dmouse

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Posts by dmouse

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  45

  Did you leave the Borg 'in search of truth' or 'freedom from rules'?

  by BLISSISIGNORANCE in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this question is not to offend anyone, it's just that i have noticed people have many different reasons for leaving the borg and i thought it would be interesting to find out why some of you left.. for example:some leave because they want to be free to smoke, drink, gamble, fornicate, grow beards, celebrate xmas, take blood and drugs, etc.some leave because they never believed and now are old enough to do as they want.some leave because they have seen that they can be happy living life free from any religious organization, yet still feel safe in god's love.some have been hurt by the borg and have taken their wounds away to lick them, waiting to see justice.some have trusted the borg with their lives, time and money...........only to discover recently that there has been lies, cover-ups and hypocracy in the borg.

  now they have left but need to belong to another organization to feel happy.. i left the borg because i found out about the cover-ups and lies.

  my family was abused by it, my child was sexually abused and i was df'ed.

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  dmouse

  I left 'the truth' because I realised it wasn't. It was just another religion.

  If you believe it's the truth then you will overlook the imperfections of men, the silly rules, etc. But why put up with all of that if it's just another religion, with no more idea of what truth is than the next sect?

  I never wanted to break the 'rules', and even now I've never commited a DFing offense (except, perhaps, apostasy!) like those you mentioned...it's just that truth is more important to me than anything else and the JW religion is based on a bedrock of lies.

  I am still looking for 'the truth' about God, if He even exists, but that is now a personal search and I will never be subjected to the whims of any other religion.
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  15

  My first post...Questions from Readers 4-08-03

  by IWasDuped in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi...this is my first time posting...been lurking and working up my courage to post... .

  awake 4-8-03.

  "luaus- i read with interest your article, "let's have a hawaiian luau.

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  dmouse

  Welcome IWasDuped

  Yeah, so many conflicting messages come out of Brooklyn it's not surprising that JWs do one thing in one congregation/country and a completely different thing in another.

  What a JW is allowed to do is frequently dependent on the interpretation of the holy Watchtower by the local body of elders.

  But I agree with the others, a 'conscience' matter usually means the consciences of the GB, not yours, and what they think is generally spelled out in the article.
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  102

  JW Urban Legends

  by Azalo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  did any of you hear any of the urban legends that jw's used to scare people into being deathly afraid of demons?

  for example i remeber hearing that a child brough a smurf doll to a meeting and upon hearing the name jehovah uttered it got up and walked out.

  got any j-dub urban legends?

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  dmouse

  This sounds like an urban legend but it IS a true story - at least my mum insists it is !

  When my mum and a friend were newly baptised they borrowed my grandma's crystal ball (she was into the occult) and took it home.

  They discussed what to do with it and decided to smash it on the kitchen floor. As my mum raised the crystall ball into the air there was a crack and all the lights went out, leaving them both in the pitch black! They were both very spooked and decided to just take the ball back to my grandma and never have anything to do with it again. I never did find out what caused the lights to go out.
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  19

  The "Organization is Imperfect" Fallacy

  by metatron in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when confronted with hard evidence of corruption or doctrinal error, many witnesses are now quick to assert that.

  "the organization is imperfect" or "they make mistakes sometimes".

  in this fashion, they can retain their extreme allegiance.

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  dmouse

  Of course, a close allie of this 'the organization is imperfect' defense is the thought 'we never said we were God's prophets' which is normally brought out to counter the scripture in Deuteronomy 18.

  Not true - the society have repeatedly claimed to be God's prophets:

  The following quote is taken from the book ‘The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah,’ 1971, pp. 58,59,61,66,67.

  <<Who, then, are the group of persons who, toward the beginning of this "time of the end," were commissioned to serve as the mouthpiece and active agent of Jehovah?.... Whom could the real "chariot" of Jehovah's organization roll up to and confront that He might bestow upon this qualified one the commission to speak as a prophet in the name of Jehovah?.... Jehovah has found and commissioned his modern-day "Ezekiel." It is a composite Ezekiel. It is composed of those dedicated, baptized proclaimers of God's kingdom, who have been anointed with His spirit for their work.... Jehovah commissioned this dedicated, baptized, anointed class of servants to speak to all the nations in His name.... So it was with the anointed, dedicated witnesses of Jehovah back there in the year 1919 C.E. The facts from then on down to this date prove that they received their ordination and appointment and commission for their work in this "time of the end" from Jehovah himself.>>

  Ask yourself, if you are a JW, can you say to an elder that you can take or leave what the WBTS say to you because they are, after all, imperfect men and therefore an imperfect organisation? NO! They will not let you - they will tell you that the GB are God's visible organisation on earth and to ignore them is to ignore GOD HIMSELF! The 'the organization is imperfect' defense only comes into play when embarrased members try to gloss over past mistakes. Under normal conditions the WBTS DEMANDS that they be treated as God's infallible organisation.
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  4

  Do you have ESP?

