Posts by OneEyedJoe

27

Assembly today, Survival Tips and Recommendations Please!

by Blackfalcon98 in

jw
friends

so there's an indoctrination session tomorrow......any tips for getting through with my sanity intact?

OneEyedJoe

Whiskey in a flask?

I always spent as much time as possible out of the seats and surfing the net or reading ebooks.

4

Get behind me...ERM Satan!

by username in

ok random thought just popped in my mind!.

if satan was cast down from heaven in 1914 how did he tempt jesus almost 2000 years previously?

surely jeeeeehovah wouldn't have let the evil one reside in heaven for so long?

Not sure what you're asking - are you saying why did god let satan hang out in heaven for so long after being a dick to Jesus, or are you asking how he was able to be a dick to jesus if he was in heaven?

On the first one - I suppose the answer is the same as why it's taken 6000 years to demonstrate that god's rulership is the only way. Pretty sure that should only take like 2-3 (non-overlapping) generations to be sufficiently proven. I guess JWs would fall back on the 1000 years is as a day to god nonsense.

For the second - the JW doctrine is that until 1914 satan had free reign to travel between heaven and earth, but after he's confined to the earth. So before he'd go up to god and taunt him and stuff and then he'd come down to earth and dick around with people and cause tsunamis and such, then back to heaven, etc.

20

help catagorize my wife: I truely believe she suffers from cognitive dissonance and other things this stupid cult causes.

by goingthruthemotions in

i find it hard sometimes to get a good idea has to how to communicate with my wife when it come to this stupid cult.. she is born in and stopped attending for many years and got baptized later in life.

i truely believe she suffers from cognitive dissonance and other things this stupid cult causes.. here is a breakdown of what i gather to be where she is mentally.. * she calls the borg her faith.

here are actions that she does that go against her thoughts:.

OneEyedJoe

It sounds like your wife has some similarity to mine, and I think the root of it may be that the cult has systematically destroyed their self-confidence. They have no faith in themselves to make the right decision, so they put it on their parents or the elders to decide for them - and they'll always pick the cult 100% of the time.

When I showed my wife the misquotes/lies in the creation book, her response was basically "I just must not be understanding this right." It's impossible in her mind that they could be lying, so anything that she sees that could be interpreted as a lie is her misunderstanding it.

What I'm trying to do (and hopefully you'll have more luck than I have so far) is push her towards non-cult things that she can find fulfillment in. When people are able to do something rewarding and express themselves and see it turn out well, they naturally gain confidence that will spill over into other areas of life. There's also the side-benefit of having interests outside the cult that can replace cult activities.

16

No mention of DF in new brochure?

by thedepressedsoul in

i went on my tablet today and clicked "yes" that i attended the convention (they probably tracked my ip and two elders will show up on my door step).

i scanned through the new brochure on bringing those who have left back.

i noticed that not once they mentioned anyone who was df!

OneEyedJoe

Remember there is another group of people we don't see on this website, mentally in but physically out. I think this is for them. as already mentioned once someone is mentally out, this drivel won't sway them.

What I wonder, though, is whether or not this will actually have any impact on them. From what I've seen these folks essentially never come back for good. Sometimes they'll come back for a short time but usually they're out again after a month and you don't see them for a few years. This is in spite of all efforts by family and friends to "encourage" them. Even if some stupid brochure gets them to come back to a meeting a few times, they're not going to stay long. They're still mentally trapped, but they know enough to realize that they're happier when they're not going. The only cases where I've seen someone who was once inactive come back and really embrace it has been after a death in the family, but even then it's about 50/50 (at best) whether they stayed for the long-term.

16

No mention of DF in new brochure?

by thedepressedsoul in

i went on my tablet today and clicked "yes" that i attended the convention (they probably tracked my ip and two elders will show up on my door step).

i scanned through the new brochure on bringing those who have left back.

i noticed that not once they mentioned anyone who was df!

OneEyedJoe

I don't know, I think not mentioning disfellowshipped ones will just reinforce in the r&f's mind that being irregular is leaving Jehovah. It might serve to tighten the noose to those so susceptible.

