I was 12 when I got baptized. I have never heard of early age of baptism being a factor in a disfellowshipping decision. But you do make a good point. I've heard of kids as young as 7 being baptized. How can someone who is too young to be married be capable of making a decision that is, according to JW, even more important than marriage and that carries more consequences than marriage?
maxwell
JoinedPosts by maxwell
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12
Age at which you were baptised - and why isn't it taken into consideration?
by somebodylovesme inmy husband was baptised right after he turned 11 years old.
this was highly unusual in his congregation (not sure what the average age is) as most people were at least 16 or 17 before they took the fatal plunge.
by the time my husband was 16, he realized what a huge mistake it was as he no longer wanted to have anything to do with it.
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When you were a dub.....did you ever fall asleep when you prayed in bed?
by gumby inwell i did .....all the time.
it always bothered me that i couldn't even stay awake to thank my god.
i found out later many did the same.
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maxwell
I rarely prayed while lying in the bed. But I know that I did fall asleep while lying down and praying once. One of my sisters on the other hand fell asleep while kneeling beside her bed. Yes, in our house we sometimes kneeled to pray. When we were younger, we would all go to my parents room before bedtime and kneel at their bed while my father said a family prayer. But anyway, later on as we got older we said our own prayers and my sister would sometimes kneel at her bed to pray and she fell asleep a few times while doing that and that got her a few words from my dad.
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Music You Grew Up With
by Nosferatu inwhenever people look at my cd collection, they'll come across blue oyster cult, black sabbath, iron maiden, led zeppelin, etc.
but then they'll come across something unusual.. right now i'm listening to "kenny rogers - ten years of gold".
my parents had this album, and i loved it.
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maxwell
Most of my CD's are jazz, Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Billy Holiday, etc. and a few contemporary players. But I have a few r & b cd's. A couple of the r&b cd's are from the 70's, Lenny Williams which my parents didn't listen to and a Stevie Wonder collection. My dad has wax with some of the same songs that are on my cd, so I heard Stevie Wonder quite a bit while growing up, but that seems to be the extent of anything in my collection that matches what I grew up with. I can say that my jazz interest started developing around 12 or 13 so I sorta grew up listening to that. I have a couple of classical cd's, an orchestra playing Debussy and the soundtrack to Schindler's List. So you might say they don't fit with the main category, but I'm planning to expand my classical collection.
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did you ever miss the memorial?
by freelife indid any of you ever miss the memorial while you were in?
i missed 2 of them.
once i had a very serious staff infection in my leg and i could not wear any pants or shorts because it ran all the way up my thigh.
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maxwell
I went all my life attending the last one in the spring of 2002. I was born in April, and I'm not sure if the memorial during the year of my birth was in March or late April after my birth or even if my mom would have been up to going that year, but I'm sure I went every single year after that. A couple of my sisters missed it one year with the chicken pops. My dad bought this little low power FM transmitter (a kind of much smaller version of what they do for the hard of hearing at conventions now) and taped it to the podium and my mom drove up with my sisters and they stayed in the minivan and listened in on the radio.
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Were you happy as a witness?
by JH inthe few years that i was an active witness, i can't say that i was very happy.
i really didn't mind missing a meeting.
i always felt that a meeting every 2 days for the rest of my life was a little exaggerated.
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maxwell
Yes I was happy. My opinion is that happiness up to the person. I like being so I choose to be happy. I think it helps if you have some interesting, challenging and worthwhile to work on and if you get to relax occasionally. I had all those things when I was a JW. Of course, one of the things I worked at, the preaching work, wasn't really worth anything, but as I grew up with that worldview, I didn't know it was for the most part worthless work. As I started going through the changes there were a lot of volatile feelings. Actually, I'm probably still feeling the effects of coming to a realization that I spent all my life looking at life in a veiled manner. But I still have some interesting things to work on now and that keeps me happy.
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Society to become only ISP for Witnesses?
by dannyboy injanuary 4, 2004
to: all congregations and traveling overseers
dear brothers,
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maxwell
LOL
I knew it was a joke after only a few sentences. As wacky as the society is, they would never name anything "Hovah". LOL Reminds me of what the kids in school used to call us. But even they used a full word. They'd say call us those "Geeeehovahs". Otherwise, I wouldn't be too surprised if they actually tried to do something similar if they could, maybe restricting it to only approved websites.
