having visited various mental-health professionals over some years in a vain attempt to get what i laughingly call my thinking-process in order; and having read some books on the subject, ive come to the conclusion that it may end up being an unproductive waste of time and money.. .
if, for example you went to a psychologist with the same expectations as you would with a doctors appointment, i.e.
a prompt diagnosis, you might be disappointed; for three reasons:.
I've spent 13 years dealing with the mental health community along with taking some behavioral science classes and all I have to say is that it seems pretty pointless unless you have a psychiatric condition. There's nothing in counseling that a good self help book and good supportive friends/family won't cover.
That being said, if you don't have a good support system, counseling may be the only way you can get support.
I did when I was little but the JWS were quick to squash that idea as I got older.
i'm trying to compare some statistics and figures on this to share later in the thread to see if more long-time witnesses are exiting- or are newer witnesses exiting after a shorter period of time.
and - are more people exiting in the last 10 to 15 years than before.
so your answers would be helpful in looking into this .
I "born in" and after 15 years with the JWs being my entire world I quit in 2001. I know I'm not the most representative sample - I'm one of those that never could shake my independent thinking and was just lucky enough to have a family that was so blatantly "off" that I saw through the dysfunctionality and attempted to escape it, even though at the time I just knew that I was a hypocrite as long as I stayed.
I do think more are leaving than before, and while I don't know much about adults, the place I have noticed this the most is among young people. My aunt was only 12 years older than me and while the majority of young JWs her age stayed in the religion until their 30's or later, the majority my own age have left by now even though we haven't even hit 30 yet. It seems to be the most common between the ages of 16 and 21, usually having something to do with things that are generally considered a normal teenage act outside of the JWs.
i'm not sure if it's just denial on a lot of people's part, but the reason the jws doctrine is so wacky and controlling is because they are among the few religions that really try to follow the bible!.
the bible is the culprit here in actuality, but even after someone has "wizened up" to the misguided teachings of jehovah's witnesses they still hold the bible as inspired word of god.. why don't you believe that the governing body was chosen as the faithful and discreet slave in 1918?
because the only real evidence to that fact is that they say so.
Personally I think that while the JWs try very hard (harder than most) to follow the Bible, the Society does not - after all, if they go a little off course, they can simply rewrite and republish, as they have proven with the NWT itself.
I'm going to a Christian college right now and I must say it has been quite a blessing for certain things I wasn't clear about - like how Christians argue the infallibility of the Bible, its historical accuracy, the existence of Jesus, etc.
There ARE historical, non-Christian accounts about a man that is believed to be Jesus. While none of them specifically call him Jesus Christ (which is understandable considering what this translates in to), they do make specific references to a man who went around with a bunch of disciples preaching and was rumored to raise the dead and later there are references to 1st century Christians beliefs about him rising from the dead (so while we do not have any 1st century Christian texts we can at least confirm their existence and beliefs).
The Bible also has to be taken in to context just like any other ancient culture's texts. We have to take in to account that they did not have the scientific knowledge we do, they probably mixed in at least some myths and lore with their historical facts, the Old Testament itself was an oral tradition for a long time before it was ever written (which made it highly likely to change), etc.
What's so amazing about Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible is that they were the first to point to a single, personally knowable, all powerful god that was above nature and actually loved and exalted humanity. Also the Bible is one of the first attempts in history to record a cohesive history in which present events are explained by taking a look at past events. No other culture was as concerned about its history, most choosing to record current events rather than past ones. None of them considered the past as having such a profound effect on the present.
At its very worst, the Bible is nothing more than a very culturally influenced historical document, not an attempt at fraud.
three year old killed after weeks of abuse .
baby ryan's mum was brought up a jehovah's witness and gave birth to ryan when she was 16. begs the question, what made her go off the rails?.
and does anyone know of the hancox family in the midlands?.
There very well may have been abuse prior to this but even so one cannot necessarily blame the mother for it with a child that age as (like someone else pointed out) they're constantly getting hurt one way or another since they haven't developed really good motor skills yet nor do they have any of what we would call "common sense". The babysitter could have made up excuses about almost any kind of injury and still be in the believable range. Not really so much with an older child. That's why it is so important to make sure you only leave ones so young with someone you really know and trust like a professional or a close relative (grandparents are always the best and studies have even shown children are slightly safer with them than they are their own parents).
