Even smart guys can become slaves of fear and the need for absolute certainty. Even smart guys can have weird family issues in their past that make them susceptible to cult indoctrination. Even smart guys can desperately crave a smothering mama who runs their whole life.
DanTheMan
JoinedPosts by DanTheMan
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22
JW's that are smarter than you
by Preston inwhat, did i disturb your concentration with the above statement, "wha!
no, it can't be, i know what they believe in is a bunch of b.s.!
" well, guess what, it's true, and no, it isn't an oxymoron.
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41
1975---- DID IT REALLY BOTHER YOU?
by minimus inon the net you see many talk about 1975 and how it affected so many.
obviously, some left the organization when nothing happened in 1975. were you personally affected by 1975?
has the fixing of dates been a major reason for your disappointment with the witnesses?
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DanTheMan
One of the interesting things Ray brings out in CofC is how the org's growth had slowed to almost nothing in the early 1960's. Then, starting in 1968 with the announcement of 1975 being of possible significance, they started coming in in droves, giving them a momentum that, in spite of the post-1975 fallout, continues to this day.
My question to JW's is - If Jehovah is the editor of the Watchtower, as Freddie Franz once stated, then did he use 1975 as a trick to get more people saved? Or did he do it to test the loyalty of JW's, to see whether or not they were serving for a date? Does God use lies or build false hopes to recruit people, or to test them?
It is interesting to speculate where the org might be today if FF had never come up with the 1975 thing. I think that they would be a much more mainstream religion, instead of a quickly sinking cult.
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24
Keep following our stupid rules - God requires it
by dmouse inoctober 1st 2002 watchtower.
page 16 para 20. strong faith, in turn, fortifies us to obey jehovah, even when his requirements seem to go contrary to human reasoning.. .
para 22how important, therefore, that we have an obedient attitude toward that 'slave'!.
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DanTheMan
QUADRUPLE PUKE WITH DIAHRREA, FLATULENCE, AND NOXIOUS BODY ODOR TO BOOT
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41
1975---- DID IT REALLY BOTHER YOU?
by minimus inon the net you see many talk about 1975 and how it affected so many.
obviously, some left the organization when nothing happened in 1975. were you personally affected by 1975?
has the fixing of dates been a major reason for your disappointment with the witnesses?
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DanTheMan
I was just a wee lad in 1975. What bothers me is how, in 1992 when I asked the bro who was studying with me - "I heard that the WT predicted that the end was going to come in 1975", he answered me with the party line - "Well, the publications mentioned it as a possibility, and some of the brothers got carried away with it."
Whatever. Wish I'd had the guts to look into it more at the time, but it would be many years before I was able to muster up that sort of courage. Cognitive dissonance and disillusionment are terrible things.
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HOW LONG WHILE YOU WERE A JW DID IT TAKE TO LEAVE?
by minimus ineverybody has their own timetable when it comes to leaving the organization.
some due to family and friends continue indefinetly.
others, when they see all the lies of the "truth", leave right away.
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DanTheMan
I am very fortunate in that I don't have JW family. Starting in 2000 or so, I slowly (and not totally consciously) began to fade. I quit carrying my blood card, I started spending more time with my family, read less and less of the pubs, paid little or no attention during the indoctrination portions of the meetings. But I was doing the "It's the Truth, I'm just not good enough so what's the point" fade.
Last March I spent about three days and nights immersing myself in all the websites I had been so programmed to be afraid of.
The following week, the elders got my "take-your-cult-and-shove-it" letter.
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Armaggedon - JW Speculations
by In_between_days inarmaggedon - jehovahs witness speculations
o.k, so we all know that j.w's all have their own ideas on what exactly armaggedon is going to be like.
here are a few of the ideas i have heard from loyal dubs: .
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DanTheMan
"YOU WILL KNOW ARMEGGEDDON HAS STARTED BECAUSE THE FAITHFUL AND DISCREET SLAVE WILL TELL US IT HAS STARTED."
