i used to have horrible nightmares from the time i was maybe five until i was maybe thirteen that armageddon has come and i'm on jehovah's bad list.
i had them at least three times a week initially, but gradually as i grew older they were less frequent and then they finally stopped altogether...or so i thought.
last night i had one for the first time in at least seven or eight years and it was just as terrifying as it was when i was five.
I used to have Armageddon dreams a lot...usually I was running around trying to save people when the end came, and because I was stuck behind saving people I usually got left out or something. Really scary. And weird!
I was obsessed with Nazis and concentration camps when I was young too! I had nightmares about the Great Tribulation and the 'Gestapo' breaking into the KH and taking my family and friends away. Some pretty gruesome, torturous killing of people I loved, too.
thanks to the policies of j-dud central a lot of people have less than satisfying jobs.
i am one of the fortunate few who loves what he does.
i work for the rich and famous and get to travel a lot.
PIPH - i wanted to go to art school as well..still thinking about going back while i'm still young to study animation or illustration.
Tinkerbell - Too cool! I've been thinking about your post since yesterday...I love animation and comic book style stuff...studying animation hadn't occured to me until I read your post. I'm definitely going to look into it. We should go into business together! LOL!
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at one time i was one of "gods chosen people", part of a special group of people who had exclusive access to hidden truths about the earth and its people.. now of cource i realise i'm just like everyone else and all the puzzles are still there.. kind of miss that feeling sometimes..
then Life begins to look like Macy's in NYC. There are a million more options, a ton more people, elevators that take you to new levels, and better customer service. No. I don't feel like I'm missing anything. I feel more a part of life than I ever have!
LOL! That's great!
Actually things are starting to look that way for me too.
i remember at a district convention in yankee stadium back in the 80's where the district overseer mentioned the possibility of one day being able to share the universe "with other creations of jehovah" as he put it.
it definitely got everyone's attention because he even went so far as to say that perhaps ufos are a creation of jehovah, but we haven't been told of their purpose.
when i heard that i nearly choked on my jw-hoagie.
It definitely got everyone's attention because he even went so far as to say that perhaps UFOs are a creation of Jehovah, but we haven't been told of their purpose.
I'm surpised they didn't take a cane and yank him off stage right then...LOL
Is that brother still a JW?
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at one time i was one of "gods chosen people", part of a special group of people who had exclusive access to hidden truths about the earth and its people.. now of cource i realise i'm just like everyone else and all the puzzles are still there.. kind of miss that feeling sometimes..
I know I'm going to miss that.
I was thinking about that last month...I was out of state and lost. I saw a Kingdom Hall. I tried the door; it was unlocked...and empty! Ha ha. I used the restroom and made some long distance calls (yay for passive aggressive behavior LOL) and waited in the cool air conditioning for my friends to come pick me up.
I was thinking how sad it was that I would no longer belong to a group that had buildings that were exactly the same wherever you went across the country...none of that safe predictability, none of that assuredness of finding a friend and having peace. It felt safe to walk into a KH and find it almost exactly the same as the one back home.
And then I thought...no...what I'm wishing for is someone to take care of me and baby me. That's not what I need...I need to grow up already and learn how to take care of myself, and the WTS doesn't help there. So that was the answer to that...it felt more like the nostalgia of missing your childhood nursery then.
Then I went into a Wal-Mart...and realized that they also are exactly the same all across the country. And I was comforted.
Jehovah's Witnesses...the Wal-Mart of religion. LOL
like my mother before me, im a martyr.
i am almost unable to make a choice based on what is best for me.
and of course this has over time made me a depressed, bitter person who, much to my horror, explodes with rage from time to time.
Time to BE ME.
