Hey little chief. Eat your vegetables, be good to your mother, and maybe you'll get to meet my beautiful daughters someday (they're about your age...).
Posts by Vidiot
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73little cantleave wants to say hi
by nugget inmy son wants to say hi to everyone on the forum.
as one of the main drivers to us exiting the cult he is very excited about never going to a meeting again.. if i knew how to load pictures i would let you see his plan for christmas lights next year.
apparently we are having a sleigh with reigndeers.
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14
I Believe The SixScreens Mystery Bethelite
by Gary1914 inmaybe i'm naive or just plain stupid, but i believe what the mystery bethelite says.
also, i don't think it's out of the ordinary that mary was concerned about going to the bathroom in the kingdom hall.. remember, the elder at bethel who was arrested because he took pictures of people using the bathroom?
that was hard to believe but it was absolutely true.
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Vidiot
Mad Sweeny - "He also apparently has lied to Rick Frearon in the meantime by telling him both that he can't leave Bethel because "he knows too much" and because the WT officials threatened to DF his ENTIRE family if he left Bethel. NO WAY that is true."
Why? Nugget recently told me that if they really want to get to someone, they'll get to them.
Not saying that I actually believe "Johnny" is really legit, just that at least that aspect of his claim, while statistically unlikely, isn't completely outside the realm of possibility. Look how flimsy the pretexes were for Ray and Barb...
I could be wrong.
Mad Sweeny - "He's just not who he says he is."
It just occurred to me that maybe some of the more dicey things he said about himself were intended as a red herring (albeit somewhat clumsy), to try and throw any potential WTS hounds off the scent.
I've read a little about cointelpro, and that kind of thing can often be effective.
I could be wrong.
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WTS sues Public Television
by Gayle injehovah's witnesses sue ra public televisionjanuary 15, 2011 - 11:40 amt 07:40 gmtpanarmenian.net - the christian religious organization of jehovah's witnesses, as well as representatives of the organization submitted a claim against the public television of armenia, as well as journalists gevorg altunyan, sona torosyan, nune alexanyan to the court of general jurisdiction of kentron and nork-marash administrative districts.. director of the center of rehabilitation and aid for the victims of destructive cults alexander amaryan told a panarmenian.net reporter that jehovahs witnesses accuse the public television of armenia of publishing and disseminating wrong information concerning their honor and dignity.. according to amaryan, court hearings will start in january.. we would like to recall that 23-year-old resident of sevan town arman torosyan, who killed his parents in november 2010, was declared a member of the organization of jehovahs witnesses.. while the organization will try to prove during the trial that the criminal is not a representatives of the organization and that similar aggressive.
behavior is not typical for the organization members.. http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/society/news/59637/jehovahs_witnesses_sue_ra_public_television.
alexised
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Vidiot
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
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50
What would you hate about the Paradise...
by Butterflyleia85 inwell i was thinking... kinda random stuff this morning.
there was on the news of volcano eruption in brussel and it was so cool looking.
no injuries were found but i got to see the lava and thinking how beautiful it was.
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Vidiot
You betcha, Bohm. I don't know if it's ever been explicitly stated, but it was common knowledge among all the JWs I knew growing up. It stemmed from a Bible passage about the resurrected "being as the angels, neither marrying , nor being given in marriage". I could be paraphrasing.
What other interpretation would one expect from a (mostly) sexually repressed leadership?
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Is A 'Moderate' Opinion of the Governing Body Possible?
by metatron inradical circumstances push people into extreme frames of mind.. it seems to me that, for some time now, the governing body of jehovah's witnesses has been surrounded by increasingly more difficult circumstances and hardships.
they have cut magazines, literature, sold off real estate, dumped long term bethelites, dumped paid subscriptions, railed against facebook, condemned college attendance, and begun to sell off branch offices.. a moderate, reasonable viewpoint of these changes is easy to come up with: the rank and file are broke, burned-out and dispirited.
furthermore, the increasing depth of these changes would push any reasonable person to conclude that the organization is in quiet decline - far from any realization of heavenly intervention.. the above would logically push a reasonable person towards the conclusion that the 130 year doomsaying history of the watchtower society is a pious fraud at best.
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Vidiot
metatron - "Just as a further note on this, if they really do believe their own nonsense, then these goofy stories about bunkers and tunnels and sealed envelopes could be true as they expect an immediate attack by Gog of Magog."
Yeah, my thinking can't help but lean that way...
A make-or-break moment?
The beginning of the end for any authoritarian high-control group is a significant physical withdrawal from society.
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64
April WT is out. Blood, FDS, moses & crazy stuff...
by bohm inthe april wt is out, get it while you can.
what caught my attention was the first article.
some quotes:.
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Vidiot
JW Gone Bad - "Is the Society implying that JWs are a bunch of perverts or that we lack self control so much so that we need someone like a family member to monitor our viewing habits?"
Well, considering the overall quality of individuals most susceptible to recruitment into authoritarian high-control groups these days, maybe they have a point...
Remember, the WTS (as it currently exists) is inescapably the product of Fred Franz and Ted Jaracz, and their successors are - by all indications - cut from the same cloth.
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50
What would you hate about the Paradise...
by Butterflyleia85 inwell i was thinking... kinda random stuff this morning.
there was on the news of volcano eruption in brussel and it was so cool looking.
no injuries were found but i got to see the lava and thinking how beautiful it was.
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Vidiot
No cheeseburgers.
No monster movies, or horror movies, or science fiction/fantasy movies .
No comic books.
