Mad Sweeney I was thinking of the BITE model, too... TimKilgore has a section of his Tough Questions videos on YouTube directed at JW's that discusses the BITE model and I found them VERY interesting.
Morbidzbaby
JoinedPosts by Morbidzbaby
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60
Jehovah's Witnesses Are NOT Under Mind Control
by PublishingCult inhow would you respond to the assertion that 7.2 million members of the jehovah's witness religion are not under any sort of mind control?.
the argument being that every one is responsible for their own actions and cannot blame the indoctrinator for what he says and does.
how could they possibly be under mind control?.
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Longtime lurker - first post
by applehippie inbeen listening for quite a while to the many conversations found here on this forum.
i'm a good listener as my friends will tell you.. i am a born in jw, inactive for at least 2 years now.
i originally joined this forum to find out what my husband was "up to".
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Morbidzbaby
Welcome to the forums, Apple! I'm sure you'll enjoy coming out of Lurkdom to play with us! I lurked for a long time as well, posted for a bit, lurked for a while more... It really is a great place to vent, to share, and to grow. I've done all three quite a lot since my awakening.
My former best friend is a JW and went through the domestic violence issue with the very same results. Eventually, she just did it HER way and the "secular authorities" ordered him into counseling and now they are happy to the best of my knowledge.
My abuse was verbal, emotional, and mental. He never got physical (because I would have killed him and he knew it), but the rest of the scars are still there and rear their ugly heads sometimes in my present relationship. So although I wasn't hit, I do know the pain of abuse and not having anyone to turn to. I'm here if you ever want to talk.
It's clear you have a lot of questions and issues...I like the way a previous poster put it... "Lost in the spiritual wilderness". Don't worry, though...there's a trail of breadcrumbs that will lead you to where you need to be. You just need to follow them at your own pace.
Good luck, and again, welcome!!
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Jehovah's Witnesses Are NOT Under Mind Control
by PublishingCult inhow would you respond to the assertion that 7.2 million members of the jehovah's witness religion are not under any sort of mind control?.
the argument being that every one is responsible for their own actions and cannot blame the indoctrinator for what he says and does.
how could they possibly be under mind control?.
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Morbidzbaby
Ooooh I was gonna bring up Hitler! Classic mind control techniques right there!
Lou bou to, that question sums the subject up beautifully. 7.2 million JW's are not allowed to think in contrast to the GB.
Wait, let me rephrase that for Spade/Alice.. They are allowed to. They have the free will to think differently. "Jehovah gave us free will, it's their choice"... However there are DIRE consequences to refusing to accept a new doctrine. So what do the sheeple do? They go along with it, squelching any doubts they have, pushing them to the back of their mind. Slipping that pan to the back burner until later when "New Light" will take care of it. They keep the status quo, no matter the cost...right down to their own freedom. Why? Out of FEAR. And when a person's psyche is attacked by FEAR, they can make no rational decisions.
Speaking of fear, I always shuddered with they compared "fearing Jehovah" with "following the FDS". How in the world are those two synonymous? If that's the case, then subliminally they were telling us to be in fear of the FDS/GB. Mind control indeed. There was quite a lot of subliminal work being done, I'm now realizing. From the artwork to the repeatedly telling us we weren't doing enough, we weren't good enough, etc. The "examples of fine witnesses" that served to make us feel like crap because we couldn't do more. And so because we feel like crap, we're going to complicate our lives, put ourselves in a financial bind, and risk not being able to support our families in order to do more more MORE. How is that NOT mind control??
However, I think there is an issue with calling it mind control. I mean, we can call a spade a spade , but the first thing that's brought to mind is the sci-fi stereotypical mind control. The man with the wires sticking out of his head who says "Yes, master, I will do your bidding" and has ZERO free will to do anything of his own initiative. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about subliminal messaging (which HAS been proven to work, mind you!), as well as carrot-dangling, hypnotic speech (damn, I fell asleep A LOT at ADs, SADs, and DCs), and a whole host of other techniques. If you listen to a public talk, no matter who the speaker is, no matter where they are, they ALWAYS SOUND THE SAME. Why is that? Because the WTBS teaches hypnosis techniques to the already hypnotized...yet they speak out about hypnosis so much and claim it's from Satan. I can see the irony, can you?
