Posts by TerryWalstrom

20

Take a look over my shoulder

by Doug Mason in

i have assigned myself a probably impossible task: i want to see if i can pick out the highlights of the evolution of judaeo/christian soteriology (doctrine of salvation).

i am making available the first draft very rough ideas of two chapters at:.

http://www.jwstudies.com/take_a_look_over_my_shoulder.pdf .

Doug is an intellectual Detective. His honesty is as capacious as his appetite for historicity.
He has a passion for syncretism.
He collates, sifts, integrates, and forensically deconstructs all things JW to get to an 'essence.'
Whatever that essence turns out to be will be revelatory, informative, and inevitably damning for the Watchtower organization.
There is no greater obstacle to understanding the motivation behind pseudo-Christianity than the formal soteriology of the sects and cults promotional salesmanship vis-a-vis the historic/folkloric mainstream definitions and explanations by comparison.
I look forward to reading what Doug has written.

23

No Longer a JW Expert But Starting to Figure Out Life

by AllTimeJeff in

jw
friends

consider this an update for those that remember me here.... when i left in 2006, it started a 10 year journey into a new phase.

no more "safety".

some people want to be their own person.

TerryWalstrom

Good to see you again, A.T. Jeff!
The Prodigal returns. Where's the fatted calf?
Will you settle for a kale salad?

18

A quick Biblical question....

by dubstepped in

my wife and i were talking about how religions claim to be directed by god, yet god never seemed to let any of them know about the danger of sexual predatora to children.

the it hit me, does the bible say anything on the subject?

is there a thou shalt not diddle kids scripture?

TerryWalstrom

" In ancient Athens and Rome, the modern concept of paedophilia did not exist as such, so the question would be meaningless to an Athenian if you asked him. If by paedophilia you mean the modern psychiatric definition, which pertains to sex with pre-pubescent children, that was considered abnormal and probably as rare as now.

If you use the popular modern definition, which includes all children that cannot be considered adults, so up to 16 or 18 years old, that was not uncommon in Greece and Rome. Flirtation and sex between a bearded man and an unbearded, pubescent boy was acceptable or even common, but only in certain contexts, in certain circles, in certain cities, at certain times. This answer is about sex between grown men and pubescent children.

In Antiquity, unmarried sex usually did not impact a man or a boy's reputation; but girls were supposed to remain virgins until marriage. So attitudes towards sex were tied to marriage for girls. The discrepancy was probably connected with the common situation of a younger girl marrying a (somewhat or much) older man. Another relevant factor was the fact that men can procreate at a late age, while women have a fairly limited timeframe.

Pubescent girls could be married off to adult men, which is still common practice in many parts of the world. Until ca. 1800, a very common minimum age of marriage in Europe was 12 years old. Only after 1800 was this gradually raised in the West. This probably reflected social attitudes. The modern Western boundary of 16 or 18 years (which means after puberty) for marriage is relatively new; while I believe the average age of marriage has been increasing for centuries, 16–18 probably only became universal in the West somewhere during the 20th century.

That doesn't mean girls were mostly married off during puberty in the Middle Ages and Antiquity, but it does mean that marriage was often legally possible at 12. One can imagine that consummation was often (though not always) to happen soon after. Sometimes sons and daughters who were supposed to forge an important alliance were even married at 9 or younger, but then marriage was often only allowed to be consummated later."

(http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/549/pedophilia-in-ancient-greek-and-roman-culture)

47

I am a Living Time Machine

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.. the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.. there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.

everywhere you found telephone booths!

a call was a nickle.where did all those telephone booths go?i dunno.where did my whole world go?i dunno.. tv sets were huge boxes with tubes and small screens.

TerryWalstrom

I do wonder...

What if an electromagnetic pulse fried all the technology everyone relies upon?

Books are on paper; so are letters (which hardly a soul uses to notate or message with) and documents.

Would civilization panic? Sure!
Would a 70-year-old man have a built-in advantage?
Hmmm...maybe subconsciously.
Just maybe...

4

(A true story...) NOT THE OTHER STORY

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

(a true story...)not the other story.

little rock, arkansas many years ago.

we were stranded.

