Several years ago our CO was talking about how important it is to really talk to people on your magazine route. He told a story about a sister who'd been leaving magazines with a man for years and one day she asked him what he thought of the magazines and he says, "they're great! They fit the bottom of my bird cage perfectly!"
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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10
My Husband Confesses His Sole Regret for My Exit....
by humbled in( important note: my husband hated that i became a jw.
hated everything about it.).
he is the one who every morning makes our coffee in his beat-up metal perculator.
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Are Jehovah's Witnesses THAT Bad?
by minimus ini'm not fond of any religious fanatic.
islamic fundies can be downright crazy.
mormonism seems silly to me.
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OneEyedJoe
Is the WTS really all that bad? Ask these kids:
Oh, wait, you cant.
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6
Were we drug addicts?
by new hope and happiness ini imagine drug addicts have a similar adiction.
you can not imagine life without a fix.
or was it we had addictive personalities?
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OneEyedJoe
I don't think you were necessarily being overly dramatic. I'm certain that the experience is very much like a drug to many people, but as a born-in that had reservations about the cult since my early teens it was never like that for me. I will admin when I was 11 or 12, it was GREAT "knowing" that I at that age knew more about the bible than any worldly person. I can see how someone might get addicted to that feeling, especially if they're unsuccessful or powerless in other areas of their life (not saying this applies to you, but it definitely applies to most of the super-zealous dubs that I know). I suspect that if I hadn't had such success in school, and found a career that I'm good at and enjoy, I might never have had the stability elsewhere in my life to let go of the false superiority that the cult can give people.
My theory has always been that most people are just striving for some sort of significance in the world. Some find that through direct violence, others through being charitable, some through hard work in a carreer to make something. For someone who doesn't have the confidence that they can be significant elsewhere in life, a cult that tells you that you're one of 0.1% of the world that's found the right religion can be that significance. Of course, it helps that the cult systematically tries to remove any self confidence from you and forces you to believe that the only way you can be significant is through the cult. So for someone trapped in and fully indoctrinated, I have no doubt that the experience can be very much like that of a drug.
I think I was just "lucky" that I'm completely socially inept, and can only rarely pick up on normal social cues. I think that's what kept me from becoming fully indoctrinated so I never really invested in the "everything you achieve is really because of Jehovah's blessing" mantra. I knew I'd achieved everything with no supernatural assistance, and I deserved success. After I realized that, every push to conform just pushed me a little further away. I found significance outside the cult, so I never needed it...I was just trapped.
So to sum up a much longer post than I expected (sorry) I think your observation is absolutely valid, I was just describing my experience which was quite different.
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Were we drug addicts?
by new hope and happiness ini imagine drug addicts have a similar adiction.
you can not imagine life without a fix.
or was it we had addictive personalities?
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OneEyedJoe
I'm not sure I'd describe it as an addiction, since it never caused the slightest bit of dopamine release (unless you count when I left the KH after the meetings, now that was always a relief) it was more of an imprisonment. I couldn't shake the indoctrination from birth and trust myself to realize that it was all made up BS. Just before my baptism I was so close to escaping, but my father put just the right amount of pressure on just the right emotional spot that I got pulled back under, but I was never unable to imagine life without it. I would frequently wish for a life without it. I would think to myself "I wish it wasn't the truth." Then once I freed myself enough look at appostate websites, I got that wish.
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Any recent wack-a-doodle elder comments in your congo lately?
by sir82 inour go-to wack-a-doodle elder moved to a new congregation a few years back.
the position has been vacant since then.. we had an elder move in a few months back.
he appears to be angling for the position of resident wack-a-doodle.. at last night's service meeting, he said (paraphrased): "as a congregation, we've been busier than ever before with our special campaign.
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OneEyedJoe
Not sure of he's still around...I was visiting a different congregation and haven't been back. He definitely didn't seem to be "all there" so to speak, so I bet he'd fit right in to most any BOE
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Cognitive Dissonance - Best of
by Dagney ini have been explaining "cognitive dissonance" to a person (that i hope finds this site and thread) who is going though it right now.
i sent the description to them with a link to additional information.. however, from a jw/exjw perspective, i would like your assistance to build a list of the various conficting thoughts perpetuated by the wtbs that creates this condition.
for instance, i gave them:.
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OneEyedJoe
A big one for me was the belief that humans have only existed for 6000 years vs all the archeological evidence to the contrary. Same story for evolution.
