Cynthia obviously has the rights. She wanted out of the bookselling business altogether and turned it over to her friends. But they seem to have a hard time getting enough books to Amazon. They will show up sporadically at a decent price but then back to $100 or more. "In Search" was up to $800 a copy! Amazon will probably eventually print them. But it's a crying shame they can't be supplied to Amazon for sale. They have the books.
Bless dear old Ray Franz, in selling his books for 15-20 years I never once got a personal "thank you." He never even acknowledged my name on the phone! Payment always had to be in advance. Very rude IMO.
I sold thousands of his books.
Steven Hassan is the opposite. I have a large supply of his first and second books at retail price ($25). He's not distributing them to Amazon (nor anyone else that I know of). He has them on his site, too, at www.freedomofmind.com.
Randy
Dogpatch
JoinedPosts by Dogpatch
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15
Who owns the publishing rights to Crisis Of Conscious?
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Dogpatch
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Young adults who are disfellowshipped/disassociated and houselessness?
by Aaron Eldridge ini was wondering if anyone knew of any individuals that became houseless when they were disfellowshipped or disassociated themselves.
i know that i had to move out of my house within a few months after i disassociated myself, but i believe that if i did not have anywhere to go my parents would not have kicked me out of the house.. .
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Dogpatch
Great advice from all so far!
Brizzzy and Ziddina, you are priceless. Please think about getting involved in the site, which will be called 13Seconds.org. It will be advertised on the front of the Free Minds site. I am projecting about 3-6 months to get going, as I have to hire someone to build the site. The new technologies of smart phones, Facebook, blog management and keeping it all running is just out of my league. It may be based on html5 (Apple products can't use many older sites with 5 year-old architecture). And Joomla sucks as far as I'm concerned.
As far as a literal halfway house, you have no idea what you would be getting into. You need an army of volunteers and lots of cash, which means not only big donors but very large GRANTS from companies and governments. And companies and governments don't give to causes that could hurt their reputation. The new AJWRB is an exception... it is non-judgmental and purely there to save lives HERE and NOW. But then you have to hire an excellent fundraiser to keep afloat. Then local laws will kill you.
I was assistant pastor of Hope Chapel Venice (Calif.) for a year because my licensed pastor buddy asked me to go with him. We had the grunge of Venice in the early 80s come to our church, which met in a school on Abbot Kinney blvd, which is still there. We tried very hard to start a halfway house, but we found out that most homeless people will just go back out on the streets, and will not follow "rules" like having to go to church or go through some 12-step program. You will spend a very large amount of money keeping it going, with no financial return, plenty of neighbor objections, and local laws used to try and shut you down.
Venice is cleaned up now and trendy, and tolerates the homeless as does Santa Monica. Uhnfortunately, most of them will die as you see them. Nevertheless, we bought the braindead deadheads and acid freaks and lost pregnant mothers breakfast on the Strand. It was and really still is a sad place, but by getting trendy it just pushes the homeless elsewhere. Not many places left for them in Los Angeles, except to form "camps" in undesirable, dangerous places.
You will soon learn what you CAN do and what you are just not able to do for them. But you're talking megabucks, political opposition, legal liabilities, attorneys and a lot of mellow volunteers. Not in California's agenda anymore, if it ever was. So you won't get much help from anyone once you make it beyond a year.
Local support groups are good. Try that first.
Or, come check us out and see if you have a place. People of all backgrounds will have their own little niches, and verbal or other abuse will not be tolerated. Fragile people need a hand in their hand, not across their face.
Think about it in the meantime. We wil need several people as moderators, a web administrator, and good PR to get the funds we need, which are far less than a literal house would need. It's not the next best thing to a literal halfway house, but much better. People networking with others like themselves to change the world a step at a time.
Please step out and take interest. More soon.
Randy Watters
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20
Young adults who are disfellowshipped/disassociated and houselessness?
by Aaron Eldridge ini was wondering if anyone knew of any individuals that became houseless when they were disfellowshipped or disassociated themselves.
i know that i had to move out of my house within a few months after i disassociated myself, but i believe that if i did not have anywhere to go my parents would not have kicked me out of the house.. .
