Oubliette

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Posts by Oubliette

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  92

  GB says, "Our way of worship will soon be altered."

  by Separation of Powers in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  my mom called me yesterday to ask how i was doing.

  i hadn't seen her in a while, so it was nice to hear her voice.

  we went through the motions of jw small talk and then she started telling me about her co visit from last week.

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  Oubliette

  "Our way of worship will soon be altered."

  You mean more than it already has?

  This religion is pretty unrecognizable from the one I joined in the early '80s!

  
  
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  39

  received revealing "witness" in parking lot

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a few weeks ago i was working out of my home state and was in a grocery store parking lot when i received my first jw witness since leaving jwdom.

  a youngish-looking lady was sitting in an suv parked next to my car and i was about to get in my car to leave.

  she opened the door and asked whether she could give me something to read (had a tract in her hand)..

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  Oubliette

  New Day: what has shaken me to the core is the abysmal "generation" teaching with zero scriptural support, and the exhortation to blindly follow the slave,  again with no backup.

  What? You mean the use of the word "evidently" is not sufficient to convince you of the veracity of this teaching?

  
  
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  39

  received revealing "witness" in parking lot

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a few weeks ago i was working out of my home state and was in a grocery store parking lot when i received my first jw witness since leaving jwdom.

  a youngish-looking lady was sitting in an suv parked next to my car and i was about to get in my car to leave.

  she opened the door and asked whether she could give me something to read (had a tract in her hand)..

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  Oubliette

  
  

  Magnum: I kind of like the fact that he wasn't a flashy dresser and didn't seem to want as much attention as the GB members do today.

  You mean this:
  

  

  
  

  Definitely a Glamour Fashion Don't!
  

  
  

  In contrast to this:

  

  
  

  Little Stevie Lett likes his little pinky ring!
  

  
  

  Or this:

  

  
  

  And o'l ToMo likes his Purple Ties!

  
  
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  37

  To Blue Dot or Not to Blue Dot. That is the question ....

  by Oubliette in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i've been noticing recently that some khs in the area where i live (socal) are putting up the jw.org little blue dot, but others are not.

  i would think this would be a mandatory directive from hq.

  does anyone here have any intel on the matter?.

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  Oubliette

  So I've been noticing recently that some KHs in the area where I live (SoCal) are putting up the JW.ORG little blue dot, but others are not.

  
  I would think this would be a mandatory directive from HQ.
  

  Does anyone here have any intel on the matter?

  
  

  
  
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  30

  The Opal Ring: a story based on the true life of Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Julia Orwell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's finally finished!

  it's a fictional story about an old jw.

  it is very long, about 7000 words.. the opal ring.

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  Oubliette

  Julia,

  I had another thought: I was an elder in the US for over 20 years and I never once heard another elder refer to anything as "the ‘apostasy’ question."

  I heard it asked (and may have even asked it of other), but no one here ever used that term.

  Unless it's different where you are (New Zealand? Australia?), you may just want to have the antagonist, Brother Wanis, ask the question and then have Alfred respond indignantly, "How dare you question my loyalty after all my years of faithful service to Jehovah ..... "

  Oubliette

  
  
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  39

  received revealing "witness" in parking lot

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a few weeks ago i was working out of my home state and was in a grocery store parking lot when i received my first jw witness since leaving jwdom.

  a youngish-looking lady was sitting in an suv parked next to my car and i was about to get in my car to leave.

  she opened the door and asked whether she could give me something to read (had a tract in her hand)..

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  Oubliette

  Fred Franz was a nut, but at least his ideas were interesting and had a creative shred of plausibility.

  The modern GB's ideas such as the "overlapping generation" are just silly nonsense. How can you have an intelligent, meaningful conversation about goofy ideas that are incoherent? You can't.

  Let's just do the happy dance and pretend we have "the Truth!"

  
  
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  39

  received revealing "witness" in parking lot

  by Magnum in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a few weeks ago i was working out of my home state and was in a grocery store parking lot when i received my first jw witness since leaving jwdom.

  a youngish-looking lady was sitting in an suv parked next to my car and i was about to get in my car to leave.

  she opened the door and asked whether she could give me something to read (had a tract in her hand)..

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  Oubliette

  I believe that in a few more years even GB members won’t be familiar with the old JWdom. JWdom is in a transitional phase in that area, also. I bet Mark Sanderson knows less actual JW history than a lot of us do. The current GB members (GB 2.0) know less about old JWdom than GB 1.0, and GB 3.0 will know very little.

  I suspect this is already the case. How would Sanderson know all about the looney ideas of Russell, Rutherford or Fred Franz?
  