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A baptism question for Morbidzbaby (and the rest of ya'll).....
by Mr. Falcon ini read morbidzbaby's comment on the post http://www2.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/206838/1/a-question-to-the-ex-jws were she said that she got baptized "hoping that it would sort everything out".
this got me thinking about the whole jw ritual of baptism and dedication.
i look back and recall that i never privately "dedicated" myself to anything or anyone before taking the "dip".. the wt teaching is that a person should privately dedicate (via prayer) themselves to jehovah before publically going through the ritual.
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Morbidzbaby
LMAO you guys are hilarious
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A baptism question for Morbidzbaby (and the rest of ya'll).....
by Mr. Falcon ini read morbidzbaby's comment on the post http://www2.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/206838/1/a-question-to-the-ex-jws were she said that she got baptized "hoping that it would sort everything out".
this got me thinking about the whole jw ritual of baptism and dedication.
i look back and recall that i never privately "dedicated" myself to anything or anyone before taking the "dip".. the wt teaching is that a person should privately dedicate (via prayer) themselves to jehovah before publically going through the ritual.
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Morbidzbaby
OH! And Cheez, don't worry about the peddling literature thing...this time, it actually MEANS something! I'm definitely going to order that book when I get my next paycheck!!! In the future, when my kids ask who they can thank, I'll tell them "good ol' motorboatin' Uncle Cheez" lol.
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A baptism question for Morbidzbaby (and the rest of ya'll).....
by Mr. Falcon ini read morbidzbaby's comment on the post http://www2.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/206838/1/a-question-to-the-ex-jws were she said that she got baptized "hoping that it would sort everything out".
this got me thinking about the whole jw ritual of baptism and dedication.
i look back and recall that i never privately "dedicated" myself to anything or anyone before taking the "dip".. the wt teaching is that a person should privately dedicate (via prayer) themselves to jehovah before publically going through the ritual.
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Morbidzbaby
Also, I think one is bigger than the other.
haha Cheez, you motor-boatin' SOB, you old sailor, you!
LMAO I just watched Wedding Crashers two nights ago...one of my FAVORITE lines in that movie...
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A baptism question for Morbidzbaby (and the rest of ya'll).....
by Mr. Falcon ini read morbidzbaby's comment on the post http://www2.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/206838/1/a-question-to-the-ex-jws were she said that she got baptized "hoping that it would sort everything out".
this got me thinking about the whole jw ritual of baptism and dedication.
i look back and recall that i never privately "dedicated" myself to anything or anyone before taking the "dip".. the wt teaching is that a person should privately dedicate (via prayer) themselves to jehovah before publically going through the ritual.
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Morbidzbaby
It's so true...our way of thinking, our goals, everything changes throughout each phase of life. I remember begging my mom to let me get baptised at 8 years old. By 10 years old I was already declining in my interest in religion and god. Now imagine if she had allowed it...I probably would have been DF'ed (although, truth be told, I should be right now lmao) a long time ago.
That was one thing I was very plain with when talking to my ex. He wants the kids raised as JW's. He doesn't want me interfering. Okay, I'll give him that. The way I see it, my brother and I were raised by a JW and an unbeliever. Neither of us remained with the org. Just like me, my brother had too many questions, too many issues to keep up appearances. So my hope is that when my kids visit me, I can encourage them to just be free thinkers. They'll have stretches of time that they don't have to go to meetings or service. As the teen years come, those things will be less appealing to them. That is where I need to do the work. Just getting them to think and reason for themselves. And then, it's just a matter of hoping. But I made it clear to him that I do NOT want them being encouraged to get baptised at a young age. I actually discussed this with him rationally and all the points I made, he agreed with. He agreed not to encourage or allow them to get baptised until they are mature...so hopefully that buys me a lot of time to work with them. I'm not going to speak against the org, but I'm going to get them to use their noodles and really THINK about everything. Critical thinking is a necessary skill that gets squelched in JW kids.
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How have your opinions changed?
by LovelyEunie inhow have your opinions changed on subjects like premarital sex, gay marriage, higher education, music, smoking, interfaith marriage etc... and do you think they have changed for the better?
personally i feel like everybody has the right to choose their own path, free to make their own choices outside of the jw's and everybody within their religion needs to deal with it and move on, like they expect everyone else to do when they made the choice to become a jw.. i have no problem with homosexuality, seeing that i'm bisexual myself; i used to hate it when my mother would get angry with me because i wouldn't tell my gay friends that it was wrong and disgusting and one day god was gonna killl them kill them for it, when she knew i was too, it was hypocracy at it's finest.
smoking is so not a moral choice to me, it's a health choice.
