Posts by cognizant dissident

28

Nightmares

by palmtree67 in

jw
friends

first of all, i have severe arachnophobia.

rationally, i know most spiders are harmless, but something takes over my brain and my body when i see one........i totally freak out, i can't help it.

they are little pieces of death, wrapped in scarey...... .

cognizant dissident

Something else we both have in common!

I feel for you. I cringed just listening to your story. I would have probably done the same thing.

One time I was painting the window trim outside my house and saw a huge (by my standards) reddish orange spider in the corner. I called my husband from inside to come and kill it for me. (I will kill them when I'm alone because the alternative is much worse, which is to allow them to go free where they may breed or come out in the night and crawl on you when you're sleeping!)

Anyway, hubby hits the spider web, but doesn't manage to knock the spider out, the web springs back into my face. You never seen anyone jump off a step ladder so fast (damn good thing I was only painting the ground floor trim!) I was literally standing in my yard, screaming and swearing like a raving lunatic. I'm surprised the neighbours didn't all come out and call the cops.

I don't really have any suggestions except maybe hypnotherapy. I've thought of it but on the other hand I don't really want to get comfortable with spiders. I avoid them for a reason. I was bitten by one and had very painful swelling in my arm for days. For the poster who suggested letting friends spiders crawl on her, if Palmtree is anything like me, that is never going to fricking happen! I would parachute out of a plane without fear before I would let a spider crawl on me.

In a way, i think arachnaphobia is rather normal. So many people have it (as well as fear of snakes), I think it is a primal survival instinct. Many spider and snake bites are poisonous and even fatal, so fear of them is just natural survival instincts. Ours are just a little more finely honed than the average persons.

27

Anyone With Major Judicial/Service Department Experience?

by A question in

jw
friends

is there anyone on the board with a large amount of experience with judicial matters or (preferably) with the service department of the society or perhaps even worked on the service department?

if so, i would appreciate the answers to at least some of the following questions:.

does the society ever take the initiative to remove elders, and if so, how do they do it?

cognizant dissident

When I was a child in the 1970's, one of my parent's good friends, who was an elder in the Greek speaking congregation in Vancouver was df'd for apsotasy. The entire body of elders was removed (not sure if they were all df'd or only a few) and the congregation was disbanded and disbursed to neighbouring congregations.

When I was a teenager in the early 1980's, a special committee was sent from Bethel (Canada) to investigate wild parties and immorality that was spanning hundreds of young people in the lower mainland. They took names, and many heads rolled, (most that I knew df'd were elder's sons and daughters, including myself).

317

Inviting djeggnog to discuss the blood doctrine

by jgnat in

djeggnog invited me to start a new thread about the blood doctrine, which i am happy to do here.

his objection was my statement,.

"i've seen the blood video, a deceiving mix of scripture, fearmongering and pseudoscience, with plenty of lab coats in view.

cognizant dissident

interested bystander

(I've said about all I can say on this subject in many previous threads so, I'll just shut up and let jnat have a go)

and no wisecracks about me not being able to shut up!

23

Thread for Dansk (RIP Dec. 20)

by alamb in

jw
friends

just thinking about ian this time of year.

.

cognizant dissident

I miss him too. I was in England two years ago when he died and wanted to try and get a hold of him to see if I could visit and couldn't. It was a few days later that his daughter posted news of his death.

He was a great guy. Very intelligent. Very spiritual.

RIP Ian

42

I am a bit poetic and sentimental tonight and could use some support

by recovering in

jw
friends

only earth wind and sky last forever they say.

the grim reaper has a debt he wishes me to pay.

i fear not death, for he is not a proud entity.

cognizant dissident

There's every good reason to hope and believe you will be one of the 50%! Wishing strength to you in this difficult time.

