Idk it might be on you for still having a blackberry. It was probably stolen by Indiana Jones, because it belongs in a museum.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
-
18
People are nice and life is awesome.
by OneEyedJoe ini got invited as a +1 to someone's house yesterday to watch the fireworks.
i'd never met the hosts, and it seemed that most of the people in the group only knew one or two other people there.
yet i felt more genuine friendship from everyone there than i ever felt at any jw gathering.
-
-
-
18
People are nice and life is awesome.
by OneEyedJoe ini got invited as a +1 to someone's house yesterday to watch the fireworks.
i'd never met the hosts, and it seemed that most of the people in the group only knew one or two other people there.
yet i felt more genuine friendship from everyone there than i ever felt at any jw gathering.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
Yeah, the more I think about it the more examples I can come up with. People that I meet walking the dog, or while sitting in a bar. The feeling really is one of immediate friendship most of the time with most people. I'm not sure how much that's skewed by my past cult experience and never really having a friendship based on true appreciation for another person's unique attributes, or if normal people feel this way too but regardless it's such amazingly strong evidence of how toxic the JW world is and how truly good most people are.
We can get bogged down on this forum getting sucked in to the toxic black cloud of the cult, going over all the lies, deception, and abuse that comes out of it. That's certainly important, all that needs to be exposed, but I started this wanting to get a little more positivity in here, especially for those that might still be struggling. I'm so pleased that so many have had such a similar experience of what it's like to be 'in the world.' Leaving the cult really is worth the costs, a hundred times over.
-
18
People are nice and life is awesome.
by OneEyedJoe ini got invited as a +1 to someone's house yesterday to watch the fireworks.
i'd never met the hosts, and it seemed that most of the people in the group only knew one or two other people there.
yet i felt more genuine friendship from everyone there than i ever felt at any jw gathering.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
I got invited as a +1 to someone's house yesterday to watch the fireworks. I'd never met the hosts, and it seemed that most of the people in the group only knew one or two other people there. Yet I felt more genuine friendship from everyone there than I ever felt at any JW gathering. It's not the first time I've experienced something like this since leaving the cult and the true extent to which we were lied to in the cult really struck me. We were told that we could go anywhere and if we found JWs we'd be among friends and that this was something unique to JWs - the rest of the world was out to get us and would take advantage. But it seems, now, that quite the opposite is true. I'm not an especially outgoing person, but literally every single time I've engaged in conversation with a stranger, I've received more genuine interest and friendliness than I ever remember feeling in the cult, even with very close friends. Adding to that the fact that, sure, if you met another JW you could be reasonably sure they'd be nice people (this, I'm learning, is just a rule of people in general - being a JW is orthogonal to friendliness at best, but I now think JWs tend to be at least slightly less friendly than average) but with another JW (even your best friend) you had to be constantly on guard to make sure the cult mask didn't slip off lest their friendliness evaporate in an instant.
So for those out there that are currently struggling with leaving, or those lurkers that are having doubts or anxieties about "where else will I go" - take note. It's been just shy of 2 years since I was able to really fully separate myself from the cult and I'm discovering just how great life can be when you're allowed to be yourself. You can do it, and it's completely worth it. And you're not alone - both in the sense that there are many others like you dealing with the same challenges, but also there's a world full of really friendly, welcoming people that are genuinely interested in what makes you who you are instead of the false interest you get from JWs that only want to hear you follow the approved script. People are nice and life is awesome. Go live!
-
22
Everything Happens For A Reason
by Charles Gillette indoes everything happen for a reason?
i hear this from so many people without any explanation as how this is so.
what do you think about this belief?
-
-
OneEyedJoe
Everything happens for a reason. Physics is the study of those reasons.
-
19
On leaving JW's and hating religion...
by Jehalapeno init's been nearly 4 years now since i completely woke up to the watchtower lies.. thinking back on my jw life, during the time i believed, the organization truly did teach us to hate all beliefs that were contrary to the watchtower's.. i hated "false" religion.. so, when i finally woke up and applied critical thinking to my beliefs, i just went on hating religion in general...only this time i added jw's to that list.. a few months of waking up, i decided to base my beliefs on evidence.
i didn't want to have a set of beliefs unless there was some logic or evidence behind it.
so, now i consider myself an atheist.. and i kept on hating religion.. within the last six months or so, something has changed.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
JWs (probably accidentally) really managed to instill in me a love of truth. I took that part really literally when I was younger, and it may have something to do with my love for science and learning that has persisted down to this day. So it's primarily on that basis that I object to religion. It generates in me no small measure of disgust when I encounter someone purporting to dispense truth to followers, when they really have no way of substantiating their claims.
The usefulness of the ethical (or, perhaps, less unethical) versions of religion out there is something that I often find difficult to pin down. I'm tentatively settling on the comparison to the many heuristics that humans use in thinking, for example, the availability heuristic - estimating the likelihood of an event based on how easily you can call to mind an example. This was once probably very efficient ways to get really close to the truth, but due to the many layers of selection bias in our modern society (i.e. what gets reported in the news, what gets talked about in the office, etc) this heuristic now leads people to greatly over-estimate their likelihood to get murdered or die in a terrorist attack vs dying from heart disease or a car accident.
I now mostly view religion in this way - in the past it was a powerful force for bringing together a tribe and focusing people on the collective good of said tribe, especially in times when scarcity and violent conflicts with neighboring tribes were common. But in modern society we've gone a long ways of figuring out things like efficient land use and diplomacy that have driven religion to obsolescence in these areas, and worse it can often be a hindrance. In some places, maybe in driving local community involvement, it can perhaps still be an effective tool that has fewer drawbacks if its tendency to drive tribalism is kept in check - in much the same way that the availability heuristic can be very useful if we are careful not to apply it to things that have undergone the filters of selection bias. All that said, though, it is also true that there is absolutely no occasion where, given the choice, the availability heuristic would never be the best approach to estimating probability if you had the time or mental resources to fully take into account all the data at hand and rigorously analyze it with properly developed (Bayesian) statistical tools. I see a strong parallel here for religion as well.
