Posts by cleanideas

22

You are invited to sit down with the GB members..

by James Mixon in

you have the opportunity to sit and discuss what's on your mind.. what would you tell them??.

my question, do you men have a heart, how do you sleep at nights??.

why do you think jehovah pick you to feed the sheep??.

cleanideas

I actually had dinner with Lyman Swingle and his wife Crystal at Bethel back in 1995. Of course this was when I was still very young and hadn't realized it was a cult yet. I mostly just sat there as he talked about random parts of his life.

The only other GB member I spoke with was Carey Barber. He gave me a very nasty look one day because I was wearing tennis shoes in a hallway at Bethel, and then 4 years later I helped deliver a very expensive donated car to Bethel, towing it from Kansas. He walked over and greeted me once I got there. Overall a nice attitude; I guess it just takes giving them a luxury vehicle rather than being a poor Bethelite in old shoes to get a pleasant reaction from them. HAHA!

But I sure do wish I had the knowledge then that I have now to really ask them the hard questions, but of course that would have just got me thrown out on my ear! LOL!

28

Your body of elders - were they liberal, conservative or moderate?

by minimus in

jw
friends

in my first kingdom hall, the elders were ultra conservative.

our presiding overseer used to be a zone overseer.

the second hall i was in was moderate.

cleanideas

My congregation was ultra conservative. They had many insane rules they made up on their own. Sisters were "strongly encouraged" not to wear red as "that is the color a harlot wears". Any sister who wore red was made to feel spiritually weak and would get harassed by the elders. Another thing is they kept a bath towel on the stage so if a sister wore a dress that was too short they should cover their legs up. I'm being totally serious. A FREAKING BATH TOWEL ON THE STAGE!

Another one is no dancing. An elder would walk up to all the young kids in the hall and tell them dancing is "nothing but shaking your sex organs at each other". He was so messed up and gross. I've seen the worst possible examples from dysfunctional JW congregations. So glad to be out!

5

Stephen King Freakouts?

by cappytan in

i have this memory of deciding to get a stephen king novel (tommyknockers) from my high school library.. went home and started reading it.

first few chapters were pretty amazing.

felt guilty because i had heard urban jw legends about people who owned stephen king books having demon problems.

cleanideas

That's hilarious, I'm apart of that club too! I read pet cemetery when I was a kid and hid the book in my closet. I remember it being very scary to me and I had to stop reading it for like a year until I was older and could handle it, but it was a great read when I finally finished it. It's so silly we had to hide books! How much better to have had parents that could be there for us while we read a scary book to actually remind us it's not real and everything is safe in real life.

33

All things considered, when will THE JW religion end?

by sowhatnow in

id give a guess of maybe another 15 to 20 years ,.

nothing will be the same , if there even is a headquarters.. opinion?.

cleanideas

In my opinion if you could time travel to 250 years in the future the JW's will still exist. We should all really get used to the idea they will be here for the rest of our lives and try to focus on enjoying our freedom from them.

109

Are we going to see a mass awakening?

by kairos in

jw
friends

the internet is the archive for civilization.. watchtower cannot hide it's history.. are we seeing the beginning of a mass exodus out of her?.

cleanideas

As much as I would love for that horrible religion to fail I just don't see it happening, at least in our lifetime. I see the same very slow growth rate and continued absurd changes to market to the next generation of JW's.

24

No... I wasn't mind controlled

by Zoos in

thou shalt not stay at a hotel that is not on the rooming list.

work prevented me from attending our assigned district (regional) convention so i arranged my schedule to attend in a different city/weekend.

i know that's not a problem, brothers and sisters do it all the time.

cleanideas

I know they lost money on me when they switched to the honer system for food at the conventions. I was living on my own as a pioneer, had no money at all, so I just took the food and never donated. Considering I was a full time pioneer, and donated a crap ton of my personal time to those vultures, who later ruined my life by convincing my family to disown me, I'm certainly not losing any sleep over it.

24

No... I wasn't mind controlled

by Zoos in

thou shalt not stay at a hotel that is not on the rooming list.

work prevented me from attending our assigned district (regional) convention so i arranged my schedule to attend in a different city/weekend.

i know that's not a problem, brothers and sisters do it all the time.

cleanideas

I lucked out, my Regional (District) convention was in the city I lived in so I never had to drive a long way and book a room. Sounds like a nightmare! I feel bad for all the people who have to spend extra money on gas, lodging, and food for that. But yes, the best solution is to just stop going to them.

I remember I was sick once and missed the Circuit Assembly, OMG it felt SO GREAT! That following January I stopped going to meetings and then that next June I relaxed at home enjoying life knowing everyone else was stuck at the convention. Can't believe I used to go to Jehovah's Witnesses conventions, it seems so absurd now that I found freedom.

17

Video: How to use the site / basic navigation

by Simon in

please don't laugh - i just threw this together and didn't bother making a script first so probably repeat myself or make no sense at all at times.. hopefully it will demonstrate a few tips for using the site more effectively.. i'll do one on signing up and logging in next and also how to edit, reply etc.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx5d3ct0y50.

cleanideas

Thanks for this video, it gave me some good tips I didn't know about. Also thanks for all the hard work you have put into this site; I don't know how I would have coped with leaving the JW's had I not come across it.

17

Did you go to your prom or belong to a "worldly" club while you were a witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i didn't go to the prom but i did belong to a chess club until the awake article said it was a war game and suggested true christians wouldn't play such a game.

cleanideas

I was far too socially awkward to ever go to a school dance. But I was in the chess club, and drama club. Did lots of theater at my school and competitive drama which involved me going to other schools to compete. My parents were not super JW's at the time, but that didn't stop them from writing me letters disowning me once I left the religion.

6

What is the furtherest your car group traveled to a return visit that counted as time?

by adjusted knowledge in

jw
friends

growing up i lived in the middle of florida in the southern part.

i had a friend whose father was an elder, and would stay at their homes during the weekends.

one of the "rules", as we all know jw love rules, was that who ever spent the night had to go out in field service on saturday.

cleanideas

I used to live in a small rural town in Missouri. It was common to drive a good 1 to 1 1/2 hours to the territory, work for 15-30 min, and then drive back. It was a great way to make time. We were a group of young pioneers ages 15-20 (several home schooled kids) so you can just imagine the craziness involved. Was actually fun but once I moved to the city I stepped down as a pioneer, no way I was going to door knock for 3+ hours in a day. LOL!