Posts by gubberningbody

i've been learning about ex-mormons recently and was astounded at the similarities, right down to using tm.. here's a free pdf i worked up that compares the similarities..

gubberningbody

My favorite and a brillian writer in my view is William Shunn (yup, that's his name).

http://www.shunn.net/

You should listen to the "Accidental Terrorist".

20

Best Movie Characterization of Satan

by gubberningbody in

al pacino.

How long were you a JW and how far up the "ladder" did you get?

by Gram in

since there are lots of new people, how about we resurrect this thread..

gubberningbody

24 years. MS 9 years, Elder 15 years, Pioneer 15 years

21

How would you respond if a Witness tells you that you are "negative?"

by BonaFide in

jw
friends

when i bring a subject up and then talk about old wt's or the blood fraction, i occasionally get that response.. yes, i know i can reply, "but i am telling you the truth.

don't you want the truth?".

but i am looking for something more subtle, something that can help a witness to get beyond their cognitive dissonance.. but without a standoff.

gubberningbody

Any one of these ten would do.

Or perhaps this way.

I also think this one's sweet.

This one's also a classic.

26

Do Jehovahs Witnesses hold record for Religion with the most False Prophecies?

by Witness 007 in

offically what is the record?.....how many false prophecies have come from the watchtower?

is there another group with more false prophecies?.

russell armagedon 1874 - 1914 - 1918 rutherford 1925 - 1940's {ww 2} franz 1975 - this generation {1999-2005}.

gubberningbody

Do it for me Scotty. I'm too lazy and that horse is dead.

54

Has Your Personality Changed Since Leaving The Witnesses?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i have an aquaintance that likes to say, "once an a hole always an a hole".

i guess you could reason that whatever your religious views were, your core is you are who you are.. did your personality change for better or worse when you left the organization?.

No, but I've noticed that I'm getting better reactions from so-called "worldly people". I believe that the cult-world of the JW creates an invisible crowd around you so that you don't reach out or relate to others as well as you should if you were really being Christ-like. One of the things that led me away was that hate, or malevolent disregard that I felt evident in the KH w/regard to humans in general was affecting me and I couldn't allow that to happen. It had happened to me, I saw it and it was ugly. It reminded me of the scene in the movie "Cabaret" where this clean young hitler youth sings "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" and then everyone gets upand begins singing too... Only we know the "Tomorrow" these were looking towards DIDN'T belong to those who were unlike them. I saw Jehovah's Witnesses singing this song and it horrified me.

Tomorrow Belongs To Who?

26

Do Jehovahs Witnesses hold record for Religion with the most False Prophecies?

by Witness 007 in

offically what is the record?.....how many false prophecies have come from the watchtower?

is there another group with more false prophecies?.

russell armagedon 1874 - 1914 - 1918 rutherford 1925 - 1940's {ww 2} franz 1975 - this generation {1999-2005}.

gubberningbody

I'd like that list pared down to the actual dates that these events were to have taken place. I'm soft on the early stuff, but all I have is 1874 (Christ's Return),1914 (Armageddon over, Christ's Return),1925 (Resurrection of Daniel, et al end??) and 1975 (Armageddon). The actual number of times statements have been made adnauseum isn't nearly as valuable and obscures the actual dates where events were predicted to have occurred.

Can anyone clarify for me? I could but I hate wading through trivia.

2

For Those Who Left And Contemplate Returning

by gubberningbody in

"remember how you felt in the not-so-good times?

while we certainly remember what happened, our emotional recall dims with time.

researchers have found that the mind is biased toward positive emotional memoriesas negative emotions fade faster.

gubberningbody

" Remember how you felt in the not-so-good times? While we certainly remember what happened, our emotional recall dims with time. Researchers have found that the mind is biased toward positive emotional memories—as negative emotions fade faster. This isn't universal, however, as mild depression can skew emotional memory toward the negative.

"People have an inherent bias to view their experiences in a positive light," says study author Richard Walker, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. For one, the positive bias can be explained simply because there are more positive events than negative ones, explains Walker.

In his research, he found that happier emotions have a longer shelf life in our memories. In a review of 12 studies, he found that people consistently report experiencing more positive events. Negative emotions tended to fade faster than positive ones.

This "fading effect" works differently for those with depression. The researcher tracked the emotional recollection of 330 participants and found that their positive and negative emotions fade at the same rate. "The folks who are mildly depressed tend to report more negative life events," says Walker. "And they tend to have more difficulty dealing with negative emotions. This is likely to be one of the contributing factors [to depression]."

This excepted from " Past Perfect: Why Bad Memories Fade
How memory is biased towards positive emotional memories, except for those with mild depression" - Colin Allen

For these reasons it's important that you write down why you left, not so you can brood eternally about the bad, but so that you don't become that proverbial dog returning to its vomit. The JW world, like the world of a gang-member can call you back in, and not to your betterment, but to your ruination.