Religion is often used as a shortcut to meaning - do these things and you will have lived a good life. In my view, constantly examining your life, motivations, intentions, and your actions and their outcomes, is a far more effective and generally applicable way of leading a good life. In just the same way that heuristics have zones where their not applicable, but the full theorems of statistics don't, so too does religion have holes - rules listed as a path to a good life often include things that are unnecessarily troubling (e.g. excessive control on sex, excessive reliance on gender roles and male authority, etc) that the generally applicable principle does not (I make no claim that I've discovered such a principle, just that it likely exists). But at the same time it's easier to say "don't have sex unless you're married" than it is to teach someone the risks of having sex, how to mitigate them, and how to respect your partners and your own emotional health in the process.
So, all this said, I'll admit that (non-cult, friendly, less unethical) religion is likely useful in some cases. The biggest problem with it, in my mind, is that it doesn't encourage the religious to recognize when their religion isn't useful. If people could simply realize that their religious rules might have exception, or might lead to erroneous scientific beliefs, unnecessary tribalism, or rules that might be injurious to some, it would go a long way to eliminating most of the problems that I attribute to religion. But, I suppose, if people realized that their religious dogma could, even in principle, fail them, then it would cease to be religion.
-
47
I Ain't Got No Religion No More ... (But I Like to Get Myself Some Gospel Music)
by Simon ini love gospel music.
i don't feel like i need to believe in "jebus" to appreciate the music.
i can't go into a gospel church because i might just get religion again - that or i'll be grabbing the mic on be on the stage waving my hands and praising the lord.. i particularly like dylan's gospel period.
-
-
-
17
Antiwitnessing: cowards
by john.prestor inso i'm downtown and i see two jws hanging out on a bench by a cart.
i approached them and said, i saw you guys on the news, there was a child abuse cover-up in philadelphia.
they don't respond and just look at me.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
This approach seems unlikely to accomplish anything other than giving you a feeling of superiority.
-
-
-
OneEyedJoe
Why do they need a picture to let someone apply to work for free? That's just creepy.
Always nice to see that the org's sexism is still in tact - why do they need to specify that a sister applying to volunteer needs to make arrangements for any minor children? Wouldn't a man with minor children need to make exactly the same arrangements? Is this something that a man would automatically plan for but when a woman is involved it might just slip her mind?
It's pretty sad when you have to send a letter to a bunch of grown adults to remind them to actually finish filling out a form before sending it in...
-
45
A&E - Cults and Extreme Belief - Jehovah's Witnesses
by Incognito ini haven't seen this posted.. tuesday may 29, 2018 @ 10pm (new york time zone).
cults and extreme belief - jehovah's witnesses.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
I thought this was really well done. It might've been good to add a little more about how they control members, but obviously there's only so much time for the episode. I think this is the first thing I've seen on JWs in the media where they I didn't catch minor mistakes that'd turn off normal JWs... I'm not sure if that means it was especially well done (I think so) or that I've just been out long enough that I'm not so sensitive to mistakes. In any event, it's wonderful to know that, at the very least, lots of non JWs are now inoculated against this cult.
-
16
Random Musing of an ex-JW between a rock and a hard place.
by StarTrekAngel inmany of you may recall pass postings of mine where i mentioned my plans of moving away from my current neighborhood.
mainly because my office got moved and now my commute is about one hour each way.
my employer is pretty flexible so showing up on time, for now, is not an issue.
-
-
OneEyedJoe
I'm sorry you're put in such a difficult situation. You're clearly a very generous and giving person, trying to take care of your mother-in-law as you have been and are endeavoring to continue doing. It's terrible that she's trying to take advantage of that altruism to manipulate you even further. Honestly, though, she's an adult and she ought to be well acquainted with the concept of living with the consequences of her actions. If she should decide not to move with you, then that in no way obligates you to provide her alternate housing, especially when doing so would be a large burden on your finances. You've given her a generous offer and she's spat in your face and asked for more. You're not required to take care of her, and if she doesn't want your generosity unless it's on her unreasonable terms, then she should have to live with the consequences.
Try and remind yourself regularly that not everything in the world is your responsibility. A lot of people see problems and feel that if they don't solve them, no one will - even if those problems aren't really theirs to solve. Just like when parents are too quick to solve the problems of their child, it results in over-dependence on the parent, the same can happen in any relationship. It often happens that children supersede their parent's maturity and responsibility, and when the children feel an obligation to ensure their parents' lives don't go awry, the relationship can invert and the child ends up parenting the parent...it sounds like that's what's happened here. Just like a good parent ensures that children learn to solve their own problems and take responsibility for their mistakes, your mother-in-law is unlikely to ever stop relying on you (and still manipulating you) until you force her to face the consequences of her actions. So, my best advice to you would be to free yourself from feeling obligated to anyone's unreasonable demands.
I definitely understand how you're feeling with regard to the cult being inescapable. I remember at one point when I was going through the process of trying to get an agreement from my exwife to finalize the divorce, she forced me to jump through several cult hoops and in that moment it felt like such a setback - I'd made so much progress removing myself from the cult but it was still controlling my life. But I promise you, you can get completely free. Unfortunately, though, that might just require finally letting go of the manipulative and abusive people in your life that seek to control you and take advantage of you.