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  30

  The Opal Ring: a story based on the true life of Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Julia Orwell in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's finally finished!

  it's a fictional story about an old jw.

  it is very long, about 7000 words.. the opal ring.

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  Oubliette

  Julia aka Sheree Stokell, 

  Thanks for sharing. You obviously put a lot of work into this story. I'm sure it was both painful and healing at the same time.

  You had some nice moments of great prose. One of my favorites was this line:
  

  His feelings crushed in upon themselves and lay in a wreck like a collapsed house of cards.

  I also appreciated Alfred's musing about "how Brother Morris was so familiar with what homosexuals liked."

  Nice touch.

  The twist about the opal stone was an excellent piece of story-telling. The sad ending is of course all too true for so many ex-JWs.

  The overall story arc is good. That being said, and this is just my opinion so take it for what it's worth, I found a lot of your narrative to be too on the nose. I appreciate more subtlety in fiction. You don't have to explain everything. Certainly, any ex-JW or anyone that wishes-they-were-an-exJW will get your points without  a lot of frankly unnecessary explanation.

  Are you familiar with the axiom of "show me, don't tell me" in reference to writing fiction? The most effective writers generally do much less explaining and let the reader get from the story what they get from the story. Give it some thought. I think a lot of your paragraphs can be trimmed down and the end result would be a lot more powerful.

  Also, some of your sentences are kind of convoluted and hard to understand. Consider cutting some of the longer ones down.
  

  For example, this sentence:

  Alfred’s heart now had a great big empty place where Barbara once lived as part of him.

  This is a really good sentence that would be stronger without the unnecessary tag at the end:

  Alfred’s heart now had a great big empty place where Barbara had lived as part of him.

  After describing their loveless relationship of friendly convenience, you wrote:
  

  Their religion forbade divorce except for when one spouse cheated, which was something neither Barbara or Alfred would consider due to their good standing in the congregation and fear of reprisal.

  Any JW or ex-JW knows all of this. You really don't need to explain. It seems heavy-handed and preachy.

  I do like how you handle your exchanges of dialogue. I think overall you use dialogue effectively to move the story along, especially during the "apostasy trial." Still, you do (what I think is) a lot of unnecessary explaining. Just tell the story. You shouldn't also explain what everything means as if we don't know. We do know. Frankly, anyone that wouldn't understand the points you are making wouldn't ever read this story any ways. Consider your audience.

  Here are a few resources you might find helpful in tightening up what I think could prove to be a very powerful story.

  • The Art of the Short Story - Dana Gioia & Gwynn
  • Creating Short Fiction - Damon Knight
  • Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules For Writing Fiction
  • The 50 Best Short Stories of All Time

  
  

  I know how it can be to share your creative works with strangers. It's a vulnerable thing to do. I applaud you for that.

  Please take my suggestions in the spirit in which they are intended, to help you become a better writer.

  And keep in mind that everything I have written is just my opinion!

  Keep writing. I look forward to reading more of your work.

  Oubliette

  BTW, I love the title!
  

  
  

  
  

   
  

  
  
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  20

  A quick summary of topics and issues wrong with jws

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  you know how our minds often get all "fuzzy" and confused when we are put on the spot and asked to come up with points?

  we often tend to lose focus and go off on tangents?.

  im trying to compile a basic list of bullet points for the most obvious and clear problems / doctrines / history of witnesses that can blow the org out of the water.. it is more for the purpose of getting my own thoughts clear rather than using it to talk to witnesses (as that doesn't really work).

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  Oubliette

  
  

  • A focus on the tightness of one's pants and the color of their socks rather than on the quality of their character
  • The demonizing of higher education
  • tv.jw.org
  • the constant begging for money
  • shunning
  • the blood doctrine
    

  
  
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  50

  Hello

  by Garrett in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hello forum,.

  i'm new here and not sure where to post.

  so, i'm 21 years old and currently a baptized witness, however, i'm slowly making my mind up to leave and here's why.. first, there are certain things that make no sense to me in the organization.

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  Oubliette

  Garrett,

  Don't write a letter. It will only make things worse. Just leave, or better yet--since you haven't gone to a meeting in 2 weeks--just stay away. Don't go back.

  Fading is a slow and painful process. Simply stopping is much better (although not everyone can emotionally pull it off).

  When the elders do start hounding you say something like, "I told you, 'I'm depressed,' please just leave me alone."

  If they ask anything else, especially "loyalty questions," just repeat the above.

  I recommend reading Steven Hassan's book, Releasing the Bonds. It's very helpful.

  
  

  

  
  

  Best wishes,

  Oubliette