http://time.com/3583781/jonestown-massacre/.
it was 36 years ago today.. the watchtower has caused far more deaths due to the blood transfusion ban and the suicides from disfellowshipping.
unfortunately, these deaths are mostly invisible to the public, since they didnat occur at once and in one location.. .
My son was born on the seventh of November 1978, Gregor. I remember there was a photo on the front page of Time magazine. My daughter, then three, saw it and I had a lot of explaining to do, she was very observant and had a strong bs detector, she got the whole story out of me. I remember thinking I was glad I wasn't in a cult.
I have never thought about it that way, but yes, they have killed more people than Jonestown.
Sad.
i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.
i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.
i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!
I think it would be best if you were honest with her. This seems like a time bomb that is sure to go off sooner or later, so why prolong it? Perhaps you should see a professional counselor to figure out how to approach it. I don't know what's going on with her, she seems very passive aggressive. Perhaps she wants out of the religion too or perhaps she wants out of the marriage and is afraid to say, it's impossible for any of us to know, but it's time to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
I think you need to figure out what you want. If you leave the religion she may leave you, so which is more important too you, saving the marriage or saving you personal integrity by not practicing a religion you don't believe in?
i posted in the child abuse section, but it hasn't been active for a few days.. i read somewhere on the internet (don't recall what site it was) that jw's donations are going towards sexual abuse cases.. is this true?.
where can i find solid evidence regarding this matter?.
.
There are so many cases that are well documented from various news sources that it would be hard to pretend it's some apostate conspiracy, but don't be surprised if he doesn't believe it. It's hard to take in for the average JW, they have been led to believe it doesn't happen in their spiritual paradise, so not only do they have a problem, but they have been kept in the dark about it, it has got to shake you faith a bit. If you asked any JW if the funds contributed to the "worldwide work" go to paying off child abuse victims they would flatly deny it.
You might just say you heard about it and want to know from him if it's true. If he tries to prove its a lie he won't be able to.
The Mormon church is running into similar problems, they recently came clean that Joseph Smith had multiple wives, something they had always denied. It was getting to where so many people knew the truth they had to admit it.
The internet is hard on cults.
i have just had a radiology appt where i was told i had fibroids.
great.. i had a mirena coil fitted 2 months ago to control heavy and prolonged periods, suffering for about 14 months.. i wonder what my gp will suggest now??.
i'm gutted.. thanks for listening.
I'm sorry you aren't feeling well, I know how demoralizing that can be. I would think they will want to do a hysterectomy, especially if you are through having children, that will probably take care of both issues.
i read somewhere on the internet (don't recall what site it was) that jw's donations are going towards sexual abuse cases.. is this true?.
where can i find solid evidence regarding this matter?.
.
It's true. Here is one example
There are others, typically they prefer to settle outof court and everyone has to sign a non disclosure agreement, so it is unknown how much, but certainly in the millions.
There have been some actual judgments that were not settled out of court. The latest is below, there is lots of documentation. The Watchtower was fined heavily for refusing to make a witness available for questioning and refusing to produce discovery documents.
Also, use the search function here and look for Candace Conti.
Assuming these two are not overturned, the Watchtower will be out some serious change. They are worth billions though, so it's not going to hurt them that much. Of course donations will be used for this, where else would they get the money? They have considerable real estate holdings, but since that real estate was bought with donated funds, it's all the individual JWs that are paying for these pedophile cases in one way or another. I doubt most JWs know about this.
i've been a lurker for quite some time and enjoy the forum.
i've reached a point in life where i don't argue ideologies anymore so i don't have much to say.
i've been out for decades and believe i've been mostly de-cultabilized (if that's even a word).. my family is still in and i haven't had contact with them in years.
Welcome to the forum. I am also from California, currently living in the SF bay area, but I have lived in Ventura, Sacrameno area and spent ten years in Colorado, as of last week I've been out fifteen years.
so, my wife and i purchased a house about a month ago and recently we met our new neighbors.
they are an older couple.
they are very nice and even brought us cookies.. in conversation they brought up that they were mormons and mentioned how much they loved it.
We had three Mormon families move onto our street where we used to live, they had just built a huge stake nearby. They were nice, but mostly kept to themselves, no recruiting. I had suspected they were Mormon, when my neighbor said "Its just as I suspected, they are Mormons". I said "It's not like it's against the law", she said "It should be!", lol. She had spent a miserable year in Utah once and had no love for them, they would look at her sideways for bringing a thermos of coffee to work.
It creeped me out a bit having them there, too much of a reminder of my JW days. It's strange that they believed such different things, but the culture was exactly the same. A cult is a cult. Well, at least they came to our annual Christmas Party.
ok, so, brother morris seems to have gone out on a limb with his comments about tight pants.
yup, he's an opinionated man.
but, i fully expect that there will be some reference to the scientific wisdom behind his words.
This is a matter that should be a personal decision, whether its a fashion choice or a health choice, no religion should be telling anybody what style of pants to wear. It's like letting your grandpa with Alzheimer's pick your clothes, what normal person would do that ?
im curious, how many people on here had belonged to another church, or have enough knowlege of one.
to have thought the kingdom hall was a better option?
the wt articles often in the past, critisized other churches as being full of false christains, i have one from 1955 that rips on the roman catholic church.. not that they are free of guilt, but, i thought, gee, how many of these critisizers ever went to a small church to make that judgment?.
I attended church up until I converted to the JWs at 13. My church experience was OK, but I bought all the Watchtower dogma that they were filled with hypocrites and were evil, false religion. Since I left I have attended some services at my husband's family church, United Church of Christ. It was a very positive experience, so much more warm and loving than the JWs and no particular doctrine. I thought about joining, but decided it made no sense since I am an Atheist, lol.
it seems like every couple of months i notice we've acquired a new religious nut and they have been posting away, annoying everyone and filling the forum with crap.
it's disheartening to see people (even moderators!
) have been having conversations with them and there are pages and pages of insults and crap - we're going to try and avoid this in future.
I will do that, I get sick of these wackos that refuse to accept that no one is interested in their paranoid fantasies.