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Morbidzbaby
@MorbidzBaby: My mom would do the same thing to me when ever I brought up my best friend wanting to be with anther guy. She would make this disgusted face and be like "You need to tell your friend to stop chasing after men and find a girl, its just perverted!" Gee mom, like someone could change how their brain is wired at the drop of a dime...
It's incredible, isn't it? I just can't understand how someone can be so judgemental of others, yet say "It's not our place to judge, it's Jehovah's". They really DON'T see just how much they judge others. To them, they're "upholding Jehovah's sovereignty", but the thing is, if he did exist and did create everything, why would he need puny humans to do that for him? I once had someone compare being born gay to being born with a deformity . "They can't help it, it's imperfection...but it's still wrong and they shouldn't act on it". So a person is supposed to be single, lonely, and unhappy for the rest of their life just because god supposedly disapproves of how they were born?? The whole thing boggles my mind AND pisses me off at the same time lol.
And yeah...maybe we don't have the same mother, but DAMN I think they'd get along just dandy!! lol
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A baptism question for Morbidzbaby (and the rest of ya'll).....
by Mr. Falcon ini read morbidzbaby's comment on the post http://www2.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/206838/1/a-question-to-the-ex-jws were she said that she got baptized "hoping that it would sort everything out".
this got me thinking about the whole jw ritual of baptism and dedication.
i look back and recall that i never privately "dedicated" myself to anything or anyone before taking the "dip".. the wt teaching is that a person should privately dedicate (via prayer) themselves to jehovah before publically going through the ritual.
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Morbidzbaby
Woohoo! Giggity @ the photo... lol
Okay, getting serious now, I was only 13 years old when I got baptised. I had quit praying a long time beforehand because I just never thought anyone was listening. I had been through too much and seen too much in order to think there was an invisible dad who had my best interests in mind. I was already giving my mom a hard time when it came to having my weekly study. Sometimes she'd go months without it and then decide she was going to interrupt my weekly ritual of watching Dawson's Creek with my dad in order to force-feed me WTBS BS. I hated it. But I sucked it up, finished a zillion books (Bible Stories, Great Teacher, Live Forever, Truth, Knowledge, etc.), and declared that I was ready (even though I wasn't).
My brother had just been disfellowshipped. My mom was heartbroken. My dad was worldly. I thought that maybe if I got baptised it would make her happy, make me accepted in the KH, and maybe I'd get some sort of miraculous enlightenment and this would all become real to me (hey, I was 13, cut me some slack lol). Every other girl my age in my KH was doing it, so I decided to go for it. They were popular...maybe they'd accept me if I was their "sister".
I didn't even KNOW I had to make a personal dedication in prayer before the big dip. Not a clue. I went through my questions, but couldn't answer more than half of them and they let me get baptised anyway. I still can't figure that one out.
I have a huge problem with child baptism. HUGE. The WBTS makes a big deal out of waiting "until you're past the bloom of youth" to get married. Yet, marriage is not considered the MOST important decision of your life in their eyes. But they'll let a CHILD as young as 8 years old make such a decision. It makes no sense. And besides...hardly anyone waits until after the bloom of youth because the JW's are such a puritanical religion that the kids are hopped up and horny and they know the only way to get over that is to get hitched lol. but that's a whole different subject lol.
I personally don't subscribe to Christianity. So the whole baptism thing is moot. Some feel it's necessary because it was Jesus' command...and that's fine. But I think the WTBS is over-the-top with it's criteria. Jesus set out simple requirements. He didn't sit there and ask a million questions to make sure the person had been thoroughly brainwashed lol. This is just another case of them going "beyond what is written".
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A question to the ex-JW's...
by losthobbit ini'm curious about what made you realize that your ex-religion was not "true"?.
i've had discussions with many religious people, and they're always trying to protect their beliefs, rather than allowing anything i say challenge what they believe.
was there ever something someone said to you, or something you read that maybe made you doubt your beliefs for the first time, or had a similar effect?.
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Morbidzbaby
LMAO! See?! I knew it!! Wow...they're Team Edward?? I would've thought Team Jacob, considering the whole "undead" thing...Huh...who knew?