Posts by Oroborus21

64

What Do You Think There Is More Proof Of?

by Legolas in

jw
friends

.

god or no god?

.

Oroborus21

No Angel is an Atheist,

Nor any Demon Agnostic,

Only Man,

In His Sublime Arrogance,

Demands of His Maker,

Proof.

-Eduardo

27

new girl

by nomoreTRUTHplz in

i began studying with the witnesses in 02 and was baptized in 04 but within months of baptism i stopped attending meetings.

my marriage was rocky at best before i studied (husband abusive) but after it just continued to get worse.

i had a baby daughter when i started and had my son while going to meetings and out in service as unbaptized publisher.

i'm sure some of you have thought about this before.... i've been thinking... you know the part in the matrix where neo is offered the red pill or the blue... well you can see where im getting.. inside the org most of the brothers and sisters are oblivious to the .

real truth.. .

if you had the chance not to know the real truth .. would u stay that way ?

Oroborus21

Welcome to 2006 and the Forum

your observations were made when the Matrix came out! (Sadly the metaphor/parallel didn't hold up as well with the rest of the trilogy)

and Logan's Run...

and The Village...

and Pleasantville...

and post your own favourite....

-Eduardo

30

For active JW LURKER SPIES

by oldflame in

jw
friends

go jump in a lake !

Oroborus21

Oldflame,

that is exactly my point. there are people like Richie Rich that participate but choose to protect their anonymity. Richie Rich can hardly complain about being "reported" to the Elders since he alone was responsible for providing so much information on a public forum and practically begged for exposure. Most JWs know that their is a so-called "duty" of JWs to report "wrong-doing" to the Elders. If one is concerned about that then they should protect themselves or fight the policy in other ways.

Further, people are naive if they think that what they do on the Internet remains private in some way if they haven't exercised their own good judgment and actually taken steps to maintain confidentiality or privacy. These days everyone from employers to potential dates are Googling and checking the Web for info about the person.

Regarding spying: Look at the post with the definitions of spy or spies. It all pertains to secret or confidential information. Anything posted on this forum is by its nature neither secret nor confidential, hence there is no such thing as a "spy" as it relates to a user of this forum.

Only one who has administrative rights or one who might hack the system if that were possible and who was reading private pms or who accessed the IP log data could potentially fit the definition.

As for lurkers these come in every type I imagine, but most doubters and eventual leavers of the Org begin as lurkers, so I don't think it is a great policy to exclude them or to push them away. The more active JW lurkers the better.

the bottom line is people need to be responsible for their own actions and stop whining when they get the foreseeable consequences of their actions. If one disagrees with those consequences in the first place then I suggest you enlist in the Revolution and find ways to help change things.

-Eduardo

34

Judas Gospel is fictional, just like the 'Da Vinci Code'

by Shining One in

nashville, tenn. (bp)--the gospel of judas is helpful in understanding early church heresy but should be viewed as false writings and not comparable to the biblical gospels, conservative scholars say.

a group of scholars and translators announced in early april the documents discovery, disclosing the find just before a special about the manuscript aired on the national geographic channel.

national geographic billed it as a "lost gospel.

Oroborus21

Howdy,

your original post was very nice. Just one quibble. the Da Vinci Code is pure fiction and written for literary entertainment.

The so-called Gospel of Judas is an ancient Gnostic text that while evidently fictional in terms of some of the events and statements it contains, was written to espouse the views of a large competing school of thought within early Christianity. As such it has significant value for understanding this school of thought.

So the title of your post isn't really very accurate.

I agree that the mass media's complete ignorance and attribution of the text to the Judas Iscariot of the bible is irresponsible and terrible journalism.

-Eduardo

56

Your prayers and thoughts for Randy!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

i realize that randy watters is not the type of person to want to worry others, especially when it come to his own health.

and i also realize that randy might want to kick me in the backsides for posting this little message.

thats ok, i'll even buy him a new set of boots to kick me with, but for right now if we could take a few moments to send our prayers, thoughts, and perhaps ecards for randy's swift recovery, then i know that randy would certainly appreciate it .dear friends of randy, due to some complications from a pain medication randy was using during an attack of his crohn's disease last week, he became seriously dehydrated and was hospitalized this past thursday, april 13th.

Oroborus21

Howdy,

I wish you a speedy recovery to good health and my prayers will keep you in mind Randy.

As an aside, I had no idea that Randy had Crohn's. This is truly amazing to me that both Randy and Danny H have Crohn's. What are the odds that two of the most famous WT opponents would both suffer from the same extraordinary condition?

-Eduardo

71

Intro

by mavie in

jw
friends

hello from mavie.

currently happily married for a number of years to a great jw wife, i currently serve as an ms in our local kh.

my wife and i have been told we are pillars in the congregation.

Oroborus21

Hi,

welcome. I hope that things will go as smoothly as possible and wish to express all the best in the long road of endurance that you face. Your wife is fortunate to have a caring and loving husband. I do wish you both the best.

I hope the congregation will learn to be understanding and that you will still get to enjoy your "privileges". Unfortunately, even though the Society has published a number of articles on various mental illnesses which usually conclude how considerate we should be, it has been my experience that many of the friends do not fully understand them, often don't know how to treat those who have them or give support to those family members coping with their family who have them, and sometimes treat them like they are a (communicable) disease.