TerryWalstrom

(A true story...)
NOT THE OTHER STORY

Little Rock, Arkansas many years ago. (1972)

We were stranded.
I was 25 and he was 26.
We were, by force of circumstance, stuck in a telephone solicitor job to earn enough money to get out of the jam we were in. I had set out for Detroit Michigan and brought along my friend, Richard. We didn’t have much more than $200 for the entire round trip. We were inexperienced and naive.
The company was FAIRFIELD BAY ENTERPRISES. It was a real estate development and a resort with tourists as the key demographic; the target of our droning phone message. Victims of a lousy script.

After the monotonous 3rd day of saying the same spiel over and over again, we decided to spend our last coins on a drink at the much-welcomed lunch hour.

"Where is a good spot to have a quiet drink?"

We were told there were two bars with a free lunch right down the street.
FREE is GOOD, we both shouted enthusiastically!
The Supervisor told us, "Make sure you try the place next door."
Fast as we could walk, we bolted for the exit and down the stairs onto the sidewalk in the sunshine.

We walked to the first Bar. It had a sign: THE OTHER PLACE
Next to this Bar was another with a sign which read; THE PLACE

The two of us found this puzzling.
We flipped a coin and decided on THE OTHER PLACE. After all, it was next door.

We sauntered in out of the bright sunlight into a cool, dark, pleasant smelling establishment.
It was impressive!
There was low-key, sexy music playing at a comfortable volume and several couples were dancing on the rather smallish dance floor.
Tables spaced evenly around the interior had stylish lamps and artsy lampshades.
Wow!
Our eyes were slowly adjusting to the dim light while we sat at the bar on the cushy stools. I ordered whatever draft was on tap.
The bartender brought our drafts in a classic 19th Century mug with comfortable handles and real napkins!

In a few more seconds my eyes accommodated to the semi-darkness.
I swiveled about on the stool and scanned the place, appraising the tasteful decor and cleanliness . . .and Bing!---I did a double take!

Couples dancing to the sexy music were both males! Guys with guys. The year was 1972 and there was no such thing in my mental gymnasium as a Gay Bar. Except...apparently...there was!

I nudged my buddy and did a head jerk toward the dance floor, wanting him to see where we had landed in our fateful coin flip.
My friend did a long, slow "take" and shook his head with dawning entrapment.

About that instant, a well-dressed professional man in a suit suddenly stood right next to me with his hand out!
"If he doesn't want to dance with you--I certainly do!" He flashed a pearly smile.

My jaw slackened.
Clearly, my friend’s head shake had been misinterpreted as a "No" when I'd nudged him and pointed at the dance floor.
This Oliver Hardy 'another fine mess' moment is quite funny NOW, in retrospect, but back then it was uncomfortable in a cultural context of the day and time.
I had no inclination to be rude. I'm a "live and let live" kind of fella. I was an “I ain’t uh dancin' wit no man” kinda fella!

The best policy in such moments is straight out (yes, I said that) honesty.

I explained our faux pas began with a blind coin flip and the smiling gent pursed his lips and offered a common sense bit of advice: "Don't knock it til you've tried it."

I calmly explained I'd tried dancing before (knowing full well I was straddling a complete subtextual context.)
About this time, the front door opened and our TeleMarketing Supervisor rushed in scanning the room.

"Now how did I KNOW you would end up here?
"Huh?"
"You asked where to go and I specifically told you THE PLACE next door. This is THE OTHER PLACE"...
(Insert momentary freeze frame for audience reaction).

I ran over here to give you a head’s up. There is a policeman looking for you two back at work. I'm giving you a head's up only because you two are the best phone salesmen I’ve ever had.

He immediately turned and exited.

I looked at my Buddy and he shrugged.
The guy with the pearly teeth--well, it was his turn to shake his head.

"I should have known . . ." he whirled about and promenaded off quickly.

We glug-glugged the beer and pulled out pockets full of change to pay; slowly counting out loud quarters, nickels, dimes . . .
The bartender, observing everything, made an exasperated face and did an eye roll, "It's on the house, you two."
My face must have displayed a big “But why?”
The bartender sighed, shrugged, and said simply, “Entertainment value.”

