Posts by OneEyedJoe

31

Young People Ask: I’m Attracted to the Same Sex—Does That Mean I’m Gay?

by pale.emperor in

eurgh!

more patronizing and uninformed reasoning from the "experts" at bethel.

this time tackling the sensitive subject of those attracted the the same sex.

OneEyedJoe

That’s what Lisette, 16, who was at one time attracted to a girl, found. She says: “Through my biology classes in school, I learned that during the adolescent years, hormone levels can fluctuate greatly. I truly think that if more youths knew more about their bodies, they would understand that same-sex attraction can be temporary and they wouldn’t feel the pressure to be gay.”

One chick went through a bi-curious phase (which isn't surprising considering recent studies suggest that no women are completely straight) so that can definitely be generalized to indicate that all same-sex attraction is a passing phase. Yeah, that adds up.

All youths face a choice

I'm gonna shamelessly steal a bit from a stand-up comedian whose name I cannot remember:

When it comes to relating to homosexuals, all I have to go on is my own sexuality - I'm attracted to women and I've never had any sexual urges towards a man. It has never felt like a choice to me to be attracted to women, I just am. So this leads me to one conclusion: if you feel that you're making a choice to be straight, I've got news for you - you're gay.

34

Young People Ask... When Can I Start Dating?

by pale.emperor in

quite possibly the most annoying and patronizing thing i've read in years.

comments of mine are in yellow.. .

she doesn't trust herself to make her own decisions and she's going to wait years even after she thinks she's ready.

OneEyedJoe

Wow, I'm dating at least 10 people by the WTBTS's cult standards. Some are men.

That made me think of something - they put such focus in the questions on the person being of the opposite sex. I guess dating rules don't apply to gay kids raised in the cult! They can do whatever they want, apparently.

34

Young People Ask... When Can I Start Dating?

by pale.emperor in

quite possibly the most annoying and patronizing thing i've read in years.

comments of mine are in yellow.. .

she doesn't trust herself to make her own decisions and she's going to wait years even after she thinks she's ready.

OneEyedJoe

Granted, some of your peers might date without any intention of marriage. They may view their opposite-sex friend as nothing more than a trophy or an accessory to be seen with in public to boost their own self-esteem. Playing with someone’s affections in that way is cruel, and it comes as no surprise that such relationships are often short-lived. “Many young ones who date break up with each other a week or two later,” says a youth named Heather. “They come to view relationships as transitory—which in a sense prepares them for divorce rather than for marriage.”

What's wrong with relationships that are short-lived? Even in their world of "dating with a view toward marriage" I don't see why breaking up after a week or two is such a bad thing. If you realize you're not right for each other after a week, wouldn't it be wrong to continue dating - wouldn't that be "playing with someone's affections" - the very thing they condemned in the immediately prior sentence?

In any event, I think we can all agree that the policy on dating is unhealthy, overly controlling (big surprise there) and enacted in order to keep people in a child-like state of naivety and trust for longer, all for the purposes of keeping people under their influence.

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

OneEyedJoe

double post...

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

OneEyedJoe

this is like asking how long sherlock holmes really lived...

8

Is strong faith or belief in religion or "God" a mental disorder?

by kpop in

jw
friends

it is a most interesting study.

when one studies anthropology, one can see how the "need" for belief in a higher being evolved from early man.

and it served a purpose.

OneEyedJoe

I'm not even sure that religion was ever really necessary. There's a fair bit of evidence that the impetus behind humans transitioning from a nomadic culture to building larger societies was the need for agriculture to support the production of a newly discovered beverage - beer. Alcohol has always been far more useful than god.

5

The pen is sharper than the sword.

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

and when as a family we celebrated my first ex j.w birthday, my sons present to me was a " pen".

that pen i am now searching for.

i had it 2 hours ago and for the hundredth time i have lost it again, but i always find it.

OneEyedJoe

Penis sharper - sounds painful... and a sword is involved? Count me out.

32

Finally, after almost 3 years, they want to visit with me

by StarTrekAngel in

so i ended up going to the meeting yesterday.

i have been absent for almost 2 months.

my wife was also absent as long but mostly out of chance.

OneEyedJoe

I think being away from the cult and spending more time around normal people is having an impact on me - it suddenly strikes me as odd that someone that you're not very close with would ask to come to your home for something that is merely a social visit. It seems to me that if they want a social visit they should invite you to their home - they're the ones that want it, so they should be the ones to have to go to the trouble of preparing the home for guests, handling entertainment, etc. It's not a purely social visit - if it were then mr elder would be fine with hosting - it's because he's doing this as a part of his duties that he's looking for a way to reduce the load on himself by inviting himself to your house. The other advantage to the elder in this case is that by meeting at your home he's able to have you cornered - it's much harder to come up with a polite excuse (and most people will actually go a long way in the effort of following social norms of politeness even when the other party is not) to terminate the visit when they're in your home. You can't make a vague claim of other plans or give a reason you need to excuse yourself and leave, you have to kick them out of your home. So, as counterintuitive as it might seem, having the visit at your home actually puts a fair amount of the power in their hands because it forces you to be an impolite and ungracious host if you want to control the length of the visit.

It might be interesting to say something like "well it's actually going to be very difficult for us to have guests at our home right now, even for just a short social visit, but we might be free to drop by if you'd like to have us over. It might be interesting to see how they'd react to that, and if you do end up doing the visit, it will be much easier to politely excuse yourself if things get uncomfortable.

33

Leaving the jws is a "lifestyle choice" according to a counsellor

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

so i had my first appointment with a counsellor, of course i explained about being a born in jw, mentally leaving, the penalty of doing so and therefore the mental strain of pretending to be someone i'm not.

her response was that she couldn't help me with that because leaving a cult was a "lifestyle choice".

i tried to say to her that its a cult not a religion and how it brain washed me but no.

OneEyedJoe

I agree that seeing someone else is the best choice. There's absolutely no point in seeing a therapist that you don't see eye-to-eye with - the therapist/patient relationship is the most important driver of positive results from therapy, even more important than the type of therapy practiced.

Even if it were analogous to picking between a baptist and a catholic church, your therapist should be able to help you with such a "lifestyle choice." Helping people work through and understand their motivations and drive towards what they really want as well as coping with the difficulties of a change in lifestyle are things that any therapist should be well equipped to help you with. If you're talking to a therapist that won't help you with those things, there is absolutely no point in going back.

117

2017 Yearbook released

by bohm in

jw
friends

i saw this on reddit:.

https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/5mlgsm/2017_yearbook_of_jehovahs_witnesses/.

overall the numbers are better than last year (1.8% growth compared to 1.5% last year -- as i predicted ;-) ) with an increase in all major figures including 1300 more congregations (i assume this is not physical kingdom halls?).

OneEyedJoe

What are the numbers for the US? Exciting to see a decrease here, not just because it's home for me but because it's home for them.

I was causing optimistic that this would be the year for decrease in the US, it's nice to see that it happened.