thank you for your contribution to this board. I can only imagine the effort involved to post as many valuable, knowledgeable comments as you have. Your posts have always stood out to me.
thanks again for all your hard work.
itsallgoodnow
JoinedPosts by itsallgoodnow
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24
Has it really been FIVE years?? wow....
by Scully ini just realized that it was five years ago, today, that i joined jwd.. i didn't think i'd be around very long - i didn't think i had a lot of residual "stuff" to deal with - was i ever wrong!!.
thanks to everyone who has made jwd what it is - a safe haven, a place for fun and friendship, a place to talk about our jw experiences and figure out what comes next, a place where we can offer support and friendship to people who feel lost and alone.
when i joined, there were less than 2000 members, and we've grown to over 25000 memberships.
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51
What planted the seed of doubt that lead you to leave or think of leaving?
by NanaR ini've been thinking of this a lot lately.
the following experience ties my first doubt in with my present life.
as a backdrop to this, you should know that i was a 5th generation "raised in the truth" jw through my mother (her great-grandfather got "the truth" from pastor russell).
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itsallgoodnow
welcome NanaR.
A work associate who didn't know I was a witness (I had decided to keep it under wraps at this job) had a relative getting baptized and she was furious. She basically listed all the reasons she thought the JWs were a cult, and that got me started doing some of my own research. Should have seen it all along. I think I recognized it when I was a young kid, but ignored all that to please my family.
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41
JW husband very sad
by Rebirth ini have been out of jws for about three years, husband still goes and brings out two young girls.
he has been really withdrawn lately, eating less, not interested in sex.
i thought he was moping because i recently had a birthday party for our young daughter and because of halloween activities.
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itsallgoodnow
You said you just wanted him to accept your new life... stress free...happy... mutual respect.
All these things would be great and are something to wish for, nothing wrong with that. But sometimes people can't react to our decisions the way we want them to and we just have to figure out a way to live with that. Otherwise, stress and frustration are a daily problem, and you don't want to expose your kids to too much of that or too much fighting. I'm not saying to leave him, just figure out a way to handle him that sets a good example for your kids.
I wouldn't worry about his pouting or depression. He should be able to handle any problems and be happy all the time, isn't that what his religion guarantees to him?
I can't imagine how difficult your situation is. But try to keep a level head and develop a way of looking at the situation that helps you to keep it all in perspective.
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21
Our Lawsuit against the WTS
by gordon d incan anyone share their input (stupid question) on the possibilties of former jw's or df'd dubs filing a personal or class action lawsuit against the wts or it's local congregations based upon defamation of character.
in some states there is the provision of a slander/libel suit based upon "malicious use of truthful information".
i would think that some precidence has been established by similar suits against other social and religious groups.
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itsallgoodnow
I don't think a lawsuit against the WTS will go very far... people join this group on their own and as far as I know, all of its teachings and rules are protected by the laws of the land.
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Elders forced to make an apology
by KAYTEE init all started with a kingdom ministry sheet directive, suggesting that good readers to be used to read the watchtower on the sunday.
the elders, in their wisdom, took off 10 brothers.
i reacted to this because the km said good readers not the best readers.
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itsallgoodnow
in all this time, I have never seen anything like this happen at a meeting. Never saw anyone actually speak up. The closest I ever got to seeing something like it was this guy slammed his bible shut so hard during a public talk, everyone could hear it. The bible was one of those ginormous ones the suck-ups always brought to the meetings.... their "study" bibles. One of those babies slammed shut during a quiet talk by an angry old man really gets noticed.
