rebel8

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Posts by rebel8

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  8

  Watchtower spiritual "retreat"

  by Viva la Vida in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  wt applied for tax exemption to the town of ramapo, ny, on the ground that they use the land as a "spiritual "retreat", including hiking trails to facilitate spiritual meditation in the natural contemplative setting of the wooded property and reflection on the creative works of the almighty".

  tax authority didn't buy it and wt sued: one, two.

  i didn't know they did this kind of meditation or spiritual retreats....

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  rebel8

  Hi, which document are you referring to? There's a very long list of documents. Thanks
  
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  34

  RELIGION AND MENTAL ILLNESS!!!

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have have come to realize most "rank and file" jw's are mentally unstable-to-ill and here is why.... http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/mental-issues.php.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religious_delusion.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religion_and_schizophrenia.

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  rebel8

  A person with a piece of paper (college degree)
  

  This is a false equivocation and reveals bias.
  

  the issues are so blatant and are right before us
  

  Most people here do not deny there are issues. (Please refer to my previous 10,000 posts where I stated them.)

  What I'm are saying is you are characterizing the actual issue as something it is not.

  Let's review: It's a controlling cult--evil, dishonest, abusive and destructive. That's what it is, and when we realize that, we can deal with the actual problem.
  
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  6

  Site update: Jan 17, 2015

  by Simon in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  some quick updates, mostly cosmetic:.

  the message sending form should display better feedback of why a message is invalid (which will prevent the send button becoming active).. if your status is telling you that you have unread messages then you should see an option in the 'inbox' page to reset the count / mark all messages read.

  just press it once, be patient - marking the actual messages is done in the background.. the topic and post counts are being updated - some will still be incorrect while it processes the data but after that should be correct.

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  rebel8

  topic and post counts are being updated - some will still be incorrect
  

  For a moment there, I thought I had stepped into a time machine. I think my virginity is growing back as well.
  
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  24

  Jehovah's Witnesses recover best from surgery, despite refusing blood.

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  that's' the headline of an article in the sydney morning herald.

  my jw family are sharing it with glee on facebook right now.

  here's the link; .

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  rebel8

  Cases from 32 years ago cannot be extrapolated to today in the sense the dubs seem to be taking it. Technology is so different.

  This 2012 (Not News!) article discusses reviewing outcomes from a very large sample population over several decades.

  I noticed Colleen Koch wrote another article that appears (by its title) to be showing opposite results in a different population.

  I get it, dubs are looking for external validation of their doctrines, because ya know, they need Satan's System Of Things to say they're right, or something. But they shouldn't cherry pick one article and not even look at the study design and what the results actually mean.
  
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  34

  RELIGION AND MENTAL ILLNESS!!!

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have have come to realize most "rank and file" jw's are mentally unstable-to-ill and here is why.... http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/mental-issues.php.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religious_delusion.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religion_and_schizophrenia.

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  rebel8

  One of the reasons for widespread misunderstanding of behavioral health conditions is pop psychology. People say, "I'm depressed", and think having the blues when some rather trivial life event happens is the same thing as clinical depression. This does a great disservice to people with actual mental illness by greatly minimizing their symptoms and causes, and eliminating the opportunity to understand physical causes. Just one example.
  

  It's kind of like saying you and your neighbor both have heart disease, when what you have is a self-diagnosed heart murmur and your neighbor is dying from Congestive Heart Failure.

  Ignoranceisbliss, I think you're on the right track with your hypothesis. There are also known risk factors that are more prevalent within dubbery (stress, lifestyle), and protective factors that are minimized within it.

  
  

  

  
  
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  34

  RELIGION AND MENTAL ILLNESS!!!

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have have come to realize most "rank and file" jw's are mentally unstable-to-ill and here is why.... http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/mental-issues.php.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religious_delusion.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religion_and_schizophrenia.

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  rebel8

  What specific diagnosis are you referring to in regards to the brainwashing comment?

  "Mentally ill" is a broad category of hundreds if specific medical conditions.

  What is your source material for the statement that brainwashing=mental illness?

  Let's start there so we can understand where you're coming from.

  mentally ill, the links go on to show most religious people are

  I'm sorry but those links do not provide evidence.

  As we've discussed, many of the things people typically consider mental illnesses ("Axis I" disorders) are brain conditions. Many brain conditions, not just one. To prove that most religious people are mentally ill, we'd need evidence of diagnoses for 51% of a statistically significant sample of religious people.

  And then, not sure where you're going with this, but correlation does not prove causation. So imagining said proof existed, we'd need to eliminate other reasons for correlation.

  I remember reading some article once about MI and JW. Might have been on pew.org or something like that--maybe you can find that since you're interested in the topic. I don't know if it was evidence though--IIRC it was more of a general anonymous survey that had to be taken with a grain of salt.
  
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  34

  RELIGION AND MENTAL ILLNESS!!!

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have have come to realize most "rank and file" jw's are mentally unstable-to-ill and here is why.... http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/mental-issues.php.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religious_delusion.

  http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/religion_and_schizophrenia.

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  rebel8

  most "RANK AND FILE" JW's are mentally unstable

  Mental illness is a medical condition, diagnosed by professionals using specific medical criteria.

  Believing in something that isn't true doesn't by itself mean someone is mentally ill. If that were true, most kids would be mentally ill because they believe in Santa Claus. Or people who are superstitious about the number 13. etc.

  I don't doubt mental illness is common among dubs, as it's common among the general population and dubs have additional risk factors. But I'm having trouble with the word "most" in the OP, in absence of evidence.
  
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  13

  Reason why God wanted/made humans write the scriptures

  by looter in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  jehovah's witnesses believe that god sent humans to write the bible because his servants can relate better to humans since they are humans.

  i heard that at a meeting two weeks ago.

  it does not make sense to me at all but i do not know how to explain it.

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  rebel8

  [In biblical mythology,] God sent humans to write the bible because his servants can relate better to humans since they are humans. [Unfortunately, this literary work fell far short of helping humans relate better to the concept of the xian god, due to advocating violence, hatred, and intolerance. The numerous errors didn't help either, because it proves the books were not inspired by the creator (for example, bats are birds, Earth is flat and stationary).]

  FTFY
  
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  52

  Why I like Jehovah's Witnesses

  by undercover witness in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i keep reading that jehovah's witnesses are in effect monsters.

  i keep reading that they kinda leave chaos and distrust in their wake.

  so i simply wondered if anyone had anything nice to say about them?.

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  rebel8

  Jws Nice people - utterly deluded.

  Many of the dubs I know are evil, immoral bullies--a much higher proportion of those types within dubbery than outside of it.

  As to the OP....None of that is true, but whatevah floats ya boat.
  
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  9

  LDS version of Simon?

  by cappytan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  mormon leaders have moved to excommunicate the prominent founder of an online forum for questioning mormons, charging him with apostasy for publicly supporting same-sex marriage and the ordination of women, and for challenging church teaching.. .

  http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/us/john-dehlin-mormon-critic-facing-excommunication.html?_r=0&referrer=

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  rebel8

  The thing is, shunning rituals in these cults is not newsworthy. I wonder if people realize how widespread this is. It's great it's making the national news, I just hope people aren't thinking it's unusual.