Posts by bohm

35

DO Rodrigues/ROD-ricks commenting on JWN discussions and apostate having some Troof.

by cattails in

jw
friends

what a flurry of interesting topics on jwn lately!

my oh my.. i haven't posted in the last few days... nor read the forum.. this last week i was back east visiting friends in the troof.. lucky for me it was assembly time, so packing and going to.

natick assembly hall (boston, ma), and caught the sunday.

bohm

Cattails: Very interesting topic. What brother Rodriguez is doing is very fortunate.

Information control is easiest to maintain when people dont know a vast amount of critical information exist and is easily avaliable; i think that is the case of most dubs today. Brother R. is really playing with the fire - if he can talk about apostate information, he is legetimizing gossip about how wrong and misinformed us apostates are. The next logical step is to read some of it to be 'in' on how wrong it actually is, after all, nobody has to know and others must also be doing it!

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" - Ghandi.

34

Why did my old friend do this to our friendship? Please help me understand.

by mlj in

i am new here because i want to ask a question that my friend couldn't make me understand why.

i hope your members can.

my friend of over 16 yrs lives several states and 1,000 miles away from me.

bohm

MLK: It is quite a difficult situation. If you want to help your friend, it may be a long haul.

They are currently indoctrinating your friend. What they are trying to teach him is the following:

1) FEAR: Jehovah are soon going to kill everyone who are not a JW (very rarely said explicitly, but allways implied. Your friend will deny this.

2) PARANOIA: Satan is controlling everything that is not explicitly JW. Demons are lurking everywhere and they try to trick christians by using everything that is not a) going door to door, b) droning away in a kingdom hall. Its redicilous, but college, vecations, etc - its all part of Satans plan. Satan is especially lurking in information critical of the WTS, so they wont ever read that.

3) DEPENDENCE: Because of 1 and 2, you should do whatever the WTS say and you might be saved. Dont be critical, dont be independent - its all a part of satans plan. They take pride in thinking and behaving the same way, and they have rules for all areas of life.

Once this mindset is installed, its very difficult to get away from. Soon your friend will only have friends at the KH and he will be even more isolated. A very frustrating property of this mindset is that your friend will very likely react bad to critical information, even stuff they have printed themselves. It will only work to CONFIRM that satan is, indeed, trying to mess with him.

If you want to get your friend out, you must primarely focus on psychology and not doctrine. Dont begin to fight with him, you cant win no matter how wrong he is. There are excelent articles on freeminds.org and i recommend the book 'Releasing the bonds' by Steven Hassan.

If your friend really dont want to talk to you at all, perhaps your first step should be to adopt the attitude that you think it sound really interesting, and perhaps you want to study with them.

As Yknot said, something has happened in his life since he is so eager to throw his friendships away for a cult. I think that should be step one - figure out why he is doing it right now. Releasing The Bonds has great tips on what to look for.

ps.

For your own sake - read some of the articles on jwfacts.com . But remember - if your friend is so far in he is ready to shun you, doctrine should be the LAST thing to discuss.

6

Should the Awake magazine have ceased publication, to show respect for Gods name when it was found to be misleading with regard to his promise?

by The Finger in

bohm

No, but they should have begun to print on 2-ply.

10

Fading

by bohm in

jw
friends

here is the thing.

as mentioned earlier i have been fading for almost 2 years now.

i moved to another congr.

bohm

Okay, here is what I answered:

Dear Brothers

Thank you for your e-mail. I feel much better now, everything is fine, but thank you for your consern.

I know where the Kingdom Hall is, and I will contact you if I have any problems.

Sincerely Miss Bohm

10

Fading

by bohm in

jw
friends

here is the thing.

as mentioned earlier i have been fading for almost 2 years now.

i moved to another congr.

bohm

So you think its best for me to answer, and not just ignore them?

10

Fading

by bohm in

jw
friends

here is the thing.

as mentioned earlier i have been fading for almost 2 years now.

i moved to another congr.

bohm

Well I obviously dont want to get shunned.

10

Fading

by bohm in

jw
friends

here is the thing.

as mentioned earlier i have been fading for almost 2 years now.

i moved to another congr.

bohm

Here is the thing. As mentioned earlier I have been fading for almost 2 years now. I moved to another congr. about ½ a year ago - and the elders still tries to reach me.

The have been calling, without me answering... And then they have send e-mails. The first e-mail i answered very politely: Thank you for your consern...bla bla bla...im dealing with some personal issues right now, but i'll return to you if I need anything.

Some month passed by with no respond from their side. Then suddently they wrote me a new e-mail: You mentioned that you had some problems, can we help you? We would like to make you a visit, just tell us when youre home.

I didnt answer that one.

Then about a month after this mail, I recieve a new one: Long time no see, we really want to help you if you have some problems you cant handle. Your name is not at your door, do you still live at the same spot? Remember the Memorial on tuesday. You are welcome to call me
...bla bla bla...

Its really starting to annoy me. I never said I had "problems" but "personal issues"....Well, what should I do?

I would like just to ignore them, I feel I have given them enough answer... But Im a bit afraid that could get them to DA me somehow.

Please give me your advice.

Thanks a lot.

Love Miss Bohm

10

Wierd things only ex-cult members notice...

by Tuesday in

jw
friends

so the company i currently work for had a big town hall type meeting.

they had all these various parts to them to address subjects in some sort of "fun" way.

the first thing was about speech patterns, now maybe this is the ex-cult member in me but the whole thing set off my bs alarm and specifically the behavior control in the bite method of cult mind control.. the meeting continues and i notice it's specifically employing love bombing, then a skit that deals with emotional control.

bohm

I saw a political debate yesterday where i noticed one part was talking in 'cliches'.
It pissed me off imensely.

15

Were You Embarrassed When Someone "at the door" Knew More About the Bible Than You Did?

by BabaYaga in

it seems i often encountered "householders" who could rattle off examples of the bible contradicting itself or go into a diatribe about the history of the bible.

i never knew what to say... but of course i was trained to "know" we were still "right" regardless of their argument, and i somehow still managed to feel holier than thou and left the door feeling sorry for them (rather than foster any dangerous doubts!).

did you ever feel that someone "at the door" might actually know more about the bible than you did?

bohm

sd-7: Just curious, what kind of stuff did he talk about?

20

For ExJWsHaveNotGotAnOrganization

by Titus in

jw
friends

click on this envelope:.

.

bohm

The Bible says about reading things that are a waste of time.

The bible also says you are an idiot if you reply to a matter before you hear it.

I also doubt if you were out witnessing, and a householder gave you that explanation and you were only trying to show the person something his own church had printed, i doubt you would have been very impressed.