Just watched that...Calling it puke worthy is an insult to puke.
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done4good
JoinedPosts by done4good
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47
2015 Jehovah's Witnesses Annual Meeting Lett warning about apostates CLIP
by Watchtower-Free inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja4z2-sf4ky.
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done4good
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18
How was it for you when you had to shun someone?
by Anator ini remember a good friend when i was in and active who was d'fd.
when he started coming back, for me at that time is was gut-wrenching not to say 'hello' or at the very least encourage him to continue.
i thought even at this time, does this act of shunning really effective?
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done4good
Shunning tends to comes in degrees. I don't think I ever shunned anyone hard, however I do know that I made the awful mistake of ignoring friends that left, which was more than bad enough. It never sat well with me, but knowing that does not make me feel any better about it, nor should it.
I tried reaching out to some of those folks after I left, and I can tell you the relationships were never the same. I deserved that.
Funny thing was, when I left, being shunned didn't bother me all that much. It took the loss of a very personally meaningful friend years later to experience that kind of immense pain. It was then when I finally understood why I stayed away all those years after leaving, and also how incredibly hurtful shunning is. Talk about karma.
I tell myself now that they cannot help it for the most part, just like I could not when I believed. Evil fucking cult. No one should ever be made to dehumanize themselves to that point.
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12
Jersey City Assembly Hall Memories
by LexIsFree inso i was watching clips from the annual meeting.
i must say i do miss the jersey city assembly hall.
i loved going to that place as a kid.
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done4good
I remember working on the large addition they put on the building in 1992 or so. I was working on the roof at the time, when another crew was redoing the concrete steps to the roof. I somehow missed the announcement that was made that the stairs were going to be closed off for the remainder of the day...meaning climbing onto the scaffolding, which had no planks at all...just an overgrown set of monkey bars...all the way down to the ground!!!
Nearly shit myself over that and never was so glad to be back on the ground.
I do miss the ice cream, however...
d4g
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47
2015 Jehovah's Witnesses Annual Meeting Lett warning about apostates CLIP
by Watchtower-Free inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja4z2-sf4ky.
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done4good
They wouldn't care about "apostates" if the people in question were not winning the war...albeit ever so slowly.
Their paranoia tells all you need to know.
d4g
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212
Why Do You No Longer Believe in God?
by Tenacious ini know this question has popped up from time to time but i really would like to know how you guys, those that no longer believe, came to that conclusion?
was it the wts and all its crap?
was it something you read?
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done4good
I know you will probably get many flippant responses to this question, however this is a fair question, and deserves a fair answer. Yes, it is true that no one is born believing. Neither was I, however I know that is not what you are asking. Most here were believers at one point, as I was. Becoming an atheist was not an overnight decision, and just like making a decision to join another religion, should not be a decision made in a hasty manner.
After leaving the JWs, I considered myself a christian in the non-denominational, broad sense. I had many questions, and spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours researching the answers to those questions. While most questions started out from a religious context, in order to make sense of the complete picture I always considered both historical and scientific sources of information, alongside the religious sources. I soon found many inconsistencies in both the historical and scientific realms that simply did not align with what I understood christianity to be. Even most of the christian doctrine itself was very shaky, at best.
That in of itself did not break my faith, however it certainly was cause for a level of concern. In short, the research I did particularly in the area of physics really drove home the point that my understanding of things religiously could not be true. I considered myself agnostic for about 5 years.
Nothing really changed beyond that other than my understanding of the definition of atheism. Atheism is simply to not believe, which was an understanding I really came to 5 years prior when I declared myself an agnostic.
d4g
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31
The fade did not work
by BeautifulMind innot long after learning ttatt, my hubby and i decided it would be best for us to fade.
his entire family is in, but not in the same cong.
we made it to the region convention and one sunday meeting after that.
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done4good
Sure it did. You are out!
Those that fake it are not "fading" usually...they are double-lifers.
d4g
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done4good
Hmmm....Do these sound ideal to you?
1. Would you rather die from Bubonic plague, (insert any thousands of diseases here), ?
2. Plant, cultivate, pick crops, churn butter, and shit in an outhouse every day, (by the way, this is your kids life also)?
3. Live in a 2 class system of extremely rich aristocracy and extremely poor? Which do you think you might be?
4. Have little to no access to information, music and other forms of art, books, etc.? (Did I mention most of the fucking world was illiterate until the invention of the printing press?)