In all seriousness I don't really see why so much focus is on the mother, anyways. No matter how young the mostly likely instinct of a mother is to protect her child from being hurt by others. Usually if a mother is whacko she takes the child out herself instead of conspiring to have others take the child out for her.
never have til just now.. playing hookie at friends house, omg this is awesome!.
bts.
I play Guitar Hero on the PS3 and Rockband on my iPod. I'm really wanting to get the console version of Rockband now too since I like the songs better than the ones on Guitar Hero. Both games are awesome though IMHO. Great for those of us that always wanted to play guitar but never made it through lessons, LOL.
being very interested in psychology i read a book as a teenager and re-read it last year called " gestalt therapy verbatim " by frederick perls m.d.
ph, d. .
it deals with dreamwork therapy in which he conducted seminars helping people to re-connect with subconscious parts of themselves by recounting their dreams .
I can vouch for dreams being expressions of repressed emotions and memories. That's what many of my past dreams and nightmares were about. Now that I've been in therapy for a while my dreams are peaceful and I sleep soundly and well. A lot of times dreams that may have been nightmares in the past may reappear, but my reactions to them are different now so they end on a better note.
Restrangled, I'm glad that you have not had the demon dreams in a while. I used to have demon dreams as well, for as far back as I could remember. I recognize now though that these fears (along with Armegeddon fears) were inculcated in me and encouraged by the JWs. I remember reading a comment on Silent Lambs a long time ago in which someone said the difference between a "worldly" child and a JW child was that when a JW child was little their parents told them that their nightmares were real. Now I see these fears holding on to my family members and it worries me because I know what life is like when you're afraid of things like demons and the end of the world... it just slowly eats away at you.
i'd like to hear of other people's experience regarding the jws inclination to pirating software, music, films.. this of course is relative to your country.
because i live in a relatively poor country, the rate of piracy is extremely high, individuals practically never buy software, music and films are bought now and then.
this of course is against the law here too.. so what do jws do?
Personally I just buy a new computer when I want the latest version of Windows because it's a LOT cheaper that way. With the exception of Office, Project, and Visio all the software I use is free. I have no problems with free software... there's a lot of quality stuff out there that you don't have to pay a penny for. It just takes some trial and error to find the right stuff.
As for the non-free software on my computer it was all bought at a good discount. Microsoft gives out discounts these days like crazy... they know everyone can't afford several hundred dollars for their software and they would rather those people actually buy the software at a discounted rate than pirate it.
I think what really drives people to pirate software though is greed. They want to have the absolute best in everything whether or not they can afford it much less actually NEED it. Take Adobe Photoshop for example. That's one of the most pirated pieces of software out there, and why? How many of these people really need advanced photo editing features that aren't covered in free pieces of software like Paint.Net or Gimp?
The only thing I make an exception for is old versions of Windows. If you have an older computer it's not smart to throw a recent version of Windows on there and it's impossible to buy the old versions retail any more, although you might luck out and find a used copy for sale. Otherwise... I don't get pirating Vista and 7 and the like. It's not like they're going to run better than the old operating system you had on the machine (chances are they will run worse and may even have problems with the hardware as well) and you're really better off buying a new computer that already has them pre-installed and is guaranteed to have the right hardware to run them.
hey!.
i have a question regarding creation thats burning me.
i dont have any clever arguments depending on what is answered, i am just curious.. first off i want to say that i think people are free to believe whatever they want.
I believe in creation, and I believe there was a flood. However...
I am not so naive as to ignore that the Old Testament was written during a time period in which people had a very imaginative way of describing real events. If literary works such as "The Odyessy" were in the Bible, would the people that argue the literalism of the Old Testament now argue that those stories were literal as well despite evidence that they were allegorical?
hey there everyone, so this is a jw parody in the vein of the hitler flipping out about things that's all the rage on youtube.
i think it's really clever and alot of the youtube apostates are already thinking it's one of the better parodies on youtube.
check it out though, i'm sure everyone will laugh.
LOL, that was great!
