Posts by serendipity

20

A question for all the new ones

by Lady Lee in

jw
friends

what made you decide to post?.

i know some lurk for a while - sometimes a long while.

others find the site and do a bit of reading and sign and post immediately.

A question for all the new ones

by Lady Lee in

jw
friends

what made you decide to post?.

i know some lurk for a while - sometimes a long while.

others find the site and do a bit of reading and sign and post immediately.

serendipity

Hi Lady Lee,

People may not like my answer, but I'll be frank.

I lurked off and on for a year. What kept me from joining was the irreverant misuse of Jehovah's & Jesus' names and the extreme negativity and victim mentality. I was also bothered by the encouragement to leave JWs without any apparent regard for the consequences to a person or circumstances of that person's life. It's one thing to advise someone to leave if they have no family in the org. It's quite another thing to tell someone to DA when they have generations of family.

I've seen less of this stuff lately so I decided to join. I also hoped that as a member there would be a way to just pull up the new posts in a thread, so I wouldn't have to spend so much time looking for them. I was also curious about the private threads - I thought that's where y'all have all the fun.

I thought that by being a member, I could participate in various topics that I may not have thought about before, helping me with a mental exploration of new ideas. I thought my posts would be commented on, either affirmed by others or picked apart by some bright minds. I don't mind respectful, constructive feedback.

I wanted to share my experiences and show that despite an abusive, unloving upbringing, a person can become a reasonably successful, productive member of society and be content with life. I also want to support the female posters because of all the negative messages females have to deal with, both from the Society & society at large.

I want to communicate that life is what YOU make of it and that a person has to take responsibility her life and not give her power away. That means thinking about what she wants, what's important to her, setting goals and then working toward those goals. There are some who were able to make good lives as JWs- I was, though I had a lot to overcome. Even if a person chooses to leave the JWs, s/he can make a good life despite the consequences. It doesn't mean everything is a bed of roses or that it's easy but it's important to look forward, and not backwards. It's a neverending journey, while we're alive. And it's never too late to start. (That's a paragraph full of bad self-help cliches, I know.)

Finally, I'd like to meet some discreet people in the Dallas area, but I'm not ready for an apostafest. Hopefully this will help me overcome some of my social retardedness.

I think that's about it. Was that enough? (New Year's resolution: learn to edit)

69

PROGRAMED working out the dark side in art

by seven006 in

jw
friends

i havent posted much lately becausewell just because.

in the past year i have tried .

to start my conversion from commercial art to fine art doing mostly nudes.

serendipity

One of my dark side dreams is to pose in the nude. I guess I'll wait until Rubenesque is in again.

Dave,

You are very talented!

15

Watchtower to sell many presses - who gets the money?

by Dogpatch in

jw
friends

while jehovah's witnesses all over the world are out of work, or wondering where their next meal might come from, or ravished from the results of devastating hurricanes, the watchtower society has taken the contributions from the very pockets of their own members and are now selling the very equipment that their faithful members contributed for.

if the equipment listed below is still in "good technical condition" as the offer describes, then why is it being sold?

why was "new" equipment purchased if this equipment is still in good working order?

serendipity

Hi ITsupport,

Google 'wtbts.org'. I came up with several email addresses a few months back when I was considering blasting them with an email on a certain topic.

43

What's The Most Important Thing In Your Life Now???

by minimus in

jw
friends

god?

family?

friends?

serendipity

My daughter and God.

9

perspective on growing up in a jw family after i had my son

by limbogirl in

jw
friends

curious to see if anyone else can relate to this....i've been away from jw-world for many years yet really began to have a lot of issues resurface for me when i became a parent two and a half years ago.

.........specifically, i began thinking a lot about my parents raising me and i'm just blown away at the way in which they chose to fill my head with jw teachings from such an early age.

i can't imagine ever teaching my little boy about wicked people, demons, satan, destruction at armageddon and so forth at such a young age.

serendipity

My parents used to threaten us with being killed at Armageddon. They also reminded us about all the torture JWs went through in Nazi Germany, Malawi, etc. to prepare us for the Great Tribulation. Everything was fear-based. Not to mention all the judging of others.