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Resources will be gone by 2050
by oldflame inbeijing (reuters) - humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the wwf conservation group said on tuesday.
populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report.. "for more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down this path," wwf director-general james leape said, launching the wwf's 2006 living planet report.. "if everyone around the world lived as those in america, we would need five planets to support us," leape, an american, said in beijing.. people in the united arab emirates were placing most stress per capita on the planet ahead of those in the united states, finland and canada, the report said.. australia was also living well beyond its means.. the average australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their developed lifestyle, ranking behind the united states and canada, but ahead of the united kingdom, russia, china and japan.. "if the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste," said greg bourne, wwf-australia chief executive officer.. everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil fuels and improving management of everything from farming to fisheries.. "as countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said leape, speaking in an energy-efficient building at beijing's prestigous tsinghua university.. "it is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to maintain their prosperity," he added.. the report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy and recycle all human waste in 2003.. in the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.. "on current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out by then," the latest report said.. "people are turning resources into waste faster than nature can turn waste back into resources.".
rising population.
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itsallgoodnow
I'll probably be dead by then, so it's all good.
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50
GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME TODAY!
by Butters ini cannot believe what i saw happen today at the store.. i was at wal-mart browsing various electronics and digital cameras and such, when i heard behind me, "brother hardy, how are you!"...
first thing i thought was oh shit, they found me, and forgot my real name, or have me mixed up with someone else.. turns out, this disfellowshiped witness was there at the store and saw one of his congregation members there.
now i personally have never been part of the shunning process myself, but here i am, an ex-jw watching from the other aisle, a bunch of shit that i never thought i would see the lights of day on.... the brother, this "hardy" i guess, looked up at the man with a smile, but then when he realized who it was, he immediately frowned and started pushing his shopping cart away looking straight ahead and not even acknowledging the man... (here's where i jump in..).
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itsallgoodnow
i don't know. some of the stories people tell seem a little... made up? this is one of them, to me anyway.
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19
Is it everyone else's fault?
by free2beme ini feel that we live in a blame free world.
were all perfect, we make no mistakes and everything we do it 100% right.
i know this, because i work in customer service and get calls all day long from these perfect people.
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itsallgoodnow
I think learning to recognize your own mistakes in whatever injustices might have happened to you is an important thing. Otherwise you never grow and learn, and you keep having the same problems forever.
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WHAT WOULD YOU THINK IF SOMEONE POST.......?
by juni indid you kill anyone?
rape anyone?...
" gary said "no, i was caught cheating on my wife with"... i looked at the jw and said, "look man, we all fall short of the glory of god, right?"..
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itsallgoodnow
a couple kind of close to me divorced and somebody said he "had some apostate ideas", but his wife caught him cheating and he had been an elder many years. When I heard he "had apostate ideas" I automatically thought I could relate better to his side of things, but I think now that I am not too impressed with the way he handled everything. Did he stop believing and then out of frustration, react with the drinking and cheating? or did the drinking and cheating come before the "apostate ideas"? In other words, did he get kicked out, and then stop believing? or was he a tyrant elder who all along didn't believe and got kicked out because he couldn't go on anymore? either way, I am not impressed enough with the way he handled it to "celebrate" with him, in fact I haven't confided in him, and probably never will.
Marriage/cheating/divorce is such a complex issue, who are we to know what went on in that relationship? I'm finding one thing to be the case in most of these types of breakups. It can seem to look like there is a guilty party and an innocent party. In reality, both people contribute to the destruction of the relationship in most cases.
still, I don't think cheating your way out of a cult is all that impressive. just because he got disfellowshipped doesn't mean he won't return to the cult. he's got to really understand what happened and how he feels about it, because all too often people go back to it.
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critical thinking -- when we have it but don't use it
by itsallgoodnow ini found this article on wsj online recently.
gives me a little bit of a different perspective of people in my life who continue to make absurd choices in their thinking.. .
science journal .
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itsallgoodnow
I found this article on wsj online recently. Gives me a little bit of a different perspective of people in my life who continue to make absurd choices in their thinking.
SCIENCE JOURNAL
By SHARON BEGLEYCritical Thinking:
Part Skill, Part Mindset
And Totally Up to You
October 20, 2006; Page B1In 1854, Sir Roger Tichborne, age 25, was reported lost at sea. His mother, who had raised him in her native France, refused to accept that her son was gone, and 12 years later it appeared that her stubbornness had been justified: a gentleman in Australia got in touch with the bereaved lady, claiming to be Sir Roger.
