by bruh2012 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Life is to short
said,
'...I was just amazed at how most of the JW's could care less about Bethel. In fact most of the JW's in the hall we went to in Brooklyn had never even been to visit Bethel. All they had to do was take a train ride and well over half the hall had never been to Bethel even through they lived in New York.'
Are you sure?
That doesn't sound like the Bethel Caleb and his family visited.
Really sad to see innocent people get taken and their lives in a shamble.
wallsofjericho
You wrote "as I get older I have concluded that it's not about a lack of love, it's just that people have their own lives & problems and don't particularly care about yours. Why should they bail you out? Who's bailing them out? No one, they have to deal with all their own problems and if your dumb enough to buy into the WTS hype about all those awesome blessings then you can bless your way back to reality with the rest us."
I understand some of what you are saying but when you are young and this religon is all you have ever known, than to have someone your age up there conducting the WT and praising what it says. Glorifying what the GB is asking for us to give up everything and saying how great the expreances are and what blessings from Jehovah we would receive if we did what is asked. What are the young ones to think.
I know, I know, I was stupid and have only myself to blame. I get that now, I was very stupid, because I never really looked at what you were doing yourself. How you were not buying into the hype but I was always taught by ones like you to keep my blinders on and not to look at what other people were doing only what Jehovah wanted me to do and when you are on the stage spouting off while conducting the WT or during the service meeting telling me as a parrot for the GB that I should be doing this and telling me it was coming from Jehovah. How can you not feel you have some skin in the game for causing the ruin of people's lives.
I know when we were selling off our few possessions we had older ones in the "truth" offer us a dime on a dollar for what we had. We heated our home with wood and we had over six cords of wood we needed to sell as we went to Bethel in December. Cords of wood were going for $125 a cord back than in our area. This one elder knew we needed to sell it but he thought no one would buy it from us so two day, two days mind you before we were leaving he came to us and offered us $ 20.00 a cord. He thought we would just jump on it. I was so mad. We had luckly fortunately already sold it but the look on this elders face was like WHAT!!!!! This thief had not gotten on the wood he needed because he was banking on us just jumping at his kind offer.
Thoes are the kinds of things that even now, even though I know I was stupid still get to me. Why wallsofjericho are you still in, still misleading people by being there even if you are not an elder or MS you are still supporting it by just being part of it.
You say they can just bless themselves back to the reality with the rest of us. We did but it sure would have been nice not to have been mislead in the first place and to have been told the honest truth,
LITS
Now that I think about it, I certainly did use alot of my personal funds on these building projects. 15 years as a dept. head, monthly having to travel great distantinces, stay several days at your own expense, then going to other states for relief work, MY GOD, I Spent alot of my own money for this and where is my reward????
How ironic: Christendom pays for it's missionaries, priests, gives them lodging, food, something to live off of. How does the jw.borg treat their volunteers? Why, by expecting everything from them, while giving them NOTHING in return except a kick in the ass and a silver screw as they are booted out the door. Some Christian love those posuers got going on there, huh? I'm so glad I never fell for what they were continually shoveling. I was always pissed that my parents were always trying to "encourage" me to pioneer, or shoot for Bethel service. Huh? What for? To live a controlled life of perpetual poverty and boredom? To be used and then tossed out on your ass once you reached retirement age? NO THANKS!
- Wing Commander
Actually wing commander its even worse. While at bethel we were constantly reminder that it was our privledge to donate back to the desert god
Yes Justnowout I remember one time we had just recived out monthly stipend and at morning worship that day the GB memeber conducting tryed to guilt us all into putting in at least $1.00 to help out some natural disater somewher. I remember the guilt was huge to us at Bethel. The GB who was talking went on and on about how good we had it at Bethel and how we should give even more than the dollar but at the very least we all needed to give at least a dollar.
A dollar to me at that time was huge as all we had was the stupid stipend and it did not go very far with having to pay for rides to the meetings and buying toothpast, etc that Bethel did not provide. I never gave the dollar but I felt horribly guilty at the time. Now I think what a waste of my life to feel the guilt when I was giving my life to them. It just makes me so mad now that they had the gull to even ask us.
LITS
Marking this, I've enjoyed everyones comments, and I have some personal comments I'll post when it is not so late.
Life is too Short: You are being waaaaaaaay too hard on yourself. You believed and you did everything you could so that you would be able to volunteer...because you had a good heart and a willing spirit. Don't keep dissing yourself. I used to dream of going to Bethel and helping, or being a missionary, but I was/am a nobody in the JW world so that never happened. Don't feel badly because you were loving, kind and willing to give up all you had. You aren't the one who should feel badly.....the people who hurt you and used you are the folks who should feel guilty and beg your forgiveness.
AND you weren't/aren't stupid. Quit saying that. You thought everyone had the goodness that you do....you had to find out the hard way that this isn't true.
Anyway, Take care.
AB
Thank you for your comments, and I can understand; I have worked in many lands outside of the United States for the WTBTS. I left a business that my father had started, to work in the "International Work" as it was then called. I feel now that I was "guilted" into it at conventions, and assemblies, because I was doing pretty good for a twenty two year old man, and made to feel that I should do more for kingdom advancement.
I left the family business just before the economy started to stumble in the late 1980's. I didn't leave because the economy was slowing down, but felt that when I left I had left behind a profitable job to do construction work that I didn't get paid for; but my "new" work was of a "spiritual nature", for the advancement of the kingdom, blah, blah, blah, and I felt like there was more to life than just making money. Which there is.
I returned "home" about five years later and the economy was still slumbering and I had to do a lot of odd humbling jobs for work, but, about a year later the economy just started to take off. We were not anything special, but we were at the right place at the right time, and we enjoyed about ten years of strong growth and profitability. I remember my family members saying that "Jehovah was blessing us", (basically financially) because several other fleshly brothers after me had entered the full time work doing the same thing, and that the "blessing from Jehovah" was dependent on our faithfulness and continued devotion to supporting the WTBTS,,,,.... AND my fleshly brothers.
I recently saw a video that my wife had told me about the construction in Tuxedo/Warwick New York that my brother was in. My brother looked like a bobble head when on camera. I couldn't make it through the video, as it just disgusted me. The theme of the video was basically how happy everyone is working at Warwick for WTBTS. Basically, it was an infomercial for coming to Warwick and working for freeeeeeee. Knowing what I know now, it Made me sick to watch it.
I now realize how foolish I was. However, I don't tell anyone that I worked for WTBTS or was a "Jw", but I describe my work as working for a non-profit organization, building schools (JW's were calling the branches "educational centers") for disadvantaged people, and teaching my trade to the local people. This is how I live with myself for my being a sucker.
Was there evidence of Jehovah's Blessing? After Dad's death, The two brothers that we had supported in the full time work in WTBTS construction came home and didn't want to work in the business, but they greedily wanted a weekly paycheck, and when that wasn't enough or fast enough, they wanted to liquidate the company. So the company that fed them for years was liquidated, and I don't think they have anything to show for it now.
Again, Was there evidence of Jehovah's Blessing? I haven't been to a meeting in nearly four years, and I'm doing as well as I ever have financially. But I don't stop working the overtime to go to a meeting or take off work so I can work for free on the new Warwick Headquarters. As far as any help from "the friends"? Well that is a joke, hardly anyone ever invited us over, and I never received a "green hand shake". Further, I didn't go to any meetings when I was pursueing a "worldly" degree in higher education.
Was there evidence of Jehovah's Blessing? You decide.