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Knowing What You Know Now---Would YOU Try To Persuade a Potential JW?
by minimus in.
.....not to join, have a bible study, and learn more about the "truth" or would you not say anything, believing it's not your business?.
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maxwell
If they asked me questions, I would be honest. I wouldn't tell them it was a bad idea, but I'd let them know about the bad parts and the good parts and I'd let them know that the good parts aren't unique to the JW. I believe in laying all the facts on the table and letting the person make their own decision. Of course, the person studying with a potential JW is not laying all the facts out there, so I'd be more than willing to give or direct the potential JW to the rest of the story. If it were a friend, I'd probably be a bit more tempted to try to persuade them away, but I still think the right thing to do is let them have as much information as possible and allow them to make their own decision.
Ironic that JW sometimes claim that they also allow a person to make their own decision after giving them the information, except they don't give them all the information. In fact, JW say that a large amount of the information available is off limits using the apostacy argument. That's one thing I would point out.
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SEX: As a JW, Were you ever thisclose to having sex and then chickened out?
by Funchback inas a jw, were you ever thisclose to having sex and then chickened out?
being raised (since the age of 7) as a jw, i grew up very frustrated sexually.
everything about sex carried a heavy burden of guilt.
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maxwell
I was mostly innocent also. I was actually a shy and quiet person naturally. I was also a bit of a nerd, but even so, there were still a few girls who showed interest in some type of relationship and two who showed a clear and definite interest in some physical activity. While I wouldn't have been able to actually go out with them due to my parents restictions, the opportunity for sex did exist. I turned them both down because of JW beliefs and while I have to admit I regret it a bit when I think of it, I try not to dwell too much on the past.
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"In Social Settings, The Common Theme of Discussions Is Jehovah's Kingdom"
by minimus inyou want to hear a funny one??
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maxwell
I would try to work in something "spiritual" during conversations occasionally, but it would usually sound kind of fake. And people who were constantly saying "Jehovah this" and "Jehovah that" and "thank Jehovah" and "can't wait for Jehovah's kingdom" definitely sounded fake. Equally as fake as those of other religions who are constantly exclaiming "Thank you, Jeezus or Lawd" to everything that pleases them.
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Demons
by dh inanother post to add to my list of things i wanted to ask ex jw's but never had the chance.. have you ever had any unexplainable experiences or encounters with something paranormal and been told by jw elders that 'it must be the demons' literally, or 'we'll pray to jehovah for help' due to some 'demonic' thing you are going through, being tormented or whatever, if so, what do you put it down to?
do you subscribe to a belief of angels & demons?
do you believe these beings, if they exist can interfere in our day to day lives or do you dismiss anything 'paranormal' as being in the head of the person who thinks it happened to them?.
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maxwell
I seem to remember some strange event or events, but I can't remember exactly what they were. I'm one of those people who needs absolute proof. So basically I say whatever it was could have been explainable in some rational way. Or perhaps it was outside the realm of any human understanding. Events that we can explain include dreams that may seem very real and there's the hallucinations that can come as a result of drugs or mental illness. Those things seem real to me. Outside the realm of human understanding there is the realm of supernatural beings, which I now don't see any reason to believe in or totally rule out.
Another interesting thing, I remember hearing lately is how small children are often unable to distinguish between things in their imagination and things that happen in reality. In kindergarten, the librarian told us that a witch lived in one corner of our library (It was some area that we never went to, probably an office area) and would come out if we were bad or we talked loud in there. I actually believed that for several years even after I had gone on to another school and went a few grades higher. I never connected it to demons although my parents were teaching me that along with plenty of other JW beliefs. I just believed there was an actual witch there in that room in that area. Then one day something just clicked and I realized she had been just trying to scare us and successfully doing so with me. But I often wonder why I believed that for so long. Of course, a small childs mind is not like an adults, but I do think it is interesting what a humans will allow themselves to believe.