https://rcbizjournal.com/2021/05/18/ramapo-now-accepting-public-comment-on-proposed-jehovahs-witnesses-hq-in-sloatsburg/.
may 18, 2021. a deis hearing will be held may 26; public comments period ends june 21. by tina traster.
the town of ramapo will be accepting public comment on the proposed new world headquarters of jehovah’s witnesses audio/video production center now that the deis (draft environmental impact statement) is complete.
"The religious order, known as the Worldwide Order of Special Full Time Servants of Jehovah’s Witnesses..."
gaslighting is a form of sustained manipulation that causes the victim to question or doubt their sanity, judgment and memories.
it’s a form of emotional abuse.
i think jehovah’s witnesses have been gaslit.
Of course, everything the cult does revolves around gaslighting. From weaponizing your family against you to denying they said things even when you have proof, to constantly trying to make you doubt your own thoughts and feelings, Jehovahs Witnesses are masters of gaslighting. Everything they do is to cause you to doubt yourself so that you have to trust them and them alone. Do not lean upon your own understanding or trust your own heart, trust the minds and hearts of the dear leaders.
three of my sisters - there are five of us - were baptized as witnesses.
one of them has gone from reading voraciously to only reading her textbooks and watchtower publications.
this does not seem to be unusual among witnesses.
They are kept so busy reading the copious amount of literature produced that they have little time for anything else. The newspaper is what they read in order to keep up with world events to know when the end is near. Nothing else matters, and they are told this from the platform. Anything else is a waste of time. Let's repeat...it's a cult. They aren't going to want you doing non-culty things.
I find that many JWs and ex-JWs write very poorly. Many are home schooled by parents with little education inside a cult that downplays education as having little importance, and their school materials are often little more than cult propaganda. That propaganda gets more simple as they infantilize their followers.
Many don't read or have any interest in reading because all they're allowed to read growing up are Watchtower publications and their lack of interest means that they simply never read.
Now it appears that most exposure is to JW videos, so my guess is that reading will become even less important.
ever wondered what blm do with their donations?.
well, i think i may have discovered an answer.. co-founder patrisse cullors has bought herself a nice, million dollar home in topanga, an exclusive la enclave, the demographics of which is approx.
80% white and 1.5% black.. yeah, cullors, an open marxist, has benefitted greatly from a capitalist country, lol.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4zrno_jcc0.
happy to be joining you!.
i am a 75 year old, who was baptized in 1968. had the full-on jw experience.
elder since 1974. reg pioneered 20 years.
You did the best you could with the tools you had at the time in your mental and emotional arsenal. Nobody can fault you for doing the best you could with what you had. Acceptance means letting go of the hope that things could have been different. How could they, if you were doing your best? Nobody wakes up one day and says, "I'm going to raise my family in a cult and harm them". You weren't malicious. You need to work on understanding how all of this worked and forgiving yourself.
maybe i`m a just a bit more impatient than some ,but the govt.
did say they will name and shame those who do not sign up to the redress scheme didn`t they ?
and take away their special priveledges , etc.?.
To demonstrate that they are bending over backwards to be reasonable and fair, and that the Org has had absolutely every chance to do the right thing, will not, and have therefore condemned themselves by their own actions...
Haven't they already? Define "every" chance. March is another chance. April? May? 2022? 2023? Why really even put a limit on it?
...and when their tax-exemption is finally revoked, they will have zero legitimate cause to whine about "persecution", or (more importantly from the secular authorities' POV) waste the courts' time and money trying to fight the results.
They already have zero legitimate cause to whine about persecution. Zero. It's been years. They will whine about persecution anyway, this does nothing to change that, and they have never needed legitimate cause to do so. You're dealing with a cult, not reasonable people. Most JWs already believe that the ARC isn't anything but apostate driven lies already. This changes nothing.
This also doesn't prevent the cult from any legal banter.
In addition, the public outcry over CSA has become an issue that democratic nations can no longer ignore, the WTS has presented themselves as a near-perfect subject for an example to be made of (something that occasionally needs to be done), and I'm positive the Aussie legal system knows it.
Not to mention that they also know the world is watching with interest, so their tactics can serve as a template for others to follow.
