by TD 23 Replies latest jw friends
It must be distressing for you Gorby.
It is also very hard to get on the same wavelength with people who have willingly given up their personal choices in life, their career, their ambitions and even handed over their own conscience to eight men they don't even know -- who live in a metaphorical bunker in New York State.
It says something about an individual's view of themselves to want to become a doormat and be proud of it.
Sometimes I forget how small-minded, petty, provincial, mean-spirited ignorant and judgemental it was and still is...
True TD but you forgot self righteous, arrogant, prejudice, apathetic, pretentious, corrupt
Jws can be .
It like talking to a wall, actually you will have a better convo with a wall. and they say drugs kill brain cells. I would argue this cult kills more.
This is another problem their blatant hypocrisy, as shown by Gorby's experience, " then they began being angry "we are free to say what we want".
But we are not ! as soon as we say anything "against" the religion, even though what we say is perfectly true, we are shut down. As soon as we talk about political matters, maybe something as mildly political as criticising our particular Government's handling of the pandemic, they get all shifty and uncomfortable and won't converse about it.
One Rule for them, and one for us. Conversation about anything more interesting than their bad back or whatever ? forget it. Discussion in a civilised, intelligent and in depth way upon anything ? don't even consider it, it isn't that they do not want to, it is that they are simply incapable of that.
This makes any verbal contact with them both boring and pointless.
@Phizzy, you are right! It's a one way communication. They send. Others have to listen.
This was the first time that some family, visiting, didn't act like visitors. They act like my nice, park style backyard was a battleground for free speech.
So, new guest list the next summer 😆
I type this smiley, but i am still flabbergasted about it. It was so extreme and so loud, al these sect speech.
G.
Then they begon talking louder about the pioneer school, the Zoom meetings and that we are in the end of the end times.
--Or going on loudly about disturbances caused by demons, angelic protection, and other imagined supernatural events.
@TD can you imagine in a country like The Netherlands / Holland were most people don't believe anything, a neighbour's backyard is making a lot of noise about these subjects. Good for the neighbourhood gossip.
G.
Where I'm from, it wasn't quite like that. Sure, there were those who couldn't think or do anything but Watchtower business, but even the local elders and pioneers would think those people were creepy and mentally ill. I knew one guy who spent 4 hours every single day on his "personal study." Nobody liked being around him, not even his wife.
If anything, I think we were all too happy to talk about something other than the same damn thing we were instructed to listen to, read, meditate, and speak about every single day of our lives.
Our conversations in service we're usually about entertainment, hobbies, news, humor etc. Rarely intellectual (I tried sometimes with little luck...), but also rarely boring.
It's part of what kept me going in the religion for so long. It's also part of why I sometimes defend JWs from the most absurd of accusations against them. I couldn't see how bizare it really was because I really did have some cool friends who somehow remained normal-ish despite how much of their lives they gave up to WT.
There were always some people who treated it like a religion and some who treated it like a cult. One problem was, those who treated it like a religion wouldn't ever want to moderate those who treated it like a cult. Who were we to interfere with someone else's "zeal"?
Ah, yes. The cool congregations. Lots of pioneers because they actually had fun tearing around the territory.
I grew up in a fuddy fuddy congregation. There were 2 pioneers.
Everybody left that congregation, either to try to endure being a Witness in a cooler congregation or to leave the religion entirely.
But, no one stayed.
@GrreatTeacher
I've come to the realization that my experience was far from universal.
I'm still in one-foot-out mode. I know what direction I'm headed, but it's hard to wrap my head around the fact that I'm soon to be an outsider.
All the great memories I had with all the great people I knew, now completely tarnished by the fact that it was all based on the Watchtower's lies and my own desperate delusions.
I still wish it was all true. I might always have to struggle with that.