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Dogpatch
This happens more than you want to know. I get phone calls from the homeless JW kids, not asking for money, but are just alone and afraid, and sometimes suicidal. I sit them down in the living room overlooking the ocean which brings peace to their minds. They are for the moment no longer in the Watch Tower world.
In Hollywood, and for gays especially in West Hollywood, there are probably hundreds of them. Some of them live on the streets, under bridges, and some find a person who will take them in. I can't help but cry sometimes after I hang up the phone. We have 5 bedrooms and five roommates so we can't take them in, and are too far away.
I remember one case in the mid-80s when a guy I knew by the name of Larry was broke and losing his house. Plus he was married. He was down by Santa Ana so I took him to see Chuck Smith, founder of the big chain of Calvary Chapel churches all over the world in the 60s. Larry had known who Chuck was because Larry was friends with Bill Cetnar, who was good friends with Chuck. He didn't know we were coming, but he let us in his office, listened to Larry's story, and Chuck pulled out his OWN CHECKBOOK and wrote Larry a check for $1000 on the spot. Plus I had never met Chuck before, so it wasn't me that prompted him to this act of kindness.
I would have fainted stone dead if I was still at Bethel and saw a GB member do that - they were so selfish! We used to work in the ghettos of East New York going door-to-door, and sometimes you felt so bad for some people you bought a few groceries, whatever was left of my $14 a month, and bought some food for them and took it back. The local Witnesses were kind, too, and provided Bethelites with food. But not the GB.
Years later I listened to a GB member (I think Grant Suiter) who mentioned what a waste of time and money it was to give out of someone else's primal needs, like hunger and disease. That was honest to God the saddest thing I ever heard in my life coming from the future rulers of the universe. Minus 10, brother Suiter. No wonder Bethelites leave the Mother Seminary and leave the JWs altogether; they see them for the phonies and con men they often are. Perhaps not all of them, but the ones that I knew were.
Helping people with a non-profit organization or church keeps many people alive who would otherwise die. Although Freeminds doesn't have a lot to give, we give what we have. That's why our next venture after updating AJWRB is going to be sort of like a virtual halfway house and classroom for these kind of Witness kids AND adults AND special interest groups. Prizes will be given out at $50 a pop to those who are voted the best article or video at least once a month... we hope to do it twice a month unless funds dry up. We have already set aside $2000 for prizes alone, so I don't spend it on web stuff. But this site is going to be set up by experts in social networking, once I find the best. Another $2000. The only ones to vote will be the students themselves, with no critical outsiders allowed. Video shorts will also receive Best Prizes. A host will oversee that all goes well.
In the case of Chuck Smith, I was speechless - I respect that man and the many wonderful pastors I have met over the years. The founder of my home church, which I started attending before I even turned in my letter of association, Ralph Moore, was a man like that.I feel closer to pastors than almost any other persons. I know their heartbreaks and troubles. But that is their calling and they enjoy it.
There may be a lot smarter men out there than Christian pastors. Most of them are almost funny in their lack of understanding of the Bible (save the issue of grace). But honestly, from 30 years of observations, many pastors are the most loving and giving of all the people I have ever met. Christians are the ones who give often because they feel God gave them a new life, and they want so much to share it with others. Especially those whose lives have been touched by the poisonous hand of the Watchtower.
Of course I have many Jewish and atheist or agnostics who are generous too. We have two non-Christians on the Freeminds staff. All I can say is that Christians usually understand forgiveness and grace. Many no longer care about the mundane worries of life, but live happy lives.They don't hoard what they have.
For a few years I did exit-counseling, taught to me by Steven Hassan, a former high-level Moonie who turned into a top level exit-counselor and author on the subject. I learned the tricks of the trade, so to speak. I don't try to convert these young-uns to Christianity in an exit-counseling environment, because it is a big red STOP sign to them... more hucksters! But in every case but one, the JW was comfortable enough with me (if we reached day three) to ask Bible questions. I always went to Romans and Galatians (even though I don't like Paul - his preaching on grace is priceless - that's what got me out of the Watchtower, not some man or because of the corrupt Governing Body.) So I gave them a history lesson.
But then after some hours I would feel a chill up my spine - I could feel my hair stand on end almost. I knew what was about to happen. Something inside me woke up and began to take over my words, and I was saying inside, like, "Okay, here comes the Holy Spirit to do his work, STAND BACK and don't flap your stupid mouth." This happened so often I would often break out in quiet tears, knowing I had to do NOTHING to save anyone, 'cept be there at the right time and the right place. Then they would ask me to pray with them (not the other way around). As far as I know, they all still live happy lives very detached from the WT nonsense.