On that note, we left the change as a tip and scurried next door.

What did the police want with us?
Who even knew we'd gotten ourselves stranded in Little Rock?
The mystery ended when a wary police officer checked our I.D.'s and gave us the once over.
We had been staying at a K.O.A.
(Kampgrounds of America) sleeping in a pup-tent for three nights. When we checked in, we gave our employment as a reference along with the address.)

I explained we were on our way to Detroit.
We had sustained a double blowout on the freeway and had to pay to have the car towed, then paid for two new tires. We had run out of cash and had to work this lousy phone job, blah blah blah.
In other words: no money!
I remember from the silent film era--the policeman would get frustrated, pull off his cap and run his hand through his hair--and when our officer repeated this gesture, that's exactly what I’d thought.

He did a slow burn while reaching for his ticket book and--will you believe it?
He wrote me a ticket!
For what?
We had violated an ordinance about open fires!

Need I say, I tossed that ticket in the crapper as soon as the cop left.
We went back to work.

Our boss kept a careful eye on the two of us for the rest of our employment, as though he’d seen something sinister in our mutual character (or lack of).
Suffice it to say, neither of us returned past the first payday to either the K.O.A. or the Other Place again.
Eventually, we managed to find the road to Detroit Michigan so I could meet my father for the first time in my life since I was a 6-month-old baby (the night he walked away.)
That is, of course, another story. This was a story--but the events which attended my meeting with my Father are The Other Story.
The moral to this story?
Always do the right thing or you might end up in The Other Place!
_________
Terry Walstrom

47

I am a Living Time Machine

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.. the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.. there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.

everywhere you found telephone booths!

a call was a nickle.where did all those telephone booths go?i dunno.where did my whole world go?i dunno.. tv sets were huge boxes with tubes and small screens.

TerryWalstrom

GREAT COMMENTS--thanks!

I was lucky enough to grow up in a household with a Great grandmother, grandmother and grandfather and my mom.

I spent a lot of time with my Great grandmother and "interviewed" her about her early life. I was very curious, even way back then in the early 50's.

Great granny left Tennessee as a young woman riding in a stagecoach which was chased by "Indians" as it passed through Oklahoma. Toilets were a hole in the ground. Women had so many skirts and petticoats it took forever for a rest stop and it irritated the men considerably.

My Great granny's side of the house was wired for DIRECT CURRENT which never caught on. It was rewired when alternating current won out!

She had an "ICE BOX" instead of a refrigerator. An "ICE MAN" would come by every day with a large block of ice which he held on his back with large tongs. The man just walked in the front screen door, marched through the house and inserted the ice inside the Ice Box in the kitchen and emptied the drip water pan underneath!

Great granny, when she gave birth to my Grandfather (sounds weird to say it like that) he was so small she'd place him in a shoebox with holes in it and go horseback riding!

His crib was in on of the drawers in the "Chester drawers" next to her bed (which was a large canopy bed). I was in my twenties before I realized she was saying "Chest of drawers".

My Great granny was a widower. Her husband had been a deputy Sheriff in Fort Worth, shot in the back and killed in the line of duty.
He was a member of a fraternal organization, THE ODD FELLOWS.

Once every year, the ODD FELLOWS would deliver a gigantic basket of goodies
to her and I'd eat the good stuff like dates and pecans and cookies.
Fraternal organizations were very popular.

Incidentally, it was the Ice Man who found my Great granny dead in her bed.

47

I am a Living Time Machine

by TerryWalstrom in

jw
friends

which world is this?_________________when the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, i landed in a post-wwii world.it was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.. the world i live in today has nothing in common with the world in which i grew up.. there were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an operator who placed your call.

everywhere you found telephone booths!

a call was a nickle.where did all those telephone booths go?i dunno.where did my whole world go?i dunno.. tv sets were huge boxes with tubes and small screens.

TerryWalstrom

WHICH WORLD is this?
_________________
When the doctor pulled my screaming body out of mom all those 7 decades ago, I landed in a post-WWII world.
It was--compared to today's world--an alien planet.