You may wish to balance your concerns about privacy with confiding in your friends and viewing the situation as one where you need to communicate some basic information about your wife's condition so that they will be more understanding.

best of luck,

Eduardo

30

For active JW LURKER SPIES

by oldflame in

jw
friends

go jump in a lake !

Oroborus21

Just out of curiousity, what do you mean by "lurker spies"?

What do you think they are "spying"?

If anyone is participating on this board they can choose the level of their anonymity so it seems a little silly to refer to spies.

-Eduardo

55

BUSTED in RUSSIA JW DESTROY FAMILYS

by DannyHaszard in

photo from www.newsru.com

jehovahs witnesses claim moscow police broke up prayer meeting ...

mosnews, russia - 11 minutes ago .

Oroborus21

Dear Pole:

I have to agree with Atlantis. Don't you think it's a bit ridiculous for you to preach to the choir of ex-witnesses trying to convince them Jw's are not a 'cult'? I mean let's look at your arguments:

The saying "preach to the choir" means to speak to one or an audience which is favorably disposed to the speaker's views. If I thought for one moment that many of the forum participants on JWD would be "convinced" to view JWs favorably that would indeed be ridiculous. Although I have seem many posters/forum participants refer to JWs as cult, I am not sure that this is universal.

In any case, if I expected my view on this matter to be popular not only would it be self-delusional it would be fruitless. So I do not express it to please anyone or for popularity's sake, I express it because I believe it to be the truth. An unpopular truth, but the truth none the less.

have done pretty extensive research on cults, cultism, new religious movements

Atlantis told me to do more research. The above statement was only my reply that I have researched the topic pretty thoroughly and continue to do so. Thus I believe that I speak with some understanding of the topic. Persons can disagree and persons may argue that I represent no authority on the matter, but thankfully those are not prerequisites for participating in the discussion.

And your research allows you to conclude that we're all a bunch of bitter losers who are calling the WTS a cult to make themselves feel better? And all those stories about indoctination high-control are BS?

I stated no such position. Many have legitimate gripes and criticism of the Society/JWs/the Org including myself. Some here have had terrible and sometimes tragic experiences with JW individuals or circumstances.

Acknowledging that JWs are not a cult does not minimize both the need for change within the religion nor the experiences of forum participants.

As for why some here label JWs a cult that is for each individual to explain.

In my opinion, some are bandwagoners who haven't really investigated the topic - especially those many forum participants who have never actually been a JW. Some subscribed to the theological component of the definition and thus view JWs (and others) as (non-Christian, non-Orthodox) cults. Some misread the (academic) literature, don't appreciate the literature's flaws and background and don't apply the literature objectively and thus erroneously conclude that such things as Hassan's BITE or Lifton's criteria actually apply to JWs. Others are so angry at JWs that they fully understand the negative connotations of the word "cult" in our society and embrace it regardless of whether it actually applies or not. And finally, many who observe what are objectively "cult-like" features of Jehovah's Witnesses fail to appreciate that groups may have some degree of high-social control for example and yet not be a cult.

As for myself, I acknowledge that there are some cultic qualities of the culture of JWs but have concluded based upon my understanding of the literature and based upon my personal experience both in and out of the religion that JWs are not a cult.I acknowledge that from a religio-sociological view, JWs are a SECT of 19th Century Adventism along with its cousins SDA, Contemporary Adventists & Bible Students.

:With the exception of the anti-cultists (ACMers) and the counter-cultists (CCMers), generally evangelistic religionists, no objective sociologists or social psychologists label either the main church of LDS or Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult.

The average sociologist doesn't know half the things about the WTS that most of the posters on this forum do. It takes some time to see through WTS's PR.

It is true that the literature is scant. For being one of the largest International religions in the world, Jehovah's Witnesses are remarkably understudied by sociologists and social psychologists.Nevertheless, it is these persons' job to study such groups and when they do engage in such study they follow rigorous and accepted academic procedures and methodologies and their results are often remarkably perceptive. Sociologists who specialize on studying New Religious Movements (the term most favored by Sociologists) are adept at cutting through the "public relations" efforts of the groups they study and are aware of other observational biases that may arise.

Sounds like you base your analysis on a lot of wishful thinking. JW's are a sect, not mainstream yet, and for the time being they're what? What is your definition of a cult anyway? Before we start arguing any further (perhaps on another thread so as not to hijack this one), we might take this advice: http://www.spiritwatch.org/cultdef.htm

I don't find anything to disagree with in the professor's statement. As for my "definition" of a cult you can review what I have to say extensively on this page here:

http://www.jehovahs-witnesses.info/notacult.html

In a nutshell, I tend to agree with the Sociological-Psychological viewpoint and I reject Orthodoxy as a legitimate component for definining a religious cult due to an understanding that there actually is no such thing within the early Christian history. There were competing schools of thought regarding Jesus and his nature and the scriptures and what has come to be defined as orthodox is merely the history written by the winners of these controversies.

-Eduardo

55

BUSTED in RUSSIA JW DESTROY FAMILYS

by DannyHaszard in

photo from www.newsru.com

jehovahs witnesses claim moscow police broke up prayer meeting ...

mosnews, russia - 11 minutes ago .

Oroborus21

oops, sorry, the Branch Davidians (still around by the way) are an offshoot of SDA not Mormonism. Still, I would consider the specific group that centered around David Koresh in Waco to be a cult. However, I am not sure if I would consider the other groups that are still around to be a cult, though they may fit the definition. I don't know enough about their current operations or culture.

-Eduardo