I learned from those years that there are forces of good that come and go and I have no control over it. It was always a very primal experience; a real rebirth for them. Does it cause me cognitive dissonance because of some difference in my beliefs? No, because I never accredited myself with much in the way of such abilities. I believe my 5 senses, not stupid theological explanations. At least psychological problems could be understood in time, and the more you know, the better you get at it.
I have always strongly disliked preachers who do manipulative tricks to get people to "accept the Lord."
Bullshit. If God is ever to become real to them, they must see it as supernatural in someway or another. For some it is merely a paradigm shift, I don't claim to understand all of the human mind. Or God. I just be natural and tell jokes and make new friends, and that's most of what I do.
As a result I can watch a person (especially a pastor) for a few minutes in action and usually tell if they are fake or not. Mostly they just think they have to "help along" the Holy Spirit. I used to picture in my mind the Holy Spirit going, "Oye vey" and was gone.
If you are a Christian, take off the god hand puppets, please. Hundreds of thousands of JW kids and rejects and adults need ordinary help from ordinary humans who have the ability to help them. We are going to allow them to keep their gods, and learn. it is not my work or the work of Freeminds to convert anyone to any religion. It is not my job, nor was it ever.
I like it that way.
Randy
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19
old literature
by independenthinker inhey guys, me again.
thanks for all the help, i was wondering how to get my hands on the old literature, i was gonna ask this nice older brother i know if he could get me some old books?
i really wanna see the failed proph...... old light for myself.
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Dogpatch
Ive got a pretty good selection at my Freeminds Store... actually I have some like 1969 and 1985 Interlinears and Rutherford books I have not on the list yet.
http://www.freeminds-store.com/jw-books.html
Randy
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12
How About A Preparing For A Judicial Committee Booklet?
by DT inimagine if someone prepared a small booklet about preparing for a judicial committee that could be shared as either an actual booklet or a pdf.. i think it would be best if such a booklet were written in a neutral, nonjudgemental way, but have quotes from the elder's book that discuss the various rules that relate to judicial committees.
a complete list of disfellowshipping offenses could also be useful.
it could end with a few strategies and tips for dealing with a judicial committee.. it's only fair that jw's have access to the actual rules of judicial committees.
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Dogpatch
This is the URL of the basic legal page:
http://www.randytv.com/legal/legal.htm
The review I did on the custody booklet is:
http://www.randytv.com/legal/custody.htm
Anyone is free to combine my reviews into a PDF if they like it. Each button is a chapter.
Randy
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12
How About A Preparing For A Judicial Committee Booklet?
by DT inimagine if someone prepared a small booklet about preparing for a judicial committee that could be shared as either an actual booklet or a pdf.. i think it would be best if such a booklet were written in a neutral, nonjudgemental way, but have quotes from the elder's book that discuss the various rules that relate to judicial committees.
a complete list of disfellowshipping offenses could also be useful.
it could end with a few strategies and tips for dealing with a judicial committee.. it's only fair that jw's have access to the actual rules of judicial committees.
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Dogpatch
I have a commentary on the booklet I wrote years ago, with their comments above. I will put it back up (forgot about it) and give you the URL shortly.
Randy
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Defenders of Pastor Russell speak out on FREE MINDS' debunk
by Terry inhttp://ctrussell.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/examining-freeminds-discover-the-legacy/#comment-1584.
an article i wrote on charles taze russell, j.f.rutherford and fred franz for freeminds asserted that they were not professionals in their field.
because they took the illegitimate course of self-proficiency.
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Dogpatch
We'll see if he posts your reply :-))
Randy
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35
Now that Rick is gone......
by outsmartthesystem indo you think there is any chance we can get 20571pnt428571......8675309....r2d2....10-4 over and out to quit bombarding the message boards with ridiculous apocolpytic fortune telling?
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Dogpatch
Well, if that is actually the case, then don't listen to him or love him.
I just didn't pay attention to anything he said.
