by sir82 47 Replies latest jw friends
I'm with Flipper. All I can muster is pity.
I would pay good cash money, right out of my own pocket, to see a trend chart on the average age of a Witness from 1900 til today. I'm willing to bet--at least when one is looking at the data for the Western world--that it is several years higher than it was before. Of course all bets are off in the third world, where the deception (predictably) is selling like gangbusters.
About 7 or 8 years ago i went to a carnival with a witness girl we were wating in line and she looked around and with a look of glee and amazed joy said CAN YOU IMAGINE SOMEDAY EVREYONE IN THIS PLACE WILL BE DEAD! ......that says it all doesnt it she was 11 or 12 years old
Out of the mouth of babes......
It's really funny watching JW kids who haven't been taught selective verbalization skills blast everyone around them with one of the WT truthful gems.
It's even funnier watching the adults hem and haw trying to clean up what their kid just said.
This is really a good topic because I like so many here have been impacted
by the lies of the Witchtower Babel and Trick Society. Recently I was
visiting with some of my "in the Truth" family and they are struggling
with economic conditions. One of them said that things are so bad now that
the end has just got to be near. I told him that things were alot worse during the
Great Depression and WWII. He just gave me a weird look.
Sour Grapes
History tends to repeat itself....
Is this any different Rutherofrd's era when he figured out there was no way to extend Russell's fantasies?
Don't get me wrong, I feel very bad (even flaming angry at times) for these individudals
This generation...like people my age or a bit older who did NOT see the Great Depression...think this is BAD. They dont have a means of comparison. I think my father who was in WWII and is 85 and was very very poor during the depression, when banks failed and people were committing suicide and there were NO jobs... and now lives in a nice suburban house and has great health care and retirement money...would beg to differ that this time is ANYWHERE NEAR as bad as that was. This is an economic slump for sure...but no way as bad. Or how about when MILLIONS of people were dying of the plague? Does a handful of people dying of swine flu qualify?
Nope...the JWs today are PRAYING for the end to come to end THEIR waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting.....
"The loving thing would be for the org to start making plans for all the 'homeless' elderly. Nursing homes - even commune-type housing - seems like it will be needed soon. At least then they legitimately be considered charitable."
Maybe they could buy Neverland off the Jackson Estate and make it look kind of like the paradise that never happened for old Witnesses that don't have anything because they believed the Watchtower's lies. I guess you could still call it Neverland because the Watchtower would never do anything that charitable.
I've written a few times about the wacko elder who often dramatically intones about how "the end isn't close...it is IMMINENT!". I just found out he is facing foreclosure on his house, and the business he founded and is co-owner of is floundering. Imagine the desperation - 59 years old and nothing to show for all those years. House gone, money gone, retirement funds gone.....
I think this is the main reason why, as you say, so many Witnesses are desperate to see The End come. This religion in many ways, does not teach you how to live in the present, it's always about living in the future, where there's no such thing as a mortgage, Visa, MasterCard or the telephone or cable bill at the end of the month. Most Witnesses do not have a good education and live hand to mouth as a result. But since credit is so easy to get, many of them get huge mortgages and ring up their credit cards, believing that the Day of Reckoning will never materialize thanks to the promise of the Big A wiping the slate clean. Sure, why not live high on the hog for the next 2 or 3 years----after that, it's easy sailing.
This is the exact same mentality that the brothers and sisters had in the years leading up to 1975. We all know that many sold their homes and businesses, fully expecting that they'd have enough to carry them through to the New System. I guess they didn't read the fine print.
My former best friend's parents were and still are, fanatical Witnesses. They sold their house in 1987 for about $85,000. They were so sure that Armageddon was only a few years away, that they didn't want to be bothered with a house anymore, and so they moved into an apartment building instead and began to pioneer. That sort of thinking never made any sense to me because now you've got to pay rent every month whereas if they had stayed in the house, they'd have no mortgage to pay as it had been paid off a few years previously.
This brother was a cleaner (big surprise there eh?) and ended up with some sort of disability that affected him greatly. Yet he had always been self-employed so he had to keep working. He never paid into a pension, had any savings other than the money from his house, no RRSP's or anything. He's now nearly 70 years old, still works even though it kills his back, because they blew all the money from the sale of their house and have absolutely nothing to live on. I saw him at a funeral last year and he was telling me how "close" we are to The End and that he'd be surprised if this System 'lasted another 2 years.'
Can't help but wonder if he regrets being dumb enough to sell his house like that. Funny, the people who bought it off of him 22 years ago recently sold it for $267,000. Had they been smart enough and held onto the house until now, they could have at least bought a smaller house, banked the remainder and had a bit of a steady income.
My parents are having their second new kitchen in 3 years fitted right now. Directly after they've had a new bathroom installed. Oh, and they're going on holiday to France for 3 weeks. They cheerily tell me and my DFd brother that they're spending our 'inheritance'. Any desperation they may feel is demonstrating itself in greater overdrafts at the bank and frequent trips to the DIY superstore.
I had to bite my tongue from asking what they're doing spending all this money when Armageddon is right around the corner.*
*we agreed a truce a couple of months ago....
altho i have no contact with JWs
there were several that i genuinely
cared for and respected ....
it is sad to consider that some of
the older and aging dubs will end
up impoverished because of a
loyalty to a manipulating and
self-serving publishing company....
they are to be pitied
