Posts by OneEyedJoe

58

A Question for Underground Apostates, How Many Are There?

by Village Idiot in

when i first came to this forum i was of the belief that those of us who were still in due to family reasons were few in numbers perhaps one in a thousand in the jws.

soon i came to the realization that there were many more.

we have dozens of posters here who are mentally out but still in.

OneEyedJoe

I just realized that my earlier post might be a little pessimistic. I was only thinking of the regular attendees. There are probably 3 or 4 that show up occasionally. Now they certainly aren't all awake. Most likely they're still indoctrinated but just know that they're unhappy in the cult so they stay away. One might be awake though.

My estimate would be that on any given Sunday there's probably about 0.25-0.5% in attendance that are properly awake. Obviously the awake ones are going to attend much less, so I wouldn't say that's a small number.

58

A Question for Underground Apostates, How Many Are There?

by Village Idiot in

when i first came to this forum i was of the belief that those of us who were still in due to family reasons were few in numbers perhaps one in a thousand in the jws.

soon i came to the realization that there were many more.

we have dozens of posters here who are mentally out but still in.

OneEyedJoe

I'm still in. I'm fairly sure that there are no other apostates in my congregation as such, but there are a few in their late tees that I suspect are destined to wake up once they get out of their parent's house.

15

Donations

by FadeToBlack in

i think that since i am the sole wage-earner in our household, i need to make it clear to my wife that i don't want any of my hard-earned wages going to the wt.

i know she makes a monthly contribution to an animal shelter and i am fine with that.

what do you think?

OneEyedJoe

You might do a comparison of charities. Does the animal shelter publish public statements so you know where the money is going? Does jw.Borg? Is the animal shelter using money to pay sex abuse settlements? If you think you can bring it up without creating another problem you could show the $13.5 million judgement that resulted in the cult's failure to provide the court with required documents and to provide loesch to testify. That judgement would certainly have been lower had they complied, so if they've got that much cash to waste, they don't need your hard earned money.

20

Jw Business Cards??? Really???

by Nosferatu in

jw
friends

i got one from my mother.

when the hell did they start doing this???.

i'm guessing this is the way they're going to do it eventually.

OneEyedJoe

Berrygerry - I was thinking of copying everything but the qr code. That way they'd be unwittingly sending people to jwfacts and they wouldn't just get tossed right away.

20

Jw Business Cards??? Really???

by Nosferatu in

jw
friends

i got one from my mother.

when the hell did they start doing this???.

i'm guessing this is the way they're going to do it eventually.

OneEyedJoe

I'm thinking of getting some made with a jwfacts qr code and replacing the ones behind the literature counter.

57

Please Welcome me

by Sofia Lose in

jw
friends

have lurked here for many, many years.

female, latina, middle-aged, born-in, 3rd generation jw, northeast usa.

my fate is to continue to play the game 'till death do us part because the very strong and tangled web of friends, family, business, etc.

OneEyedJoe

Welcome!

I'm finding it to be very difficult indeed to continue going through the motions while knowing it's all BS. Feel free to pm me if you need a listening ear.

18

What's the mechanism?

by Half banana in

i am perpetually challenged by the fact that most jws are completely duped by the propaganda pumped out relentlessly by the borg.

even intelligent ones; they unwittingly grovel to the gb decisions and follow the party line.

they do this for a number of reasons..

OneEyedJoe

Humans are social apes, and social pressure is quite powerful if applied correctly.

Cult indoctrination is usually a matter of finding someone who's in a sufficient level of mental/emotional turmoil for one reason or another. Typically it seems that these take the form of recent loss, fish out of water (immigrants, new college students or those recently leaving home, etc), or boredom/lack of friends. Once you find someone who's susceptible, you get two (so they're out numbered) people to offer them all the answers, and show them a prepackaged group of new family/friends. Once they start making sacrifices to get approval of the group, it's all over.

Since the chances are low that someone out door-knocking is going to catch someone in a sufficiently weakened state to be susceptible to cult indoctrination, most times this only happens when someone is exposed to a cultist on a regular basis (some friend or family member). Once life happens and they reach a susceptible state they can fall victim to the cult if they've not 'inoculated' themselves by doing research on the cult before.

26

What did you become after leaving Jehovah's Witnesses?

by Garrett in

jw
friends

hey guys,.

so, since my leaving i have been doing so much research on so many topics that it's been extremely enlightening.

not only have i learned a lot about the organization and what motivates it, but i have also learned a lot about the bible, god and most importantly, myself.. currently, i'm not quite sure where i stand, but i'm having some real issues with the bible and god.

OneEyedJoe

I went through a rather odd arc in my beliefs. For the last 10 years or so, I've essentially been an atheist that had the aposta-phobia that kept me from disproving JWdom completely in my mind. Basically I was hedging and couldn't be bothered to prove it to myself because there was too much else going on in my life that I couldn't handle the realization that I was trapped in a cult too. Once I woke up, I was immediately a full-blown atheist.

3

JW's use UN to condemn South Korea for imprisonment of Conscientious Objectors

by cappytan in

although the organization condemns the un as a satanic organization that will turn on jws and try to destroy them, they're not above using the evil satanic image of the wild beast for personal gain.. link to article on jw.borg here: http://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/south-korea/human-rights-violations-conscientious-objectors/.

pasting text below in case you don't want to click through:.

south korea guilty of arbitrary detention of conscientious objectors.

OneEyedJoe

Meanwhile, if you're a conscientious objector to the blood doctrine, not only do they exile you but they hold your family and loved ones hostage.

There's so many layers to their hypocrisy!

4

Isn't shaving beards a pagan practice?

by EndofMysteries in

it's funny that in ancient times the jews had beard and had to grow their hair and the egyptians were the ones who shaved.

.

so shouldn't shaving be considered just like birthdays and holidays to the jws?

OneEyedJoe

You'd think.

One elder I knew years ago once grew a beard and went on a rant about shaving being pagan and how greeks did it so that they could look more feminine, and there was a lot of homosexuality that was related to that. I don't know how accurate that is, but it was entertaining to watch the other two elders try to calm him down and reinforce the cult's rules while having absolutely no scriptural ground to stand on.