Cog

17

So what DID happen to poster Hillary Step?

by james_woods in

jw
friends

he was mentioned on the recollection of influential posters thread:.

one that no one's mentioned that was one of my faves is hillary_step.

loved his razor wit.. me too - his "razor wit" managed to call me an "uneducated redneck" on at least two dozen occasions...usually when i disagreed with his certainty that george w. bush was a war criminal and should have been tried by the international criminal court.i enjoyed the interaction - hearing the name again made me ask -whatever happened to him?

cognizant dissident

Hillary is alive and well and focusing on his business (razor wit as sharp as ever). With no real JW ties among his family and friends anymore, it is just a bit of a non-issue for him now, I think.

Cog

104

KM (Elder School) Brief Highlights

by XBEHERE in

jw
friends

besides the usual drivel there were a couple interesting things.

1. an entire 1 hour discourse on helping our children become little innocent martyrs for the wt via.

their flawed and unreasonable blood doctrine.

cognizant dissident

Blues Brothers:

To answer your question: Your A levels would be considered high school in North American and is still considered basic education, not necessarily college prep, although the courses one takes in high school can be college prep or trade prep or neither. They would all obtain the same diploma The higher education that the society is ranting against is university degrees.

Youths can drop out of high school at age 15 here in Canada, after what would be considered junior high school. This is highly looked down upon here and disqualifies one for almost any jobs, even entry level, unskilled jobs. Cleaning and other physical, unskilled laborers would be the most that is open to someone without high school diploma.

At one time, in the 1970's youths could drop out of high school at age 15 and enter an apprenticeship, trade or get an unskilled job. Many witness families did encourage their kids to drop out, get menial jobs, and pioneer. Many collected welfare or unemployment insurance and pioneered which became quite an embarrassment to the society a few years later when the rules for collecting such benefits were severely limited to prevent such abuses. After that point, JW children were not encouraged to drop out of high school (your A levels) but to finish so they could at least support themselves.

A few years later, it was even recognized that higher education was needed for many jobs that in the past were not required. So, the social sanctions were lightened up a bit, but, because the society found that almost everyone who attends college leaves the organization, they have gone back to their former hard line stance against college/university.

Nowadays, every skilled trade in Canada requires high school completion to enter. Even McDonald's expects youths to be attending school before they will be hired part time.

69

KS Blood-Handout s-55-e (PDF)!!!

by yknot in

we interrupt your forum posting for this 'just in' item...... it appears an elder has not locked his doctor's bag and a member of the conscious class has brazeningly swiped & scanned a copy of the s-55e.

(((thank you anonymous cc jw!.

for the purpose of our bethel audience i want to assure you no actual elder was willingly involved in the obtaining of this scan.. link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mnf7a0.

cognizant dissident

Yeah, I had to laugh out loud at the "paycheck and pension" comment. Spoken like someone who knows nothing of the inner workings of the society.

Bethelites are volunteers who give their whole life to the org and the best they can hope for is not to get kicked to the curb when they're old and sick. Unfortunately, that is just another hope in the WTBTS that isn't going to come true.

So if this volunteer now wants to do something a little more constructive with his time at Bethel, well.... it's his time now isn't it?

58

how many in your cong had nervous breakdowns?

by highdose in

jw
friends

of the congregation i spent my life in i would say a good 75% had nervous breakdowns at some point.

and often there was never really a obivous reason for it.

well not that we jw's could understand at the time.. even the queen bee's/ elderettes were not immune to this.. what about you?.

cognizant dissident

Just remembered another one. So fifteen. Five of the people on my list are men and one was a victim of abuse, the other 4 men I don't know as men are not as open to talk about these things ususally.

58

how many in your cong had nervous breakdowns?

by highdose in

jw
friends

of the congregation i spent my life in i would say a good 75% had nervous breakdowns at some point.

and often there was never really a obivous reason for it.

well not that we jw's could understand at the time.. even the queen bee's/ elderettes were not immune to this.. what about you?.

cognizant dissident

Just noticed Jaguarbass' post. If you ever saw one in person, you would know it and wouldn't doubt it existed. Oops, I just remembered two more, I forgot, bring that previous number up to 14. (Please keep in mind I'm only counting the cases that were actually carted to the psych ward and kept for treatment). The two I just added were also young women, victims of abuse.