Expressing love in a positive way compared to JW "TRUTH"

by Terry 22 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Satanus

  So, this is where the saying originated. Thanks for putting it here.

  ' So he lied to the little girl. Not cool.'

  Kids need some protection from cold hard facts of life. They will learn them soon enough. Truth about the wt is it has a LONG history of lying to kids AND adults.

  'Do you find it acceptable that a religious leader would give a seemingly Christian meaning to events and symbols whose roots go back to ancient paganism? '

  There is a long tradition among the human species of festivals celebrating different aspects of life, festivals to brighten up the day and night. These kinds of things are needed by humanity to cheer us along. Today, we see them as well in the many sporting events, rock concerts etc. I find it, not just acceptable, but, entirely appropriate that the spiritual father of millions would rise to the occasion an carry the spark of the human spirit. Most people know and understand it's a symbolic ritual.

  It would be interesting to learn more about verginia as her life related to this letter, her beliefs, etc.

  S
• 

  clarity

  Fascinating ... fairies dancing on the lawn, santa claus bringing presents, sleigh rides, jack frost ... these are the stuff of whimsy. Without this gentle comfort, this cushioning of the psyche, we lose our natural childlike belief and hope that things will be ok.

  ("Unless you turn around and become as young children, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of the heavens" matt18:3)

  I for one loved xmas and miss the wonderful aura surrounding it, we've become so cynical by hearing all the jw bad news and the only answer according to the watchtower is to wait......... for xmas armagddon and watch 6 billion people get exterminated!

  c
• 

  MrFreeze

  Is Santa Claus real? Does it matter if you tell your child he does? Which response brings more joy to children? I say, the best things about kids is their imagination. Let kids be kids. The watchtower insists on taking the innocence out of children.
• 

  thetrueone

  Do you find it acceptable that a religious leader would give a seemingly Christian meaning to events and symbols

  whose roots go back to ancient paganism? '

  Do you find it acceptable that a religious leader would make up a fictitious lie regarding the return of Christ Jesus

  just so to help him sell magazines and books, since the originator of the lie itself comes from Satan the Devil ?

  Most seemingly intelligent people have come to realize now that the JW TRUTH is a prospering lie.
• 

  Terry

  It is clear that Watchtower "Truth" is clinical, detached and irrelevent to human needs and this is good enough for them.

  Moreover, if you feel something unapproved you are dehumanized.

  I was taught to view life with clinical detachment and it removed a lot of enjoyment from breathing out and in.

  Being a "good" JW is like being in a comatose state hooked up to a respirator.
• 

  What Now?

  Thanks Terry, this was such a nice post. Childhood SHOULD be full of magic and make-believe. I don't think there are many adults that are permanently scarred because their parents LIED to them about Santa Claus!
• 

  applehippie

  I was raised as JW and I never knew anything else. We 'celebrated' our parents anniversary in January with dinner and gifts for whole family. I think it helped a lot. My Mom and Pop were very reasonable with us as children within the organization. After I was married, my husband did not follow this practice and I kind of missed it. After my second daughter was born I guess I was sort of looking for something special and magical to share with her- but not really break rules with. (more like bend I guess...) I started playing the Tooth fairy....she loved it. I made a special frilly pillow with gold lace and a pocket for the tooth ( I still have all my kids baby teeth) and traded money for it. You know. Well, this went on for a while until she spilled the beans at Book study. The kids really razzed her and told her "no such thing". I had some explaining to do- but I think she really wanted it to be sort of, kind of, true so we still pretended for a while. I think a little bit of fantasy and magic is kind of nice. So much ugly and plain mundane boring stuff in life. The tooth fairy pillow is still somewhere in her treasures even tho she's 20 now and it's a little special thing we have between us.
• 

  Satanus

  The question of whether the santa lie hurts kids or not is answered by virginia, as well:

  '“Even when I knew that he wasn’t a person, there wasn’t any loss, because of growing up with this wonderful letter and beautiful response,” Mrs. Hromalik said. “When my two children got to the age where they knew there wasn’t Santa the person, they got worried about telling me that. They knew that Mom believed in Santa Claus.”

  Still, even the relatives of little Virginia have just as much trouble as any other adults when it comes to navigating the Santa-belief dilemma.

  Mr. Temple, a retired manager with the New York State Department of Transportation, gets choked up recalling the November afternoon when Maggie was questioning if Santa was real. Here he was, driving his grandchildren to the movies, when Maggie and James began pondering Santa’s existence, as their great-great-grandmother had famously done 113 years earlier.

  “What’s going through my mind?” Mr. Temple said. “Don’t do anything that’s going to make her not believe.”'

  ' Miss O’Hanlon, who had one child and never remarried, received a doctorate in education from Fordham University. In her 1930 doctoral dissertation, “The Importance of Play,” which examines the history and meaning of childhood play, she described the lack of playthings in many homes and neighborhoods.

  “The pushcart displays an occasional doll or tea set for sale but not such as make glad the heart of childhood,” she wrote. In that last phrase she was quoting, nearly 33 years later, Mr. Church’s editorial, which refers to Santa continuing to “make glad the heart of childhood.”'

  S
• 

  poppers

  My mother used to answer the question this way: Santa Claus is as real as you want him to be.
• 

  satinka

  Thanks for sharing that news clipping, Terry. That is a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l answer to a child filled with wonder.

  

  satinka