They were also quick to demonize everything. One night my Mom heard me calling out "Moses" while I was dreaming. She said I was under demon attack.

As a result of my parent's techniques, I decided I needed parenting books. Thanks to them, even though I raised my daughter as a JW, I handled things very differently and emphasized love rather than fear.

17

Headship principle

by TheListener in

i was talking with a good friend of mine the other day and the subject of headship came up.. i believe that the bible clearly shows that the man is the head of the family.. however, i don't believe the society portrays that headship in a correct fashion.. in my opinion the society really endorses a type of headship that doesn't really square with the teachings of the bible.. as my fade has progressed (remember we're talking several years here) my style of headship has changed very little.

i've never been a domineering head who bossed his wife around and made hard and fast rules for the family, but, before the fade started, i felt like i could if i needed to and sometimes even felt that i wasn't a very good head because i was too soft.. now, i feel like i'm a good head of the family and that pretty much the way i've been doing it does square with the bible's viewpoint.

now i can be the head i was but without the guilt.. i'm looking for what others here think the bible describes for the actions of the head of the family.

serendipity

Christ is the head of the congregation. What was his example? Does this correspond perfectly to the headship role of a husband? I think that's for each to decide. A Christian man needs to conscientiously determine what his role should be. He should share that with his wife/prospective wife. She needs to think about what she's willing to live with. She can accept it, try to modify his views or leave. I don't believe a woman has to put up with domination under the guise at headship. Headship has been an excuse to oppress women for too long.

30

If you think the JW's are correct on Blood don't read

by skyman in

if anyone can disprove my conclussions please send me a letter in my inbox, or if you can think of other points please drop me a line.

feel free to copy and use part or all of this letter.

i started my biblical sereach after i was asked by a brother in my book study group why we could use fraction that was taken from coagulated blood, but can not auto-transfuse {store our own blood for later use} becasue the blood coagulates and then must be poured out onto the ground.

serendipity

Hi skyman,

I don't agree with all the conclusions you drew but you do show that the scriptures don't support the WTS stringent interpretation to 'abstain from blood.' I ran across the scripture in Leviticus a few months back and that really opened my eyes. It's also powerful to think about the principle of the sanctity of life and what that really means, as you mentioned.

Even though I'm still a nominal JW, I had already decided that I would accept blood for myself and my daughter if there were no alternatives, and just deal with the WT consequences. Another one of the good things about being a nobody in the congregation is that no JWs would be visiting me in the hospital anyways to see my commission of this sin. I'd just have to figure out a way to keep the JW family away.

19

Socialization of JW Kids

by Mysterious in

jw
friends

through the course of my university studies in social sciences there seems to be a repeated emphasis on early socialization shaping personality and having a drastic effect on the long term life of kids.

studies of extreme neglect are often the only ones cited, such as children locked in a closet for the early years of their lives with no human contact.

it's lead me to wonder about the long term effects of jw socialization on youths that are raised in the organization.

serendipity

My socialization problems started before my family became JWs because we moved around constantly. I would only make one or two acquaintances then we'd move again. I'm also a hermit because my parents were hermits (nature or nurture?).

As if that weren't enough, I later added common JW traits to my wonderful introverted personality. I'm sure my constant preaching, know-it-all-itis, self-righteous, judgmental, critical attitude didn't exactly endear me to worldly kids. Threatening them with death at Armageddon didn't help. Now why didn't I have any worldly friends? (I actually had one worldly friend in Junior high for 2 years and one worldly friend in high school for 2 years. )

I'm working to overcome all those negative traits, but it's taking a long time.

55

Nowhere else to go

by joelbear in

jw
friends

there is really nowhere else for me to post about what goes on inside me.

i know that my problems aren't all because i was a witness.

the agony in my mind has led me to a psychiatrist.. he has diagnosed me with cyclothymic mood disorder, a milder form.

serendipity

Hi Joelbear! Glad to hear your ok! Do you have any fun plans for this weekend?