The world I live in today has nothing in common with the world in which I grew up.

There were no cell phones back then--there were black telephones with a dial-tone and an Operator who placed your call.

Everywhere you found telephone booths! A call was a nickle.
Where did all those telephone booths go?
I dunno.
Where did my whole world go?
I dunno.

TV sets were huge boxes with tubes and small screens. Images were black and white.
It was an idiot box. It still is.

A "computer" was a Science fiction trope and in reality, consisted of vast rooms full of blinking lights and hardware.

Men wore hats, women wore stockings with a black seam down the back.
Everybody smoked cigarettes. Everywhere!

There was "easy listening" music filled with lush melody.
Movies were vivid storybooks filled with comedy, song and dance, and noir.
Only sailors, convicts, and primitive tribal communities had tattoos.
Kids said, "Yes Sir" and "No, Ma'am".

And so on...
I've lived in several worlds on different planets--not literally, but essentially for all the extraordinary dissonances, customs, attitudes, and ethos. (Good word "ethos", look it up.)

Today--what world is this?
Have I lost the thread?
Who knows their next door neighbor anymore?
Who spends time sitting on the front porch in the evening in a swing, sipping ice tea and waving at the folks across the street?
Who reads actual Literature?

Who buys paintings or objet d'art?
Who knows the classical music repertoire?
Who is conversant with dates, names, movements in human history with any certainty?

I was there when TV arrived and the first commercial jingles were created.
I lived in the radio soap opera era.
I was there when Bebop lived side by side with West Coast jazz and the Big Bands faded as Rock n' Roll was born.
I lived among Beatniks, Folk singers, Doo-Wops, Hippies, and the birth of the Long Play record and the death of the 78 shellac platters.

The year I was born, the transistor was invented. (1947).
I was 7 years old when the first transistor radios were sold (1954).
The very first satellite went into orbit when I was 15 years old. (1962)
I was 18 years old as 8 Track tapes were all the rage.(1965)

I was 22 years old when man first walked on the moon. (1969)
I was 32 years old when the Sony Walkman revolutionized portable music. And it was just a cassette player!
By 1975, the first mass marketing of Video Tape Recorders was sold at about a thousand dollars each.
The personal computer was barely a dream in the future!

So what? What point am I making?
If you aren't 70 then:
I'm from a different world than YOU are!

My ways are not your ways.
My thoughts and feelings and ideas and opinions are just plain weird to you because you haven't lived my lifetime.

I've seen people become famous, fade, and pass into obscurity.
I've heard fearful predictions for the future which turned out to be absolute hogwash.
I've seen the rise of horrible political leaders who later fell.
I lived through a great many wars and spent time in Federal Prison, a religious cult, four marriages, and produced 7 children.
I've been Nerd, a religious fanatic, an artist, a composer, a writer, husband, father, best friend, and generally a pain in the ass.

BUT I'M STILL HERE.
It isn't MY world--it is your world.

I AM A LIVING TIME MACHINE.
When I speak--you are getting a message from another era.

Just try to remember that--will you?

13

GRACE? GRACE? What the F*** is GRACE? Jehovah's Witnesses have no idea!

by TerryWalstrom in

i think all of us ex-j-dubs have had the --i'll call it a privilege--to exchange views with others who think differently than we do.

we encounter "christians" from mainstream churches.our dialogue is sort of...like speaking to martians.sooner or later, an ex-dub smacks into a wall.

that wall is a subject which is never spoken about or taught by the gb or watchtower with any candor.

TerryWalstrom

I'll be seventy years old in a few days and think I've entered the "kill zone" which leaves me in the spot where most endangered species start to get itchy-twitchy about life and death.

Well, not me.

I'm really all played out. I won't pretend I don't care about death--but it is more nearly correct to say I'm only concerned about how long the process will transact. Quick and painless or slow and agonizing. However, I'm not at all worried about God, Hell, Heaven, the Devil or any superstitious conceit.

I am interested in GRACE. What I like about it is simple. If God likes me--I'm in!

