Wild_Thing

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Posts by Wild_Thing

• 
  12

  1975 Article: The Mental Health of Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  taken from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/6/556

  the british journal of psychiatry 126: 556-559 (1975).

  1975 the royal college of psychiatrists the mental health of jehovah's witnesses

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  Wild_Thing

  Did you know that there is actually a 12-step group, like AA, called Fundamentalists Anonymous? How wild is that? Anybody ever heard of them?

  FA Twelve Steps

  1. I realize that I had turned control of my mind over to another person or group, who had assumed power over my thinking.

  2. That person or group persuaded me of the inerrancy of the Bible, in spite of its many internal contradictions.

  3. I became addicted to the Bible as the supreme focus of my faith, in spite of the commandment that God should come first.

  4. I admit to God, to myself and to another person the shortcomings of my belief in the unbelievable.

  5. I have made an inventory of my false claims about the Bible.

  6. I have made a list of those whom I led into confusion about the Bible.

  7. I am willing to make amends to all those whom I may have led astray.

  8. I realize that I have the inner power to restore sanity to my life and to search Scripture for the truth.

  9. I will reach out to friends who can help me clarify my thinking about the Bible, God and Jesus.

  10. I confess that only with God's help can my mind grasp the truth.

  11. I will seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out.

  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these twelve steps, I will offer these steps to other former biblical fundamentalists.
• 
  12

  1975 Article: The Mental Health of Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  taken from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/6/556

  the british journal of psychiatry 126: 556-559 (1975).

  1975 the royal college of psychiatrists the mental health of jehovah's witnesses

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Wild_Thing

  
  Taken from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/126/6/556

  The British Journal of Psychiatry 126: 556-559 (1975)
  
  © 1975 The Royal College of Psychiatrists

  The mental health of Jehovah's Witnesses

  J Spencer
  
  

  The function of religion in human society is complex. The part played by religion in psychiatric disorders is even more obscure. Previous literature and theories are divided into two groups: one school believes that intense religiosity is a symptom-complex indicative of psychiatric disorder, while the opposing view is that religious belief in some way acts as a defence mechanism protecting the individual and his psyche. The present study of 50 Jehovah's Witnesses admitted to the Mental Health Service facilities of Western Australia suggests that members of this section of the community are more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital than the general population. Furthermore, followers of the sect are three times more likely to be diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia and nearly four times more likely from paranoid schizophrenia than the rest of the population at risk. These findings suggest that being a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses faith may be a risk factor predisposing to a schizophrenic illness. Further studies would be interesting in investigating whether pre-psychotic people are more likely to join the sect than normal people and what part (if any) membership has in bringing about such a breakdown.

  It begs the question ... what came first: the chicken or the egg?

  Does anybody know of any other studies done on the topic of Jehovah's Witnesses and mental health? I bet it would be hard to find willing participants. Wild Thing
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  5

  Can you give me a list of religions/beliefs w/ main pros and cons?

  by tsunami_rid3r in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm looking for something to be a part of.

  list religions with their main focuses, and the sucky part of them.

  jehovah witness's: lots of studying; mandatory field service

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  Wild_Thing

  That would be kinda hard to do since pros and cons are different for everyone.

  If you ask me, religion is all a big con anyway!
• 
  14

  Dubs vs. Scientology

  by seahart in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has anyone noticed the little scuffel with the scientologist?

  they seem to have had their feelings hurt in a cartoon.

  funny that they are not being potrayed as having crazy beliefs, and why is it being down played in the news?

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  Wild_Thing

  ...heheh, well...I actually meant the link the the ;SP ;episode, although the internet free speech link is cool too....

  Oh .. heh ... oh well!!!!!! I'll let you make it a separate topic if you want to!
• 
  11

  New Generation of JW's?

  by zeroday in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i da'd myself two years and yet i have 3 jw cousins that continue to communicate with me.

  either thru email or face to face.

  when i ask them if they know the consequences of their actions they just reply "i don't care".

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  Wild_Thing

  I was not DF'd and never officially disassociated, but I made it very clear to my family that I am no longer a JW ... that was over 5 years ago. They didn't talk to me for a few months and I expected it to be forever, but they came around after a while and now we talk all the time, and I have my little JW neices and nephews over to visit all the time, too! They are very active, and my bro-in-law is an elder. It certainly is different than what would have been done when I was a kid. I saw people left and right completely cutting off family members and I still see it sometimes today. I don't understand the change, but I guess you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth!
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  14

  Dubs vs. Scientology

  by seahart in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has anyone noticed the little scuffel with the scientologist?

  they seem to have had their feelings hurt in a cartoon.

  funny that they are not being potrayed as having crazy beliefs, and why is it being down played in the news?