Randy
P.S. Sorry I don't spend much time on this board, just to get news. Many times I never go back and check replies to my comments, or if someone comments on me, because I just don't have the time in my day to do it. I have to rely on others to tell me what is being said mostly and where. :-))
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Now that Rick is gone......
by outsmartthesystem indo you think there is any chance we can get 20571pnt428571......8675309....r2d2....10-4 over and out to quit bombarding the message boards with ridiculous apocolpytic fortune telling?
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Dogpatch
Hi Watson,
It was not an attack on outsmart, but just my own thoughts based on my experience. That's why I had to give my experience.
I'm not immune for "joining the crowd," but I have to catch myself from time to time. :-))
They are just my thoughts not on outsmart, but on ALL the attacks on Rick. Hey, I've made fun of Rick's style, too, but I still love the guy. I've never actually read other things outsmart has said. My apologies if it came across as an attack.
Randy
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Now that Rick is gone......
by outsmartthesystem indo you think there is any chance we can get 20571pnt428571......8675309....r2d2....10-4 over and out to quit bombarding the message boards with ridiculous apocolpytic fortune telling?
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Dogpatch
outsmartthesystem says,
Unfortunately people like Rick give credence to the image that the Watchtower paints
While I may not like Rick's style, we are not a replacement organization that tries to create an image of a united front. I see this all the time on the board. No offense, but I think that people coming out should learn to live in the real world and realize that once you are freed from mind control, why should we use the very same lie that the WT uses, that they are all in unity in belief?
While we are all here because of our common interest in the Watch Tower, that is about the only thing in common among all of us. Not everyone wants to put on a facade of unity to make Witnesses or the WT org. think we are a united front. We aren't, and many of us are still Witnesses and believe certain things they teach. It takes a good education and learning the art of discernment to determine the motives of the individual writer, and it is good to see it from the thousands of perspectives on this forum.
No one in the world believes exactly the same way I do. I'm glad, because that's scary - maybe they believe what I may say because my style jives with theirs. Or, maybe they see my name and automatically strive to discredit me no matter what I'm saying. That's why my personal MO is to learn to love people more and yet believe their mental ramblings less.
On a small board, or when people are isolated from opinions or styles different than theirs (like in the WT), there should be a criticism of something said that is wrong, or hateful towards another. Otherwise people will often just accept it as truth. But on a big board with thousands of posters just waiting to say their part, one will only go away still believing the lie because they need to believe it for some unknown reason in their primal lives. Some people will never be convinced about evolution, genes, memetics or other matters simply because their peeps or the organization or church they now belong to doesn't believe it. Also, it may undermine their own "established" world view. Uncertainty is a bitch.
I look beyond the politics and see the person's motives if I can. If they are still hurting from their past experience in a cult, they should not be writing hateful things until they heal or are counseled by a cult specialist. The exception would be the exposure of lies and falsehood and policies that are bringing misery upon others. I don't think that of Rick at all, I think he is just a good-hearted man with a cheesy carnival style. Hey, I have my own corny okie personality but that's mostly to keep you from getting bored, and to add a little humor. It is not fake... that is the real me. I'm a country boy raised by okies who are a great delight to be around, if only because of their humor. Who says I have to belive everything they say or stomp their style, because it is "harmful to our cause"? Read Farkel's blogs to see his own style, but it enlightens!
I may be a Christian but I am not an inerrantist and never was, because it is a man-made teaching. I always believed in evolution, because I studied paleontology and geology when I was a kid in grade school. I never believed in a literal hell in spite of very clear evidence that it is rife in the New Testament. I could never worship a god that was really more of a devil than the devil!
Step outside of the world of American evangelical or fundamentalist world views and notice that Americans are pretty unique in bending the Bible to fit the teachings of Hal Lindsay, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, and so on, ignoring the rules of interpretation that should be followed every bit as much as science often uses double-blind tests to prove or disprove a matter. That's why early on I learned to take American Bible Commentaries with a grain of salt. Yet when you read the real scholars, like Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament, you will find European (especially German) Bible scholars and many others treat the Bible as any other historical books, yet they claim to be Christian. So do I! Like many seminary graduates, they come to the inevitable conclusion that the world does not come with a nice theologically tight world view. How could it, when Bible scholars argued for 300+ years as to what belonged in the Bible and what didn't, and eventually it was really a matter of voting and/or "the boss" making a policy decision as to what it "right" or what is "wrong" to believe. While we castigate the WT for "voting" on what is "current" or "new light" every week, it is simply the way we are - to want absolutes.
