Posts by bethelyellowdollarbag

4

My Bethel Experience Part 13 "Love and Sex" at Bethel

by new boy in

most of us went back to bethel, thinking we wanted to make it our life long career, what better place to be right before 1975, when god was coming back to kick some ass?

that dream ended for the vast majority after just few months there, when they found out that something was very wrong.

otherwise why would anyone want to leave a spiritual paradise?

bethelyellowdollarbag

Do you know what year it was they changed the rule so a bethelite with 1-year service could leave before their four years was over?

42

My Ex Wife Admitted She Doesnt Believe It's The Truth

by pale.emperor in

my ex-wife actually opened up to me today over the phone.

she was quite anxious and, i could sense, i little upset.

for those that dont know my situation im separated from my wife.

bethelyellowdollarbag

I'm "Sail Away's" husband so your experience resonates with us. I am not a regular here I post more often on Reddit under bethelrmayflower.

I feel your pain as my wife left me several times because she was so confused and conflicted. I totally get the anger and feelings of betrayal. After all from our point of view they choosing some scam artists over us. You want to kick something or worse. I have no idea what your situation is other than what you wrote.

What I can do is tell you about my thinking and it is up to you to decide if any of this applies to your situation.

When SA (sailaway) left I was angry and hurt and lost and lonely and scared. It seemed like it was over, it sure looked like it was over based on what was said and reasons given etc. I went to a nature walk in town and had a good time. I was flattered that three single women were giving me a lot of attention. Some guys flirt and attract attention and some do not. I'm one of the ones who never wears a wedding ring and have never had a problem, so this was new to me. Apparently, nurses can be very consoling. But then I got to thinking that it's not over until it's over. I still loved SA and even though she said she didn't love me anymore. She is a good person at heart and any pain she caused was not from her but from outside forces, the cult being the biggest.

This happened several times and she never gave up her religion but came back anyway. She didn't have JW family to make it harder like your wife does so there is that difference.

It took a long long time for SA to finally kick the cult and we are still suffering because of it. But it is much better now.

We don't know your new SO but a woman who would take up with a man with a child only four months separated from a spouse is at best making rash decisions.

Look; even in the best of circumstances where two people are as compatible as possible, with no problems caused by family, career, children, jobs, sex, health or money marriage is hard, damn hard.

But the problem is every marriage has at leat one or two of those issues. Then you through in crazy JW crap and whoa.

You said something about the JW's breaking up families. Yes, they do but in this case, you have a choice. In my case, I decided that if my marriage was going to end it would be zero percent on me. I never said one thing angry, I made no legal moves. I made it so that if SA wanted a divorce she would have to make it happen with no help from me.

It could be argued that you are the one breaking up your family by bringing in another person.

It could also be argued that if your new girlfriend is a real loving stand-up person that cares about you and your family the minute she hears about your situation she would insist that you do whatever you have to do to make it work for your wife and child and if it didn't work in two years you should look her up.

But here am I dishing out tough talk and I don't even know you. Notice that I said it could be argued not that it was true.

Please don't be angry with me, I mean no harm. It is obvousely your choice how you live your life and no one can judge you except yourself. It is just a point of view from someone who has 30+ years on you that might be of use to you or not.

76

1958 Convention Program. 8 days from 9am till 9pm. Anyone attend?

by StopTheTears in

jw
friends

how in the world did they justify this torture?

imagine the children forced to sit in the summer heat at yankee stadium for 12 hours a day.

for 8 days.

bethelyellowdollarbag

I was 7 or 8 and remember it pretty well. It was very exciting for me. My family never did any vacations ever, so assemblies were the only break in the routine.

I remember we were assigned a room within walking distance in Harlem. A black woman opened the door and didn't want us to stay because she "didn't want no white folks." My mom was tired and cranky and told her that she wasn't prejudiced and didn't see what the problem was. So the three of us stayed for 8 days with a very skeptical black woman.

On our way walking to our room one day a black policemen stopped my dad and wanted to know why were in the wrong neighborhood. He was very worried for us.

I think lunch was only a couple hours and they had to feed about 250,000 people between the the Yankee stadium and the Polo grounds. We were at the Polo grounds.

They had those military style metal pan type plates with several separate sections. I remember my dad was on the detail running the piping from steam generators to the industrial dish washing machines.

They had a tent city in some open field with thousands of people in campers and tents.

The way they fed people is that they would have long series of tables with sisters with the food and big spoons. A tray would start at one end of the tables and be pushed along and each sister in the assembly line would plop her food on the tray then push it along. Once it got to the end their was a line of witnesses at right angles going by and everyone would just grab a tray. No options just grab a tray and find an empty standup table to eat at. No sitting, no choices, just grab a tray and eat and drop the tray at a station for cleaning.

They bought a couple brand new cement mixers that they cleaned out and used to toss the salad. They were then able to sell the cement mixes as brand new as they only had salad oil in them.

We were allowed to walk around a bit even at 8 years old as I remember being very scared that I would not be able to find my way back.

Years later I actually perfected a technique for helping little kids find their lost seats when I was an attendant.

I was just a kid and this was the only interesting thing I had ever done other than work and school.

61

What do you believe about the bible?

by bethelyellowdollarbag in

i'm interested in how we all view the bible?.

let me start by offering three different options:.

a.. a book that at best may have cultural or historical interest but that is it.. b.. a divinely inspired guide that i consult to make important life choices.

bethelyellowdollarbag

I'm interested in how we all view the bible?

Let me start by offering three different options:

A.