Kind of a frightening scenario, all the dubs gathering at the KH's thinking "this is it". I could see this happening if there was a YK-esque financial crisis in the world.
JW's!!! If you find yourself in this situation, and the elders start passing out cups of Kool-Aid, DON'T DRINK IT!!!!
Edited by - dantheman on 14 August 2002 7:19:40
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Need Damning Info. on Watchtower
by StinkyPantz ini am moving in a few months but before i go i want to sit down with my parents and present a tremendous amount of evidence against the watchtower.
i realize that some of you will say to just let them be.
well, knowing that they are in a cult-like religion is quite disheartening.
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DanTheMan
I agree with Larc, e-z does it.
The blood doctrine was the first chink in my WT armor. It was one of those things that I unquestioningly went along with at first, just accepted it as being part of the JW package. Once I took a more critical look at it and was able to see how completely lunatic the WT blood doctrine is, everything else came pretty quickly.
It all started for me when I was watching 60 Minutes II last November and they had a story about a little boy in Georgia who was cured of sickle-cell disease by receiving a transfusion of umbilical cord blood. CURED! Completely! Here is a link to the story:
By the way, I cried like a baby when they interviewed this healthy young man who previously was on the verge of dying due to this terrible disease. Just watching that program was huge in weakening my WT mental chains. They were rubber bands after that night. I thought to myself "Thank GOD that kid's mom isn't a JW who lets a group of hopelessly out-of-touch deluded religious goons in Brooklyn tell her what medical treatments are acceptable!"
Here's another good blood link - it is chapter 9 of In Search of Christian Freedom by Ray Franz. It basically shows that the current WT blood policy is akin to telling someone that they can eat a piece of bread, then a piece of cheese, then a slice of ham, then another piece of bread, but by golly they'd better not eat a ham and cheese sandwich.
If you could clearly convince a current JW (most of whom probably don't even understand what the current blood policy is - how could they? They're always changing, always splitting new hairs) of the sheer lunacy of this CORE doctrine, you've made a GREAT start. I'd leave it at that, let them find out the rest for themselves.
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Bill will you escape the cult?
by libra_spirit inwill bill escape or will he get sucked back in?
granted everyone stands behind bills stand on child abuse, except ofcourse the abusers, namely the org.
i realize bill wants back in, so he can protect the innocents from the org policies.
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DanTheMan
Bill knows the score. On Dateline and Panorama, you could see in his eyes that he is no Watchtower Drone. He's seen the man behind the curtain. This is why he got DF'd, while the drones stand around and say
"I can't believe he went to the media!!!"
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The WTS is BASED on Hypocrisy
by Bhagavad ini was just looking at some blank cassettes of mine in order to record something and i found one that was not blank but had a co talk on it.
it was ron coldiron preaching about how we should not compare ourselves to others.
if the wts really put that into practice, it would be another religion.
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DanTheMan
Yeah, once in a while they'll talk about how "unloving" (tm) it would be to refer to someone as being "just a publisher".
But, we know how it really is. If you are a male over 25 and you are just a publisher, no privileges, you are dead weight to them, and that is how you are treated.
I never wanted to be a MS or Elder (like I really wanted to sit on Sister-just-got-raped's judicial hearing to see if she screamed sufficiently), the treadmill that they keep you on when you are "just a publisher" was always more than enough for me. Because of this, I was referred to as being immature and a spiritual babe.
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9
Consider Yourself Lucky
by metatron inif you are df'd, da'd, or just drifted away, you may consider yourself.
lucky that you no longer have to endure the intensifying shame.
of telling people that you are one of jehovah's witnesses.
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DanTheMan
The Watchtower and Awake
can become still more vacuous, the publications more irrelevant.The Asleep! with the picture of the English Bobby on the front - how painful it must be for any dub with half a brain to have to offer this garbage to people. Just like the "the day the towers came down" mag - shameless exploitation. I saw on a thread the other day where it seems like pictures of kids with soccer balls are popping up more and more in the pubs - an obvious marketing campaign aimed at persons in third world and latin countries.
Watchtower, you are an embarrassment to humanity!