xero

No. It was an outlier congregation in every way. Even the guys wore makeup.

I'm not aware of anything like this in any congregation I've been part of. If I even suspected something like this I know our local boe has a different attitude. One bro said only half joking. "I'd invite someone like that to go on a hunting trip w/me. 'accidents' CAN happen while you're out hunting."

In your own way you are as malignantly obtuse as the other fellow. The reason I don’t focus on your proofs or debunkings is that they are not important. I’m perfectly willing to concede some of them will go your way. If they do, chalk it up to human imperfection. If they don’t, they still do not provide the underpinnings of a strong Christian faith. So you want me to go round and round on things that will not have consequence either way they fall? Maybe I don’t have a life, but nowhere near to the extent you don’t have one.
You live in a make-believe world of Sherlock Holmes.. Life is not like that. The Word says very little about proof. Jesus routinely said and things that would infuriate those of the narrow mindset you have retreated into. He raised straw men. He answered questions with questions. He employed hyperbole. He spun complex parables that he did not explain—let the heart figure it out.
”Taste and see that Jehovah is good,” says the Psalm. You have tasted and seen that he is bad. What more is there to say? And yet whatever place your tastebuds have led you obviously does not satisfy, for you repeatedly feel the need to troll in an attempt to sway other Witnesses. When they are not swayed, which is almost always, you resort to the name calling of a child.
At least Witness, and even 4Jah, pieces of work though they may be, at least present as wanting to help. They at least present as having somewhere to lead. They don’t look to the future as you do, proclaim it is rotten, and tell how they look forward to their death before it gets even world 
 

Unfortunately it seems that it's human nature to not "speak truth to one another".
My wife is the opposite. She always says what she thinks.
I remember one time this peppy elder asked her "Don't you want to go to Bethel?" and she said "No. I'd be cleaning toilets, while X would get to do something interesting."
She was right, of course, but instead of telling the truth she was supposed to make up some BS lie about her real reasons...make it sound like more of an acceptable "theocratic" excuse.
Same thing when it came to being a circuit overseer. One CO thought I was definitely CO material - I was already a regular pioneer of 26 years and an elder and this while working full time w/my wife who was a pioneer as well. But my wife put the hammer down on that idea.
I've been thinking about group-think for a while, and I'm convinced that you can't have a group of any kind or size w/o squeezing...This is because there's always a minority which is active which wants prominence and is less tolerant of differences in opinions and consciences.
Take this one family. They always creeped me out. Later it turned out my instincts were correct, they had been into some weird stuff on the side, but at meetings they were always pushing a hard-line view. They assumed I'd be into it too, but I wasn't.
Like there are people who are card-carrying JW's who are well intentioned, but quite frankly are busybodies. How many times have I heard "Bro X. I'm concerned about...." followed up by some busybody nosiness about how shiny or not some other bro or sister appears to be in their own lives and choices.
One of the other elders agreed. "I'm sick of people being 'concerned'!' (one of my favorite e's)

Could do with more like you here in England then.  I've been a member of a few congregations In southern England having moved around a bit, and the Elders are more like police officers looking for trouble, BUT, they overlook their friends 'sins', only harassing some brothers and sisters. Some things are too personal to mention on here but I've seen some wickedness and some very unpleasant Elders. Luke 17 : 1 & 2.   

4Jah...everyone has a different experience. Some positive and some negative. Elders have lots of opinions and so to GB members. I don't have to deal w/everyone's experience - they do. I also don't consider ex-JW's (if that's what they personally label themselves as) 'wicked'. I'm not in any position to judge. I also don't go hunting anyone down to see what they're up to. Sure you make these shepherding calls, but quite frankly, if someone's an adult and they don't want to talk, then I don't push it. Where I am, you'd have just been let be. Everyone has a conscience of their own and the last thing anyone should want to do is to become an obstacle to someone else's faith - either by being presumptuous and attempting to override their conscience, or by creating an "Us vs Them" mentality.

Unfortunately it seems that it's human nature to not "speak truth to one another".
My wife is the opposite. She always says what she thinks.
I remember one time this peppy elder asked her "Don't you want to go to Bethel?" and she said "No. I'd be cleaning toilets, while X would get to do something interesting."
She was right, of course, but instead of telling the truth she was supposed to make up some BS lie about her real reasons...make it sound like more of an acceptable "theocratic" excuse.
Same thing when it came to being a circuit overseer. One CO thought I was definitely CO material - I was already a regular pioneer of 26 years and an elder and this while working full time w/my wife who was a pioneer as well. But my wife put the hammer down on that idea.
I've been thinking about group-think for a while, and I'm convinced that you can't have a group of any kind or size w/o squeezing...This is because there's always a minority which is active which wants prominence and is less tolerant of differences in opinions and consciences.
Take this one family. They always creeped me out. Later it turned out my instincts were correct, they had been into some weird stuff on the side, but at meetings they were always pushing a hard-line view. They assumed I'd be into it too, but I wasn't.
Like there are people who are card-carrying JW's who are well intentioned, but quite frankly are busybodies. How many times have I heard "Bro X. I'm concerned about...." followed up by some busybody nosiness about how shiny or not some other bro or sister appears to be in their own lives and choices.
One of the other elders agreed. "I'm sick of people being 'concerned'!' (one of my favorite e's)

I think a lot of people who have left and a lot who have stayed have a lot in common. They haven't made the truth their own. Instead they either abdicate their free will to an organization or they blame an organization for their having left. In either case if the shoe fits is that "each one must carry his own load". Now you can't look at someone and know what box they fit into, but obsessive focus on the organization and the GB is, of course a clue. Supposedly we're supposed to be intently looking at and studying the perfecter of our faith - Jesus.
Elders aren't magical wise men, neither are members of any governing body. You can of course cherry pick and create whatever movie you want to play in your own head as the manner of your life and whether you're happy with it or not - still it's your own bed - you made it, you continue to make it and you must lie down in it.
Happy people will be happy, and unhappy people will be unhappy. As soon as people "stop kicking against the goads" and know that they are solely responsible for their own choices and the consequences which flow from these, they can begin really living. (as much as living can be living in this particular rendition)

Tom, you never know how true that can be. There was this woman at work "Carmen" who apparently got wind that I was a JW and all and decided to start hitting on me. In the break room on a Friday she asked me to go to happy hour with her and her gf's. I said, looking at her seriously "Carmen. Happy hour begins at home." Then she said "But what if your wife has other plans?" I said (in front of a bunch of the guys) "Carmen, my wife has nothing better to do with her free time than to spend it all with me." All these guys busted out laughing.
This stuff happens all the time I'm sure w/brothers because what you can't have is what you want sometimes.

Of course ...they lost me at "Huffington Post". Also, to me the chronic fascination humans have with body parts is odd. I don't obsess over a drumstick or a bowl of oatmeal. Why would I obsess about body parts?
It strikes me that people like this are lacking in imagination.
I mean mathematically speaking, there are a finite number of configurations and things which may be done with or to a human body. It's all really dull.

It's none of my business, but I'd encourage people to follow their bible trained consciences. Personally? I think not. How it's all going to go down, I don't know. Will it be a wipeout and restore operation? Does the scripture which says "those slain by Jehovah will be from one end of the earth to another" be that which Jehovah ALLOWED or CAUSED to be slain by some cosmic event which has been on it's way to this planet for thousands of years?
I think the overweening concern with judging others alive or dead or living at that time is out of place. What it really means is that the individual imagines either what some organization told him is going to happen is true and moral when it's neither true nor moral (and not at all what Jehovah is up to) , or they simply don't trust God to be a moral God.
If the latter is true, then we're all screwed. I don't think that's the case, however and I avoid the apparent joy and relish some have at contemplating the destruction of anyone. Certainly God has said he takes no delight in the death of the wicked. So we ought not either. In either case, you are right that some in the organization have said these things, but when you read the fine print there's always an asterisk * "*" - meaning we don't really know.

