OneEyedJoe

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Posts by OneEyedJoe

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  8

  THE REASON JW.ORG is a strawman tool of evangelism

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if everybody watches what you do--they will notice all your mistakes.. the same is true of religions and religious leaders.. http://theevangelists.blogspot.com/2011/04/hall-of-shame.html.

  too much exposure proved disastrous for jimmy swaggert, bob tilton, rev.

  haggard, peter popoff.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Yep, they're definitely trying to put on a good show, while continuing to insulate the R/F from the public with passive preaching carts and tract campaigns where you don't talk to anyone for more than a few seconds.
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  20

  A STRANGE thing happened on the way to the Psychiatrist...

  by PaintedToeNail in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  he's gone apostate!

  as some may remember, when i started my fade, my husband freaked out and thought i was going to leave him.

  he wanted to see someone about our marriage.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Yeah, it's amazing how the pressure from the organization can get you to say things that you don't even believe yourself. I had a number of doubts as far back as I can remember, but if anyone else brought them up I'd always tow the company line with the canned responses. It's not until those doubts hit critical mass and explode that anything externally noticable happens.

  I think I've mentioned it before, the system seems designed so that thinking people will have this type of sudden explosion where they've been holding in a growing number of doubts until it's suddenly too much. That drives them to actions that seem sudden to everyone around them because of the fear of talking about your doubts. That sudden action then serves to reinforce the "mentally diseased" label that they love to stick on appostates. When a thinking person finally explodes and either speaks out, DAs or gets DF'd, the fears of the appostates are only reinforced to the R/F. It strengthens the image that not only are these people mentally diseased (what else could explain such a sudden shift in their thinking?) but also that it's contagious and to be avoided.

  Congrats to PTN, though, for the role you may have had in saving this man's life from being further wasted in the cult.
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  37

  6 branches subsidize the rest of the branches.

  by hoser in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i went to the meeting this morning and we had some guy from overseas bethel give the public talk.

  6 countries subsidize the rest.

  he said in some countries all the donations that they get from contributions don't even pay the electricity bill for the branch buildings so money has to come in from these 6 richer countries.

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  OneEyedJoe

  The last time the CO was around, about 10 minutes of one of his talks was essentially about how congregations "in western countries" sometimes don't contribute enough even to pay for the cost of their literature, while congregations in poor african countries are giving their last cent to pay as much to the org as they can. "How sad a situation it would be if those poor brothers in africa where subsidizing our magazine costs" he says. He never stated that it was a problem locally (I did an accounts audit not long ago, and I'm quite certain it's not). It was all sort of implied in a way that it seemed to be designed to give the impression that we weren't giving enough while not actually giving any information about how much we should be giving, or how much was currently being given. Clearly the goal was to get everyone to give more, regardless of whether they were already pulling their weight or not.

  I've also noticed that when I was in poorer congregations, they would frequently name a dollar amount as a per-publisher monthly figure to give us an idea how much to donate, but in the congregations in better neighborhoods, they've never done this. Instead, they just make this type of generic plea for more money and throw out hypotheticals about what that money may be used for. My guess is that in the poorer congregations, most aren't pulling their weight, so the average figure is above what most are giving. In the better off congregations, they can't name a figure, because most are already giving more than that so they might actually reduce how much they get if they say how much is needed.

  Another option, is that they per-publisher figure is more effective in congregations that have more large families (these also tend to be the poorer congregations) because there's probably a tendency for those folks to translate per-publisher to per-person and therefore donate for their young kids too.

  When you start to see how things get treated differently from place to place, you can really see how money-grubbing the cult is.
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  27

  public WT november 2014

  by fastJehu in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  since many years the nov public wt has only one color and no picture on the front cover.. very strange.

  so the design department saves time and can go from door to door ...... .

  download: http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/42/wp_e_20141101.pdf.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Hmm, the interracial thing may not be universal. I've definitely met more people in the "world" that are in interracial marriages than in the JWs. I can only think of a handful of interracial couples, and only one case in my 30 years in the org of a black/white couple. It's certainly not due to a lack of diversity in the congregation, either.
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  27

  public WT november 2014

  by fastJehu in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  since many years the nov public wt has only one color and no picture on the front cover.. very strange.

  so the design department saves time and can go from door to door ...... .

  download: http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/42/wp_e_20141101.pdf.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Hmm, the interracial thing may not be universal. I've definitely met more people in the "world" that are in interracial marriages than in the JWs. I can only think of a handful of interracial couples, and only one case in my 30 years in the org of a black/white couple. It's certainly not due to a lack of diversity in the congregation, either.
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  20

  A STRANGE thing happened on the way to the Psychiatrist...

  by PaintedToeNail in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  he's gone apostate!

  as some may remember, when i started my fade, my husband freaked out and thought i was going to leave him.

  he wanted to see someone about our marriage.

