Posts by OrphanCrow

47

Are JWs "mind trained" to be habitual liars?

by nonjwspouse in

i don't mean overly obvious, or otherwise meaning to cause harm, but taught to lie for the purpose of avoidance.

this type of lying can be pervasive in areas of life that are not just to avoid discussions with people who have questions about the jw, etc.

my husband will lie/be deceitful about the silliest, simple things.

OrphanCrow

nonjwspouse: Are JWs "mind trained" to be habitual liars?

Yes.

A basic requirement of honesty is that an individual knows what the truth is to begin with. A cult does not foster individual introspection or the development of an authentic personality. The only personality/identity allowed is the cult identity.

So, therefore, what you basically have with a JW, or someone raised in a cult environment, is a shell. An empty shell. A cult person on the outside with nothing on the inside. Anything on the inside that doesn't fit that outside personality is suppressed and denied. To be a cult member, you have to lie - you have to lie about who you authentically are.

When a person has no truth inside to tell, they will lie. They have to. They wouldn't exist otherwise...their lie is the only thing they have.

To become authentic is painful. It hurts. So it is easier to take that personal pain and give it to other people. By lying. The lie eases the pain of either not having an authentic personality, or having to suppress the authentic person that you really are.

37

WT Society Creates the Atmosphere which Spawns Child Abuse in Congregations

by flipper in

been thinking about this lately after almost 14 years out of the jw cult myself.

when you think of the language used within the jehovah's witness organization in such a closed society environment in how the wt society promotes almost absolute " trust " in the elders , the governing body, and trust even in the " friends " in the congregation themselves- is it any wonder that unscrupulous child molesters can enter any congregation pretending to be " spiritual " and take advantage of unsuspecting children or the parents ?

think about it : an individual is judged as a " spiritual " person within the jw organization based on what wt functions or duties they are good at performing.

OrphanCrow

Doubtful: This statement is absolutely FALSE. Child abuse is everywhere! Nothing any organization does will prevent it.

Yes, child abuse is everywhere. And it is especially bad within fundamentalist and evangelical religions. What a religious organization has to do (and it won't) is change the theological teachings that create a victim-predator environment.

The problem of child abuse goes far beyond just the organizational structure. The problem is embedded in the religious teachings themselves.

Do you remember the Duggar sex scandal? This following article is a response to that scandal and it discusses how the religious teachings are responsible for fostering a climate of child abuse:

http://fiddlrts.blogspot.ca/2015/05/the-duggars-how-fundamentalisms.html

Of course the above article is talking about a different religion than the JWs, but it isn't difficult to make the transition to the similarities in JW doctrine and practice.

This is another article that examines how fundamental religions contribute to a victim culture by removing agency and bodily autonomy:

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/10/22/purity-culture-as-rape-culture-why-the-theological-is-political/

When it comes to combating child abuse within the JWs, I think the problem is far, far more serious and systemic than just a reporting issue. Making the reporting of suspected cases of child abuse is a band-aid solution at best. The festering wound will never heal - the infection arises from the belief system itself.

35

News story re: Doris Nelson. How many involved are Witnesses?

by LogCon in

there are a number of defendants being sued by the trustee.

two are jw's from vancouver lower mainland.

this b--ch started the business in vancouver and then took it to washington.. here is the list of defendants.. lls america llc, debtor.

OrphanCrow

It appears like 93 defendants had their cases withdrawn.

Hmmm...it appears like I lost some of my post...

Among the list of those investors who had their cases withdrawn are Christopher, Matthew and Tim Reibling. Lorenz's boys.

I wonder how much the Reibling boys invested. Daddy/Uncle sure put in a chunk of change. 1.5 million Reibling dollars. Maybe he had some left over after his real estate deals with the WT.

35

News story re: Doris Nelson. How many involved are Witnesses?

by LogCon in

there are a number of defendants being sued by the trustee.

two are jw's from vancouver lower mainland.

this b--ch started the business in vancouver and then took it to washington.. here is the list of defendants.. lls america llc, debtor.

OrphanCrow

LogCon: Blondie asked ' ...why did they trust her?'
All she had to do was convince one Witness. Then is spreads like the ebola virus.

