Does she know you're not a JW? If she's left, i can see her denying knowing you just to avoid getting sucked back in to a JW conversation - if she thinks you're a JW she'd probably be expecting to get questioned about the congregation, etc and all the standard nonsense JW talk. Depending on how much trauma she's left with from the cult, it seems entirely possible that she just wants to leave it in the past and not have someone dredge it back up.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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4
Strange doings at the Market
by ctrwtf inso i recently made a trip back to my home town to visit some extended family still in.
the whole trip was very awkward.
for a whole bunch of reasons i won't bore you with, we stayed in a hotel near where the family lives, maybe as kind of a barrier to being in constant contact with the cult mentality.. being a very early riser, i went to the grocery to pick up a few things.
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SCRIPTURE TO READ TO JWs
by somebody intwo jws came to my door recently.
i asked one of them to read ecclesiastes 9:5 for me.
i then asked them if all living jws are knowing or believing or are conscious that they will die.
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OneEyedJoe
My plan for if I'm ever called upon by JWs is to ask if they believe that Jesus has returned, and if they believe the end to be near. Then I'll have them read Luke 21:8 and say "well it sounds to me that Jesus himself commanded me not to follow you"
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$40,000.00 USD, and counting.....
by DATA-DOG ini'm not sure if anyone is keeping track, but as of today, the wtbts has spent $40,000.00 usd to avoid releasing sensitive documents to the superior authorities.
that's $40,000.00 usd of "dedicated funds.
are you a born-in jw?
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OneEyedJoe
No, the $120,000 fine is just the first round. If they don't comply, the court will likely increase the fines going forward. It only gets worse for them.
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$40,000.00 USD, and counting.....
by DATA-DOG ini'm not sure if anyone is keeping track, but as of today, the wtbts has spent $40,000.00 usd to avoid releasing sensitive documents to the superior authorities.
that's $40,000.00 usd of "dedicated funds.
are you a born-in jw?
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OneEyedJoe
How long will this go on? They will not reveal and have an endless pot of money to dig into. Their actions are in the 'contempt' class (!) and needs be treated as such.
My understanding is that this is only the first round of fines meant to motivate them to comply with the court order. They get this for a month (so $120,000 in fines in this first round) and then the court will reassess if further action needs be taken. If they don't comply, the fines will likely escalate up until the court gives up and the last sanction is basically to bar them from making a defense, which previously resulted in a $13.5 million judgement against them. The previous judgement was shot down on appeal because the judge didn't try lesser sanctions first. This time they'll have much less chance of winning an appeal due to the slower progression of the penalties.
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$40,000.00 USD, and counting.....
by DATA-DOG ini'm not sure if anyone is keeping track, but as of today, the wtbts has spent $40,000.00 usd to avoid releasing sensitive documents to the superior authorities.
that's $40,000.00 usd of "dedicated funds.
are you a born-in jw?
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OneEyedJoe
There's a fine counter on this page:
http://jwsurvey.org/news/news-bulletin-watchtower-found-in-contempt-of-court-hit-with-4000-fine-per-day-until-it-complies-with-court-order
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Open discussion on "Spiritual Intelligence"
by Fernando init was a surprise to learn that there are quite a number of si books, and si tests, out there.. what are your thoughts on si?.
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OneEyedJoe
Does spiritual intelligence determine one's ability to convince people to believe absurd things by making impossible assertions/promises about the afterlife?
Or is it just the ability to spin a satisfying load of BS to explain things without actually bothering to do due diligence and come up with a real explanation?
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Expanding number of DC/RC's
by DwainBowman inaccording to my elder in law, by next year the number of dc/rc's will increase by 143. the size of conventions will get smaller.
the elder in law says the goal is to make them all have around 2,000 or so at each.
they are going to make more manuals detailing each job and it's responsibilities.
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OneEyedJoe
There has been discussion about the future of RCs before and there are some who think it's too much of a money spinner to move from larger hired venues.
