Hi Tally,
I was at Watchtower Farms most of the year 1978. My roommates were Jeff Chandler and Mike Reinke. Did I know you? I worked in the subscription department.
Let me know here or by personal email [email protected]
hugs
Joel
joelbear
JoinedPosts by joelbear
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6
Looking for these ol' Bethel Brothers...
by Tallyman inwondered if anyone in this vast forum might know these two bros.... * .
one on the left was my watchtower farms room mate,.
named carm santarelli, from east of cleveland, ohio.
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We'll have a gay ol' time
by riz ini recall having a conversation with a friend about homosexuality not too long ago.
he put a new spin on the subject that i had never thought of before.
he said his opinion was that the bible condemns homosexuality for the simple fact that the act of sex between same-sex partners does not produce children.
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joelbear
Hi all,
Yall are sweet for being so cool. Having grown up as a gay Jehovah's Witness, I certainly hate myself for a long long time. I stopped believing it was the truth while I was pioneering at the age of 20, but did not get the courage to "come out" until 10 years later. Then I met Mitch and the rest is history.
I have spent years of my life trying to understand why I was gay, reading both religious and scientific books, journals and magazine articles and discussing the issue with countless friends. Sociologically or culturally we have nearly nothing in common. Jews, Catholics, Atheists, Witnesses, Southern Baptists, Hindus, etc. etc etc. All economic backgrounds, fatherless, orphans, on and on.
Most of my friends are the youngest male in their family. My totally unscientific conclusion is that there is some sort of hormonal or enzymal change in the mother's chemical makeup that is caused by the production of male offspring. In an evolutionary sense, it could be that this assures that earlier born males sperm will have less competition from their younger brothers, if their younger brothers are homosexual.
I however know many many married men that have strong homosexual desires and most of them are active both homosexually and with their wives. This leads me to believe that there is a very large closeted bisexual population that will properly never be counted among those who partake of homosexual activity. So maybe homosexual sex is just that much fun (I sure think it is).
A book called Biological Exuberance: Homosexuality in the Animal Kingdom puts forth the theory that homosexuality is a natural consequence to the sun putting out more energy than can possibly be utilized by all life on the planet. One of the outcomes of this extra energy is homosexuality.
I agree homosexuals seem to be more creative. I think it is due to the fact that most of us have more spare time due to no children. Also, we tend to be very introspective, wondering why we are so different from the established norm. We also grow up with a lot of pain and I've read that some believe emotional pain leads to the need for creative outlets.
All I know for sure is that I am as queer as a 3 dollar bill and have known it since I was about 10 years old. I was gay before I discovered masturbation unlike the old Youth book (is that an oxymoron) stated.
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Feeling desperate................
by nicolaou inplease listen.
im not the first to go through this, i wont be the last.. i was raised in the truth as a result of my mum starting a study when i was 4 years old.
that was in 1968. the hysteria of a 1975/armageddon was just beginning to take root and the sister who studied with my mum was 100% sure of it.
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joelbear
I also agree with those who recommend keeping your family busy with new things. Do a lot of stuff together as a family. Find another family in your neighborhood who shares your interest. It doesn't take a lot of people and/or activities before your life is full, wonderful, fun and rewarding. The busier you are, the less time you have to worry and mope about the past (giving this advice to myself at the same time I am giving it to you.
hugs
Joel
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Doom and despair.
by Norm inwarning!
to all of you, who live in the awful illusionary realities of the watchtower world, where everything has gotten so much worse since 1914, will hate the following information so i recommend all faithful jehovah's witnesses not to read any further as this could seriously harm your ability to maintain the doom and gloom mindset so carefully projected into your minds by the watchtower literature and at the meetings.
statements like this:.
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joelbear
There was a cover story in Wired magazine sometime in the last year or so called The Long Boom which was an optimistic look at the 21st century. It had quotes in it from the guy who wrote the stuff about 1975 being the culmination of all things bad and another guy refuting him point by point.