The whole world is watching? I doubt many people know or care outside of the ex-JW community. They could also be using the wrong tactics and be giving that as an example. Conflating the world watching with them doing the right thing isn't necessarily true.
Big picture, man, big picture.
Yes, and in the big picture I think that being lenient and lax on the cult of Jehovah's Witnesses never works. They lack boundaries and don't take things seriously because they get away with it their entire lives. Australia set a boundary and backed off it, something that rarely ever garners respect for the boundary set.
I hope it works on some level. I know there is more than one "right" way to do something, and that many tactics can work. I know that some are saying now that the focus is really the CSA survivors and giving more time for the JWs to join so that it keeps the door open for possible redress. How about you just revoke the charitable status now and give that tax money to the CSA survivors as redress and skip the niceties toward Watchtower? Just a thought. I just think they're playing Watchtower's game instead of the other way around, and that is is weak. I hope it works out though.
maybe i`m a just a bit more impatient than some ,but the govt.
did say they will name and shame those who do not sign up to the redress scheme didn`t they ?
and take away their special priveledges , etc.?.
Weak. Why would you give them yet another chance, and why would they take the government seriously when it doesn't.
i just read this article about dave ramsey and his company ramsey solutions (formerly lampo group).
reading about him and his board, made me think of jehovah's witnesses and the governing body (aka the hateful eight).
i used to like him, listened or watched his show, even visited his new hq in nashville briefly.
Damn, dude got hella culty. I used to listen to him all the time, even as a JW despite the fact that his Bible thumping made me uncomfortable since he was a false christian according to my own cult. Honestly, I do owe a lot to him financially because his unwavering culty rigid black and white beliefs did truly help me to break some bad habits learned from growing up in an environment with zero financial intelligence. My wife and I are debt free. Ultimately it came from following what he said, though the reality is that we did it our own way within those confines, so to speak.
Anyway, after leaving the JWs I tried listening to him a few times for entertainment purposes. I used to like the stories and such. But I couldn't do it. He was so rigid and it was quite triggering to listen to him. I still recommend his original Financial Peace book or whatever to people at times because it was solid financial advice, but it was never "The one and only Truth" as he basically sold it. I also had issues with some of the ELP services that he recommended and wondered why he would never promote things like low cost index funds for retirement, instead sending people to brokers as he made wild claims about hyperbolic returns on investments while receiving payment for promoting people.
I learned a lot listening to him. But I could always tell that he was super controlling. He got really into the personal lives of his employees and would go over their budgets and interview people extensively before hiring them, even interviewing their spouse. He would talk about how involved he was in the lives of his adult children and it was quite boundary-less for a guy that always had Dr. Henry Cloud on talking about boundaries.
I'll still recommend his financial principles and baby steps, but yeah, the dude is controlling as can be, and I thought he might have mellowed a bit. Sounds like he may have doubled down instead. Yikes.
Thanks for posting that. It was an interesting read and confirmed so much that I had thought might be the case as I read it. I can see every bit of that happening after listening to him for years.
i think back on the 30+ years of bs as well as my fading almost a decade and even now being low key in person to hopefully save my nieces from the wt.
i'm a wreck in some ways.
i'm other days i'm stable however when it comes to theism i depart quickly and with anger!
Yeah, you wouldn't have listened. People challenge believers every day and yet there are still lots of believers. In fact, the harder someone comes at you when you have a persecution complex drilled into you, often the deeper it drives you into your beliefs. If only it was as simple as your post makes it we could wake up lots of people around lots of things but that's not how it works. You're ready to wake up when you're ready.
Also, I'd encourage you to talk to someone about your anger. It's not healthy to carry around what you're carrying.
you may know that president joe biden canceled the permits for the xl canadian pipeline on his first day in office.
this was a controversial move, and there has been discussion and videos floating around the office where i work.
one of my co-workers showed a video of all the jobs being lost.
I love how the OP's point was simply that it's important to look at sources of information and how as a JW he never did that, and it is then followed by lots of people asserting that their opinions or their source is the accurate one. I agree with the OP. Do your own research, read multiple sides, come up with your own view, realize that it's nothing more than your view and not "The Truth" that everyone else must believe because you and you alone are right.