I'm thinking along these lines. I haven't read it yet, but my feeling is that this brochure is primarily to harden active JWs, not to actually get anyone back. They know that in most cases if someone becomes inactive, trying to get them back will be fruitless (or at best, temporary) unless there's some major life event and in that case they're probably fairly likely to come back on their own (this is all assuming that they're still indoctrinated).

Sure, this might pull a few more poor souls back into the cult (but only if they never truly escaped) but the primary purpose is the effect it will have on those who are active. For any with inactive family it will make them think "the GB is so loving that they know how difficult this is and they're trying to help." It will also reinforce that any inactive ones have "left Jehovah" not a man-made organization, thus helping to harden the R/F's view that they're on the moral high-ground and are unassailable - essentially an indirect ad hominem argument against anything that an inactive person might say about why they left. For JWs that know some inactive ones but aren't close to them, this will only serve to increase their feelings of superiority and make them want to go on and on about Jehovah and the cult anytime they happen to bump into them - which will likely be effective in alienating any who are mentally out so that they think "why bother" instead of trying to help wake up an active JW.

Like I said, I haven't read the brochure so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing there's also a few "examples" of why someone might've left - yes? These are there to further reinforce the idea that there is no valid reason to leave - the examples will probably be things like materialism, fornication, the anxieties of life, depression, a perceived (never real!) injustice that they've suffered, etc. This will cause the readers to look back over past interactions with the inactive person they're considering and re-interpret them through this lens. Did you buy a new car a little while after you left? You're materialistic and probably a workaholic - you're just too selfish to give time to Jehovah. Did you claim depression during your fade? You've become bogged down by the anxieties of life and not putting enough trust in Jehovah. Did you get reproved/DF'd before leaving with no attempt to come back? You feel like Jehovah's attempts to help you were unjust and you are therefore "puffed up with pride" and won't come back. etc. etc. The human brain is amazing at fitting things to patterns (even when they're not there) and when they list reasons why someone might leave the brain's inclination is to automatically make their observations fit the pattern. Sort of a retro-active confirmation bias.

To me this seems more like damage control than any real effort to draw anyone back. Threre's a complex set of emotions that an active JW goes through when someone close to them leaves. There's saddness, guilt, confusion, etc. and in that the mind will often wander - this gets out in front of anyone's mind wandering to things like "what if they have a valid reason?" or "what if they left because they know something about xxx" where xxx is a doubt that they have themselves. Putting the R/F on the moral high-ground (in their minds) will harden their resolve to stay.

4

Jehovah's Witnesses Give Presents Their Own Way

by Bangalore in

jw
friends

jehovah's witnesses give presents their own way.. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lara-ruffle-coles/jehovahs-witnesses-give-presents-their-own-way_b_7231380.html.

.

bangalore.

OneEyedJoe

Its amazing how the indoctrination lingers. Still reciting the stock lines "It's more exciting because I don't know when I'm going to get a present!" As if it's about the damn presents. It's not. It's about separation from other people - as a JW there are constant signals that "worldly" people aren't like you. Talking about christmas/birthdays/holidays is just one of a thousand small, constant cues that you're around someone who's not like you. Cues that you shouldn't get too close to this person or share too much with them. This is what it's all about. Many cults put up literal walls to separate their members from the rest of society, the JWs put up virtual walls that can be just as effective. Literal walls are obvious and it's easy to wonder "are they keeping me in or keeping dangers out" but the virtual walls that get put up to keep a JW from getting too close to normal people are much more subtle and much less likely to be blamed on the leadership of the cult.

It's so sad to me to see someone who's ostensibly left the cult but has never actually examined the sweeping effects it's had on their life, or really proven to themselves that it's not just a false religion but a harmful mind control cult. I suppose it makes sense when someone leaves at such a young age that they might not make this connection since they're still at a point where there's an expectation of some control over your life by others.