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  3. 
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  Wild_Thing

  Wild Thing, that link deserves it's own thread! I will, if you don't want to.

  Duly noted ... thanks for the suggestion! Here it is: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/110029/1.ashx

  Wild Thing
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  6

  Jws, Scientology, and the fight for internet free speech

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i actually posted this on another thread, but someone suggested it be a separate one.

  i think its interesting to note the similarities of jws and scientologists, especially when it comes to their "secret documents" and trying to protect them from being published on the internet by former members.

  they have tried to sue the pants off countless numbers of people for posting their "copywrited" material on the internet.

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  Wild_Thing

  I actually posted this on another thread, but someone suggested it be a separate one.

  I think its interesting to note the similarities of JWs and Scientologists, especially when it comes to their "secret documents" and trying to protect them from being published on the internet by former members. They have tried to sue the pants off countless numbers of people for posting their "copywrited" material on the internet. Just like JWs, it contains things they do not tell their members before they agree to join.

  This is quoted from http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientol3.htm. Apologies if this has already been shared elsewhere.

  A war of sorts raged on the Internet between the church, anti-Scientology individuals and persons dedicated to preserving total freedom of speech on the Internet. Starting in 1994-DEC, the Church has aggressively attempted to defend their copyright on a wide range of confidential Church documents including rituals that they regard as highly secret. This has brought them into conflict with numerous Internet users and service providers who are keen to promote the complete freedom of speech on the Internet, with little or no regard to copyrights held by individuals and organizations.

  The Church has aggressively engaged in a number of lawsuits, including:

  	law suits against Dennis Erlich, Keith Henson, Arnie Lerma, Grady Ward, and other individuals.
  	law suits against Netcom, DGSys, Washington Post, FACTnet (an agency supplying information on groups who allegedly use coercive mind control), XS4ALL and 14 other Dutch Internet Service Providers, and "anon.penet.fi" (a Finnish anonymous remailer). 3

  Some interesting conflicts include:

  	The Religious Technology Center (RTC) v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc. (Netcom): RTC was one of the copyright owners of writings by Church of Scientology ™ founder L. Ron Hubbard. Dennis Erlich was a church minister, but left the organization and became a critic of the religion. He posted part of the church's works on the Usenet news group alt.religion.scientology. This was an illegal act, because he had not first obtained permission from the copyright holder. His posting went through a BBS system owned by Thomas Klemsrud where the files were stored for 3 days. The postings were automatically forwarded to the Internet service provider Netcom, where they were stored for 11 days. Netcom's software made postings available to Usenet servers around the world. Netcom personnel do not monitor or censor any postings; all were processed automatically without human intervention. The Church asked Erlich to stop the postings; he refused. They then asked Klemesrud to remove the postings and keep Erlich off his BBS. Klemsrud replied by asking the Church to prove that it owned the copyrights for the postings. The Church refused this request as being unreasonable. They then asked Netcom to refuse Erlich access to the Internet. Netcom refused, because the only way for them to accomplish this would be to disconnect hundreds of other BBS users as well. The Church sued Klemesrud and Netcom for copyright infringement. The court recognized that even though the BBS and Netcom files were only saved for 11 days or less, that they were still sufficiently "fixed" to constitute copies under the copyright act. But because there was no actual manual intervention by Netcom, the court considered their involvement analogous to the owner of a public-access copy machine who allows customers to duplicate material. The court held that only the original subscriber can be held liable for "direct infringement" of any posting of a copyrighted work to a Usenet group. But if the Church could prove that Netcom was aware of the copyright infringement in time to prevent its distribution, and that they took no action, then Netcom could be considered liable to "contributory infringement."
  	The Fishman Documents: Steven Fishman, a former Scientologist and convicted felon was being sued by the Church over comments that he had made to a reporter for Time Magazine. These comments had formed part of an article "Scientology: The Cult of Greed." which Time magazine had published in 1991. Time had called the Church a "hugely profitable global racket." The Church had sued Time for libel. Time won, and the decision was affirmed on appeal. The magazine spent over 7 million dollars to contest the court action. Fishman had included into the trial record about 65 pages of the Church's Operating Thetan (OT) documents - about 10% of the total writings by Hubbard on this topic. Although most of his writings are public, the OT documents are very carefully protected by the Church. A 1993 court ruling recognized that their scriptures are trade secrets. Access is only permitted to members who are judged to be spiritually and ethically fit to handle the material. Fees totaling tens of thousands of dollars are paid by members to read and study all 8 levels of the documents. The 65 pages were put on the WWW by a Webmaster in Amsterdam. On 1995-SEP, Scientology representatives asked the Dutch XS4ALL ("access for all") Internet Service Provider to delete the documents from their customer's page; the provider refused. When the smoke cleared, duplicate sets of documents had appeared at more than 100 other WWW sites. The Church then sued 3 other service providers; this was later increased to a total of 23 separate parties. The Church lost.
  	In 1995-JAN, a Church lawyer approached Usenet administrators, unsuccessfully attempting to have the "alt.religion.scientology" newsgroup removed. She argued that the name of the group included their trademarked name "Scientology".
  	In 1995-FEB, Scientology officials worked through Interpol and the Finnish police to obtain the "True Name" of one user from "anon.penet.fi", an anonymous remailer. In 1996, they asked for two more names. Rather than comply, the owner of the remailer, Julf Helsingius, closed down the facility.
  	From 1996-MAY-19 to SEP-17, thousands of spam postings from over 20 accounts or pseudonyms have been made to newsgroup "alt.religion.scientology". The postings consist of text taken from the Church's web site. Some newsgroup subscribers blame this on the Church. But there is no indication what individual or group is responsible.
  	A series of lawsuits against individuals and service providers came to the attention of the Washington Post. They published a story on the dispute, and quoted a total of 46 words from the secret writings by Hubbard. The Church sued the Post and two of its reporters for copyright infringement.