He had made his way to Australia after surviving the shipwreck, he explained, and vowed to make a success of himself without his family's help. Unfortunately, he had suffered numerous business setbacks, and had been too embarrassed to contact them. Seeing an advertisement for his whereabouts, which his mother's solicitors had placed, filled him with remorse. Would she kindly send passage money for himself, his wife and his children?
If you smell a rat even from 150 years away, then clearly your heart is not in this -- your head is. It is a truism that emotions and hopes can trump reason. But with so many contentious issues these days manifesting themselves as clashes in which reason squares off against passion, researchers are becoming keenly interested in the reasons people hold tight to seemingly ludicrous beliefs.
Which Lady Tichborne did. As recounted in the 2006 book "The Science of Sherlock Holmes" by E.J. Wagner, when the claimant arrived in England, he was grossly obese. Sir Roger had been very thin and with a graceful frame. Sir Roger had tattoos on his arm. The claimant had none, though he did have a birthmark on his torso. Sir Roger did not. While Sir Roger's eyes had been blue, the claimant's were brown. The two men had noses and ears of different shapes, and the claimant was taller by one inch. The claimant did not speak French.
Lady Tichborne nevertheless joyfully proclaimed the man her lost son and granted him a stipend of £1,000 per annum. Eventually, after her death, the claimant was found guilty of imposture and sentenced to 14 years of penal servitude.
It is not just grieving mothers who toss reason and empiricism out the window in favor of blind faith. Arthur Conan Doyle, for one, was no slouch in the critical-thinking department -- both in his work at a medical clinic and in solving crimes, which he put to good use in his Sherlock Holmes stories. Yet he believed that mediums could contact the dead.
Alfred Russel Wallace, who like Charles Darwin discovered natural selection, was second to none in his capacity for rational thinking and respect for empirical data. At least when he so chose. But Wallace believed in ghosts, haunted houses, levitation and clairvoyance.
Critical thinking means being able to evaluate evidence, to tell fact from opinion, to see holes in an argument, to tell whether cause and effect has been established and to spot illogic. "Most research shows you can teach these skills," notes cognitive psychologist D. Alan Bensley of Frostburg State University, Maryland. "But critical-thinking skills are different from critical-thinking dispositions, or a willingness to deploy those skills."
A tendency to employ critical thinking, according to studies going back a decade, goes along with certain personality traits, not necessarily with intelligence. Being curious, open-minded, open to new experiences and conscientious indicates a disposition to employ critical thinking, says Prof. Bensley. So does being less dogmatic and less authoritarian, and having a preference for empirical and rational data over intuition and emotion when weighing information and reaching conclusions.
As he puts it, "critical-thinking skills have to do with the cognitive ability of reasoning. Critical-thinking dispositions are more related to traits that determine whether you choose to use those skills."
In other words, critical-thinking skills are necessary for engaging in critical thinking, but they are not sufficient. You also have to want to think critically. If you have good critical-thinking skills but for some reason are not motivated to deploy them, you will reach conclusions and make decisions no more rationally than someone without those skills.
As Lady Tichborne showed, people aren't inclined to deploy critical-thinking skills if those skills lead to a conclusion that clashes with deeply held beliefs or hopes -- in her case, that her son was alive. Sir Arthur had a similar motivation: His son was killed in World War I, and he attended séances to contact him. Wallace hoped to contact his dead brother.
"Both Conan Doyle and Wallace had a strong predisposition to believe in spiritualism and other woolly things, so they looked for confirming evidence," says Prof. Bensley. "They didn't deploy their critical-thinking skills in questioning whether sleight of hand and other tricks could account for what the mediums did, let alone in questioning the basic premise of contacting the dead."
Examples abound of critical thinking being "context specific," which means it is trotted out in some situations but not others. The same person who rationally analyzes all her portfolio options also believes she was abducted by aliens. The same person who critically parses newspaper editorials for lapses of logic believes in astrology.