it is rare to get such a startling, sparkling, perfect example of this.. here is a snippet of a conversion going on at jwtalk.net regarding israel/gaza:.
http://jwtalk.net/forums/topic/16268-peace-security-news/.
every one who is in the world today and dies tomorrow is in line for a ressurection.this is their best way of being in the new world.
I believe the very first brushing I had with serious cognitive dissonance, (at 8 years old), was over this very topic.
My mother and my aunt were in conversation concerning the then recent murder of John Lennon, and said something to the effect of, "well at least we know he will be the one Beatle who will be in the new system". Knowing my father was an unbeliever, I asked in turn, "so it would be better if Dad died now?".
Dead silence.
Stupid me for wasting the next 24 years of my life.
d4g
so i read some threads about why someone remains a ministerial servant or elder, or why they are still active jw's.
others are telling stories about how they cut back slowly, and some of them got removed as ms/elder/pioneer or whatever.
yet others tell of how they just up and stopped going one day.
If you can leave without any drama, that is always best. In reality, it is hard to do if you are one that needs to be yourself 100%. That was me, and still is.
I walked away in late 2005, (last meeting was Dec. 25, 2005). I tried just simply being honest with TTATT with friends and family, and it just led to them avoiding me. Since I wanted to not worry about looking over my shoulder, I DA'd in 2007. There was not much to lose anyway, since most did not talk to me anymore anyway. I kept one JW friend who never followed the shunning rules and we are still good friends to this day.
I recently tried to reach out to another friend that I also care quite a bit about, but once again, because that friend mattered, I believed being honest with her mattered. It ended up in me being shunned by her.
The point here is what it comes down to is you need to ask yourself, how important is it for you to be yourself? If this really matters to you, then any friends you might keep by faking it somehow are not worth it. This is one of the most painful lessons I had to learn in life.
d4g
there are books out there that talk about why it is so difficult to convince someone that they are wrong.
hassan and singer specifically address destructive cults.
hassan refers to cult members under mind control and singer under thought reform.
Great OP!
So very true. "Cults" cannot be understood without understanding our own psychology, and without understanding the broader social sphere of influence any social environment can have on an individual. "Cults" do not exist in a vacuum, but rather have a role in our social environment, contributing to the "needs" of some individuals, no matter how flawed, dysfunctional, and extreme they are.
Fear, cognitive dissonance, and the much quicker to respond, "intuitive", (as opposed to rational), mind, play a significant role as to why cults exist, how they operate, and how they are successful with keeping their subjects under their control.
d4g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzaw1xe8q70.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvqru9keiw4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlsfyfiyzgg.
Just unbelievable...well maybe not really given the reality of social evolution, but I digress...
Churches were doing this in the '60s and '70s, (especially Catholic post Vatican II). This music would have been considered "worldly" at best, if not outright associated with "Christendom", (i.e. Pete Seeger's/Byrds Turn Turn Turn), in any Kingdom Hall.
There is definately a rebranding going on. I am lost as to what the endgame is though.
d4g
gorby and his lovely wife had during dinner a chat about watchtower hypocrisy.
she faded with me since 2007 and shows sometimes affection for the organization.. we talked about the gb and ray franz.. she asked me if she could read my ray franz books.. now i have a dilemma.
the books gave me a hard time in the '90.. i know the ray franz truth can hurt and shock her so much.
There is no dilemma here.
d4g
a big discussion driving back from the regional convention about what exactly was meant about pets.. the warning was obvious to me.
don't get pets, they cost time and money and you would do better to spend your time and money supporting the organization and going in field service.. as to the wine and beer, because the bro during his soliloquy admitted that the first thing he would like to do is relax after a hectic day at work with a glass of wine or beer, his conscience was traumatized.
however he came up with a perfect idea, he'd go tend the garden (obviously a solution for a married bro) or hit some golfballs at the driving range (maybe he's not married).. maybe jesus should have told the wine guzzlers at cana to sober up and go till the fields.. .
The WT does not care about people. It should be no surpise to anyone they don't care about pets.
d4g
.
focus.
("armageddon" class).
Phizzy: Agree D of T, we can never repeat this stuff enough for J.W's discovering this Site, they cannot ever get this TTATT unless it is plainly laid before them.
It depends on the personality type. Some can intuit it, without concrete evidence, but most cannot. Of even those that can, they will not see until they are ready. By ready, specifically I mean having overcome the fear of leaving and all leaving entails. It usually takes a significant event in one's life to face that fear rationally.
d4g
when...... 1) we follow christ example not the gb.
2) stop df'ing those for challenging current or past doctrine and allow us to use our god given gift of reason and free wil.
sure kick out the scumbags even the lions club have rules for membership, but not those who just use their brains and consience.. 3) get rid of the nonsensical blood teaching that has cost the lives of thousands and beg god for forgiveness.
Impossible. Everything you mention is incompatible with an authoritarian high control group.
Stop dreaming.
d4g
it seems i am going to have to teach people to use a tablet as part of my job and i don't even have one!
any advice would be most helpful please.. i keep reading blurb on amazon etc and now i'm really confused.
what should i buy?
I own both, and engineer network support systems for both OSs, (iOS and Android), such as VPN, UC apps, etc.
For day to day "it just works" stuff...Ipad. iOS generally has better commercial application availabilty for some reason also.
If you have to run some one off applications that require with dealing with a lot of "non-Apple" stuff, (like dealing with limitations associated with wireless AP distances and so forth), Android might be a better choice, since fixes for bugs associated with those types of problems seem to be a bit more forthcoing from Google than Apple.
d4g
july 28, 2012is algebra necessary?by andrew hacker .
a typical american school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra.
in both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail.
Breakfast of Champions -I'm taking Calculus right now. . . .
And you would think where I'd get hung up is in all that fancy calc stuff like derivatives, and derivatives of derivatives . . ..
But nooooooo. . . . . . all of those concepts I've got down pat.
Where do I always screw up? In the friggin algebra!
Drives me absolutely mad!
I know what you mean. Took algebra in HS, just slipped through one year, did pretty good with Algebra II for some reason the next, but struggled again with it as an undergrad in college.
I did not take calculus until I became a grad student. Since I get the concepts of calculus, (such as limits, and what they mean), I had no problem whatsoever getting an A, even in advanced calc and several courses dealing with calc and stats. But the algebra part of it still drives me batshit crazy.
d4g
