Posts by Paralipomenon

45

I worry about you all, regarding the promotion of "Steven Hassan's." book. Why?

by AvocadoJake in

jw
friends

13 years ago

dear brothers and sisters, .

i worry about you jumping on steven hassan's ideas which are not new, in fact, after reading a good chunk of his book today, nothing he has written is fresh and new to the psychology world.

so far, i have been cautious about revealing who or what schooling and background i have.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

People find a book that works for them and recomend it to others, who find it useful and the cycle continues.

I don't think anyone anyone pointed to the book as a miracle cure, but merely what has worked for others and been passed on as such on this site.

Personally, I saw the title for the book "Apocolypse Delayed" and it burned a hole in the back of my mind until I found a way to get it an read it. It was instrumental in putting the final nail in the coffin of my faith in the Watchtower. I had no idea that Ray Franz had written a book and even when I heard about it I wasn't too excited.

Eventually I read it and honestly, while interesting, it wasn't the "a-ha" moment for me since I was already out. Good, interesting, but not reflective of my personal journey.

Same with Hassan I think. It's not groundbreaking in the field, but it has had a groundbreaking affect on many people here.

Nothing wrong with that.

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28

What Is the longest Prayer (Meeting, Circuit Assymbly, District, Internation.) You have endured?

by AvocadoJake in

13 years ago

place los angeles dodger stadium temperature 97-100 degrees.

.

prayer lenght 25 minutes of pain!.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

The last few years I'd just stand there with my eyes open watching people. Few self righteous attendants were watching, caught quite a few others looking around.

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28

What Is the longest Prayer (Meeting, Circuit Assymbly, District, Internation.) You have endured?

by AvocadoJake in

13 years ago

place los angeles dodger stadium temperature 97-100 degrees.

.

prayer lenght 25 minutes of pain!.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

I never become more aware of how long some ending prayers were until I had a baby. The one I clocked was about 8 mins. About 7.5 minutes of it was trying to keep my son from screaming to the rest of the stadium how fed up he was with it.

Was proud of the little bugger.

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67

Read S. Hassan's Book: Do JW's really fit the cult mold?

by simon17 in

13 years ago

first time i got a chance to read his book, "combatting cult mind control" and was interested to see if jw's fell into the cult mold.

my opinion after carefully reading and having left the witnesses after almost 30 years is... no, they don't.

however, i would add that they wish they were but are simply too big and unwieldy to really pull it off.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

I feel the same way as the OP but learned that it's not a very popular opinion on these forums.

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131

Stephen Hawkings and Richard Dawkins attend the Jehovah's witnesses two-day assembly program at London Edgware assembly hall

by mankkeli in

13 years ago

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-15834523.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

I opened this link expecting a good joke.

While not obvious, the thread did not disappoint!

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27

Unsafe Cars in Field Service

by NewChapter in

jw
friends

13 years ago

tell me your stories.

i used to get quite pissed when i was pressured to ride in an unsafe vehicle for fs.

when my daughter was little, i was under constant pressure to let her ride without a car seat.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

A brother bought a new car and was adamant he take it in service. When we got out, it was freezing and my partner and I quickly whipped through our NH list. When we got back to the car it was locked. They got in on a call and after 30 mins of standing in the freezing cold, I had enough and walked to the nearest bus stop and rode home.

The guy with me was mortified of leaving. "What will they think when they come out and we're not here?" My reply was, "What are they thinking leaving us in the freezing cold this long."

He remained and I got to get out of service early. I did get a talking to, but the elder later got reassigned for being a pedophile, so no loss there.

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19

How did our parents do it?

by pbrow in

13 years ago

how did you bury your head in the sand when something didnt seem right but you forced this religion on your kids anyway?

i was a born in, my mother was a convert.

ill admit, before i had kids i suppressed doubts and thought "this is as close as it gets to the truth" as soon as i had kids and realized that i now had to teach this garbage to my kids w/out really believing it was enough to get me to realize the cognitive dissonance stops here.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

It was having children that forced the issue for me to leave. If I just coasted along and eventually they left the organization, what excuse would I have for them explaining why I denied them all the holidays, robbed them of their childhood while feeling it was a sham.

To me, it would have been worse than a JW that does it because they feel it's the truth. I just couldn't do it.

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99

Gathering summaries for class action lawsuit..... Six Screens Conference call

by koolaid-man in

jw
friends

13 years ago

former jehovah's witness mark palo featured on free minds, who claims when he was a young boy was raped at the world headquarters of jehovah's witnesses by a governing body member named leo greenlees and says his life has been adversely affected by the watchtower org.. he has lost most of his family, over indulged with alcohol and has faced unrelentless problems both physically and emotionally.. marks therapist is willing to speak up in a court of law and expose the evils of the watchtower society.. mark will be our guest in the 7 pm to 9 pm hours.. .

the first amendment (freedom of religion) has always been on the watchtowers side in stopping class action lawsuits against them but a stunning new twist has emerged that may open up the flood gates for scores of new lawsuits.. if your life has been turned upside down by the watchtower organization and would like to participate in and perhaps be compensated for the life altering damage caused to you then dial into the six screens of the watchtower conference call sat.

nov, 19, 2011 7pm.est.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

Six Screens - "It's like a District Assembly every week!"

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19

Doctrine or HIgh Mind Control as the Last Straw

by Band on the Run in

jw
friends

13 years ago

i am curious as to whether the final gut deciding factor to leave was inappropriate doctrine or the overly intrusive control of the wt.

reading the bible normally opened my eyes.

i was born-in and never suspected that they were skewing the bible in such a ridiculous manner or misquoting secular sources.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

For me, it was old doctrine. Things like the ban on aluminum, miracle wheat, pyramid calculations, Beth Sarim and so forth. Things that couldn't be explained by "new light". These were just crazy doctrines that were swept under the rug and forgotten.

After seeing those, I was able to take a more critical examinization of the religion's chronology and realize that it they were started on some pretty crazy stuff and today teachings were just refinment of insanity.

The control didn't bother me as much because I didn't allow them that much control in my life.

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25

I need a new phone......which one is better- I-phone or Droid?

by drewcoul in

jw
friends

13 years ago

i'm in need of a new phone.

i've had the samsung omnia for quite a while.

its a piece of crap.

13 years ago

Paralipomenon 13 years ago

My company builds mobile apps so I have multiple smartphones.

Either will work, but one thing to consider is upgrading. Apple has done a great job of maintaining backwards support for their old devices. Since they control the hardware, the new iPhones really aren't too much different than the previous ones. That means that accessories are more likely to be supported in the future as well as they leave room on the device for the OS to grow

Android is more progressive, they have a lot of cool new features that allow you to really customize your device. The 'widgets' allow apps to put a custom control on the main screen that allows you instant access to information that you are looking for. You can pull the device out, check the main screen and put it back without opening an app. With android being open source, the operating system will be updated more. The down side is there are so many phone manufacturers out there. Not all Android phones are going to be good, make sure you do your research.

Personally, I bought a BlackBerry Torch yesterday. It's a workhorse of the phones. I use it exclusively for business and in my opinion it does it the best. I don't use many apps, and there aren't even close to as many available. But Email and integration with buisness tools it performs above the other two platforms. That said, I think over the next 3 years, Apple and Android will patch the difference in security and BlackBerry will lose alot of ground. They are also notorious for not being able to be upgraded.

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