And that one person was Paul Cooper. A JW elder.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/sep/25/alleged-ponzi-scheme-leaves-lives-shattered/#/0

...he met Paul Cooper in 2006, a religious teacher and elder with a reputation as a financial rainmaker.
The word among the small network of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Mexico was that Cooper owned a spectacular home in Acapulco, funded charitable works and, if you were chosen, would share his gift.
“There was all this positive talk about him,” Titmas recalled.
So he was thrilled one day when Cooper approached him.
“I was given the chance to make a dream investment,” Titmas recalled. “He called me a special person … and said I had only a brief window of opportunity to invest.”
Cooper offered a chance to invest in a “successful” payday loan business in Spokane. Titmas took a few days to make some calls to trusted friends and religious peers.
“To the person, everyone that I spoke with had positive things to say about (Cooper),” Titmas said. “They were already invested and had good experiences.”
Titmas wanted the financial security, and saw the investment as an opportunity to offer financial assistance to his faith and enhance its missionary work.

There have been several "clawback" cases in which Bruce Kreigman has successfully received judgement against some of the investors who did make money on the scheme. The "net winners" had to pay back their fraudulent profits to offset the Little Loan Shoppe's bankruptcy.

I was able to find judgments for varying amounts against the following people/companies:

Geoff Toews, Rory and Cathy Bjarnason, and CLB Holdings

Marvin Toews ("Mr. Toews"), 1140966 Alberta, Ltd. (the "Alberta Company"), TWL Contracting, Ltd. ("TWL"), and 692323 Capital, Inc. ("Capital, Inc.")

Gudrun Foerstner, Tyler Foerstner, Heidi Schulze (deseased), and the numbered entity 685937 BC Ltd.

Connie Konsulis, Shanna Bowolin, and Matthew Bowolin
Horst and Claudine Romani, H & C Investments, Ltd. and the Estate of Rene and Armande Baudez
Beverly Gyenizse, and David Perry Lazy M LLC, Pacifica Ventures Inc., Shelly Armstrong, David Armstrong, Daljit Haer, Ronald Ponton, and Tomika Ponton.
Keith Alexander ("Mr. Alexander") and 1127477 Alberta, Ltd.

The judge in these cases included this statement, or one similar, in the rulings:
"Defendants knew or should have known that Debtor was perpetrating a fraud"

They were greedy. And willing to take advantage of other JWs in order to increase their fraudulent profit.

It appears like 93 defendants had their cases withdrawn. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/USCOURTS-waed-2_11-cv-00365/USCOURTS-waed-2_11-cv-00365-17At the bottom of the page at the link, there are more judgments and court actions listed.

Lorenz Reibling is listed as #6 in the list of creditors holding the largest 20 unsecured claims:
http://bankrupt.com/misc/nvb09-23021.pdf
Lorenz invested 1.5 million dollars. And lost it all.

37

WT Society Creates the Atmosphere which Spawns Child Abuse in Congregations

by flipper in

been thinking about this lately after almost 14 years out of the jw cult myself.

when you think of the language used within the jehovah's witness organization in such a closed society environment in how the wt society promotes almost absolute " trust " in the elders , the governing body, and trust even in the " friends " in the congregation themselves- is it any wonder that unscrupulous child molesters can enter any congregation pretending to be " spiritual " and take advantage of unsuspecting children or the parents ?

think about it : an individual is judged as a " spiritual " person within the jw organization based on what wt functions or duties they are good at performing.

OrphanCrow

flipper: " Children are given inappropriate information about sex. " You've got that right as well. What sane parent in their right mind wants to have their children hear about oral or anal sex at a WT Study ? Or discuss and hear about " bestiality " ? I mean- it's ridiculous- and criminal in my opinion how much sexual information gets discussed in front of minor JW children . That's one of the reasons- among many - that this JW organization produces INSANE parents and INSANE children.

This is a good example to illustrate how inappropriate the JWs indoctrination of children is: In this video, we view a 3 and a half year old boy reading Esther 7. The chapter where she is raped and the man who raped her gets hung. The boy reads the words (which he cannot in any way comprehend the content of what he is reading), the audience of JWs listen to this infant read out the account of a woman getting raped, and then they clap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9NNo9cIIU

43

Cart Witnesses Today - I am not impressed

by pale.emperor in

just approached a cart then with two jw girls holding out mags.

they continued chatting to each other about car insurance when i took the watchtower from one of their hands.. ok, so it looks like i'll have to get the ball rolling.

i asked if they were jehovahs witness.

OrphanCrow

I think that the WTS has designed the cart witnessing behavior to accommodate the use of them in countries where evangelical religions are strictly controlled.

The WTS has to make the rules and regulations consistent across their operations worldwide in order to give substance to the claims that they don't try to convert people at their carts.

