FACIAL HAIR

by JOLLYME 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  marked

  I have a "soul patch" (you know, the little jazzy beard under the bottom lip).

  Not a lot of hair, but it was enough to get me ostracized by the higher and mightier of the cong members. I was allowed to say prayers at the bookstudy though, mostly because our conductor was a sweet old man who was too weathered and wise to give a shit about that kind of thing.

  I guess it just amounts to yet another rule that's never explicitly stated, but always heavily, heavily implied - like much of WTS doctrine...

  marked
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  RR

  I did know a brother who had a beard, because he had a skin problem. The closes I came to facial hair was a little patch of hair I had under my botton lip, the CO told me indirectly to shave it. I kept it!

  RR
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  laurelin

  I think this is a perfect case of every congregation kinda does what it wants.

  In our congregatin it isn't a problem. But if you go to some congregations in Portsmouth it is a problem (especially around the university area). I was told that it all depends on the styles used in your area. For example around the uni's their are several fraction groups that have a certain style of dress and a certain style of beard (goatee). The brothers there are advised not to have beards the same because people will associate them with students (Not certain how this would apply to a seventy year old! But then having said that there are few seventy year olds still worrying about image and keeping up with styles!)

  My father had a skin complaint and could not shave. He grew a full face beard and kept it neatly groomed and it wasn't a problem to rational thinking people. But there were some who viewed it highly suspciously but it's always struck me that these people were the ones who weren't quite right up top anyway.
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  Elsewhere

  The whole facial hair thing is really just a test the WTS uses to see if someone will be blindly submissive. If they can get a person to obey something as minor and arbitrary as not growing facial hair, then they know they have another person willing to be submissive without question.

  If a person opts for the "personal choice" of growing facial hair, the WTS knows that the person is likely to question and is likely to refuse to accept other teachings.

  It is a mind control litmus test.
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  lazyslob

  I think you got it right Else. The sad thing is that most of us looks better the less you can see of our faces.
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  Xander

  Well, all I can say is that growing the goatee (which I've always wanted) was one of the first things I did when I started losing interest in the meetings. Wife liked it a LOT.

  We hit up a few meetings now and then (we 'faded' out) with it, and it did generate some looks. Never got counselled for it, but, then, we HAD just moved to a new hall, so I wasn't even GIVING talks yet to be removed from doing so....