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  OneEyedJoe

  Where's the conflict of interests? There probably isn't another doctor better suited to help your husband.

  Just goes to show that it's just a ticking clock for how long inteligent/educated people can keep up the mental acrobatics necessary to stay in this cult.
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  5

  jw apps spying on us?

  by purrpurr in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi everyone i'm back from the hell that was twickers.

  i have a question, there's a ton a jw related apps available for download.

  is it possible for these apps to be able to spy on the user once downloaded on to the tablet or phone?

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  OneEyedJoe

  Most likely not. But personally, if I get found out by some spyware that the cult included in some app, I'll be perfectly OK with it. It'll demonstrate the level of control the cult aspires to have, and I think it will help to wake up my wife.
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  42

  Today's WT study! So hypocritical!

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so today's study is all about being kindly, and not judgemental to those in the congregation....we don't know their circumstances etc.... i can't believe the hypocrisy being spewed out...both in the article and by means of the answers from the audience!.

  we know the reality is so different!

  unless a witness does everything exactly as the gb directs...in every aspects of life, they are effectively no longer a good person, but are viewed as spiritually lacking or weak..... they are going directly beyond the biblical directives, and being ones who condemn, rather than ones who commend!.

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  OneEyedJoe

  two things stood out to me in this one. We got a rare (in context) reading of one of the JWs favorite scriptures (james 2:17 - faith without works is dead). But this time (because the scripture actually applied for once) they read the preceding verses that put it in context and allow you to realize that the "works" in question have nothing to do with preaching.

  The other thing worked out to my advantage. The conductor went a little of script and proposed a situation where it came to light that a brother that was being used in the congregation had been watching inappropriate movies. He basically asked how the elders should handle the situation, adding "should they just immediately bench him from handling the mics?" The elder that answered said that they should have a conversation with him to try to help him and that he wouldn't necessarily lose any privileges. This, of course meet with approval and nodding heads from all in attendance.

  This was useful to me because, as I've mentioned here once or twice, my "privilege" of reading for the WT or book studies was revoked for failure to comment regularly at the meetings. When they did this, there was no discussion of attempt to help or understand my situation. Nope, they just told me how it was. Afterwards, I joked to my wife "I guess it's good to know that failure to comment regularly is worse than watching bad movies." She was a little confused (as I intended) so I reminded her of what they did to me, including the implication that was made that she also needed to comment more for me to have privileges. I could hardly have hoed for a better reaction. She was pretty upset despite throwing out a variation of the "imperfect men" excuse. I didn't push the issue, and a few minutes later she stated getting more upset and began naming others that are allowed to read, but comment even less frequently than I do. Then the thing about her commenting sank in and she started naming all the elders whose wives literally never comment and said "I guess they shouldn't be elders then." It was a struggle to contain my excitement. I managed to say almost nothing and just let her think it through and I just said "I guess that's just what happens when you have a couple men making a bunch of arbitrary rules."
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  17

  Question du jour - How Many of God's Servants in the Bible Had No Beard?

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  question du jour - how many of god's servants in the bible had no beard?.

  legit question..

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  OneEyedJoe

  Well I went to my meeting today with 1 day's growth and was asked by two elders if I'm growing a beard. I'm running a little experiment to see what the response will be for stepping out. I'm going to try to have about a days growth at as many meetings as I can. If tag doesn't yield results, I'll go further.
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  2

  Symposium: Those Who Will Inherit God's Kingdom

  by 88JM in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it's been said before that once you know ttatt, then you listen with very different ears to talks at conventions.

  i thought the second symposium this year on saturday morning of the convention was particularly terrible - here's what i had as the summary of the four parts:.

  those "who are poor".

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  OneEyedJoe

  The becoming as young children bit really hit me. My convention was shortly after I finished reading one of Steve Hassan's books in which he talked about how cults often stress being child-like as a virtue in order to age regress adherents to a point before the had critical thinking skills.