Another form of CD also occurs when people participate in ritual behavior with a group. For example, you go to the KH and you have some reservations - maybe someone told you is a cult or you're just not very religious. Out of respect and the social pressure to conform, you bow your head during the prayer and say amen. Because your behavior (participation) just conflicted your belief (these people might be cultists) you will subconsciously change your belief (since it's to late to change your behavior) to minimize the dissonance. The simple act of bowing your head during prayer makes you more inclined to believe what comes next. Same goes for the song. (Went do you think it's often stressed that you need to be on time for the song and stay through the closing prayer?)
A similar effect happens when you conform in other ways. The analysis of the sparlock video on YouTube (by user askreality) explains this effect quite effectively, I thought.
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Any recent wack-a-doodle elder comments in your congo lately?
by sir82 inour go-to wack-a-doodle elder moved to a new congregation a few years back.
the position has been vacant since then.. we had an elder move in a few months back.
he appears to be angling for the position of resident wack-a-doodle.. at last night's service meeting, he said (paraphrased): "as a congregation, we've been busier than ever before with our special campaign.
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OneEyedJoe
Just thought of another one to add. Not an elder but positively hilarious. This guy in his early 20s, that brain-dead reformed junkie type, gets asked to give closing prayer one Thursday. About 2 sentences in he drops this gem:
"...and Jehovah, we're sorry for all the shit.....we're sorry for all the things that we do wrong..."
I don't think I've heard a more hesitant collective amen before or since.
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Entertainment for International Delegates
by Listener inbibl3thumper has posted a youtube of the celebrations that took place for german delegates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvs6_q7rqps&feature=em-subs_digest.
it's hard to believe that they are now using the kingdom hall to sing pop songs and for dancing.
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OneEyedJoe
I actually have no clue what the supposed purpose of the international delegates is.
The actual purpose seems to be so that they can charge them inflated prices for the trip, then book at a group-rate discount and pocket the cash. Then, combined with that they get to parade them around to make the R/F think that they're in some sort of special religion.
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Any recent wack-a-doodle elder comments in your congo lately?
by sir82 inour go-to wack-a-doodle elder moved to a new congregation a few years back.
the position has been vacant since then.. we had an elder move in a few months back.
he appears to be angling for the position of resident wack-a-doodle.. at last night's service meeting, he said (paraphrased): "as a congregation, we've been busier than ever before with our special campaign.
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OneEyedJoe
Oh, we've got a few in our congregation. One elder recently said "It's a good thing they're making such a fuss about the 100 yr aniversary - It means that they're not going to change 1914 anytime soon."
That one took me by surprise.
Once at the meeting for service the conductor was taking it upon himself to reinforce the "new light" of the overlapping generation, and the other elder present just butted in, "I think they just changed it because everyone from 1914 is dead so obviously it was wrong."
Both of these elders are in for the long haul, but it was shocking for me to hear them basically say they're just making it up as they go along.
Another one that I thought was hillarious was at the last WT study (which was mostly about trying to help men "reach out" to do more volunteer work in the congregation) the conductor kept referencing the apostle peter and how rambunctious he was and saying "who would think that he'd become the rock of the congregation?" apparently he was referencing Matt. 16:18. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, but I thought the JW interpretation of that was that the rock was Jesus, not Peter. The Catholics refer to this scripture to state the Peter was the first Pope, but the JWs reject that interpretation.
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Your views and ideas on forum areas and organization?
by Simon inthis may come as a shock to some people, but the current forum structure was kind of thrown together without much real thought and then evolved a bit over time.
there are a few things that particularly grate on me and areas where i don't think the subjects work particularly well.
'friends' is a bit vague and becomes a dumping ground, news & world events vs politics & current affairs is hard to decide sometimes, child abuse is a scandal but isn't contained withing 'scandals & coverups' etc.... with a new forum platform imminent, it's a good time to solicit ideas to improve things.
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OneEyedJoe
I have a couple suggestions that would make things easier for me:
It'd be nice if there was a way to sort topics in the reverse of how they're sorted currently (especially for the "active topics" screen). I normally have the site open on one tab and just check back and refresh periodically and scan through the topics that changed since the last one that was on the screen before the refresh. That all works great, but right after the topics roll over to another page there's like 3 topics there and I have to pull up another tab with the stuff that's a little older. If the topics where sorted so that the most recently active topic was the first one on page 1, I'd never have that problem. It's a minor issue, but I'm anal about efficiency, so it hurts my soul when I have to do extra clicks
A "quote" button on other people's posts that would stick the block quotes of their post into the reply text box, maybe with their username as well. This is common on other forums I've used and it really makes it easier to consistently show who you're responding to (if you're responding specifically to someone else's post). Very handy, IMO.
If you took the quote thing a step further, you could make it so that there's no way the user can edit the text he's quoting in his post. That'd fix the editing issues being discussed as well, because everyone would be able to see what someone's post said at the time of the reply.
