i have found myself saying this more frequently lately.
do you want an end to this system, or do you want proof of god?
for myself, i am just broken hearted by the state of the world.
Dave
It's more comforting for me to imagine the world without a God in it, than to imagine that there is one.
Sums up my feelings in one sentence. That there might be a God is a whole lot scarier then there might not be! I for one hope that the sadistic monster described in the bible is just a fictional one.
crumpet
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4370601.stm pair jailed after fatal shop raid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/nottinghamshire/4371059.stm
calls for tougher laws on knives
I think media coverage has a lot to do with it - I mean back in the day when the Scots were raping and pillaging the Brits - there would have been dozens of instances of violent brutality every day - but only the immediate villages would hear about it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4370601.stm pair jailed after fatal shop raid
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/nottinghamshire/4371059.stm
calls for tougher laws on knives
Xena
Do you think that Hercule Poirot, Inspector Morse, The Bill, Miss Marple, Cracker, Wire in the Blood (am assuming some might have been imported to the States tv stations) are all fiction? Goodness not at all! See news clips and summaries below.
A Week on Crumpet's Doorstep:
There is loads of violent crime here - Brixton Academy where the shots were fired is in Brixton - there were the Brixton riots there a few years back. You will be offered class A drugs within minutes of getting off the train in Brixton and with drugs rife so is crime and prostitution.
Last week a Peter Bryan was charged after he was released from pyschiatric care (he had killed some years before but someone decided he was too expensive to continue receiving mental care). He then murdered his friend and then cooked his brains and ate them. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=15296597&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=cannibal-ate-brain-of-victim-fried-in-butter-name_page.html
Also last week 20 minutes from where I live a 37 year old man calmly partially decapitated a 60 something year old man outside his very expensive London home during the school run with an axe. http://hamhighbroadway.london24.net/broadway/news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Newsbroadway&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsbroadway&itemid=WeED18%20Mar%202005%2014%3A15%3A07%3A673
All in the space of one week and a few miles from where I live. There is no shortage of violent crime on the streets of London believe me. Gun crime is on the rise and racial crime very high.
An 11 year old boy was put away last week for stabbing a 27 year old pizza worker outside the pizza shop because he was told that the £1 pizza offer he wanted to take advantage of had ended an hour ago. The pizza guy died.
(I don't think I'll be getting that job with the british tourist board after all)!
crumpet
the only elder i have any respect for in the congregation came by tonight - haven't had a visit from any for two years or so.
i suspected that he was either a decoy - trying to get me to say something that would cook my goose - or he had good motives trying to invite me to memorial.
any other elder and i would have said get lost, but this guy and i have been friends since 1970. he is always welcome in my house and i just couldn't turn him away.
Welcome to the forum watchtowerhater! Have you been lurking and just decided to post or just came across this site by accident?
Hope to enjoy lots mroe posts from you!
crumpet
i just wanted to say hello to everyone.
i'm an inactive, spiritually weak witness of not so good standing who stumbled on here the other day while trying to find out what tomorrows big announcement was going to be, after being told my mother that i might wanna go to the hall on sunday to find out.
it's cool seeing so many people who have shared some of the same experiences i have in the past.
Hi Johnny Mar
Wouldnt the WBTS be in fits if they realised that trying to cause excitement and get attendance figures up by saying there will be a special announcement was directly responsible for leading JW's to "stumble" upon this board trying to find out if there was anything to get truly excited about! LOL!
crumpet
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men must have short hair in the org.. does this mean that sisters can have their hair as long as they want?.
Almost as bad as whiplash is when your hair is so long it falls behind you when you are on the loo, if you forget to swing it over you shoulder and it gets splashed!
The shortest mine has ever been is tit-length and the longest just below my bum. At the moment it is waist length and very much in need of a trim. I always get people asking about how long it takes to wash it - and my answer has always been "probably the same as it does for you". It takes me 5 minutes to wash my hair - drying is another matter, but I usually just let it drip dry, unless I'm going straight out and intending to wear a white t-shirt.
listening to chopin's nocturnes reminds me that there was one kingdom song (sorry i don't remember the title or number, and the french lyrics i have in mind wouldn't help), still sung in the 80's, which clearly borrowed the melody of nocturne # 4 in f major.
there were many more "worldly tunes" in the former songbooks, but they had been either suppressed or modified to make the themes less recognisable (e.g.
beethoven's appassionata theme in a song about noah if i remember correctly).. are those songs still sung?
