JamesWind

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Posts by JamesWind

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  79

  I dont understand the hate...

  by JamesWind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up as a jehovah's witness.

  my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.

  i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.

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  JamesWind

  Sweat Pea, Im sorry but Im going to call BS on your post.
  
  No one would be disfellowshiped for a blood transfusion. The primary ingredient required in all disfellowships is a lack of remorse or extreme severity. Blood transfusion does not fall into the extreme severity category (in terms of breaking the rule) and simply acknowledging that you were scared and gave in to a transfusion would qualify you as remorseful. I am certain that people here grossly overexhaggerate or completely lie in their overzealous attempt to garner sympathy for themselves and make the Witnesses look bad.
  
  I have seen the affects of fellowshipping. Ive seen entire families ripped apart by it. Many of my close friends were disfellowshipped. One of them was the son of our presiding overseer. It tore his mother in half. But dont you see the overall hypocrisy of the situation on these forums? There is an entire section of this community devoted to scandles. The posts in their gawk at how the organization continues to shelter these evil doers. But in other communities people gawk at the fact the organization has disfellowshipped someone. You cant have it both ways, which do you want? An organization that actively polices itself and weeds out those people doing bad things at the risk of breaking up families or an organization that is ultra tolerant and allows people to do terrible things without serious repercussions? Do you see the dilemma?

  Maybe then you'd understand that some people here are so damaged, cannot heal in a short time and need to get this of their chest to people who they know will really understand and will love and support them.

  Im not a psychologist but I am certain that dwelling on the hate for months and years is not healthy and not an effective way to find healing.

  Would you blame a woman with a violent husband if she left him and then complained about him or couldn't heal from being thrown down the stairs, having her head smashed against a wall, having her children tortured and abused, set fire to? Unless you've walked a mile in someone's shoes you do not know what they have been through and how they will cope going forward.

  If she spent countless hours dogging him and bad mouthing him to other people instead of moving on with her life, I would say there is a problem.

  This place has literally saved people's lives

  Not likely. Lets keep it real.
• 
  79

  I dont understand the hate...

  by JamesWind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up as a jehovah's witness.

  my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.

  i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.

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  JamesWind

  JW's misinterpretation of not eating blood. How many have lost their lives?

  But at the end of the day its still a personal decision. I have known witnesses that took transfusions when push came to shove and there were zero repercussions within the congregation. How many people die from other equally trivial decisions? Can you imagine that some people still refuse to wear seat belts despite all the evidence proving that the risk of fatality and serious injury is dramatically reduced by wearing one? How many children die from head injuries incurred while riding bikes? And yet when I was a kid I never saw one single kid wearing a helmet.
  
  In the grand scheme of things I would be willing to place odds that less than 100 people a year die worldwide from the "no blood" stance. But more than 10,000 people a year in the US alone die from not wearing a seat belt and over 2,700 kids a year die from head related injuries incurred while riding a bike. Why not make your time more valuable and impact more lives by taking up one of those causes?
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  79

  I dont understand the hate...

  by JamesWind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up as a jehovah's witness.

  my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.

  i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.

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  JamesWind

  If reading the stories here make you upset enough to want to vomit, I think it's highly likely that you are experiencing symptoms of cognitive dissonance.

  
  
  I do find it enjoyable when someone on the internet attempts to play amateur behavioral therapist. Unfortunately you are incorrect. What causes the nausea is seeing grown adults act like sniveling children. I have always had a bad reaction to whining.
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  79

  I dont understand the hate...

  by JamesWind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up as a jehovah's witness.

  my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.

  i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.

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  JamesWind

  I don't hate its people. Two of my kids, ex-wife are still in. How do I get them out? I hate this organization because they are liars, hypocrates, and murderers. This org has so much blood on their hands which they will never be able to wash off.

  
  
  Then I assume you are against ALL organized religion. I can assure you they ALL have blood on their hands. Christianity has a long history of lying, hypocrisy, and murder. Millions of innocent people have been slaughtered in the name of Christ. Though something tells me you are just being overly dramatic. Or do you have many examples of times when the organization has been responsible for murder?
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  79

  I dont understand the hate...

  by JamesWind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up as a jehovah's witness.

  my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.

  i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.

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  JamesWind

  n/m
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  79

  I dont understand the hate...

  by JamesWind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i grew up as a jehovah's witness.

  my mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so ive attended many kingdom halls and have known many witnesses and many elders.

  i've never gone back to the witness organization and never will.

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  JamesWind

  I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness. My mother was uneducated and so we moved every 2-4 years as she tried to find stable enough work to support a child so Ive attended many Kingdom Halls and have known many Witnesses and many Elders. When I turned 18 I left the Witness organization. There was no real defining moment that caused me to leave. I still cared deeply for the people in my congregation and I still believed the Witnesses were legit. I simply couldnt live such a strict lifestyle anymore.
  
  I was 18 and wanted to have sex.. lots of sex. And obviously that was severely frowned upon by the organization. So one day I just stopped going. I am now 36 years old, married, have two wonderful kids. I've never gone back to the Witness organization and never will.
  