  Just as the Jehovah's Witnesses have historically engaged in many legal battles to define the limits of religious freedom, the Church of Scientology cases may well play a major role in defining the limits of free speech on the Internet

  Wild Thing
• 
  14

  Dubs vs. Scientology

  by seahart in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has anyone noticed the little scuffel with the scientologist?

  they seem to have had their feelings hurt in a cartoon.

  funny that they are not being potrayed as having crazy beliefs, and why is it being down played in the news?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Wild_Thing

  This might be a little off topic, but I think its interesting to note the similarities of JWs and Scientologists, especially when it comes to their "secret documents" and trying to protect them from being published on the internet by former members. They have tried to sue the pants off countless numbers of people for posting their "copywrited" material on the internet. Just like JWs, it contains things they do not tell their members before they agree to join.

  This is quoted from http://www.religioustolerance.org/scientol3.htm. Apologies if this has already been shared elsewhere.

  A war of sorts raged on the Internet between the church, anti-Scientology individuals and persons dedicated to preserving total freedom of speech on the Internet. Starting in 1994-DEC, the Church has aggressively attempted to defend their copyright on a wide range of confidential Church documents including rituals that they regard as highly secret. This has brought them into conflict with numerous Internet users and service providers who are keen to promote the complete freedom of speech on the Internet, with little or no regard to copyrights held by individuals and organizations.

  The Church has aggressively engaged in a number of lawsuits, including:

  	law suits against Dennis Erlich, Keith Henson, Arnie Lerma, Grady Ward, and other individuals.
  	law suits against Netcom, DGSys, Washington Post, FACTnet (an agency supplying information on groups who allegedly use coercive mind control), XS4ALL and 14 other Dutch Internet Service Providers, and "anon.penet.fi" (a Finnish anonymous remailer). 3

  Some interesting conflicts include:

  	The Religious Technology Center (RTC) v. Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc. (Netcom): RTC was one of the copyright owners of writings by Church of Scientology ™ founder L. Ron Hubbard. Dennis Erlich was a church minister, but left the organization and became a critic of the religion. He posted part of the church's works on the Usenet news group alt.religion.scientology. This was an illegal act, because he had not first obtained permission from the copyright holder. His posting went through a BBS system owned by Thomas Klemsrud where the files were stored for 3 days. The postings were automatically forwarded to the Internet service provider Netcom, where they were stored for 11 days. Netcom's software made postings available to Usenet servers around the world. Netcom personnel do not monitor or censor any postings; all were processed automatically without human intervention. The Church asked Erlich to stop the postings; he refused. They then asked Klemesrud to remove the postings and keep Erlich off his BBS. Klemsrud replied by asking the Church to prove that it owned the copyrights for the postings. The Church refused this request as being unreasonable. They then asked Netcom to refuse Erlich access to the Internet. Netcom refused, because the only way for them to accomplish this would be to disconnect hundreds of other BBS users as well. The Church sued Klemesrud and Netcom for copyright infringement. The court recognized that even though the BBS and Netcom files were only saved for 11 days or less, that they were still sufficiently "fixed" to constitute copies under the copyright act. But because there was no actual manual intervention by Netcom, the court considered their involvement analogous to the owner of a public-access copy machine who allows customers to duplicate material. The court held that only the original subscriber can be held liable for "direct infringement" of any posting of a copyrighted work to a Usenet group. But if the Church could prove that Netcom was aware of the copyright infringement in time to prevent its distribution, and that they took no action, then Netcom could be considered liable to "contributory infringement."
  	The Fishman Documents: Steven Fishman, a former Scientologist and convicted felon was being sued by the Church over comments that he had made to a reporter for Time Magazine. These comments had formed part of an article "Scientology: The Cult of Greed." which Time magazine had published in 1991. Time had called the Church a "hugely profitable global racket." The Church had sued Time for libel. Time won, and the decision was affirmed on appeal. The magazine spent over 7 million dollars to contest the court action. Fishman had included into the trial record about 65 pages of the Church's Operating Thetan (OT) documents - about 10% of the total writings by Hubbard on this topic. Although most of his writings are public, the OT documents are very carefully protected by the Church. A 1993 court ruling recognized that their scriptures are trade secrets. Access is only permitted to members who are judged to be spiritually and ethically fit to handle the material. Fees totaling tens of thousands of dollars are paid by members to read and study all 8 levels of the documents. The 65 pages were put on the WWW by a Webmaster in Amsterdam. On 1995-SEP, Scientology representatives asked the Dutch XS4ALL ("access for all") Internet Service Provider to delete the documents from their customer's page; the provider refused. When the smoke cleared, duplicate sets of documents had appeared at more than 100 other WWW sites. The Church then sued 3 other service providers; this was later increased to a total of 23 separate parties. The Church lost.
  	In 1995-JAN, a Church lawyer approached Usenet administrators, unsuccessfully attempting to have the "alt.religion.scientology" newsgroup removed. She argued that the name of the group included their trademarked name "Scientology".
  	In 1995-FEB, Scientology officials worked through Interpol and the Finnish police to obtain the "True Name" of one user from "anon.penet.fi", an anonymous remailer. In 1996, they asked for two more names. Rather than comply, the owner of the remailer, Julf Helsingius, closed down the facility.
  	From 1996-MAY-19 to SEP-17, thousands of spam postings from over 20 accounts or pseudonyms have been made to newsgroup "alt.religion.scientology". The postings consist of text taken from the Church's web site. Some newsgroup subscribers blame this on the Church. But there is no indication what individual or group is responsible.
  	A series of lawsuits against individuals and service providers came to the attention of the Washington Post. They published a story on the dispute, and quoted a total of 46 words from the secret writings by Hubbard. The Church sued the Post and two of its reporters for copyright infringement.

  Just as the Jehovah's Witnesses have historically engaged in many legal battles to define the limits of religious freedom, the Church of Scientology cases may well play a major role in defining the limits of free speech on the Internet
• 
  14

  Dubs vs. Scientology

  by seahart in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has anyone noticed the little scuffel with the scientologist?

  they seem to have had their feelings hurt in a cartoon.

  funny that they are not being potrayed as having crazy beliefs, and why is it being down played in the news?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Wild_Thing

  
  You can watch the episode here . It's hilarious! But then again, I'm a South Park fan. I am surprised the episode on the internet. Probably won't be for long!
• 
  12

  How many JWs does it take to change a lightbulb?

  by Wild_Thing in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "they don't need to change their lightbulb because their light just keeps getting brighter and brighter!

  as told by jw sister tonight to the rest of my jw family.

  they thought it was great!

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  Wild_Thing

  I suppose there are many punchlines, but the one I like the most is ...

  None ... they like to stay in the dark.

  Then there's ...

  Twelve. They all live in Brooklyn, and they have to keep changing it every day for "new light."

  Also ...

  Three. One to screw in the bulb, and two to knock on your door and twll you about the new light.

  And ...

  None. They're always getting "new light" from Brooklyn.

  Another favorite ...

  I don't know - I didn't let them in to find out.

  Last, but not least ...

  It takes as many as The Watchtower says it takes!