If they make decisions based on money (which it appears that may be one of their primary motivators) then the smart thing to do would be to go case-by-case. For districts (I guess regions, now?) that don't contribute as much at the convention it would be better to split these up and move into assembly halls. For those that are real money makers - keep them in hired venues (greater perceived cost to the R/F and therefore greater contributions) and split up just enough to hide any decline in numbers, but keep the group large enough that people don't question why they don't just use the assembly hall.
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Expanding number of DC/RC's
by DwainBowman inaccording to my elder in law, by next year the number of dc/rc's will increase by 143. the size of conventions will get smaller.
the elder in law says the goal is to make them all have around 2,000 or so at each.
they are going to make more manuals detailing each job and it's responsibilities.
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OneEyedJoe
I've seen this play out locally - the conventions in 2012 and 2013 (the last ones I went to that wasn't an international convention, which can't really be used as a data point here) were showing a decline in attendance. Last year they moved to a new location that is much smaller (probably about 60% the size) and added one more weekend.
I think this is at least in part designed to disguise the decline in attendance. They still have a smaller attendance, but now there's an excuse that the R/F can tell themselves - they've moved to a smaller venue and added more convention dates to compensate. The vast majority of those that even notice the decline in numbers will be appeased by this excuse and won't actually do the math to realize that the additional convention date doesn't make up for all of the decline.
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The 1975 Generation---are they still around?
by minimus ini was raised as a jw and 1975 expectations were pretty intense.
as i recall, most people did not leave after the failed expectations but many s l o w e d down.
now, i think most of the 1975 witnesses are gone or barely in.. is the older generation still around in the kingdom halls or are they much gone?.
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OneEyedJoe
In my experience those that were in some way around for 1975 (most that I know were in their teens or early 20s - those of my parents' generation) are the last of the old-school, studious, "scholarly" JWs that actually know their stuff. The ones that stayed after that disappointment are more firm in their faith than those that have come after. They had to learn, early on, to reject contrary evidence and push on with faith, and now it is impossible for them to see that they might have been wrong - they are too proud for that.
The book When Prophecy Fails describes a similar situation with a small cult that predicted the end of the world. When the end of the world failed to materialize many left, but those that stayed in had even more conviction that it was true. In fact, it was only after this failure that they started proselytizing (sound familiar - JWs post 1914...) and the theory goes that it is their own insecurity about their beliefs that drives them to convince others they're right. If you can convince someone else to join your side, then it bolsters your confidence that you've joined the right side.
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I Don't Care If It Is A Cult ???
by thereishope inshared a bit with my husband the other day about what i'd learned about cults.
how nearly (if not all) every box on the list gets checked for jw.
he got some upset!
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OneEyedJoe
I think the problem is that a true believer can acknowledge that it behaves like a cult, but still believe that it is "truth." I was somewhat in this category for a while - sitting at the KH listening to a talk about shunning apostates or not accepting literature from someone even if it meant they'd read yours, or listening to all the loaded language - I thought to myself "If I were creating a cult, that would be something I would do." That didn't mean it wasn't "the truth" to me though. I just thought that god wanted to run his organization like a cult. If that was god's way of doing things, and I was gonna get to paradise out of the deal, who am I to argue?
I think the key here is to introduce a couple concepts over time and let them come together. You need more than to think/know that it is or might be a cult. You then need to have some reason to doubt the efficacy of the doctrine - something significant enough that the idea that it's a cult allows you to realize that you might've been fooled and understand why. One of the big factors that keeps people trapped in a cult is the idea that they're smart and don't think someone could have fooled them. If someone understands that anyone could potentially be fooled by a cult, they're much more likely to be able to accept the possibility that they've been fooled and that opens the door to a more objective explanation of failed prophecy, extra-biblical rules, and flawed doctrine.
When I finally came clean to my wife about wanting to leave I called it a cult rather openly and she asked me "well if you think they do all these things that make it a cult - what would you have them change to not be a cult?" I realize in retrospect that her question was rhetorical - she was saying that even if it was a cult, or behaved like one, it couldn't be changed because that's how god wanted it.