64

What triggered your doubts / awakening?

by Tornintwo in

i am sort of new here, used a different username for a while but things got 'difficult' at home so i've since been lurking.... what i would be really interested to know, if you don't mind sharing, is what it was that triggered your doubts and initial research which led to awakening, was it a bad experience, injustice, changed doctrine?

for me, it was seeing mistreatment of young ones in the congregation, they're under so much pressure and as soon as they go even slightly astray they are shunned, either informally (as bad associations which pushes them further into the 'world') or formally - with elders dying to throw the book at them so they even lose their family.... ...then reading about child abuse issues in the press.... ...which led me to silentlambs.

...then jw facts, this forum and coc, wham!

OneEyedJoe

I'm with us, truthseeker. Always dreaded someone seeing my blood card when I had my wallet out, always tried to hide that I wasn't singing happy birthday. I hated having to explain things about being a jw that didn't really make sense to me (even though I could parrot the official logic perfectly) it really sucked.

Also - as FMF said - asking myself if I'd be a jw were I not born in and the answer was always no.

17

Dwindling Attendance? Here's a quick fix!....

by Tech49 in

jw
friends

so here's a real life experience you will get a kick out of.. our kh has about 90 publishers.

typical meeting attendance during a co visit is right at 100 or so.

the rest of the time, attendance is a dismal 50-60, sometimes 70 on a good week!.

OneEyedJoe

Haha that's pretty good.

The whole thing about local needs talks on meeting attendance always irritated me too. Who in their right mind thinks that'll work? Of course, those talks aren't really for the people that aren't coming, they're for the people in the seats to stem the tide of people leaving, and to give them cause to feel better than the people who aren't there and thus apply the passive-aggressive judgement anytime they run into someone who's not showing up.

16

They lie about everything, why don’t they lie about annual publisher growth?

by John Aquila in

jwfacts show that publisher growth was 15% pre- 1975 and has decline to about 2%.

what prevents them from fudging the annual growth and keeping it at something more positive like 10%?.

"a great crowd that no man is able to number".

OneEyedJoe

They have been (indirectly) fudging the numbers for a while now:

The 15-minute per month publisher.
The pressure put on the R/F to report time almost certainly leads to many inactive ones being counted as publishers.
The pressure on elders by the CO when a new irregular/inactive person shows up on file causes them to apply the pressure on publishers, and in some cases (reported here) even report time on behalf of the inactive one.
The recent transition to counting tracts as placements
Counting time spent on a quick-build, etc.
Counting time spent in family study
Counting time spent giving (and sometimes preparing, depending on the elder) public talks.
Counting time spent writing letters to leave at not-at-homes only to eventually throw them away.

Their numbers are essentially meaningless for any purpose other than comparison year over year. Luckily they make changes in how they cheat the numbers slowly enough that they're still useful to some extent.

64

What triggered your doubts / awakening?

by Tornintwo in

i am sort of new here, used a different username for a while but things got 'difficult' at home so i've since been lurking.... what i would be really interested to know, if you don't mind sharing, is what it was that triggered your doubts and initial research which led to awakening, was it a bad experience, injustice, changed doctrine?

for me, it was seeing mistreatment of young ones in the congregation, they're under so much pressure and as soon as they go even slightly astray they are shunned, either informally (as bad associations which pushes them further into the 'world') or formally - with elders dying to throw the book at them so they even lose their family.... ...then reading about child abuse issues in the press.... ...which led me to silentlambs.

...then jw facts, this forum and coc, wham!

OneEyedJoe

George's post caused me to recall a few more of my doubts. Looking at my lists in hindsight, it's crazy how much it took to reach critical mass.

The change to having a public vs private WT. (another of those "this seems like something you'd do if you were leading a cult" moments)
Removal of the book study - contradicted the command to not forsake the gathering together "all the more so" as the end approaches. Then I recalled tales of 8-day conventions, etc and realized this was a continuing trend. Though at the time I was just relieved to have a little less cult in my life so I didn't want to complain too loudly about this one.
Counting time and all the stats-keeping contradicts with the biblical example of David and the census, as well as Jesus' statement about the pharisees receiving their reward in full when they pray in the streets.
The addition of credit-card machines at the assembly hall after being raised hearing churches condemned for exactly that.