I think that typically the more people are forced to defend a belief, the more entrenched in it they often become. I think most of them will probably walk away content to see this as persecution for upholding god's righteous standards and give it no further consideration.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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Crisis of Conscience
by FreeGirl2006 indo you think that any of the clueless, amnesiacs that appeared before the rc will have a crisis of conscience over the abuse situation?
seriously, with the grilling they received from our new heroes, they would have to be sociopaths not to do some long hard thinking about the lack of empathy and compassion the borg displays as a top down policy towards abuse victims.
i can understand these idiots not having an awakening within the confines of their daily lives since they stay cloistered in their belief system, but the rc forced them into the real world with their questions and one would hope, made them think.
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Why I have renounced Atheism and become a believer again
by cantleave ini have always said that if a god showed itself i would follow the evidence and renounce my atheism.
i have now seen enough to start believing again, i am so happy, i feel a inner contentment, when he connected with me i really knew it was him.
if you are not a believer you will not understand this, but trust me, look at the evidence, open your heart to him, let him in and your life will change for the better.
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OneEyedJoe
oh man I was so ready to be super annoyed by this post, but that was some good stuff, thank you.
Praise be unto him, the mighty flying spaghetti monster. May he touch you all with his noodley appendage.
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OneEyedJoe
I had the same initial thought about the "is religion dying out?" cover as the one I had when my wife made a point of leaving out the "Is science replacing the bible?" magazine a month or so back. My thought was "Let's hope so."
I love the WT study articles. Train your kids to serve the cult! Good to see they're still loosing kids!
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the rumor again surfaces....
by sowhatnow insomeone please tell me how or if i can find proof that the rumor [that is pasted below] that was posted by a friend [still in, but should know better] on my face book page is false, [which of course we all know it is,] this makes me so angry, i have to stick my neck out and comment on this post but need something to back me up....anyone want to enlighten me where this got started?
i need proof he never said such a thing, it seems to me its false.
whats interesting is this, the bible in the photo accompanying the statement below is the latest version.... [photo].
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OneEyedJoe
That's such a subjective statement that it should be obvious that it was never used on Jeopardy. Furthermore, it's meaningless unless they'd be willing to concede that an endorsement for another translation by Jeopardy would be damning for the credibility of the NWT. -
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another abuse that most JW children go through is severe "spankings" at the hall..is that still going on?
by wwjdnwt ini was born into the jw's religion.
was an active jw for over 30 years.
i remember when i was a child my mom would take me in the bathroom and switch me so hard with the nice little switch she got from the tree outside.
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OneEyedJoe
Still happens here, but like others have said it's not quite as bad as it was in the 80s. -
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Big Concepts That JWs Won't Even Allow Themselves To Consider
by JW_Rogue inbecause of the belief that the bible is quite literally the word god jws must shut out many logical concepts and theories.
it's not just evolution although that is a large one.
i know when i was in there were certain concepts that made sense to me but i would try not to think about them too much.
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OneEyedJoe
Well of course they don't think about those things. They can just point to me and say "he allowed himself to consider those concepts, and now look where he is! He's in the world!"
Thinking about stuff like that was definitely instrumental in my waking up.
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Going to a bad place when i die
by 060702015 ini've thought and said too much to ever gain jehovahs forgiveness and love if i want to be a christian again.
i made a topic on my unforgivable sin and blaspemy of the holy spirit.. i feel saddness everyday having no relationship with god, no religion and fear of the afterlife.
even when i was kid i feared death and the end of the world.
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OneEyedJoe
Yeah, I agree with Morpheus and FMF. I consider myself generally pretty well-adjusted (in spite of my upbringing in a cult) and generally happy, but even so therapy has been helpful. I think in your case it may really help you to understand many of the cognitive distortions that you're employing that give you a rather dim view of yourself and of your future.
If nothing else, I would recommend that you read up on cognitive behavior therapy, which can be quite helpful in situations that you seem to be facing. A good book on the topic is "Feeling Good" by David Burns.
There's absolutely no reason why you need to live in a state of fear and anticipation for a terrible future. That's the type of thing that can often result in self-harm and I hope that you are able to avoid going any further down that path. Please, please, please find a way to get some help.
Again as morpheus said, this comes from a place of concern with absolutely no judgement (hey, I'm seeing a therapist myself!) so I hope you will at least consider it.
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Governing Body, painted in a corner, now what?
by Wasanelder Once inthe governing body have painted themselves in a corner, so to speak.
if they acknowledge their response to abuse claims was insensitive, unloving and inadequate they are denying the belief that "god's way" is best and risk losing abuse cases.
if they stick with it and say it is "god's way according to the bible" they will be seen as cult leaders and risk losing abuse cases.
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OneEyedJoe
Why are there lawsuits against the WTS/GB but not lawsuits against the parents of the victims???
Reporting that you have (or your child has) been abused to the police is a very difficult action to take. It requires a huge amount of courage and humility and the whole thing is awash with complex emotions. In some cases it is difficult for these ones to see that reporting the abuse not only serves justice in their case, but also prevents the abuse of others. This should not be difficult for the elders to see, however.
Furthermore, in many cases the elder's negligence goes far beyond failure to report. They have assigned molesters to work directly with children. They have written letters of reccomendation for molesters that specifically indicate that they are good with children and fail to mention anything about the molestation.
Third, there are many accounts of the elders discouraging parents/victims from reporting the abuse. Because of the power that they hold (being that it's a cult that employs powerful mind control techniques) they hold undue influence over these people to prevent the reporting of abuse. Their discouragement of abuse reporting is not without teeth, either, as there have been numerous accounts of victims and their families being DFed for attempting to report the abuse or warn others that are at risk.
Yes, in many cases the parents are negligent as well, but lets not pretend that this cult has had nothing to do with the continued abuse of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of children.
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Jehovah's Witnesses #10 in Yahoo trending
by TweetieBird ini'm sitting here drinking my morning coffee and opened up the yahoo page to see jw's trending at #10. clicked on it and the first article is about the child abuse.. did something happen lately that would get so many people doing a massive search?.
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OneEyedJoe
What about Google?
When I google "Jehovah's wittnesses" the first thing that pops up (even before jw.borg) is an "in the news" section with tons of links to news articles about how they hid child abuse.
I wish the timing of this had been better...just imagine if this had happened in August of last year when they were distributing the jw.org fliers. The backfire on that would've been truly spectacular.
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JW Reaction to Royal Commission Reports
by maksutov inhas anybody confronted any jws with the royal commission reports on the news yet?
i showed my 8-year old daughter a newspaper headline about it, and when she told my jw wife that the jws in australia were in trouble for not reporting over 1,000 child abusers to police, her response was "oh, really?
well, i don't know what the rules are over there.
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OneEyedJoe
In the comments there seems to be lots of pro-JW rationalizing....but there are also some righteously indignant commenters making excellent points as well.
Which of course leads to spittle-inflected cries of "apostate! Apostate in our midst!"
I wonder what it would do to someone who sees themselves as a faithful JW if they're called an apostate for being disgusted by child abuse. I feel like it might make them wonder if maybe there are some like-minded people out there that have already been vilified for taking a moral stand. I wish there was some way of knowing just how many people end up leaving the cult because of this one act by the Australian government.