  Many times I look back and feel as if my childhood was taken from me. Most of the places I lived were somewhat isolated. I was never allowed to play with other kids that weren't Witnesses, which meant I spent a lot of time alone. It also meant that I didnt develop social skills like most normal kids. This has been a serious problem for me and I have paid heavily for it in my professional and personal life. I would never put my own children through that experience. I want them to know the joy of Christmas morning and spend summer days playing with the neighborhood kids.
  
  Its tough to look back and remember times during elementary school when my classmates were doing holiday activities and I had to go sit in the principals office. During high school I was not allowed to engage in after school activities like sports or student body politics. I was literally an outcast every single day of my life from kindergarten through high school.
  
  Despite all of the above (and far more I haven't mentioned) I don't experience the hate. I can not understand why so many of you devote so much time and attention to hating this organization or its people. If you had a really poor experience why not just walk away? Why spend so much time and effort on something so futile? You have to know that no one takes you seriously except those that are completely ignorant and dont know any better or those that are equally disgruntled. To those of us with more rounded viewpoints you just come across as whiners. I cant respect that. It disgusts me. I nearly vomited (literally) reading some of the whines on this forum.
  
  The world is full of good and bad people. The Witness organization is no different. There are literally millions of genuinely good and decent people that are Jehovah's Witnesses. And from my extensive experience with at least 12 different congregations and thousands of people I can assure you that the mix is probably 99.99 to .01 in favor of those good and decent people. And yet, the people on this board would have you believe the number is skewed in the opposite direction. I call bullsheit.
  
  Never once was I sexually assaulted as a child, nor were any of hundreds of people I still keep in contact with (I was never disfellowshiped, I just went inactive). Its not as predominate as you might want to believe. That said, its still a heinous and terrible crime and shame on any person or persons that try and cover it up. If there is a hell I hope they find it as unwelcoming as the stories relate.
  
  Please people, do yourselves a favor and find a way to direct this anger towards a more healthy pursuit. Let it go. Move on. There are many organizations that will allow you to reach out to abused children and have a more direct and meaningful impact on their lives. Something you will never experience by just whining on this board.
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  26

  Fraud JW Style

  by blondie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.news.com/police-blotter-dot-com-swindler-goes-to-prison/2100-1014_3-6219675.html.

  http://www.news.com/.

  police blotter: dot-com swindler goes to prison .

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  JamesWind

  Please tell me you are kidding. Otherwise show me specifically cited examples of where they "brag" about being above this? No, more likely they (and every single religion in the world) strives to be above this sort of thing and actively encourages their members to steer clear of these things.
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  177

  Barbara Anderson is on NBC Nightly News Tonight 11/21/07

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  a producer with nbc in new york called within the past hour to tell me that the segment i interviewed for (once in nashville, tn in august and once in washington, dc in october) is set to air tonight on nbc nightly news with brian williams, that is, if no huge calamity takes place to bump the feature.

  this piece will be two minutes and 45 seconds long, the longest slot nightly news has for topics of interest, and will feature a discussion about the court documents that are found on the cd i recently produced, "secrets of pedophilia in an american religion, jehovah's witnesses in crisis.

  in addition, nbc's internet site, msn, will follow with a detailed story.

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  JamesWind

  I have to agree, you guys do look like attention starved idiots. I can completely understand having a concern and doing what you can to shed light on it. But the time and energy some of you devote to hating the Witnesses is not healthy. You people need to let go. Move on with your lives. Get over it. I mean that with the greatest amount of respect and empathy. Its not mentally, emotionally or physically healthy to hold on to so much hate. Do something constructive with your time, go out and volunteer at a local soup kitchen or become a big brother/sister. Why waste your time on something so futile as hate?
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  45

  get rich quick schemes, multilevel marketing, pyramid schemes and JWs

  by marmot in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  from my experience growing up in the jws there were two big recurring themes when it came to making money: .

  1 - window washing or other janitorial work .

  2 - cheezy "get rich quick" schemes and other cult-like sales practices .

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  JamesWind

  Obviously the connection is anecdotal at best, but assuming there is some susceptibility in the Witness church to MLM's I would guess another reason is that it offers such flexible hours. So people who are interested in dedicating their lives to the evangelical aspect of the religion can spend many hours doing so and then work the MLM's at other times. 8am-5pm jobs make it difficult to be a pioneer.
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  26

  Fraud JW Style

  by blondie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.news.com/police-blotter-dot-com-swindler-goes-to-prison/2100-1014_3-6219675.html.

  http://www.news.com/.

  police blotter: dot-com swindler goes to prison .

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  JamesWind

  Some of you people make me laugh. The Witness organization is made up of imperfect human people, just like you and me. There will be those that seek to defraud others in the organization and unfortunately its not always easy to spot and expel these people. This is a sad event but some of you seem to think the Witnesses must be perfect in everything they do or that somehow proves they aren't legit. Personally, I have no idea if they are legit or not but I can tell you that this event in no way alters my opinion in favor or against. This same thing unfolds in churches across the nation on a daily basis. Stop being so consumed by hate that you cant see the forest through the trees.