5. Exist in a world full of Xenophobic, homophobic, religionists whose world is dominated by myth?
6. See the last point concerning those that believe in "end times"...
d4g
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28
How Cultish are the JW's?
by xjwsrock infirst off, i certainly agree the jw's are a cult.
but i'm sensitive to black-and-white thinking now.. so, where do they rank on the scale?
think of a cultish religion scale from 0-10.. consider the likes of unitarian universalism vs baptist vs amish vs charles manson.. where do you think jw's fall on the scale?.
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done4good
Maybe less weird and isolated than Scientology or the LDS, but at least equally as controlling as those, and certainly more so in the practical sense.
There is a reason that JWs have the lowest education and lowest income among the "major" religious groups in the US, as well as some of the most significant mental/emotional health issues. JWs do whatever the GB instruct them to do. "Don't purse higher education"...done. "Don't desire a 'worldy' career"....done. "Shun your ex-believer best friend"...done.
The evidence of the cultishness is in the empirical results. The statistics and end results don't lie.
d4g
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What are the things that wake people up from the Watchtower Corporation?
by punkofnice inwhen i became an elder i saw the dark side.
a side i previously believed couldn't possibly exist in the one true religion of the happiest people on earth.. then they rolled out 'overlapping generations(tm)' and that was the last straw.. all my life i had doubts but surpressed them thinking i was at fault and not the cult leaders.. it seems more likely that now the governing body are parading around like popes, wearing their expensive jewellery, that this will nauseate even dyed in the wool jws.. i wonder if the wake up can be condensed into main categories?.
1. experiencing the cruel handling of matters by the wbt$ reps.. 2. crazy doctrine (eg.
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done4good
Lots of things can wake someone up....too many to list. However, while I dislike to just cut and paste links, I think this one explains well while despite overwhelming evidence of falsehood, even intelligent people cannot easily break free from any religious belief.
The article mentions four key points:
1. Intelligence is compartmental.
2. The earlier someone is raised in the belief system, the more difficult it is to overcome.
3. Christian religions in particular drill into believer's heads to distrust themselves.
4. Psychological and social fears of questioning prevent one from facing their cognitive dissonance.
I would add that in the particular case of JWs, the degree to which all four points affect a person, are much greater than the mean, and in some cases a positive feedback loop is created, making it that much more difficult to break free. Those that do break free generally do so because the positive feedback loop in of itself tends to cause instability, which typically translates into some personal event that causes the awakening.
d4g
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Doing the Right Thing, Making a Choice (shunning)
by Simon incontinuing a topic that is dear to my heart because of my experience as both a shunner and a shunnee .... some people seem to get very agitated when i talk about the responsibility people have to make the right choices and that despite all the wrongs within the wts, people themselves have a role to play and some personal responsibility for the experience.. notice i said "some" responsibility, not "complete" - this doesn't absolve the wts for the things they do wrong in any way shape or form.
so please don't get argumentative about possible meanings and absolutes - of course the wts has a significant role to play but we need to decide what we're trying to achieve here and why the personal choice is so important.. i'm also not talking about actual crimes that the wts should answer for.
if they cover up child abuse for instance, they absolutely should be reported immediately.
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done4good
Simon, good post.
I think most people oversimplify the shunning issue. While it is true that the organization does sanction such behavior, it is only successful at doing so because the behavior itself is actually a natural response to someone experiencing cognitive dissonance, in this context.
No one chooses to shun someone simply because that other person chooses to think differently about a matter. For the most part, people are comfortable enough with what they "know", (even if it is incorrect), that they can handle disagreement, without it threatening their belief system.
A person choosing to shun, in contrast, is actually a very insecure person. Deep down they are not comfortable or confident in their belief system, hence do not allow it to be challenged. They will not debate, because they cannot, and they know it. The natural response someone in such a mental state will have is a shutdown response, that will not allow open discussion. This is where shunning begins.
In fact, even the presence of such a person presents the unpleasant effects of cognitive dissonance. This is because tacit information is communicated indirectly, such as that former believer being a "good" person, that is not becoming the monster that the believer was warned about just because that person changed their belief system. That is actually very powerful subconscious information that demonstrates the teachings of the belief system are likely wrong, even in this seemingly small way, and ultimately why shunning is applied even when discussion concerning one's belief system is not taking place.
The organization simply chooses to take that one step further and institutionalize the behavior. Unfortunately the behavior itself will likely not change for anyone committed that seriously to the belief system.
d4g