I want to say no....
But then what person encourages, no demands.... fear of knowledge, education or information?
i'm wondering if the borg actually studied mind control and coercion tactics deliberately or wether they just evolved over time through trial and error.
from reading steve hassans books, studying hypnosis and methods psychopaths use it all seems very complex.
like it would never occur to me to do a, b and c in the right order at the right time in order to get control of someone or control their lives.. for example, repetition of words (the word "loyalty" was a big one in the last convention), using loaded language, encouraging people not to trust their own thoughts, restricting their information, demonising those who leave etc.
I want to say no....
But then what person encourages, no demands.... fear of knowledge, education or information?
can all indoctrination leave a person , or does it linger in background till death..
The brain is very plastic and develops by our experiences and knowledge. It's the perspective and window via which we eventually see the world. I was in for 25 yrs and I have no doubt that some JW triggers will still exist when (if) I am old and grey,
The good news is, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Bad experiences can have positive effects. Look around you when you leave, even undoctrinated people have a tough life and their own demons. Ours were unique to a belief system, that's all.
My experience with the JW's has taught me to critically appraise all information and personalities I come across. It's now my most potent protection, if not a little too defensive. If I ever have the privilege of children it will be the most important thing I teach them!....... and I learned that by being lost in indoctrination.
Opportunity often comes disguised as misfortune or temporary defeat....
The most important thing is to pursue feeling happy!
The moment animals ate animals 'violence' was born. All want to live, but none want to die......conflict is inevitable. When a thinking living creature survives by consuming/defeating another thinking living creature, for food or to procreate, there is the need for outsmarting snd overpowering another. No animal will subject itself to another without a good reason (some may for complex altruistic calculated reasons in the hope others may for their offspring/genetic releatives) and what is the alternative other than violence? Animals that survive in packs, colonies have developed social constraints as it is .......beneficial for the group and the individual!
Humans have developed reasoning as it is less risky than boxing, but every Saturday night will prove that we are still primitive!
Violence is a difficult term to pin down.... is it violent to kill a chicken as we do in the millions ..to make it into a KFC? Is it violent for a lion to take down a gazelle? What about one tribe dominating another for respect in order to dominate that region? What about two tribes ...separated by football shirts?
As a rule, asking "Why?" with regard to behaviour in humans and animals, the answer comes quite easily when pondering how the mechanism came about and what environmental factors led to that trait evolving.
this is an older letter i wrote to the gb in october last year in regards to their policy around shunning of dissociated ones.
the letter doesn't focus on the disfellowshiped, but am in the process right now of writing to them regarding their recent watchtower on shunning disfellowshipped relatives.. the letter i wrote back in october rambles on a bit, but wanted to express my frustration to the governing body about their very unfair policy toward those who simply choose to leave.. regards.
the governing body.
Did they ever love you enough to reply with a logical scriptural response?
due to unforeseen circumstances, i need to say goodbye.
proverbs 14:16 nlt.
i have every faith that the governing body of jehovah's witnesses will bring about needed change very soon given the continuous pressure they face.
Alternatively you could ask for help if you are struggling and finding life hard, I promise you we have all been there.....
"if you are a young person you need to face the fact you will never grow old in this system of things.. why not?
because all the evidence in fulfilment of bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to end in a few years...as a young person you will never fulfil any career that this system offers".
may 22 awake!
It's ironic... a JW would read that now and say with a very mild hint of embarrassment 'oh well that was obviously a mistake and with hindsight a little irresponsible' ....meanwhile they are building a bunker..
due to unforeseen circumstances, i need to say goodbye.
proverbs 14:16 nlt.
i have every faith that the governing body of jehovah's witnesses will bring about needed change very soon given the continuous pressure they face.
What changes exactly?
What about the fundamental doctrine of everyone dying just so you can have a log cabin by the woods.....Why not avoid the subjection to 12 window cleaner men you will never be allowed to meet in Brooklyn, do what the owners of log cabins by the woods do....work hard for it!