It was so weird seeing those quotes from the Truth book that I must have read a jillion times to Bible studies being refuted by the scientific method in a worldy magazine.
hugs
Joel
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joelbear
Things I did to pass the time.
1. Time how long I could hold my breath.
2. See how many words I could make by rearranging the letters of the yearly text.
3. Count the number of ceiling tiles (also very useful at circuit assemblies).
4. Follow cute brothers into the bathroom (oops, did I say that out loud)
5. Try to guess which section of the audience would get called on for an answer next.
6. Move the microphone slowly away from the person answering so that they would have to lean forward to complete their answer.
7. Determine how many minutes and seconds each paragragh would take to complete.
sigh, those were the days.
hugs
Joel
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Three Reasons
by neyank inthis question was asked by tina on a different post.. and the person did not come back to her with an answer.. so i will ask it now.. this is obviosly directed toward those that still believe the wts.
is gods orginization.. .
what are 3 reasons we should go back to the wts?.
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joelbear
Serious answers
1. You need a very neatly defined structured way to live your life and a group of people around you to keep you on course.
2. You can't deal with reality so you need to believe that your rescue from reality is imminent.
3. You need to believe that you are in a special group that is in the "in crowd (great crowd)" in order to be happy with yourself.
Not so serious answers
1. You miss those rockin Kingdom songs.
2. You miss dividing (or being divided) a motley group of people into car groups, ensuring that everyone is matched up in a way that everyone will enjoy their service day and have a productive day of witnessing. I miss this a lot, you can tell. I swear someone should create a card game called, service groups. You could play cards like:
owns 2 door car, single sister with 3 kids, older brother who thinks he is annointed and also has flatulence, newly associated doesn't have bookbag yet, etc.) No wonder I am prematurely grey. I still wake up nights screaming, Does anyone else here have a territory!!!! AAAAAAAAY!!!!!!3. You miss those rockin kingdom songs.
hugs
Joel
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'I Still Believe It's The Truth'!
by ISP inwe have heard that recently from two individuals.
one is a df'd sister,who works in a city centre dept.
store and another is a sister who has simply left the hall and moved to another address.
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joelbear
One must realize that people believe what they believe because they deeply need to believe it for some reason or another. Some need an outside entity to tell them how to live to reassure them that they are living correctly. Some cannot deal with the reality of the natural world where war, sickness, misery and death are part of life, so they disconnect from reality and say, any day now things will be fixed. Some people need this just to get by from day to day.
We who no longer or who never believed it was "the Truth" didn't need to believe it. Which doesn't make us better or worse, just different.
hugs to all
Joel
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Sorry ".forbid..to kill apostates&...
by MacHislopp inhello , a stern warnig to everyone..... *** w52 11/15 703 questions from readers ***.
in the case of where a father or mother or son or daughter is disfellowshiped, how should such person be treated by members of the family in their family relationship?p.
c., ontario, canada.. we are not living today among theocratic nations where such members of our fleshly family relationship could be exterminated for apostasy from god and his theocratic organization, as was possible and was ordered in the nation of israel in the wilderness of sinai and in the land of palestine.
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joelbear
Ancient Isreal must have been very pleasant with all those stonings going on.
hugs
Joel
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England 2 Finland 1 !!!... World cup next???
by digderidoo inwhat a result!!
!...so are we gonna do it???.
is the dream of a repeat of 1966 possible???.
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joelbear
soccer players are too skinny, i prefer rugby
hugs
Joel
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Question to All!
by Cricket ini am confused about this board, could someone please clarify?.
is this board for current active jw's or for former jw's?.
from posts that i have read there is a very negative attitude.. please help!.
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joelbear
What kind of mentality goes on in a brain which requires someone to ask the obvious, then when nice people still answer them, specifically have to announce that they no longer want to associate with them rather than simply reading a few posts, coming to a determination that this site is not for them and then leaving quietly
hugs to all, even Cricket
Joel