Hearing the music on the homepage of "Beyond Jehovah's Witnesses" reminded me of how nervous I was the first time I started reading on that site. Sorry to hijack.. I'm just so happy all you guys helped me out of the Witnesses. Thanks again..
GBL
The Dynamics of online Apostaworld: the History
by Bas 20 Replies latest jw friends
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stillajwexelder
No history would be complete without mention of Randy Watters site www.freeminds.org - it was how I first got directed here. Randy himself being a free thinker and part of the Bethel purge in the early 1980s
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tetrapod.sapien
yes, beyondjw.com was the site that did it for me.
there is a great list of exjw boards on his main page there, Bas.
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Euphemism
I wasn't involved in the community before '03 myself, but I can give you a few pointers that might (hopefully) be helpful:
- On Usenet, aside from the groups mentioned above, there were also a good number of ex-Witnesses in alt.religion.jehovahs-witness
- The WT was giving warnings about BBSes (not necessarily net-connected) back in the early 90's. I've heard some references to Prodigy boards; I don't know about other ones.
- ChannelC, run by Ros/Atlas (Rosalie Hughes), has been around for a while and gets posts from luminaries such as Jim Penton, Carl Jonsson, and Rud Persson. Ros is a board member of BRCI (along with--among others--Peter Gregerson, whom you may remember from Crisis of Conscience). She also owns the Beacon site, and manages a couple of listservs.
An interesting footnote to history would be witnesses.net. It was run by an undercover ex-dub, Obie Fernandez, as a 'honeypot'; basically, a genuine dub site, but one where Obie gradually let in other undercover ex-dubs to subtly encourage free thinking. I respect Obed for what he tried to do, although I still don't agree with his methods. Still, the site was in many ways a success; it was far larger than any other dub site since then.
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Bas
Thanks for those links Euphemism, I'll be sure try to get Rosalie's and Obie's stories...Randy Watters ofcourse was already at the top of the list. Now I gotta make some clear boundaries on what info I want or this whole thing will be out of control and will take me years to finish. Can't have that... maybe I should contact the antropology department of my former uni, dunno. Still hoping someone from here wants to be my equal partner in this, possibly several people. Anyway, first I have to go list my potential sources and think of how to best interview them....
Bas
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jukief
Bas, Google has usenet news archives that you can search. I searched under Alan's name not too long ago and it was kind of fun to read some of the old usenet posts he wrote. I wish I'd saved all my email archives from the early philia days, but I didn't. Alan might have some of them around somewhere, but if you could see his office you'd understand why he might never be able to find them. For having such an organized mind, he sure does have a disorganized office! :-) Where are you from in Holland? I was in Utrecht a couple of months ago visiting a friend. My first visit; it's a beautiful country.
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hillary_step
Euphemism,
- ChannelC, run by Ros/Atlas (Rosalie Hughes), has been around for a while and gets posts from luminaries such as Jim Penton, Carl Jonsson, and Rud Persson. Ros is a board member of BRCI (along with--among others--Peter Gregerson, whom you may remember from Crisis of Conscience). She also owns the Beacon site, and manages a couple of listservs.
I was just about to mention Ros, thank you for doing so.
In her own gentle way, Ros through her boards and lists has provided a tranquil haven for exiting JW's who may find the cut and thrust of the larger boards a little intimidating.
A truly spiffing and good-hearted lady, I must say.
HS
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Bas
I'm from Arnhem Jukief, thank you for that google/usenet hint, I'll be sure to go search that way
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Bas
btw Jukief and Hillary, looking at the dates you joined you could probably tell some things yourselves, any of you been members of jwo?
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Gozz
Was anyone here ever on www.witnesses.net?
I've forgotten the name of the owner (Obed?); the site went down sometime in 2000 or so. There was a poster "Friend", whom I perceived as a faithful JW but in strong opposition to the Society's Blood Doctrine; I later heard that "Friend" died, but couldn't confirm that information. I've seen more than a few names here that were on witnesses.net. Because the site was a tad tame, it was a good place for JWs looking for information and discussion, and I know at least two JWs who have been influenced to exit the JW religion based on their interaction there.
I remember that when witnesses.net went down, and I invited two of the "brothers" over here, the first saw posts that were, er "shocking", and complained about the atmosphere; the posts contained words that were offending to him (Dipshit, or Dipfuck, or sth); the other brother got here, read a few posts and was positively struck by one of the posts. They found both offending and positive posts were by the same poster when they compared notes. This is perhaps one reason to keep things civil when posting.
Interesting thread.