![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Out of curiosity, I went looking for Jehovah's Witnesses on LiveJournal, and I've discovered a few interesting things. For example, one JW pioneer has the following interests: Kill Bill, fairies, Harry Potter, horror stories, and The Sixth Sense. She uses the word "frigging" in her post, and posted a silly online quiz which predicted whether or not she would get laid in high school. To top it off, some JWs are using rather sexy images for their LJ icons.
This is in stark contrast to what would have been considered appropriate when I was involved with the JWs. I'd have been up shit creek for using a sexual term like "frigging," and publicly posting the probability of my fornicating would have been a distinct no-no. Demonstrating an interest in the supernatural, gory movies, and other naughty things would surely have been a stumbling block for other JWs, and would also have been showing off just how worldly and tainted by Satan I was. I'd have been labelled bad association, for sure.
Has there been such a paradigm shift in the religion that these things are now acceptable? I remember being very surprised when I discovered the whole 1914 thing had been ripped from the doctrine, and that was one of the core tenets. What next? Shall blood transfusions be considered ok?
I predict they shall, actually, but not for a while. And then, new JWs will be offended if anyone should ever say blood transfusions were ever considered disfellowshipping offenses. I've already spoken with JWs who have never heard anything special about the year 1914, aside from it being the year WWI began. Plenty of JWs are out there who've never heard of the injunction against vaccinations or the paranoia surrounding organ transplants, and even more who are unaware of miracle wheat and the role of pyramids in early JW doctrine.
So what's up, now, anyhow?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 08:40 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 08:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 08:45 pm (UTC)From:aexample?
Date: 2004-09-20 08:50 pm (UTC)From:Also, I wonder if it is partly a generation-gap/technology use issue that is letting younger LJ using folk get away with this kind of thing, and also allowing them to have their horizons broadened a bit?
Re: aexample?
Date: 2004-09-20 08:54 pm (UTC)From:Fixed.
I think technology has a LOT to do with the relaxation of JW beliefs. When I was a kid, the only apostate literature to be had was hardcopy. It was easy to be dinged for having contraband books. However, with the internet, it's easy for a JW to be sneaky and do research on their religion without having anyone aware of it.
Since more people are finding out about the flip side of the religion, more and more people are leaving the religion. I'm guessing that a relaxation of the rules is happening in an attempt to keep more people within the religion.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 10:36 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 02:27 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 10:40 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 02:17 am (UTC)From:I'm not sure how the changes have been incorporated into the Memorial and the Remnant.
no subject
Date: 2004-09-20 10:41 pm (UTC)From:So glad to be out of the Wacky Witnesses. ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 02:18 am (UTC)From: