B_Deserter

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Posts by B_Deserter

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  17

  People who "leave" but never LEAVE

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i was talking to a friend of mine that i recently got into contact with.

  we were talking about beliefs and how i don't believe in any god.

  she told me she still has the same beliefs, but just doesn't like the people.

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  B_Deserter

  I was talking to a friend of mine that I recently got into contact with. We were talking about beliefs and how I don't believe in any God. She told me she still has the same beliefs, but just doesn't like the people. She's not doing anything according to JW doctrine, and she's pretty much resigned herself to "die at armageddon." I've noticed something.
  
  The people that have an easy time leaving "the truth" are the people who never really leave. When they're disfellowshipped, they still believe everything that JW's teach, but they just don't want to go through the motions anymore. In actuality, it's proof that just because some people don't have a traumatic time leaving JWs, it isn't proof that it isn't a cult, because those people never really left the cult. They still accept the rules but they just passively break away and start a different life. Some of them may eventually adopt different beliefs, but this is well after they've established a social structure outside the church.
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  10

  E-mailed legal theats (re: V's Watchtower Comments videos)

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just did some searching and found one thing about cease-and-desist letters.

  basically, they're not legally binding, but a threat of legal action.

  now, for e-mail, the source of the message can be easily manipulated and falsified.

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  B_Deserter

  I wonder if in an actual legal case the fair use clause could be invoked. Since the videos are used for the purpose of criticism and commentary, I would argue that they have journalistic and editorial merit. Using the material to criticize and debate is not infringement. However, since the clip itself is not part of the argument, that would be a hard argument to make.
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  10

  E-mailed legal theats (re: V's Watchtower Comments videos)

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just did some searching and found one thing about cease-and-desist letters.

  basically, they're not legally binding, but a threat of legal action.

  now, for e-mail, the source of the message can be easily manipulated and falsified.

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  B_Deserter

  Lawyers have other ways of obtaining your IP address. Your actual name and address is on record with your internet service provider. E-mail addresses can easily be tracked to the ISP, and then the lawyer would go to the ISP, petitioning them for the name and address of the e-mail they claim is breaking the law. most of the time, the ISP will then give the lawyer this information, and viola! they have tracked you down.
  
  Bottom-line, I wouldn't take anything seriously until I got a certified letter in my hand. Of course, places like YouTube are different, and they will pretty much take down any video they get an e-mail about. To them, it is easier just to take the video down than to risk expensive litigation, no matter how miniscule the threat of it is. They undoubtedly get thousands of these e-mails a day, and weighing the legal ramifications of each one is simply not plausible.
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  10

  E-mailed legal theats (re: V's Watchtower Comments videos)

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just did some searching and found one thing about cease-and-desist letters.

  basically, they're not legally binding, but a threat of legal action.

  now, for e-mail, the source of the message can be easily manipulated and falsified.

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  B_Deserter

  I just did some searching and found one thing about cease-and-desist letters. Basically, they're not legally binding, but a threat of legal action. Now, for e-mail, the source of the message can be easily manipulated and falsified. Lawyers may send the threats via e-mail, but should also follow up with two certified snail-mail letters.
  
  I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but if I received an e-mail such as the one V and DT received, and did not receive a certified letter in the mail soon after, I would not regard the threat as genuine. If they're not going to go through the minimal effort to send you a legally-certified document indicating their intentions, they're probably not going to bother suing you, if it was even a lawyer who sent the e-mail in the first place.
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  14

  Some of My Thoughts on Knocking's Legal Threats

  by DT in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  you may want to check out this thread for background information.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/155256/1.ashx.

  so i get an email from one of the knocking directors threatening legal action over an alleged copyright infringement in the watchtower comments videos.

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  B_Deserter

  IANAL, but it seems to me that an actual legal threat wouldn't be carried out via an e-mail. Either these letters are fake and the result of some overzealous JWs (who have violated the Society's counsel against viewing "apostate" material) trying to silent dissent, or they're working with a very bad lawyer.
  
  It seems to me that real lawyers would send a certified letter, since they wouldn't have a very solid case if they can't even prove you received the letters in the first place. I wouldn't take any legal threats sent via e-mail seriously, especially since a lawyer could easily get your home address and send you a real letter.
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  27

  J.W's Forbidden To Use The Word "Lucky"

  by Rapunzel in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on another thread, a poster alluded to the witness prohibition on uttering the word "lucky," as the word "lucky" is associated with dreaded paganism.

  as i recall, instead of saying "lucky", witnesses are "counseled" to employ the term forunate.

  the problem is this - the roman goddess of good luck was named fortuna; her greek equivalent was named tyche.

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  B_Deserter

  It's a ridiculous and arbitrary line drawn between what's "pagan" and what's acceptable. Just about every aspect of our daily lives have roots in "pagan" religions. Wedding rings, pinatas, the calendar, are all things the witnesses find acceptable despite their origins in pre-Christian ritual. Their justification is that no one views those things as pagan anymore.
  
  Perhaps someone forgot to send them the memo that no one views Birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and using the word "luck" as pagan anymore, either! No one would look at a JW celebrating Christmas and say "OH I DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE A WORSHIPPER OF DIONYSUS!" The origins are mere footnotes.
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  130

  "Real one" threatens athiests with Jugement Day! Why do Christians do this?

  by Witness 007 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  "real one" is a christian on this site and gets involved in many debates with athiests.

  on my thread "jesus was just a man" he said:"non-beleivers will see jesus one day and you will not be happy.

  " on my trinity thread:".....oh his {gods} existence is established.

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  B_Deserter

  real one may no longer be a JW, but he is still cut from their mold, still thinking and acting the way they do. All he did was some doctrine shuffling, with no real change taking place.
  
  I'm not a Christian, but I think there are two types of them. The first is the legalist Christian. This one believes in following the "letter of the law." The legalist Christian takes pleasure in combing the Bible to come up with definitive answers to dillemas, whether they actually exist or not. Then, there is the idealist Christian, the one that more closely resembles the attitude Jesus had toward the law, and the one that actually "gets it" as far as what his teachings were really about. The idealists isn't concerned with the letter of the law as much as the spirit. He recognizes that it doesn't cover many of the modern situations, and that where the Bible is silent, he will be as well. Jesus wasn't about trading one set of rules for the other. His ministry was about diminishing the importance of them altogether.
  
  As a non-theist, I find the whole thing puzzling. For centuries, the God of the Israelites ruled with tyranny and cruelty. He directed his people through a campaign of ethnic cleansing, killing not only men, but women and children as well. He allowed the Israelite men to rape and kidnap captive women to keep for themselves (so much for keeping a "pure" culture). Under that God's rule, all dissenters were fiercly executed by stoning. Time and time again, the people rebelled, only to be punished. Then, finally, they started living according to the restrictive law. They became the perfect example and bitterly opposed "false worship."
  
  After the Israelites finally start behaving, God sends his son to condemn them for being too strict! It seems to me the Jews were in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.
  
  At any rate, I don't take people like real one any more seriously than the screaming homeless man in the park. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim, and so far there is zero evidence of any God, let alone a torturous punishment for not serving him. All that exists are books, written by men far more ignorant of the universe than we are now, thousands of years ago. The only reason people like real one believe in that one particular collection of books is solely because of where they were born and how they were raised, not by any overwhelming inherent truth. If real one came from Saudi Arabia, he would be just as insistent the Quaran was the word of God. If he came from India, he would laud the Vedas as such. If he were the son of Tom Cruise, he'd be trying to sell us Dianetics. The burden of proof is on those who have positive belief, since proving a negative is impossible. As Christopher Hitchens said, "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
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  26

  Went to the Memorial Last Night

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the hall i went to had some guy from bethel who literally sounded like a 12-year-old giving the talk.

  all i could think about was v's video about the memorial and how it's nothing but an infomercial for jehovah's witnesses.

  i realized why the memorial is "so important" to jehovah's witnesses: it's their biggest recruiting day of the year!

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  B_Deserter

  Do they still open the meeting with the song.....Jehovah our Father in Heaven.....Oh this is a most sacred night........etc...etc....?

  Oh GOD yes. Bethel has some god-awful songwriters.
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  5

  Started Reading Crisis of Conscience

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i've read the first two chapters, and it's quite interesting.

  franz makes many of the observations i have as well.

  upon reading the beginning of this book, i realized something.

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  B_Deserter

  I've read the first two chapters, and it's quite interesting. Franz makes many of the observations I have as well. Upon reading the beginning of this book, I realized something. I realized why the society and the witnesses view this book as so "poisonous."
  
  They view it as such because Franz does not conform to their caricature of an "apostate." He is very apologetic of the Witnesses, even saying he abhors the act of disrupting Witness meetings and assemblies. What's scary to them is that he isn't vicious. He isn't trying to "tear down." He went through persecution and talks about the old religion with pride. His non-conformity to the demonization of those who leave the church is in of itself the perceived danger. Any witness getting his hands on this book and reading it will have no choice to put his guard down, because there are no attacks to defend against. Any witness reading this book will be forced to re-evaluate what the society says about so-called apostates. Any witness reading this book will be forced to realize that the society is wrong in at least that one aspect.
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  26

  Went to the Memorial Last Night

  by B_Deserter in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  the hall i went to had some guy from bethel who literally sounded like a 12-year-old giving the talk.

  all i could think about was v's video about the memorial and how it's nothing but an infomercial for jehovah's witnesses.

  i realized why the memorial is "so important" to jehovah's witnesses: it's their biggest recruiting day of the year!

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  B_Deserter

  I concluded the night at my house with Jager-bombs, wings, and Smash Bros.