*breaking into applause*
That's just a beautiful statement to me. It's so sad how many of us are suffering and have suffered...I'm so glad we're able to get to this point where we can realize the problem so we can do something about it...and I'm so glad we can do it together and lean on one another for support. Of course I'm going through all the same things myself, trying to learn who I am and how to be happy being me instead of just pleasing others. It's so encouraging to read about how many of us there are hurting the same way (that's not the encouraging part) and are reaching out to connect and help each other by listening and understanding. It's great. I love it here!
i've been thinking and wondering a lot lately about the existance of god.
i haven't had much chance to talk to atheists before, and i was just wondering what was it that convinced you that there wasn't a god?
i'm not asking whether there's proof of god or not...i'm just curious about personal feelings and experiences, if you don't mind sharing.
How do you convert someone to nothing? Would you not lose your belief in God instead?
Yeah, I didn't word that perfectly. But I figured people would get the general idea of what I was asking.
Thanks for the link, Hamas. I'm checking it out. And thanks for the welcome.
I really appreciate all of you sharing your experiences...I'm relating to a lot of what you're saying, of course.
In my past I have had moments where I felt a closeness to God, like he was right there comforting me, but it was always a very fleeting feeling. I haven't felt it in a long time. I used to take that as an indication that I didn't have any Holy Spirit in my life, but I don't believe that sort of shit anymore. I know that being a good person is enough for me so of course it would be enough for God. So obviously I'm feeling skeptical of everything and I decided to 'experiment' by not saying prayers for a while and seeing what would happen. So far nothing bad... lol I'm not sure what to believe, and I'm not in a rush to adopt any ol' belief system, but it's really interesting reading about how all of you feel and think.
We were posting at the same time, but thanks for your comments Rayzorblade, Crownboy and Loganrun. I figured it had probably been discussed before, but for some reason I seem to understand answers better when I'm the one who asks the question... Dunno why!
i've been thinking and wondering a lot lately about the existance of god.
i haven't had much chance to talk to atheists before, and i was just wondering what was it that convinced you that there wasn't a god?
i'm not asking whether there's proof of god or not...i'm just curious about personal feelings and experiences, if you don't mind sharing.
I've been thinking and wondering a lot lately about the existance of God. I haven't had much chance to talk to atheists before, and I was just wondering what was it that convinced you that there wasn't a God? I'm not asking whether there's proof of God or not...I'm just curious about personal feelings and experiences, if you don't mind sharing.
Many thanks in advance for any responses.
before you go thinking that this is a 'minimus'-type thread, the title i have chosen is the title from the august 15, 2003 watchtower.. the photos on the cover are of a young man (22ish).
in the lower-left corner he is a basketball player.
so, how does the wts want you to be remembered?
ROFL That was hilarious.
It's just so irritating...I just discovered last night that one of the misconceptions I learned from being a JW (that now I'm going to have to take the rest of my life to unlearn, thankyouverymuch) is that you have to be giving to be genuinely happy. I mean you have to be entirely FOCUSED on giving and anything else is selfish and can't make you truly happy. Euphemism finally made me realize that that's a LIE...I still have a hard time internalizing that I can be happy just doing what I want to do in life and not being outwardly focused.
I've been working so hard at being a giving person my whole life that I've been neglecting my best talent, art, and I just learned that, actually, all Jehovah wants for me to be happy, and if art makes me happy, do it. Or whatever your career is. It's not selfish to do something you enjoy for a living! Arrrgh, stupid Watchtower people.
thanks to the policies of j-dud central a lot of people have less than satisfying jobs.
i am one of the fortunate few who loves what he does.
i work for the rich and famous and get to travel a lot.
This is all very sad to me... I am very talented artistically but my parents discouraged me from going into any creative field in favor of something more 'practical' I could do while pioneering. They didn't even really want to fork over enough money to take all the art classes I wanted while still in High School. I really wanted to go to the Seattle Art Institute and become a fashion designer.
Now I am a clerk working in a foodservice corporation. It's mindnumbingly boring...but Euphemism and I are planning on going back to college, and I'm really looking forward to learning all about what interests me. And I want to work in a coffee shop in the interim!
