Posts by dubstepped

10

Halloween/holidays

by Jules Saturn in

didn't know exactly which subject area to put this under, but i was curious about what you guys do around this time for holidays, particularly halloween.

my view on halloween in particular has always been as this pagan, demonic celebration.

even now that i discovered ttatt i still feel the same way i do about halloween, i don't ever think it's something i'd celebrate.

We did nothing our first year out. Then we shed more of our indoctrination and realized that most people are just having fun getting dressed up and eating candy. We went to a Harry Potter party last year and another family party as well. My wife made a costume to look like the person from the cartoon blog "Hyperbole and a Half". I just got some cool neon outlined clothes that lit up with batteries and a shirt that had a mic in it and would light up when people talked. We had fun and are looking forward to it again here soon. My wife is making a new costume this year. Next year we plan on making our screened porch into a Candyland theme and we'll host trick or treaters for the first time. Pretty evil stuff there, eh?

Don't say what you will or won't do. Someday you'll get out of your parents' house and you'll get your own life and if you are brave enough to take steps to own your own life and examine it, you never know where you'll end up. I said the same things as you.

28

Tutorial for Making Donations Electronically

by wifibandit in

tutorial for making donations electronically video will be considered the week of october 16, 2017.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_z32hlqw-0.

dubstepped

God doesn't want you to give out of compulsion, so here sign up for these automatic recurring payments.

38

I'm so confused, help?

by Ponyo in

i want to share my story.

(might be a tad long).

i have no idea where i stand anymore regarding being a jw and where i stand in my marriage.. im 28 years old and the years are certainly ticking by.

dubstepped

@Ponyo - Of course you we're beating yourself up with the other replies. They we're designed to shame you, just like the JWs would do. Guilt is "I did a bad thing" and is healthy because it helps us set boundaries and learn lessons. Shame is "I am a bad person" and is totally destructive and no more inherently true than the concept of original sin that makes us all bad people that owe something to a deity.

You've been mislead and it sucks. My wife and I had to admit that to ourselves and it hurts to feel like we we're pranked for decades. We we're all in as JWs but the lack of true love and the fact that it was all extremely conditional helped wake us up. Read the Biblical description of love and compare it to these JWs that will judge you and drop you in a heartbeat. It is much greater love when you can love people that are different than you. It's harder, but that's much greater than love expressed only to those exactly like you in a cult.

You should definitely get help, like a psych. If you're open and honest in this process of exploring long held beliefs you're about to go through grief and there are stages. It is tough, but the freedom on the other side is worth it. I say this tongue in cheek, but watch what you ask for. I and many here ended up an atheist after actually examining what we were taught.

Once I saw that the organization wasn't true I realized that it was all built on a book that I and billions of people assumed to be truthful from the beginning without question. Upon questioning the Bible soon fell apart too. If it is true that artifacts older than Adam and Eve are out there, and Adam and Eve's story is therefore incorrect, there is no original sin nor need for a Redeemer. The Bible starts out with figurative creative days in which plants are created before the sun which is backward, a literal talking snake, and a flaming sword protecting Eden when swords hadn't been invented then. A very auspicious beginning, no? When you step back and take a thousand foot view of the book just like you might do with something like the Book of Mormon, it all starts crumbling down for many of us. For others it doesn't and that is fine too, but it should all be looked at. Don't just stop after looking at the JWs themselves. Freedom is never free. There's always a price to pay. Get people like a therapist in your corner if you can. We are all here to help too, well, some of us anyway.

38

I'm so confused, help?

by Ponyo in

i want to share my story.

(might be a tad long).

i have no idea where i stand anymore regarding being a jw and where i stand in my marriage.. im 28 years old and the years are certainly ticking by.

dubstepped

Man, some of you guys are harsh. If we applied the same mindset of you made your bed, now lie in it or you're a drama queen we'd still be in a cult.

Look, it's pretty obvious that you settled because you married someone that the "Truth" (lol) pushed you to marry. The same indoctrination that made all of us do things that we regret. Funny enough, the Critical Thinkers podcast that just came out was Lady C talking about the pressures on JW sisters to marry and how she almost married the wrong guy.

I disagree with a lot of the posts here. You made a bad decision and you shouldn't be punished by it forever, nor should your husband. You don't think those kids will be able to tell that mommy doesn't really love daddy.

In the end, maybe guy #1 isn't best for you, but your husband definitely isn't, no matter how hard he works or how nice he is. The comparisons to what other women go through matter not. That would be like us not having left the cult because the FLDS is even worse. That's stupid.

Look, you're in a bad marriage and it doesn't sound fair to you or him or the kids. None of us can tell you what path to take here for sure, but you have a problem even if you stay and guy #1 didn't exist.

Also, you're in a cult. That hurts to hear It took me a long time to prove it to myself. Read on the jwfacts website, don't excuse things that are claimed to be directed by holy spirit that go wrong on "imperfect men". How many prophets in the Bible got it wrong over and over and over like JWs do? You have been brainwashed and you're feeling the effects in this choice of relationship.

I did a podcast called This JW Life. You can listen on iTunes, Google Play, etc. You can stream it directly from thisjwlife.com. It is a 9 part series and I explain so much that you may not know about the JWs through my story.

Google search for Crisis of Conscience in PDF and you'll find a book by someone that actually made it to being a member of the governing body and see behind the scenes.

