The union of global organizations, economies, currencies, etc is definitely happening and I think it is more driven by technology than by any conspiracy by a single group. However, there are attempts to guide and control globalization in certain directions by in organizations. Is this "conspiracy". Perhaps, but is is not necessary secret, evil, harmful, or unwarranted. What is conspiracy but humans getting together to plan? If the plan is to stabilize world economies, currencies, set global standards for economic accountability, global standards for human rights, health etc, reduce national inequities that lead to war, etc, then I am all for conspiracy! Bring it on!
cognizant dissident
JoinedPosts by cognizant dissident
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142
My letter to my aunt.
by alice.in.wonderland inmy grandparents are jehovah's witnesses and didn't raise their daughter to behave in such a manner.
i sent her this letter:.
g82 5/8 pp.
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cognizant dissident
So Alice: how do you know who your Aunt is having sex with? Does she keep you informed? And what do you define as promiscuous? Sleeping with one person out of holy JW wedlock? 2? 3? Why is it worse for women over 50? Isn't "immorality" the same at any age? Why would it make a woman callous? What if she is enjoying it and having a good time and doesn't feel callous at all? Where did you get the idea it was OK for you to decide what is proper behaviour for another woman of your family especially one of the older generation? Does "writing you off" sound like loving, respectful entreating, counsel to an older woman as a mother? Is your aunt even a JW?
I know I'm probably going to regret asking all these questions but it is truly a fascinating study in human behaviour and beliefs. A little morbid perhaps, like stopping to stare at a car wreck... but still fascinating....
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AUDIO: "Dubnesia" demonstrated. JWs can not recall what they heard in a talk
by kurtbethel ini have explained "dubnesia" before, which is that amnesia that jws seem to get about the actual content of their so called spiritual nourishment.
not to criticize, as i always get that after hearing h. ross perot talk.. http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/188046/1/dubnesia-have-you-had-it.
now i have audio of dubnesia as we hear two jws explain to a householder about how wonderful the talk they heard was.
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cognizant dissident
Ahh.. I remember those "please shoot me in the head now so I don't ever have to have one of these banal conversations again," moments.
I look back on them with much more humor than I did when I felt forced to participate in them.
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SPOUSAL ABUSE
by Dogpatch ini had to post this from freeminds, was such a good article lee!.
randy.
http://www.freeminds.org/support/dear-lee/spousal-abuse.html.
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cognizant dissident
Interesting article Lady Lee.
I never thought of my husband as abusive in the classic sense of the word, and I grew up with abuse in my family, so I know what it looks like. I wouldn't even say he was verbally abusive or berated me. Yet, there are more subtle kinds of abuse.
There can be a constant devaluing of the woman and her role and her contribution in the family just because of that JW sense of male entitlement that many of them carry around like they do their briefcases. It doesn't even have to be verbalized but it is demonstrated in a thousand little actions. And I still felt trapped in that marriage. Sure, technically, I could leave, I knew that. I knew my legal rights and I was not even very submissive by JW standards. He was not very domineering compared to most JW men, either.
Mentally, though, I believed I had no choice. If I got an education, so I could support myself, I was not putting Jehovah first. If my son was from a broken home and got into trouble and left "the truth", then I was as bloodguilty as if I had murdered him myself. If I left, then I had to be alone forever, or get df'd and lose all my family and friends, again! Not to mention, I would have nothing to look forward to but destruction for myself and my son whom I loved. Yeah, those are some choices alright! Lose your whole family and your whole world or "choose" the "truth that leads to everlasting life", which includes the "truth" that women are "less than".
That kind of choice is like putting a gun to someone's head, or their kid's head, and saying, "sign over your future to us". So you sign, because you want to live, and then you are told, "what are you complaining about, it was your "choice".
My husband and I are almost divorced now. The subtle, covert devaluing turned overt and very nasty, very quickly! My JW parents tried to be supportive, by telling me they never wanted me to marry him in the first place and why didn't I stand up for myself more and fight back more?
Hmmm... the anger and rage at them welled up in me at that..... I screamed at them (inside my head, not out loud, as the JW training to honor one's parents still holds strong). "Why did I marry him? Why don't I stand up for myself more? Because you f*****g set me up for this my entire life since I was a baby, that's why!"
I was with him since I was 18 and I'm 47 now and I feel free to be myself for the first time in my entire life. It feels really good.
Cog
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34
Responding to personal questions
by Lady Lee init has come to my attention that there have been numerous posts on the board asking posters personal questions like:.
where do you live?are you male or female?do you know people from a certain congregation?do you know a certain district overseer or circuit overseer?do you know of certain conflicts in your congregation?post some pictures of where you liveif you are an active or fading jw ...?if you are an active elder ...?there are plenty of other personal type questions that can be used to narrow down who you are.
some may seem quite innocent like the post pictures of where you live but if i post a picture of ottawa but don't want anyone to know i live in ottawa i have just told the internet world where i live.
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cognizant dissident
When I first came on JWD, I immediately recognized another poster and all she did was have her province listed and say something about her divorce, which was a bit notorious in JW land at the time. I knew some details about her divorce from other JW gossipers and identified her immediately. She didn't care as she was already df'd but still....not that hard to do.
Anyone who knew me well, could probably identify me if they cobbled together my posts. I figured the chances were small that anyone I knew well would be here as they were super righteous dubs, so I took a few chances. I cared more at the beginning though, than I do now when I've moved on with my life for the most part.
