by under_believer 38 Replies latest jw friends
Does anyone else regard hitting the 'Random Page' button on Wikipedia as a leisure activity?
Yeah, I read the Aid Book... and dictionaries... and wonderful books on science that planted all sorts of seeds of doubt, thank god.
I also love Scf-fi, always did. I must say of ALL sci-fi books SIASL is probably one that would put most Dubbies into convulsions... and she was down on the Hardy boys!
I enjoyed the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew books when I was a kid (though my Dad always deliberately misnamed them the Nancy Boys and Hardy Drew stories - used to annoy me , that! )
I know some Witnesses just as self-righteous, so I can quite believe the library incident. People who act like that probably have a lot to hide themselves. The fact is that NO ONE can live up to Watchtower standards. Guilt is dispersed so widely that even the most loyal devoted Witness will be made to feel that he should be ashamed of something, whether it be as harmless as being 'too friendly' with workmates or the terrible sin of 'doubt'. So Witnesses tend to descend into one of two positions as a result:
1. Feeling guilty constantly that you can't make the standard, thinking everyone else is better than you, and hoping no one 'finds you out'.
2. Rationalising away your own failures to meet Watchtower standards, magnifying the failures of others, doing your best to make others miserable because of where you think they are 'falling short'.
I have got a lot of time for Witnesses in the first category, and I have no time for the latter ones I describe.
Either way the Watchtower system makes liars of all of us, because there is no scope for open discussion and honest admissions of shortcomings. Everyone must pretend and go along with the game or get chucked out.
Mark Twain, as part of a comment on the banning of Huckleberry Finn from public schools, said," The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean, sweet breath again this side of the grave...."
That lady sounds like a nut job.
I think people like old "Jesus Eyes"(man, that's a good one) are the self-appointed guardians of "the truth". If Jah sees everything you do, then why do people like old "Jesus Eyes" feel they have to go around snooping? Why can't they just "wait on Jehovah" to correct you?
Warlock
Confessions, I'm sorry to hear you gave up on your reading and recording of the Aid book project. I think it might be very enlightening to listen to the tapes PLAYED BACKWARDS!! ( ever notice how a disproportionate number of "anointed ones" had "Jesus Eyes"?)
Maverick: Mark Twain/Sam Clemens was the best! It was reading Huck. Finn/ Tom Sawyer etc at 10 yrs old that set me upon a lifetime of reading books.
About the missionary sister with Jesus Eyes--
She is still "in the truth." Their health problems have caused them to slow down a lot these days, but they're still around. Never did get back into the ministry work. She still has the eyes.
About Jesus Eyes--
These are a component of the affect that some people get when they become religious. Other symptoms include a flat, peaceful voice, slow physical movements, and face that is expressionless other than the wide eyes and a very slight smile. Not a huge grin, just a closed-mouth smile. I have seen many Witnesses adopt this affect, there are always two or three in every congregation. This also seems more common in movements like Pentecostalism that practice "charismatic services."
Another Jesus Eyes story--a few weeks back I was having lunch at the food court in the local shopping mall. There were two Christian (not JW) women sitting at the next table. They both had some kind of annotated Bible open and were having a Bible study. Both of these women had the Jesus Eyes and the rest of the components of that "peaceful believer" affect. At the end of their study they linked hands in the middle of the table and took turns praying. I am not exaggerating when I say that this praying lasted 10 minutes, in public, in the food court of the mall. One of the women was especially animated, I could see her eyebrows and face expressing great ecstasy and pain during her prayer. When she finished there were tears in her eyes.
I think people like old "Jesus Eyes"(man, that's a good one) are the self-appointed guardians of "the truth". If Jah sees everything you do, then why do people like old "Jesus Eyes" feel they have to go around snooping? Why can't they just "wait on Jehovah" to correct you?Warlock
That's what the "Dear Sister" thought Jehovah was doing -- correcting our friend USING HER.
"One of the women was especially animated, I could see her eyebrows and face expressing great ecstasy and pain during her prayer. When she finished there were tears in her eyes."
Wow, excuse me while I pick up my coke and pizza and slowly walk backwards to the other side of the food court!
