happy witnesses?

Realist

i attended sunday meetings at least half a dozen times. what i noticed is that the witnesses seem to be very happy people. is that true or just a fassade?
if they are indeed happy, despite a total lack of intellectual stimulation during these meetings, then let them be witnesses! :)

spender

They're not. Look at the kids tugging on their parents' arms. They want to get the hell out of there. If you're just observing you might think they're all happy, but you don't know what all is going on. For instance, you don't know all the people that are at odds with each other and are just being friendly to each other because it's "scriptual" to do so...there were a lot of jerks and people I did not like at all in our kingdom hall, but we still had to make the impression that we liked them.

Leander

While it may be true that there are some in attendance who are happy you'll probably also find that there are quite a few people who are counting the time to get out of there. I can't even remember all the times that I've been at assemblies and have noticed myriads of elders and ministerial servants talking about sports, jobs and anything else they can think of to kill time until the meeting ends.

Fredhall

Spender,

I see many kids who don't go to Kingdom Halls are not happy either. So, should we put the unhappy kids from all beliefs in a special unhappy church?

Xenu

Realist;

Servants of the Most Holy One are not immune to unhappiness. Many servants have faced difficult situations, some being suicidal, some
being asked to be removed from their assignmnet. You can find ones who were like this by opeining to the Holy Book of The Saint and the Holy writings of the Ancient prophets. Modern day servants are no different.

SYN

Pavlov could get dogs to drool when he rang a bell. In a similiar way, the Elders drill Witnesses to smile and "associate" nicely whenever they hear a Kingdom Song.

Only there is less drooling. They trained that one out of them a while back.

Xenu: Ah yes, the Holy Book Of The Saints.

1. Which Holy Book? The New Testament? HAHAHAHA! Damn, that's funny!
2. They're just putting on a show, baby, and you know I'm right.

During a code review, when I asked why there was not a comment in 240,000 lines of code which was getting handed to me for maintenance, the programmer replied, "I'm terse."

LDH

There was a sister in my old cong--she had a permasmile much like a permafrost.

No matter what, it was there. I used to think she was so happy, until I got to know her life a little better. Married for 30 years (15 years ago!)--she had 7 children and lived with her husband's mom in a house that was entirely too small for all of them.

They lived about 35 minutes one-way away from the KH, and frequently were late. You'd think those in the cong would have just been happy to see them show up (who wants to freakin milk cows and then drive 45 minutes in the snow and ice for a one hour-forty five minute meeting?)

Anyhow, this sister LOVED to watch ice-skating on TV. She always said in the new system she is going to learn to skate like that! Knowing what I know now, I don't think I would steal that from her. After a lifetime of serving others interests, I'd hate to tell her there won't be a new system, and due to a lifetime of selling magazines and books, she threw away her chance to learn how to skate.....

She thinks she is happy.

Lisa

Had Enough

if they are indeed happy, despite a total lack of intellectual stimulation during these meetings, then let them be witnesses! :)

While it may be true that they seem to be happy, most truly are not. They are required to be there despite whatever problem or pressure may be troubling them.

When I attended I remember, we were told :
- that we are "God's happy people" so we were made to feel we must live up to that name or else we would not be giving a good witness to the "world".

- that no matter how ill we felt with a headache, a cold or whatever, we should be at the meeting.(I remember asking an elder if it shouldn't it be announced that if you are sick with the flu or cold (something contagious), please stay home to not spread it around? His answer to me was: "If we say that, then everyone will use that as an excuse to miss meetings". (Really!! I'm not exaggerating one bit)

- that no matter how down or upset over problems we are, we should be at the meetings (I was also told that when one time I was so upset over a problem that I broke down crying when I went to pick up my friend to drive her to the meeting...she invited me in so we could talk instead of going to the meeting. Later when I explained to my JW brother why I missed the meeting, his response was typical..."you should have gone to the meeting anyway, that's where you belong".

But the most important reason to not just let them be, is that so many of them are not informed of the lies and coverups and errors in the JW teachings.

I was a typical JW who believed that we were the ONLY true religion, the only one God was directing with his holy spirit, the only one being blessed for worshipping Him the way He required. When I started to find out the real truth, I was devastated but I wouldn't trade knowing what I do now, for being back living a lie.

I feel like it is very important for anyone to be able to make an INFORMED choice about whether to be a JW or not....informed with the true facts. Then if one, after being informed, still chooses to stay or become a JW, then that's their freedom of choice. At least they will be doing so, knowing all the facts.

But as it is now, I can't conscientiously sit back and not somehow try to expose the wrongs and errors and coverups.

We used to give as an example for the reason we went from door to door preaching was: "if we saw our neighbour in danger in a burning building, we would certainly do all we could to warn them and help them get out of that danger. We feel this system of things is going to be destroyed and we want to warn people and help as many people possible to be saved into God's new system of things."

Well that same example applies to how many of us feel about the JWs still in the org....many of them being our own blood relatives.

Their stand on blood transfusion, for one thing, is taking lives of innocent children who can't decide for themselves as well as adults who have not been honestly informed of the truth about the scripture they wrongly use. They need to be warned of the false application so they can save themselves "from that burning building".

They are told that God's holy spirit directs the "faithful and discreet slave" to feed the flock with spiritual food from God. They need to be warned of the JW publications the WTS has printed, that have purposely misrepresented quotations from other books as though these support the JW belief.

There is alot more they need to be warned of, but I'm sure you can understand why we can't just "let them be witnesses". At least if they choose to be, let it be made from an informed choice.

Had Enough

"Never doubt that a small group of citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."...Margaret Mead

og

So, should we put the unhappy kids from all beliefs in a special unhappy church?

Fred, that was actually sort of funny. Who wrote that for you?

re: topic - I think this Hungarian proverb applies: Those who believe are happy, those who doubt are wise.

AjaxMan

Can we all include JW's kids in that special unhappy church?

happy witnesses?

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