No sex (if I die and get resurrected).
No rock music.
No technothriller novels.
And so on...
I actually remember a few years back listing all the things about a WT New System I'd be unhappy with, and concluded that I'd rather be dead than live forever like that.
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Ten Common Faults in Human Thoughts
by purplesofa inthis list is a follow up to top 10 common faults in human thought.
thanks for everyones comments and feedback; you have inspired this second list!
it is amazing that with all these biases, people are able to actually have a rational thought every now and then.
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Vidiot
God, it seems like we're all just a bunch of irrational, butt-scratching, rutting apes, ruled more by instinct than concious thought.
How depressing.
Or am I displaying "Mean World Theory" behavior?
How depressing.
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50
Child Abuse At The Meetings
by Hairyhegoat inplease read and i will tell you now this was it was like for me !.
kingdom halls are a hellish memory for me.
i grew up as a jehovah's witness from the age of 9 until i fought my way to freedom at age 18. i recall children as young as a year old being beaten repeatedly for not sitting still during services...some sessions, called assemblies, were 6 hours long and lasted for 3-5 days in succession.. my nephew was one of many who felt the literal sting of the watchtower's stance of "spare the rod, spoil the child.
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Vidiot
I remember way back in the day, so many old-school hardliners would wax sentimentally for the old days when spanking was considered acceptable social behavior; I felt like asking some of them why they liked it so fragging much. Actually, come to think of it, as an adult I did ask some of them that whenever they brought it up (which, in the 90s, was admittedly rare).
They'd bluster, hum, and haw, and say something to the effect of "Well, I didn't actually enjoy it" or somesuch, to which I'd respond, "Well, gosh, you sure sounded nostalgic". Believe it or not, most of the time it shut them up on the subject, particularly if the exchange happened if front of others.
I remember they absolutely despised Benjamin Spock; blamed him for damn near everything "wrong" with kids those days, all because he allegedly advocated NOT spanking your children. Funny thing was, I watched a documentary on TV one time about Spock's life and career (very frank; warts and all), and nowhere did it even come close to suggesting that he advocated either spanking or not spanking.
At the time, I suspected it was one of many JW urban legends (like Smurphobia), but I wonder now if it was common among other conservative/authoritarian churches. Can anyone here with a non-JW upbringing confirm that?
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Is A 'Moderate' Opinion of the Governing Body Possible?
by metatron inradical circumstances push people into extreme frames of mind.. it seems to me that, for some time now, the governing body of jehovah's witnesses has been surrounded by increasingly more difficult circumstances and hardships.
they have cut magazines, literature, sold off real estate, dumped long term bethelites, dumped paid subscriptions, railed against facebook, condemned college attendance, and begun to sell off branch offices.. a moderate, reasonable viewpoint of these changes is easy to come up with: the rank and file are broke, burned-out and dispirited.
furthermore, the increasing depth of these changes would push any reasonable person to conclude that the organization is in quiet decline - far from any realization of heavenly intervention.. the above would logically push a reasonable person towards the conclusion that the 130 year doomsaying history of the watchtower society is a pious fraud at best.
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Vidiot
Wow! Of all the threads I’ve parsed here, I like this one the most.
metatron - “ Circumstances must, of necessity, push them towards personal recognition that they are frauds OR push them towards extreme fanaticism. ”
Dude, your logic is scary sharp. Awesome post, man.
sir82 – “The Governing Body is convinced that we are very deep into the last days, and that there is very little time left for this system of things"
I haven’t been to a meeting in over three years, but my devout JW mom has been pushing that POV more and more; I’d already figured out that she was getting it in double doses at the KH…
doinmypart - “The incessant drumming up of this system's end is reaching a fevered pitch. The folks running the show have so much invested, and believe in the Organization as God's tool that they have no other options. There is no moderation, reform, or anything of the like coming any time soon.”
Yeah, at this point if there was any significant reform, they wouldn’t really be Jehovah’s Witnesses anymore.
Mad Sweeney – “This is to be expected. Remember the Marian Keech UFO Cult?”
Damn, you beat me to it.
wobble – “The gambler has more chance of hitting a winning streak, after all the Universe is random…”
Huh. I just realized that no matter what they might be thinking, the GB keeps doubling down to stay in the game.
brotherdan – “I wish people would listen when I say, "THEY BELIEVE IT ALL!!!!" They ask others to pray for them not to make bad decisions because they know that they are only imperfect men. They take their responsibility seriously. Yes, they are DEAD wrong. But they don't think that. They don't think they are frauds. They feel like they have been entrusted with a divine assignment.”
Yeah, even as I was learning about the pedo scandals and the UN NGO thing, I still couldn’t picture the GB as a group of Machiavellian mustache-twirling Enron-types. Sure, they have a Manichaean worldview, but that simply makes one spiritually immature, not evil. I can’t shake the feeling that they feel hopelessly out of place in the 21st Century, but when you refuse to adapt to a radically changing environment, extinction is your only destination.
Mad Sweeney – “We may not have received any 'new light' regarding the GB's day to day operations since Ray left, but if history is any guide, things probably haven't changed much.”
They don’t think it’s broken, why would they wanna fix it?
stuckinamovement - “I think that is a good point that the middle/ moderate ground is rapidly shrinking. With every day that passes, stronger evidence emerges that the foundation of all of their beliefs is eroding…Many of us are realizing that this is so and it must scare the GB that they no longer have the same grip on the publishers as they once did.”
Remember what miseryloveselders said? That the Grand Puba was feeling that his livelihood was threatened.