im just wondering what kind of work people who post here do.
i believe amazing is a mechanical engineer (like me), xena is an office manager and you know washes windows.
and when youre not working, what does everyone do with their free time now that they dont have to knock on doors when the weekend rolls around.
Folk dancing. There is a Tuesday night group that meets at the Hillel Center (a very nice Jewish Student Center at Ohio State University). We do Jewish, Greek, Hungarian, etc. folk dances. I LOVE it. I've met some wonderful people there who have barely even heard of JW's. They're lucky.
My job? Customer service for big big textbook publisher. Pays the bills, nothing prestigious or exciting though.
being spiritual, what is it?
that title looks like a watchtower article, doesn't it?
i raise this question after reading a recent thread, regarding what people believe now that they are no longer a witness.
Farkel said:
Those, like the leaders of Jehovah's Witnesses who turn "spirituality" into a system of merit conveyed upon them based upon prescribed deeds and quotas are an outrage to the very notion of spirituality
Well put. My last few weeks/months as a JW were spent pondering Jesus' words about his yoke being kindly and his load being light. The scripture would pop into my head again and again. There is nothing kindly or light about the WT yoke, I concluded, that's when I started to look at stuff on the internet.
I'm still trying to find some spiritual footing. I'm going to the BRCI conference this weekend, I am looking forward to it with great anticipation. I still have some issues I need to have resolved. I'm reading a book titled "Making Sense of Suffering". It is a very challenging read. Kinda goes along with the WT views in some ways, but goes way deeper and draws from many sources.
below are notes of the sunday post drama talk - taken very badly by someone who cannot do shorthand
sorry - best i could do - note the anti media comments at the end.
jim dee notes on the talk - be like jeremiah, fearlessly proclaim the word of jehovah.
Last year when i was on assambley they have this drama about kora, and his sons, and whow they was going against Mose, this was very confusing for mee, the messege was, dont try to say we are not jehovas spoksmen
I remember it all too well. It was the first time that I saw some of the blatant "instill fear" tactics. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and got me thinking big time.
"thrilling convention"...only took notes of comments / observations not including:.
- typical "gloom and doom" (real heavy since 9/11).
- "do more" (especially as some one of a kind robotic drones demonstrate).
He will fix it in his due time (tm).
Laughed out loud
The "don't put the organization under a microscope" is pretty funny. "Just view us as we would like you to see us"
i guess i just gave you a blinding glimpse of the obvious.
now, as a witness, there was no room for individual differences, or individual talents.
there was no reward for musical talent, academic talent, athletic talent, or any other talent you can think of.
It all goes back to the morbid "this life is all for naught and the only thing that matters is faithfulness to the org" mentality.
I wonder how the Purple One feels about the lack of creativity/spontaneity among those in his newfound faith? Or has he noticed yet? He will.
what or who , do you believe has the most influence on how jw's lead their lives?.
is it the watchtower mags, meetings, circuit overseers , governing body,peers,or something else?.
i was trying to think about what most influenced me and i think it is the group pressure we recieve in the org that pushes us most to do things.
blacksheep, I enjoyed your observations.
I was pretty much a two-bit LOSER when I became acquainted with the JW's, with no direction in life and not a great personality, temperamental and self-centered.
The JW's were the easy way out. Get my hair cut, don a suit, attend 5 meetings a week, and voila! Instant friendships and approval. It was that approval and communal atmosphere that kept me in long after I started having serious doubts. So for years I kept my mind consumed with trivial matters, because any sort of heavy contemplation always pushed me towards un-Watchtowerian ideas.
The worst part of my leaving has been knowing what the talk amongst my former acquaintances probably is.
"He never developed deep roots"
"He never matured in the truth"
"He just lost his good sense"
"He was too sensitive, he never learned how to get along in Jehovah's organization."
blah blah blah
do your emotions come back when you leave a cult?.
i believe they do perhaps as gradually as they left.. i remember when i was 18 yrs old and first started becoming a jw that was 30 yrs ago and the one thing i remember is that i loved my worldly relatives and wanted so much for them to get saved and the emotional torture i went though thinking they were all going to die soon at armageddon.
it was really hard to cope with the thought of them all being destroyed.. i work really hard not to think about it, and over time i started to view all my nonjw relatives as worthy of destruction at gods hands in order to have my thinking line up with gods.
Marilyn said:
After you leave a cult you quickly return to normal
How long is quickly? I've been out 3 months, and am still pretty dazed and confused over the whole thing. I'm so fortunate that I've made some friends and my family were never Watchtowerists.
there have been some acts of personal bravery in this organization.
martin poetzinger.
endured a death camp.
Yeah, it's shameful what they've become. A bunch of lawyers and spinsters, masters of evasive wordplay.
Now that the 'revolutionary' days are over with, they've descended into their dark age.
i notice that there are many of us here who were discouraged from going to college/university in our younger years, courtesy of the watchtower society.
i would just like to say "congrats" to those who, in spite of the indoctrination and the fact that they've had to attend college later while holding down jobs and paying their own way, have attended college and received degrees!.
when i left high school i went right into pioneering as college was not an option in the witness world.
congratulations zenpunk!
I'm 31 and just bought a house (what a nice double-whammy of stress in the past 6 months - leaving the borg and buying a house) - I guess I'm too focused on the obstacles that I see preventing me from getting an education. I love math, have always been very good at it. I would like to go to college for it and maybe teach it at the HS level. I think that would be cool. HS kids can burn you out though.
a little test: .
the weakest link....... here is a very simple little test comprising of four questions to determine the level of your intellect.
answer: if you answered second-last, once again you're completely wrong.
Number 4 made me feel pretty stupid. Of course I thought the answer was Chuchu.
BTW, DakotaRed, if you see this, hope you like my new profile pic. Klink & Schultz forever!
