to control a person, or control a group of people , any cult , including jehovah's witnesses , have to gain your trust that they are the authority on what you need to know.
even people have been known to use these " catch phrases " to gain trust , or " hook lines " as you'd call them to gain control over groups of people or individually in their own lives.
see if you are familiar with these phrases which empower the sender of the phrase , but demands rapt allegiance from listeners to be the " gospel truth " without challenge , which can take the listeners power away.
Initially upon leaving the JWs, I found myself lost and confused. I didn't know who I could trust or believe. A college professor friend of mine (a very "worldly" man!) recommend that I take logic and reasoning courses are our local college. They really helped and I recommend them for anyone. They equip you to take anything and break it down to look at it with a critical eye.
We ex-JWs should form our own online university with classes to help the newly escaped learn to live in the real world.
an article just out this afternoon said the following.
note especially the second paragraph about jws: .
for some groups, their relatively steady number of adherents over the years hides a remarkable amount of coming and going.
Here's the direct link to Time
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1716987,00.html
It's referring to a study done by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Here's a link to their page where they have more on this
or is it another control bs thing.
also anyone figure out why they are suddenly calling themselves christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses?
they seem to be really emphasizing they are the christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses a lot recently.. .
Perhaps they are demanding that verses from their so-called Bible be read during the WT study to fool visitors into believing that theirs is actually a Christian religion and not just a publishing company. This would explain the absurd use of the term "Christian" and Jehovah's Witness" in the same sentence in their new name. JWs are a lot of things but they aren't Christians.
the last week or so, i've had recurring dreams of elders coming after either me or my wife (who is still a believer).
for example, i dreamt elders were accusing us of being apostates and were demanding a meeting with us.
they were citing lack of regular meeting attendance as the reason for their suspicions.
I had nightmares for years. Turned out to be a bad case of PTSD, brought on in large part by being DF'd. Now, I'm so used to being out that I even say things to my JW mother that I would never have dared before, like "God Bless You" when she sneezes. It takes time but it does finally end.
the feb 1, 2008 wt has an article on p. 28 called finding fulfillment as a mother.
the article basically states that moms should not work outside of the home but stay at home with their kids to teach them things about jehovah.
it also states that moms that want to work outside the home full-time do so not out of economic necessity but to boost their self worth, to obtain financial independence or to pay for luxuries.
Hey, I'm just shocked that the WT is actually not trashing people for having children! Since they've been discouraging people from having children for so long, the fact that they even attempt to acknowledge what they think is in the best interests of the child is a total deviation from their usual indoctrination to stay single, stay childless, and pioneer.
I've been a working mom and a SAHM. I'm currently a SAHM who is homeschooling her children. Our situation is different because our two youngest children are handicapped and require a full-time caregiver. However, I like being a SAHM and homeschooling better than how I raised my oldest, when I worked and he went to public school. But I don't think he would have been happy homeschooled. You really have to consider the needs of the entire family, so there is no one way that works for all.
this week, my husband and myself were the subject of local needs.
our older children were there...we stayed away.
reported by my sons... it started thus.."do not leave the organization!
Now, this seems so contradictory, the order from the elder for people NOT to "call and encourage us." You know, if they really care about saving people's lives and getting them through Armageddon, you'd think now would be the appropriate time for love-bombing! And sitting down with you to explain why all the stuff you've read on the apostate websites is wrong....
Just more proof that it's not really a Christian religion but just a publishing house that is angry because it's losing two of its salesmen.
moderation in all things
what is the general theory of how long homosapiens have existed on earth?.
is it 6000 years?
50,000 years or something else?.
Hmmm, I'm not completely sure, but I think I remember reading in college that, through mitochondrial DNA, all modern humans can be traced back to a single woman in Africa who lived about 100,000 years ago.
not a rule anymore;.
1. you couldn't get a divorce if mate cheated on somebody of the same sex or an animal.
2. you couldn't get an organ transplant.
Oh, I just rememberd, it was considered wrong for a brother to wear a short-sleeved dress shirt. It was okay to roll up the sleeves of a long-sleeved dress shirt in hot weather, but you'd better not be caught wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt under your suitcoat.
not a rule anymore;.
1. you couldn't get a divorce if mate cheated on somebody of the same sex or an animal.
2. you couldn't get an organ transplant.
I remember one time a newly baptized JW was freaking out because her husband had bought a box of Lucky Charms cereal. She was going nuts. A "forward thinking" elder told her that, so long as she didn't believe in and use the cereal as a "lucky charm" it was okay to eat it. The newbie just didn't believe him so he turned to me and asked, "Would you let your child eat Lucky Charms?" I answered, "Of course not." He sighed a frustrated sigh and said, "Why not?" I answered, truthfully, "Because it's presweetened." He just shook his head.
Regarding a car in the driveway being considered proof of fornication, once a brother was seen at an all-night donut shop in the middle of the night with a woman not his wife. The elders were called in and took him into the back for a committee meeting. Turns out, the brother's biological sister was flying from New York to Los Angeles and scheduled her flight to stop over for the night in our town. They hadn't seen each other in a year. She spent the entire layover sitting at the donut shop with her brother, looking at pictures and catching up, then he took her back to the airport to catch her early morning flight. Boy, did we ever have to listen to talks about "gossiping" for months.