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do you have esp?try your "luck" with the next 5 pages.. one of the squares is unique to the other 11.. can you single out that square?.

  behind only one of these squares lies the word correct.. select a square mentally then click on the square.. see how many tries it takes you to find the unique square.. once you select the correct square, you will go on to 'page two' and so on.. (the subsequent pages give you more tries to guess the unique square which is different on each of the five pages.).

  page 1 of 5. .

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  dmouse

  you have anti-luck

  Figures.

  Actually, my family always joke about the fact that my 'lucky' number is 13!
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  4

  Do you have ESP?

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do you have esp?try your "luck" with the next 5 pages.. one of the squares is unique to the other 11.. can you single out that square?.

  behind only one of these squares lies the word correct.. select a square mentally then click on the square.. see how many tries it takes you to find the unique square.. once you select the correct square, you will go on to 'page two' and so on.. (the subsequent pages give you more tries to guess the unique square which is different on each of the five pages.).

  page 1 of 5. .

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  dmouse

  Apparently not, 3 times out of 5 I clicked on the correct square LAST (after failing 11 times) strangely enough though, I sorta knew it would be in the last place I looked - like looking for your lost keys.

  Does that happen to you? For example if you are looking for a particular insurance document and it could be in any one of ten boxes - is it always in the last box you open? Happens to me too many times for it to be a coincidence! I guess what I need is a filing system!
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  5

  Addressing mind control helps the person and helps them leave

  by Introspection in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in talking to those that go to the local xjw support group here, it occurred to me that when we address the mental/psychological aspect of witness indoctrination it kind of kills two birds with one stone.

  i think this is especially helpful because you can talk about mind control without directly pointing a finger at the wts (of course there is a time for that too) - but it seems it would help you get the wheels turning first.

  comparing this to the bombarding-them-with-facts-about-the-society approach, it seems a lot more subtle if not more effective.

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  dmouse

  I think if you have the time and ability then the process you outline has a number of advantages, not the least of which is the fact that it is gentler then the 'pull the rug out' method. Also, once an awareness of mind-control techniques is in place it protects the person from future exploitation.

  I have used this method with my own children, not attacking the WBTS directly but pointing out how (for example) advertising and sales people try to control how we think, also reading flawed arguments with them and showing them how to spot the flaws and logical fallacies. In all of this the target remains non-theatening because I don't mention their religion. But eventually they started to apply the same reasoning abilities to the teachings of the WBTS and now they are beginning to see for themselves the way that the Society manipulates their minds.
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  16

  What a journey this has been?

  by amen in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what a journey this has been?

  i am reflecting over the years that i spent as a jehovah's witness today mark a decade and a half.

  i find it incredible that i would come to this situation.

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  dmouse

  Great feeling, freedom, isn't it!?
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  102

  JW Urban Legends

  by Azalo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  did any of you hear any of the urban legends that jw's used to scare people into being deathly afraid of demons?

  for example i remeber hearing that a child brough a smurf doll to a meeting and upon hearing the name jehovah uttered it got up and walked out.

  got any j-dub urban legends?

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  dmouse

  ...and Mike Oldfield music; the local elders didn't like him because he looked 'stoned' in the pictures on his album!

  On a serious note, one of the worst urban legends I heard, and still hear, is that 'blood doesn't transport oxygen until 24 hours after it's transfused anyway so emergency blood treatment is ineffective.' Most JWs still believe this even though it's completely untrue.
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  10

  "Us and Them Mentality"

  by rocketman in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  from newsweek magazine, march 10, 2003, page 33: .

  "but, as theologians in a number of faiths remind is, the demonization of the enemy - an "us and them" mentality - can inhibit self-examination and repentant action, critical components of any faith.

  this statement appears in an article about us president bush's religious faith and how it factors in with regard to the current campaign against iraq.

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  dmouse

  I asked an elder about this once and he modestly replied: 'well, we are better than them...spiritually and morally superior, because we follow Jehovah's ways, why hide it? We are just telling the truth.'

  Hmmmm.

  Yes, you can edit...I think it's at the bottom at the end of the 'action' line but I haven't looked lately.

  Edited to add...you have to click first on the title of the post you want to edit.