A book that at best may have cultural or historical interest but that is it.

B.

A divinely inspired guide that I consult to make important life choices

C.

Something else

So what do you think?

67

There are really TWO Watchtower Societies

by Terry in

with cedars release of leaked watchtower new light "adjusting" understanding of "who" the faithful and discreet slave is.....i am struck by something which similarly struck me back in 1967.in 1967 i had just been imprisoned.

being a male jehovah's witness during the viet nam war meant certain "issues" arose affecting a decision to respond to the military draft.i have told the story before.

but, i'd like go at it from another angle in view of the above mentioned new light about the fds fora different reason.it was first in 1967 i began to discover that there are two watchtower societies.let me explain why i say this and for what reasons.first of all, anybody standing in a kingdom hall or sitting in a seat at a vast international assembly saw people they would identify as all on the same page.

bethelyellowdollarbag

I like the idea of their being two classes of Witnesses. Maybe that phenomenon is not limited to JW's though.

I've heard it said that there are engineers and everyone else. If a non-engineer sees something broken they accept that it is broken and if necessary replace it or find someone to fix it. An engineer wants to know why and thinks about how to fix it themselves.

There are cooks and diners. A diner tastes a new dish and says that tastes good. A cook is thinking about what spices make up that taste.

There are people who put on whatever is in their closet. Others make an effort to combine fashionable clothes.

Maybe it is simply a matter of what people care about. We all care about different things. How many times did I study the Babylon the Great Book? I had no interest in it at all. I just went through the motions.

I was born in, a pioneer a servant and a Bethelite. I never got disfellowshipped but I did get bored. I still believed that the JW's were the one true religion I just wanted to spend my time doing something interesting. I felt very guilty missing meetings at first but science interested me. The more I learned about science the more unlikely it seemed that the JW description of the world was correct.

Every JW sees things that bother them or that don't make sense. You use mental tricks to convince yourself that while that one thing doesn't make sense it is not enough to give up the whole body of "truth". Once you get to the point where you give yourself permission to consider that maybe it isn't the "truth" then a flood of these "One thing's " come crashing down and you realize that their wasn't one thing there were many things. Now with the new perspective you can't even imagine how you could have been fooled for so long.

It seems like there are many ways out:

Some of us are disillusioned by the apparent doctrinal vagrancies that seem to come and go and just don't make sense.

Some of us are disappointed that JW teachings contradict good science.

Some of us are either personally hurt or have loved ones hurt by draconian shunning practices and leave because it seems cruel.

Now that I can look back with an almost 30 year space everything makes total sense. If my starting premise was wrong everything following is likely to be wrong. If I believed that I had the one true religion and that the world as we know it will end in a few years everything I did at the time made perfect sense.

I was fooled, I no longer believe in god at all. The ransom sacrifice makes no sense to me. The whole story of the Jews taking over the Promised Land now has a sinister military smell. The concept of faith which was supposed to be a good thing now seems the ultimate stupidity.

With my new view of the world all the actions of the Society now make perfect sense. Just like all other religious people in the past and present they can and indeed should do absolutely everything in their power to protect themselves and promote their view. A religious person can logically do anything and for them it is the right thing to do.

A mother can drown her babies so the devil doesn't get them.

A military leader can exterminate women and children that have been contaminated by evil.

Lies, murder torture are all tools of those with faith.

And it all comes from one simple concept. The concept that there is an all-powerful God that knows what is best for us.

Yes it is true that some religious people have embraced tolerance but often it is in name only. The core of most current religions is the concept that I'm right you're wrong and if you don't do things my god's way something bad will happen to you.

The JW's are special only in that they are slightly more extreme than some but not as extreme as others.

So I agree with the OP that there are two categories (and more) and that the leadership does and did some really evil things. It is not only to be expected it was guaranteed to happen.

71

Thinking of having revenge on the jw girl

by spirituk in

hello again, following my story with this girl , and after she blocked me on fb and not answering my phone calls since december , i am now thinking of taking revenge.my feelings of pain are starting to become hate ,and pain always is accompanied by the feeling of revenge to satisfy this bad feeling.i just cant simply forget what shes done to me.

the reasons of my revenge :.

1.she played with my feelings when she knew from the start that she would leave me one day.

bethelyellowdollarbag

spirituk

The feelings you have are very strong and are real and important.

But as you have already seen they are changing.

At first you felt pain now you are feeling anger.

Most anyone will have a sequence of feelings just like you are having now. It is normal and expected.As you think more about this the anger will typically subside as you get some more distance from this situation. If your analysis of this situation is accurate you may soon come to feel sorrier for this girl than you do for yourself.

Think about it, you have options, are apparently looking for someone to really connect with and certainly will in time. This girl on the other hand is setting herself up for a very painful series of manipulative short term unfulfilling and ultimately lonely relationships. Whatever good qualities she has that attracted you to her something is obviously very wrong with her. One can only hope that she figures it out before she causes herself and others a lot of pain. So in a sense you got off easy.

It could have been a lot worse. You could have gotten engaged before she showed her true damage. What would have happened if you married and had children and then you found out what she was really like.

Right now it is probably impossible to see how you could forgive or feel sorry for this person as you are so angry. But remember just a few days ago how much you cared for her and how hurt you were and you couldn't even think of being angry.

That is the nature of feelings, they change often times quickly.

As others have said more eloquently the healthiest thing for you to do is think about other things and be thankful you found out what you needed to know when you did.

Once you get to the point where you do feel sorry for her imagine how bad you will feel if in a state of anger you do something hurtful or even worse illegal.