Honest scholars will show the dirt and weirdness of some things in the 66 books we call the Bible alongside the beauty and eternal truths it contains. They know it was written by mostly well-meaning men. But motives do not make what they say right. Politics is the most common deceiver in the matter. The fight for souls.
Bible scholars who have had a formal education in seminaries are less swayed by charismatic, sensational books with no scholastic substance and many circular arguments. Yet they are used to teach in seminaries across the world, instructing the pastors and religious leaders of tomorrow. But they know that if they tell the WHOLE truth, underwear and all, they will lose their job and there will be less Bible teachers in the world. They have gone down the rope bridge too far to turn back, out of fear they will be tossed off the bridge if it starts swaying. That is what happened to me in 1993 when I quit pastoring my own little church in Manhattan Beach. You can read the letter that has been on my site since 1992 that explains my reason for quitting the pastorage. I was never paid for that service, either, I did it for free for 3 years.
IMMEDIATELY the most prominent of JW ministries and book sellers in America with many branches of his organization set out to discredit me, by calling all of his branch leaders on the phone and telling them not to have anything to do with me! The person who printed his books for him started telling people I was WORSE THAN THE DEVIL because of my disbelief in inerrancy, and not to have anything to do with me.
Didn't hurt me a bit as a ministry. Nowadays his is virtually unknown, and even most of his former colleagues dropped association with HIM for being so narrow in his viewpoint of other variations of belief on certain matters. Yet they are still my close friends! He was no longer welcome to speak in some evangelical circles anymore. Yet, he and I we still communicate as friends, or at least for common purposes. I like odd friends because I like to study human behavior.
That is why Freeminds was different while others came and went over the last 30 years. Many are still around and though may be retired, are more than happy to offer balanced advice and comfort and help. The ones like that which I know personally I put up on my site, WatchtowerWorld.org. They deserve recognition for the decades of work they did, and the grace and love they learned. Plus they are not Bible-toting fundamentalists - they just want to help! Looks like they also carry some of my style.
I am not afraid of "heresies" or critics. For years in the early 80s while being a very active Christian, even going door-to-door, I had subscriptions to magazines like "Skeptical Inquirer" and read many books attacking the Bible. By this time I was freed from bondage from not having an answer to everything. I just accumulate all I learn and eventually strive to make intelligent decisions. Speaking and visiting hundreds of different churches also was a great education for me, as were trips to Greece, Israel and Egypt, and seeing all I could see that you would never believe if you just had a WT education. Hey, even being in the WT was one of the best innoculations against deception I could have ever received, especially being at Bethel for 6 years and reaching the highest levels of opportunity just short of being on the Governing Body. I learned quickly that doctrines are the vomit of men's minds in many cases. In the case of Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz, I had the perfect opportunity to see it all in action. New doctrines and policies were almost always based on their own ideas of how to govern millions of relatively uneducated "sheep." Punishments towards disssenters or those not "like-minded" were accomplished by devising "new light" in the form of new policies and doctrines. Example: Rutherford got rid of all the undesirable elders by saying they were no longer elders, but he designated the ones he wanted to keep or add as "congregation servants." Thus all had to be RE-APPOINTED, and you can bet Rutherford had a list of those elders and "troublemakers" he would never re-appoint!
That is why if you study long enough, you will notice that some teachings are simply unfalsifiable due to their claims not being able to be proved or disproved, like speaking in tongues, miracle healers, and so on. So some things we will never really have a complete answer to in our minds. But I learned what was NOT true, because I could simulate the same miracles once I watched the frauds. The law of parsimony demanded that I rethink some matters. Yet I never felt guilty for any of my thoughts, because if God was not powerful enough to read my honesty in such matters, then he was not a god. I have always felt I was "saved," even in the WT. I simply never worried about it! (Of course I must admit I was really "born again" at a Billy Graham Crusade when I was about 8 or 9 years old, and oddly enough since then I have never felt estranged from feeling communion with God.) Yet I am a naturalist as well.
I got my policy of "love men more but believe them less" from the Bible, reasearching history, and personal experience.
Why not love Rick more and believe him less?
Randy Watters