Many ex-JWs and opposers obsess over the fact that the Watchtower promoted these same expectations for the mid-1970's with a focus on the year 1975. My 3 children were all born in the period from the mid-to-late 80's, and I saw this same view beginning in my own children, matching that of the 11-year old "version" of the girl above.
To those of us who had been Witnesses during the 1975 period, most of us probably thought it refreshing that there was no longer a specific set of years being pointed to any more, and we seemed "safe" from date-setting. But even young children picked up on the idea that all this "suffering" for the sake of the kingdom was only for a few short years, and there would never be a need to learn how to make a living in this system of things. It really did change their outlook on school and career and marriage and providing for one's family. "Jehovah will provide" became a catchphrase of sisters who assumed that brothers with good jobs would be coming into the truth in time to make good marriage mates if somehow the system lasted long enough for them to need a husband with "means." I dreaded that this kind of attitude would influence my own daughter.
My own experiences with respect to 1975 might be considered sad to outsiders, but I don't look back at them with any remorse. I was baptized in 1967, and was still 15, almost 16, when I quit school in 1973 to begin f-t pioneering. I took to heart the Watchtower's counsel and advice that the system had only a few months after this 1975 period, not years. The commendations for selling houses and pioneering affected my family too. My father didn't believe in the 1975 hype, and even got in trouble (from the D.O.) after a circuit assembly talk, by adding that Jesus' words (about no one knowing the day or the hour) showed how we should also be balanced. That was rather unforgettable, but my father still sold our house and moved us into a rented house in 1974, so that my mother could begin f-t pioneering, too.
My brother started an office-cleaning business in 1974 as many other pioneers had done. Only, he didn't pioneer himself but kept expanding the business with more accounts and ended up providing jobs for about 20 pioneers. He finally sold the business for about $20,000 to a full-time pioneer (in '77).  I'm sure that the number of new businesses across the country called "Pioneer Cleaning Services" shot up considerably in this period. A lot of people probably don't know that "Rug Doctor" was started this way, and my brother was good friends with the Witness founder. Their web site only says that it was started more than 43 years ago (implying before 1977) but it was actually started in 1974/5.
In 1977, my Bethel roommate, my brother, and the daughter of one of the Rug Doctor partners were the only people I knew (at the time) who had been invited to Bethel without any full-time pioneering experience.
They had all involved themselves either in learning computer science or electronics (programmable microprocessor controllers) in my brother's case. So after Bethel, I got a bachelor's degree in computer science. The congregation and the elders were very prejudiced against it, but as long as I kept full-time pioneering during college I got away with it.
Times are a bit different again, and college is definitely no guarantee of a better job. It often brings unnecessary debt and stress. But I never discouraged college for my three children and, as things turned out, I'm currently glad I didn't. But there is still a lot of prejudice against pioneering in most congregations I know.
My kids all had music, orchestra, and choir in high school, and kept their skills up for another few years in college. They would draw the line at national anthems, too, but rarely bowed out of any other songs or performances. So much music is permeated with religious or political foundations anyway that it would be impossible to completely separate from it without getting out of orchestra or choir altogether. I think that most Witnesses compromise and hardly realize it when they participate in American high school music classes especially.

“We must not put people in boxes,” one sister said at the Zoom meeting. I heartily signaled my agreement to all the Zoom-boxed participants.

You are not noticing what is going on in the real world out there. Human trafficking brings in 38 billion dollars per year...... child trafficking the most disgusting part of it. In schools all children are being sexualized with the new transgender doctrines and taught critical race theory.....in every class.... so yes - incase you have not noticed the entire world is going back to the time of Canaan - Sodom and Gomorra.... where anything unmoral is ok to indulge in - turning people into mere animals.
As I said before - satan wants every person on earth morally compromised so that they lose their opportunity to be redeemed.

Like this!

Tom, you never know how true that can be. There was this woman at work "Carmen" who apparently got wind that I was a JW and all and decided to start hitting on me. In the break room on a Friday she asked me to go to happy hour with her and her gf's. I said, looking at her seriously "Carmen. Happy hour begins at home." Then she said "But what if your wife has other plans?" I said (in front of a bunch of the guys) "Carmen, my wife has nothing better to do with her free time than to spend it all with me." All these guys busted out laughing.
This stuff happens all the time I'm sure w/brothers because what you can't have is what you want sometimes.

There is always that psycho ex-mate who just cannot let go.

Tom, you never know how true that can be. There was this woman at work "Carmen" who apparently got wind that I was a JW and all and decided to start hitting on me. In the break room on a Friday she asked me to go to happy hour with her and her gf's. I said, looking at her seriously "Carmen. Happy hour begins at home." Then she said "But what if your wife has other plans?" I said (in front of a bunch of the guys) "Carmen, my wife has nothing better to do with her free time than to spend it all with me." All these guys busted out laughing.
This stuff happens all the time I'm sure w/brothers because what you can't have is what you want sometimes.

Word on the street is that the miscreants here planned to send some Moabite women your way to trip you up. So much for that idea.