What about the fact that a paradise earth isn't in the bible....not ONE verse...along with 1914, 607 BCE or protecting child rapists? Who amongst you would not save a lamb in a well on the sabbath says the bible..... but need blood? abused? ....tough luck says the GB, their way or the highway! TWO witnesses only will suffice and blood was not to be eaten! .... they are unloving, unscriptural, uneducated, unrepresentative and evidently wrong as you yourself state in the implication that they may one day improve!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-27/jehovahs-witnesses-child-sexual-abuse-royal-commission/6649340
What exactly about this religion gives you an indication it is in any way correct about anything? Name one thing they have gotten right in comparison to the century of errors and false predictions that JW's are famous for. Including owning a military Navy company (Rand Cam), being a part of this world whilst demonising it (UN NGO) or the pathetic childish behaviour of its leaders (Crisis of Conscience &The Brooklyn Eagle).
Leaving friends and family behind is damn hard! The hardest thing you will be asked to do in life and only by dictatorial/fascist regimes or cults. THAT is a reason to go back a human could empathise with. Anything else is a lie to yourself and others, it is clearly all utter lies and brainwashing.
I hope however that whatever you choose makes you happy, sometimes ignorance is bliss and the difficult decision of choosing ....TRUTH or what's comforting is very hard. Cults depend on it.
Snare x
imagine my surprise when i see that someone had made a virtual reality jw pioneer experience!.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-jjejat3brk.
Imagine my surprise when I see that someone had made a virtual reality JW Pioneer experience!
looking at the board, i see so many long threads on " evoultion vs creation " ect, ect.. therefore if " your" qualifications are only those of " an" uneducated j.w, may i ask one question?.
q) what makes you feel you are now qualified to comment with absolute ,authority on any discussion?.
i ask the above question because for most of us " ex-witnesses " logic is still words written in the pages of an awake" magazine.
Whilst a JW we were led to believe several men in Brooklyn were authorised alone and educated via the spirit alone, in instructing the world on the god of the universe.
This is not how real life works.
i have never seen anyone here use credentials to defend their view. If you look closely, people make reference to research, evidence and books that collate said research and evidence.
This is such a HUGE misunderstanding amongst the ex-JW community. People that move towards science and rational logic do so because they realise how little we know, how poor our instincts and abilities to evaluate are. We now rationalise on evidence alone!
The discussions on creation v evolution are infuriating because we once rejected evolution, we didn't become geniuses, we simply opened up the books, watched the documentaries and researched our doubts. Evolution should not be so contentious, it's simply the explanation of variation in species that anyone with common sense would admit to seeing evidence of all around them. But for people that feel this fact will invade their faith and assumptions about life they simply have to deny it from the get-go. I remember the moment I went "Oh THAT'S what they mean by evolution? Well of course that happens..." This alone show me how biased and uninformed I was, because evolution says nothing about a gods existence or none, the lies we were sold about evolution largely relate to what we believed evolution was.
Now....abiogenesis on the other hand.......THAT should be the hot topic, however due to assumptions, bias and refusals to pick up books/go to museums ....the debate remains creation v evolution. (I also subscribe to abiogenesis based on evidence)
None of us are special, none of us are smart, we are all ignorant and ill informed. However.... some of us decided to pick up books on medicine, biology, physics, maths, astronomy, evolution, world history..... when we left the witnesses and we are amazed with what has been discovered.... Our frustration comes from wanting to share it with our younger, ill informed self..... and people who have yet to also discover it,
The attitude in these debates can turn sour.... but it comes from one side that insists they know better without reading the research and the others sometimes feeling superior in having bothered to read it. Both are responsible for the creation v evolution sourness. Discussions should and can be done without attitude. It is frustrating however to wish to drag someone to the evidence that they refute exists and rely on their own logic and reasoning. It isn't the exjw creationist vs the know it all atheist it is the exjw creationist vs a heap of evidence and research.
as i write this under the shadow of the walls of saint jorge's castle in lisbon, two very bored jws are standing just five metres away from me with a literature cart .... in my journey away from jwism i accepted evolution as a fact.
i also became anti-religion, agnostic and apatheist.
and, while i lean towards the persuasion of the atheist arguments, there are a few reasons that make it difficult for me to completely discard the notion of an intelligent origin of life.
Math.....
if one organism is relying on mistakes in its DNA replication to produce diversity, it will happen but at a slower rate than two organisms sharing DNA and forming a third DNA code. The increase in mistakes/diversity is huge and therefore the likelihood of adapting to your environment increased.
All things we do and depend on to survive, provide us with a chemical reward and sex is one of them, if not the strongest. An organism that released less reward after sex than another would be less in actual number size and less diverse.