There was definitely a song that was the same tune in parts as the theme to the Muppet Show,
"Its time to face the music- dada dadada"
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my parents are catholic, and they had a special meeting for "confession" last night.
this got me thinking about confession in the jw's.. it seems to me that jw's confess their sins to elders rather than to god..... try smoking or playing lotto, and then tell the elders that you done that and asked god for forgiveness.. i think that you'll have to ask the elders for forgiveness too...
Annie
If I believed in God it would undoubtedly relieve my conscience to confess to him. If I believed that any of my current day to day activities were sins against anyone except myself then I might want to ask forgiveness.
But I no longer consider drinking too much, smoking ciggies, dancing to music, celebrating holidays, swearing, reading violent thrillers, watching R rated movies, making love with my partner, spending evenings with non JW friends, saving up to buy nice materialistic things, laughing at rude jokes, watching the Life Of Bryan over and over again until my cheeks ache with laughter, eating cumberland sausage, carrying a donor card, giving to charity, doing the odd bong, masturbating, disobeying my parents.....etc as things that I need to ask forgiveness for. In fact at the end of the day I can't think of anything to ask forgiveness for except my sporadic thoughtlessness and selfishness. And having a chat to God about isn't going to help the victim of my thoughtless and selfishness. The only thing to do is apologise to that person and make up for it twofold in kindness and unselfishness.
crumpet
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my parents are catholic, and they had a special meeting for "confession" last night.
this got me thinking about confession in the jw's.. it seems to me that jw's confess their sins to elders rather than to god..... try smoking or playing lotto, and then tell the elders that you done that and asked god for forgiveness.. i think that you'll have to ask the elders for forgiveness too...
Homme perdu,
Thank you! (blushing madly) I wish I'd seen your compliment yesterday so I could have been all buzzy and flattered then too! That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me for months and months. You have made my weekend.
Now as for asking forgiveness - I think if there is a God he owes me a massive apology before I ask his forgiveness. I don't actually feel that I have committed any crimes against God though, except blasphemy perhaps. When I do make a mistake that affects someone other than myself than I tell them and ask their forgiveness. people are so incredibly warm when you say sorry for something and really go all out to show you mean it - its such a rewarding experience!
crumpet
(checks flights from London to Texas, and makes brisk appointment to confess all and apologise to B/F afterwards! LOL!)
hi im new to the world....been lurking for a while but cant keep quiet any more...so much to say so much time...as an intro can i ask if anyone else begged grovelled pleaded lost their dignity in order to get reinstated only to find that it was worse than being d/fd cos at least when you were d/fd you knew why all your friends treated you like crap
hey Tij
Welcome - to the board! And look don;t you get a much more friendly welcome here. Haven;t more people said hello to you and shared experiences and empathy with you then the night your reinstatement was announced? Ring any bells?
That is exactly how I felt - I got Dfed at 16 and reinstated at 17/18 and Dfed a couple of weeks later. Whilst I had been completely blameless and dedicated the many months I attended meetings to get reinstated and looked forward to it, the actual reinstatement was worse than being Dfed. You are still considered marked for a long time and I hadn't realised that this meant I would still not be consider good association for at least another year. So people only spoke to me at meetings and even then not much and I couldnt go to people's houses for meals or go to any social outsings. So basically what is an 18 year old who has already spent the last year living like a leperous recluse going to do faced with that kind of realisation?
I went back to my friends in the world, who far from being offended that I had effectively shunned them for much of a year while I tried to get reinstated, were very pleased to see me, curious at what I had done and shocked at the behaviour of my family. We lived in a small town and it gave a tremendously bad witness to everyone who knew me! (I'm proud of that now! although I've carried the shame and guilt of it around for ages.) When my parents and people from my old KH knock on doors I hear that they still get asked by my old friends about me - which is very embarrassing for them, even though it is 11 years since I left.
Anyway as usual - I am wandering off the subject - I just wanted to say that yes I know exactly how it feels and then how crushing the disappointment of realising no one behaves much different after reinstatement. This is conditional love and I would question how much love is there at all.
Enjoy your time here and vent as much as you like!
crumpet