If He doesn't--I'm screwed anyway.
And yet--I don't really believe...anything...about anybody "up there."

I just like the idea that IF THERE was/is a God---He could simply like me and the deal is sealed. That would be a big middle finger to the Governing Body left stranded in their tidy whities on life support.

Yeah. That's a Grace I can dig.

13

GRACE? GRACE? What the F*** is GRACE? Jehovah's Witnesses have no idea!

by TerryWalstrom in

i think all of us ex-j-dubs have had the --i'll call it a privilege--to exchange views with others who think differently than we do.

we encounter "christians" from mainstream churches.our dialogue is sort of...like speaking to martians.sooner or later, an ex-dub smacks into a wall.

that wall is a subject which is never spoken about or taught by the gb or watchtower with any candor.

TerryWalstrom

I think all of us Ex-J-Dubs have had the --I'll call it a privilege--to exchange views with others who think differently than we do. We encounter "Christians" from mainstream churches.
Our dialogue is sort of...like speaking to Martians.
Sooner or later, an Ex-Dub smacks into a wall. That wall is a subject which is NEVER spoken about or taught by the GB or Watchtower with any candor. It is, however, the number one topic in the majority of Christian Churches. That subject seems weird to both Dubs and Ex's.
GRACE.
The Bible uses words like “forgive,” “believe,” or “hell.” But more often than those words, the word GRACE appears 170 times. Wow!
How did THAT happen?
We "think" we know what it is--but only because the GB redefined it for us as "undeserved kindness." Then, leaves it as merely that.
Grace is THE most important Christian teaching and the least important JW topic.
Why? Being a JW is about behavior.

The "faithful" characters of the Bible are viewed in terms of their behavior. These folks very often aren't very good moral examples, however. Yet--YET God uses them and loves them. Go figure!

Depending on which particular Christian denomination you attend, you will run into mainly 1 of 4 DIFFERENT flavors of GRACE:
Common grace
Free grace
Irresistible grace
Prevenient grace
Why? What the heck is this all about?
I'll boil it down to this. If God wants you--chooses you--to worship Him, HE MAKES IT HAPPEN by granting you that privilege--and YOU CANNOT RESIST!
Crazy? You bet!
The encounter--that personal emotional experience of being "SAVED" is a free gift--IF GOD CHOOSES TO GIVE IT to you.
It isn't the human being making the choice at all--it is God doing the choosing and the granting of Faith and Belief supernaturally.
JW's don't, won't and can't understand this.
Their "faith" is intellectual and artificially contrived.

JW Faith is about obedience to the GB.

Genuine Faith is a free Gift to "certain people" and they do not deserve it by virtue of "believing" on their own or being convinced. GRACE is not egalitarian.
Belief, Faith and Salvation (according to mainstream scripture) is TRIGGERED by hearing the Word of God and ---then the magic happens--or doesn't.

Weird as it sounds. This is why Christianity is so different from Jehovah's Witness theology. JW's try and "earn" salvation by works and acceptance of GB opinions.
For mainstream Christians, it is about a "free" gift because God chose to give it to them.

24

5 Ways to Improve Your Online Security

by Simon in

let's face it, we're all connected now.

we take it for granted that we access our bank accounts from our laptops or phones.

it's so convenient.

TerryWalstrom

I've been using a VPN and a Chromebook 15.

Most of the previous difficulties with personal computing have seemingly vanished!

One thing I learned from life in prison (all those years ago) was that criminals go for the "low-hanging fruit" as crimes of opportunity are irresistible.

Concerning passwords, I substitute symbols, foreign fonts, and a long chain of nonsense for "words".

We are all at risk, however, all the time.
A year and a half ago, I used an ATM in front of a bank and it was outfitted with a rigged "capture" device that stole my number. A tiny stick on camera nabbed my password. My balance was withdrawn within the next 24 hours.
I monitor all my accounts with my cell phone. I saw what happened almost straight away and went to the bank in person. Within three hours, my balance was restored.

Strangely enough--my bank was completely disinterested in pursuing who had done it. Wussup wit dat?