans of that genre are mostly young, and I'm wondering to what extent that genre is responsible for changing attitudes towards gay people

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

More responses to IW2K's thoughts:

1. Quote: "you mentioned a good-looking brother. So, was there any conflict of feelings with your friend and this brother?"

I don't know how my friend felt toward that brother. He made no mention of conflicts and they were friends for a long time. That brother was on the circuit work here in Australia for a while and later went to Gilead.

IW2K: "So, are you perhaps implying that he may have been attracted to her because she looked boyish? "

I wasn't, but you're probably correct. In the matter of what makes another person appealing to us, it would be logical for your view to be correct.

IW2K: " Also, you friend sounds like he was bisexual, because 100% homosexuals don't have attraction towards the opposite sex."

I'm not sure what a 100% homosexual person is like, or desires. Or for that matter, what the real difference between a 100% gay guy and a bisexual is. It's easy to classify people into groups, but the reality is that most people are too complex for that simplification.

I think it likely that some gay guys have successfully lived either a celibate life, or a successfully married to a woman life. But we can never fully be sure about anything to do with a person's private life and thoughts.

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

IW2K. I'm assuming my friend meant that (likely as most kids do) that he had sexual feelings (maybe desire is a better word) probably expressed through masturbation. I guess that's common to both gay and str8 young ones.

He does recollect that he belonged to a scout troop, that group owned a hut in the bush, with 9 bunk beds on one wall. At times each kid would be lying alone in his bunk masturbating.

A guess another common factor is wondering what it's like to have sex with someone. Maybe for both groups that we categorise as gay or str8, curiosity about sex comes first, then later crystalises into a desire to share sex with specific persons.

As to specific sexual desire, I think that rather than categorised into groups like gay, straight and Bi, maybe its lineal scattered along a kind of continuum from exclusively gay to exclusively str8, with a large majority on the str8 end.

We likely do not know enough about this topic to be dogmatic as to how it operates (works).

There a books that make claims, and some are interesting. I found Chandler Burr's, A Separate Creation: The Search or the Biological Origins of Sexual Orientation, informative, although some may argue that since Burr is gay, he's self-serving. Another book, Bruce Bagemihl's, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Exuberance. Bagemihl draws on the field notes of other wildlife biologists/Zoologists and records 450 animal species among whom, homosexual activity has been observed. B.O.Y.'s got a job ahead of him, explaining why he did that.

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

OK, IWant2Know, I'll try to answer your questions.

My knowledge of my friend's struggles, comes from various conversations. Some of his memories came to light while I was doing a degree (for some 10 years) at Sydney's Macquarie University and Sydney Uni. I went there to study Asian History, and during one Semester focused on Japan. So I'm not going to pretend that I understand all his inner thinking on his life. I don't

During that period, I found that non-western attitudes in regard to homosexuality were quite different to Western culture. That's not to argue that it was equivalent in values to heterosexuality, just not condemned when someone indulged themselves with another male. In particular, one academic in the Japanese department was doing some studies into something called Shonen Ai, (which translates as 'as love between boys.') and also Yaoi

This can be seen as a cultural movement that started last century by a group of women who were dissatisfied with traditional attitudes by men toward women. I don't suggest that they were 'gay,' but that many decided to examine attitudes of gay males to each other in Japan to see how they thought male/female relationships could be improved. Does that sound improbable? Well, let me assure you that it's true.

Quote, from Wikipedia (under Yaoi)."It is typically created by heterosexual women for heterosexual women and is thus distinct from bara (gay manga), a genre of homoerotic media marketed to gay men, though yaoi does also attract a gay male audience and can be produced by gay male creators"

This led to many conversations with my friend.

So over the next day or so, I'll try to discuss your comments.

3

When a Whole Branch Went Bad !!(or was it Good?)

by singsongboi in

jw
friends

when a whole branch went bad (or was it good)?

part 1. .

i guess it's too late to get much of the details of this story (outside of the official versions), but we ought not to lose it altogether.. so i'm committing to print what i know of this story, and hoping that somewhere out there will be someone else that knows more than i do, about one of the more exotic incidents in the history of the wts.

Reasonfirst

Cant add much to singsongboi's account. His nick is interesting, whatever possessed him to choose that name ( in S.E.Asia a singsongboi or girl is a prostitute ). I'm going crazy with forgotten faces and names running through my brain.