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I don't know what do
by XPeterX inlast saturday night my older sister,24 years old,not a jw,went to a party.to make a long story short she almost got raped by a guy who found the chance to do so (he has been accused of rapes in the past too).then my sister called 3 of her neo-nazi friends after the party to attack him.so they took knives,clubs,and crowbars and went at his house.he managed to escape and didn't apologise for anything.now they are planning to kidnap him,drive him in a deserted place and beat him really bad and make him regret it.what should i do now after all this?i can't sleep at nights..
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cognizant dissident
Bane: do you have reading comprehension problems?
The sister is not a JW or ex-JW. Her neo-nazi friends are not JW's or ex-JW's. All of the ex-JW's commenting have told this person to go to the police to prevent a violent crime happening, and to tell his sister to stop hanging around with the kind of people who would take the law into their own hands and inflict violence.
So, who are the "you guys" that are hanging with neo-nazis and participating in beat downs that you are referring to? Is your need to make ex-JW's look bad so strong that if affects your ability to read and comprehend plain English?
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Has anyone heard of the elders being called independent agents. Spoke to a brother in the Legal department and he called them that.
by life is to short injust wondering if anyone has ever heard of elders being referred to as independent agents before.
i called the legal department and spoke to an older brother about the child molesters in my hall about a month ago.
he did not want to speak to me because i am just a stupid sister but he did finally agree and that was one point he made.
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cognizant dissident
I want to add that saying someone is "independent" is a bit irrelevant in Canada, even from a simple employment aspect. The law decides the status, not the agency. For instance if someone wants to pay their workers as independent contractors and the workers are in total agreement, the courts have still overturned that status in some cases, because the workers were not acting independently according to the legal criteria of the word.
I suspect the same would be true of the elders and I believe there was one case in California recently where the courts found the WTBTS liable even after they had tried to claim independence.
One of the criteria for independence in Canada, is that the work is not directed by the employer/agency. The fact that the WTBTS does, in fact, direct all matters in the congregation, nullifies all their claims to the elders being independent. "A rose by any other name, still smells as sweet," so to speak, or in this case, a Watchtower slave, by any other name, still stinks.
Cog
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58
Has anyone heard of the elders being called independent agents. Spoke to a brother in the Legal department and he called them that.
by life is to short injust wondering if anyone has ever heard of elders being referred to as independent agents before.
i called the legal department and spoke to an older brother about the child molesters in my hall about a month ago.
he did not want to speak to me because i am just a stupid sister but he did finally agree and that was one point he made.
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cognizant dissident
They may be independent agents but that doesn't necessarily relieve the WTBTS from legal liability from their actions.
For example, in Canada, where I work for a realty, all our realtors are licensed, independent, self-employed, agents, payed on commission. However, they still represent the realty company and the brokerage is still liable for everything they do and must cover errors and ommissions coverage for the agents as well as itself. The realty was also fined by the licensing body for the actions of one of the realtors, that was not approved by the realty. Didn't matter. The law of agency, holds the agency responsible for the agents behaviour, independent or not.
At least in Canada, that's the case. The independence factor is more one of independence from an employment hours and tax status, than one of independence from legal liability.
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My sucky situation
by brotherdan inhi guys,.
sadly some of them had been in bethel for 5 - 10 years and were still cleaning toilets.. after about 2 years of it i couldn't do it anymore.
i always knew something wasn't quite right with this organization.
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cognizant dissident
People can become so attached to their "identity", that they are willing to throw away their family to maintain it or some cases even commit murder. That is the extremes that fear of losing one's identity can take a person to.
A good way to show your wife that it is not some horrible, terrible thing, is for you to change your identity from a JW to a non-JW but still keep all the good qualities of a good husband and father. That demonstrates that what is good about you and being married to you is not tied to the JW identity.
This at least implies the possibility that if that's possible for you, then it is possible for her too.
Cog
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Bitterness
by LostGeneration inhow do you overcome this?
i just got done reading isocf and toward the end ray warns against bitterness.
i guess i just can't agree with that.
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cognizant dissident
I think it would be helpful in this context to make a distinction between feelings and emotions. Our bodies do feel how they feel and react how they react (physical sensations), so in that sense, no feeling or physical reaction felt in our bodies is "ever wrong" it just "is" would be correct. And much of that initial reaction to stimuli is out of our control.
However, we do have some control over what thoughts we dwell and focus on a regular basis. And we definitely do have control over what we say and what we do in response to those inner feelings.
It is natural to feel hurt and rejected and bitter at some of the harmful things JW's and our JW families have done to us. However, our thoughts do have an affect on how our bodies feel. We can go over the story of that in our heads over and over again on a daily basis (or even an hourly one) and focus on those thoughts so that we keep those feelings going in our body. We can spend our energies fruitlessly trying to change JW's and/or our families so they don't behave that way in the future. That also keeps the story (and frustration) going.
If we acknowledge that what other people do is largely out of our control, and that most people/JW's do not want to change, then we can Choose to focus our thoughts on something more constructive, something that is helpful to our selves or others. We can also Choose to physically respond, speak and act, in such a way as to focus on our energies on some constructive beneficial thing that we do want for ourselves. If all our energy is focused on what we don't want in our lives, we keep those bitter, angry, hurt, feelings going in our bodies.
Being able to focus our thoughts and our responses in such a way is not easy, but it is a skill that can be learned with time and practice.