You need to focus on the belief system that you hold first because you can't be all in for any relationship until you know yourself, and you won't find yourself until you strip off the "new personality", which is a cult personality put upon you through years of indoctrination that is already negatively impacting your life.

146

Just woke up turn TV on to hear yet another nut case with a gun.

by Still Totally ADD in

jw
friends

first they said 20 dead with 100 injured.

now i just heard 50 dead and 200 injured.

whatever it is it just another nut case who was able to get a high power gun to kill people.

dubstepped

sir82 - There's plenty of manufacturers overseas who make millions of these weapons.
Supply & demand. The scarcer they become, the more supply dwindles rises, the higher the price goes, and the more lucrative it is for smugglers & illegal dealers.
I honestly have no idea how to fix it. Neither does anyway else. That's why this keeps happening.

Wouldn't your scenario make it more difficult still to obtain these weapons? I'm not saying that they would ever be eradicated, but they would be harder to come by, more costly, and therefore a barrier for at least most people to locate and be able to purchase.

I'm legitimately asking these things. I don't claim to know a ton about guns, but I like to apply the same critical thinking to things like this that I did the cult. I find it interesting.

146

Just woke up turn TV on to hear yet another nut case with a gun.

by Still Totally ADD in

jw
friends

first they said 20 dead with 100 injured.

now i just heard 50 dead and 200 injured.

whatever it is it just another nut case who was able to get a high power gun to kill people.

dubstepped

If these guns weren't available to anyone legally, these high powered weapons, wouldn't that help? I see what WingCommander is saying to a point, but if these weren't produced and sold and even available in the market, wouldn't that make it harder to ever obtain one?

I can see having a handgun, but not something with this kind of power. I just don't see any justification to produce them and make them available in the first place. Can you explain how that is reasonable and worth it?

48

Paradise? Was it?

by TerryWalstrom in

paradisewas it really paradise to be in paradise?adam and eve never were held by a mother, never cuddled and sung to with a lullaby nor nursed or coddled with tenderness or any human familial embrace.

the first humans (adam and eve) never learned to toddle surrounded by brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles and grandparents cheering them on.

the entire experience of childhood was excised surgically like a trauma patient awakening from an accident with amnesia.adam and eve were never in a neighborhood with other kids forming friendship bonds for life and exchanging dreams and hopes for a future they were building in their community.

dubstepped

Mind blown, never thought about that aspect at all.

161

Help! Mike & Kim videos all being deleted by Youtube

by mrmagic in

due to watchtower flagging the mike & kim videos on youtube for copyright, youtube is giving them 6 days before they are shutting down their entire youtube channel.

can you help with a mass downloading program and then reuploading them on a mirror ?

would hate to lose all those good videos!

dubstepped

It's obvious that there are a couple of members here that strain out the gnat while gulping down the camel. They are there to pipe up in legal technicalities even if technically correct but rarely if ever get involved in lamenting all of the gross negligence and abuse of the organization they defend. They won't start threads decrying the abuse of children or the people that suffer and die due to lack of blood, they won't discuss the hypocrisy of the cult or it's flip flops on doctrinal matters, but if there's a chance to point out a legalality or some small way the cult can win, and I'm not saying their always wrong, here they come. I've personally always believed that they are plants from the Both sent to obfuscate and frustrate and insincere, because a sincere person would apply the same harsh criticism to the big things, not just the small.

56

Human Origins

by cofty in

fantastic graphic produced by the smithsonian institute illustrating human origins.

click on any of the group or species labels for more detailed information.. meet your ancestors here....

dubstepped

What a sad retort Fisherman. Just the kind of discussion one expects with a cult victim. I take back what I said about your reasoning abilities. On another thread you compared Mike & Kim to Isis, lol.

Alright kids, this is your brain (cofty) and this is your brain on cults (fishy).

Sorry, I tried to see fishy in a compassionate light and as a real person, not a cult robot. He just doesn't help his cause. I'd still buy you a beer if I ever ran into you, but conversations with you just aren't open and honest. For that I can have some compassion as denial is what it takes to survive in it and denial is dishonest.

Stay away from cults kids!

56

Human Origins

by cofty in

fantastic graphic produced by the smithsonian institute illustrating human origins.

click on any of the group or species labels for more detailed information.. meet your ancestors here....

dubstepped

@ Fisherman - Conclusions does not equal fact.

Do you or do you not hold on to the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses? Are you applying the same scrutiny to your beliefs? Do you apply it to the Bible itself? Are these conclusions based on very flawed books and theology that is demonstrably false the reason that you reject the science indicated here?

You have an ability to be quite reasonable when it fits your conclusions, for example the lawsuits against Watchtower at times or the copyright issues, but when reasonable conclusions conflict with your beliefs (which are often unreasonable conclusions based on error prone WT teachings) suddenly you feel that conclusions are false while defending your own conclusions as fact.

I think that's why you're so frustrating. You have the ability to get outside of the structure provided to you by Watchtower but we all see you revert back to the brainwashing when it is threatened. You are so close to being free but it's like even after 14 years of playing this game on here you just can't let go and accept, if nothing else, more reasonable conclusions while holding fast to very unreasonable ones rooted in a book that begins with talking snakes, magic trees, and a global flood that would have necessitated rapid evolution to create all of the varieties of those "kinds" that we're on the boat that has never been found. Let go of that stuff and open up that brain of yours that clearly has something to offer and you'll find a whole new paradigm that you can run with of exploration and growth instead of stagnation.