Some of the names ring a bell in my brain, but not many.

The branch servant, McGillivray, who ssb mentions was before my time too. But the story goes that the Bethel home (then in a Sydney suburb of Strathfield) had been occupied by the army, with armed sentries on guard, day and night. (no doubt to prevent any surreptitious activity in support of the enemy). But the Bethel workers were allowed to continue to live there.

So the the story goes that brother Mc, had been out dining somewhere and came home late and some-what tipsy and was challenged by the sentry and instead of taking it seriously and answering correctly, he said something silly.

So ... the sentry shot him.

I forget where (maybe an arm or leg) and it certainly wasn't fatal, but he must've been the only Australian religious figure ever shot by a soldier doing his duty. (grin).

The Jws, were called, "a national nuisance," at the time, a term I guess that resounds with many readers here.

The WTS hired a lawyer and challenged the Menzies government's ban. The case eventually got to Australia's High Court and in 1943 the ban was revoked.

But years later, householder would still sometimes call us traitors.

Sydney University academic, Jayne Persian, has researched that case, and lots of details can be found in this paper.

https://fac.flinders.edu.au/dspace/api/core/bitstreams/3d2129f3-b63c-460c-ba18-222ddbb7349d/content#:~:text=In%201941%2C%20during%20the%20Second,Australia%20during%20the%20twentieth%20century.

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

ScenicViewer and Iwant2know ask

B.O.Y. ???

bloody old yahweh

see Wikipedia's discussion of the word bloody and its use as an intensifier, and other meanings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

Reasonfirst

OK, IWant2Know, here's what I've decided to say.

You'll have noted Kosonen's post, and his use of the word 'sinful' and expressions like 'serious sinful feelings.' That's where the problem starts, these words etc, are deeply embedded in christianised western culture, and not necessarily part of our nature.

But anyone born in western culture, can have a battle with what they are and feel, and the inculcated cultural attitudes.

As my friend explains his life, he (like most of us) does not remember having sexual feelings before puberty. But after puberty his sexual feelings were quite strong, but undirected (that is to a specific sex). He, like a lot of other kids in that time, had no real sexual experience with anyone else. But he did have erotic feelings toward other boys, and some fumblings in the dark in newsreel theatres (no longer existing). And, of course, the problematic conflict caused by western cultural attitudes. Around 17-18, coming to make a real decision about his future, he came into contact with the jws. and was 'organised' into studying with a good-looking young brother (who's still a witness).

My friend also became a serious jw, and began to suppress his desires. Eventually, he was convinced that B.O.Y. had 'cured' him, and he could get married without internal conflicts. So, he met an attractive (and, zealous) young sister (I interpret his descriptions to mean that she was a bit 'boyish' and rather flat-chested), got married, and pioneered with her for many years. Then, like many other jw women, she started to want children. He gave into her, and they soon had a family. All this time, as he tells his story, he did not seem to have any attraction for other males.

Life wasn't easy of course, he claims to have seriously loved his wife and children and in an attempt to provide for them, worked very hard, as well as having jw duties. But in working hard (without of course any specific training) he eventually had to travel, and during a week away from his home city, during an evening run through a park, he was accosted by an attractive young man. He refused, but that brief incident, re-awaked his suppressed sexual feelings. The next time he visited that city, on another run through that same park, he gave into a similar offer.

This brought very serious emotional conflict into his life ( I judge that he went through something close to a breakdown). This was post-1975, and like many of us, began to have some doubts. These grew, his same-sex desires also grew, his marriage began to breakdown, and he began to become suicidal. Eventually, he was exposed as being a sexual sinner and was expelled from B.O.Y's "pure" organisation. His wife too (who, of course, divorced him) was shattered and his daughters. All of which made his feelings worse.

That brought even greater emotional conflict, and he planned suicide. He wanted to find a good-looking young guy, to have a holiday with, and after that to drive a car off a cliff.

Almost predictably, he did meet a young guy, but the young guy had some problems, and in helping him found a second life partner with whom to share his life.

They are still together.

Reasonfirst

Posts by Reasonfirst

AI system self-organizes to develop features of brains of complex organisms

ScenicViewer and Iwant2know ask