For example, the use of carts has been the subject of court cases in Russia:

http://forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2293

Jehovah's Witnesses E. Shevchenko and Ye. Zherebilova, for example, were charged under Article 20.2, Part 2, with "unlawful picketing" for displaying religious literature on information stands in a park in the Rostov Region town of Shakhta. Police and prosecutor's office staff carrying out an "anti-extremism inspection" allegedly observed that the two women were standing only 25 metres apart (the minimum distance permitted between one-person pickets, which require no notification, is 50 metres). Judge Lidiya Cherepanova of Shakhta City Court found them guilty on 4 April 2016 and fined them each 20,000 Roubles.

Jehovah's Witnesses Oleg Shekhanin and T. Shekhanina, however, were also charged under Article 20.2, Part 2, with "unlawful picketing" for standing together with religious literature displayed on a trolley on the river embankment in Kaliningrad – but were acquitted. Judge Irina Kuzovleva of the city's Leningrad District Court decided on 22 January 2016 that the defendants "did not take an active part in the event by expressing opinions or making particular demands, and did not create a threat to public order or public security".

The org's "rules" around how cart witnessing is to be done conform to what is necessary to evangelize in countries where it is restricted.

105

Subliminal images - why and who are the individuals behind it?

by UnshackleTheChains in

i remember about 5 years ago reading on another site about subliminal images in wt literature.

i honestly thought it a load of bs until i checked out one glaringly obvious image of a creepy skull in clouds within the knowledge book.

i was shocked and even showed my wife at the time who thought it was creepy.. so my question is why?

OrphanCrow

CoCo: ...mistakes in the non-colorized drawings in Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God. One was the incompletely rendered railing of the podium where a beardless Jesus was addressing the Jews.

I checked that image out, CoCo. I don't think it is an error.

I don't 'read' it is a railing. It is an arm rest for the bench. The podium is half-circled by benches and you can see a corresponding arm rest where there are no steps.

Another, a little girl playing with a huge, maned lion in Paradise. The head was outsize, the body diminutive.

Maybe that image is in a different book? The Truth book? I couldn't find that image in the Life book...went through it three times.

I will check the Truth book*

eh...I don't have that one

105

Subliminal images - why and who are the individuals behind it?

by UnshackleTheChains in

i remember about 5 years ago reading on another site about subliminal images in wt literature.

i honestly thought it a load of bs until i checked out one glaringly obvious image of a creepy skull in clouds within the knowledge book.

i was shocked and even showed my wife at the time who thought it was creepy.. so my question is why?

OrphanCrow

Here are some statistics that could be one of the reasons behind the divisiveness of this topic.

1 out of 12 males are colorblind. 1 out of 200 female are colorblind.

There are 7 different kinds of color blindness.

One out of 12 men cannot see color 'normally'.

So, when guys come on here and adamantly swear, up and down, that there are NO subliminals in the image, I agree with them. They likely can't see them. They don't have the physical apparatus to do so. Their eyes don't see color normally

It isn't that images aren't there. They truly cannot see them.

Most women can. 199 women out of 200 have normal vision

24

Tight pants Tony III (closeted gay anointed GB member) is on the July briadcast

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

such fun.

what gems will this plump little oddball be ranting about this time?.

OrphanCrow

doubtful: ... I have to say I don't think they wear expensive suits. Italian suits are a little foible of mine and I'm very familiar with them. Most of the suits I've seen on the GB (the ones where you can see close enough to see the fabric anyway) seem to be cheep fabrics and ill-fitting

Ah, good. Someone who knows something about suits.

Doubtful, did you watch Jackson's ARC testimony? I thought that Jackson's suit looked pretty good and fit him well in spite of his portly figure. Was his suit a cheap knockoff or was he wearing something more substantial? Do you think he invested in an expensive suit for his worldly appearance?

And yeah, Morris' suit doesn't fit well at all

105

Subliminal images - why and who are the individuals behind it?

by UnshackleTheChains in

i remember about 5 years ago reading on another site about subliminal images in wt literature.

i honestly thought it a load of bs until i checked out one glaringly obvious image of a creepy skull in clouds within the knowledge book.

i was shocked and even showed my wife at the time who thought it was creepy.. so my question is why?

OrphanCrow

Finkelstein, what is warped about that image is that the WTS published a 'religious' image that contains a rendering of a woman that is sexually suggestive.

The mind of the viewer is being warped by an image that resembles a porn image of a woman with her eyes closed, mouth open...pleasurably about to ~~bite the fruit~~ engage in oral sex.

Oral sex is not warped behavior. It is normal, healthy sex. It is not warped to make the association between a woman with her eyes closed, her mouth open, and a look of pleasure on her face while the snake looms closer, with oral sex. That is a normal association, not a warped one.

What is warped is that this image appears in a supposedly "moral" publication.