Mindchild

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Posts by Mindchild

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  59

  What do you belive happens to us after we die?

  by Singing Man in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was raised a jehovah's witness and like most are aware, they presently belive that by and large everyone who dies ceases to exist.

  i accepted this fate for most of my life and i guess i still do for the most part, but now that i do not go to the meetings what am i to accept death to be, as i will die as well as my friends and family at some point.

  i think that idea of being in gods memory made sense to me as i have excepted it for forty five of my fifty years of being alive.

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  Mindchild

  My perspective on beliefs about the afterlife is this: if there is anything we should have learned from the Witness experience it is that the more conviction we have in a belief (no matter what it may be) the more difficult it is for us to learn, grow, and experience consenual reality. I think there is a lot positive to be said about an individual who is open to examining new ideas and information without being judgemental of someone else's progress in their understanding of how things fit together. I know this is hard to do if we really believe something, but we would be smart to be skeptical and open about our own beliefs.

  I can say this about my own beliefs is that they evolve and change. I tend to be a pretty hard core skeptical and scientifically oriented person. I want to see evidence for any theory or hypothesis, and the more radical the new idea is, the more supportive information I need to feel comfortable with accepting the new concept.

  How all this relates to the afterlife goes like this...right now the scientific community, in several fields, (like physics, cosmology, astronomy) are going through a remarkable period where a lot of established beliefs are crumbling. While there is no wholesale exodus to New Age thinking, I would feel safe in saying that our understanding of reality in the past has been fundamentally flawed and many new discoveries are being made that suggests that maybe it isn't so crazy to believe that our material universe is all there is. Many cosmologists now subscribe to the multiverse theory which says that our universe, everything produced by the Big Bang, is only a small grain of sand in a seashore of other universes. Physics is showing us that mathematical models are showing that even our familiar 5 dimensions are an illusion and that what we experience and see is only part of reality. Astronomy is showing us things we just cannot explain in our current worldviews of how things work. Other scientists are showing things once considered impossible (like the positions of the planets effecting our lives) are in fact happening and scientists brave enough to investigate several well known mediums who supposedly contact the dead, have found out that they cannot explain away the incredible odds that something very strange is happening, and that information from the "other side" is coming through that defies the laws of chance.

  All this is disturbing to rationalists who want a nice and predicatable model of reality. Most people don't enjoy uncertainty and the end result is that a lot of people just dismiss anything "messy" like this. While we should be skeptical, we should also be open enough to investigate things that just don't fit in our current beliefs instead of making a blanket dismisal of anything that doesn't fit. Besides that, you would be missing out on all the fun. My suggestion therefore is to keep looking, develop your truth telling tools and skills, and see where your investigation leads you.

  Kind Regards,

  Skipper
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  22

  How Low Have Ex-JW?s Fallen?

  by Mindchild in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just what is with ex-dubs these days?

  wait, please amend that.

  just what is with some ex-dubs these days?

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  Mindchild

  I just wanted to finish up my comments on this thread.

  James Thomas and Jgnat I appreciate the kind words but I've just lost my interest to get involved. JW issues and ex-JW issues have decreasing relevance in my life. I think actually that this is a good sign. I've finished my unfinished emotional business with my own past life and it is time to just move on. I might occassionally post here now and then on a topic of interest.

  Craig said: It's a challenging balance, to say the very least. And my only answer is that motive is the key element. In that respect, imo the question is not "how low have exJWs fallen?" but "how high can exJWs go?" As long as our motive is to honor our mutual and individual freedoms, within the parameters of a reasonable ethic, then what more can we do?

  That is a pretty noble attitude to have but the thing that comes to my mind is this quote I remember from a poster I had on my wall in college which read: "It's hard to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp, when you are up to your ass in alligators." I guess what I'm saying to you here is that people give lip service to the principles you mention but for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from personality conflicts to anger management issues, there is going to be evidence of visible and invisible conflicts, back stabbing, judgementalism, and so forth as exists in the ex-dub community. In reality, you are working with some people who can be classified as "damaged goods" in varying stages of recovery or decline. This never was, nor really pretended to be a place to support newbies. Just what it was and continues to evolve into is open for debate but I really don't see any theme of "how high can ex-JW's go" here.

  Pettygrudger, you have some interesting comments there. I certainly agree that destructive group behavior isn't limited to JW's or ex-JW's. Anyone who has read Howard Bloom's book, "The Lucifer Principle" can see the social dynamics evolving in the ex-dub community of winner's and losers. But what you suggest as far as avoiding the "players" and building your own "team" of "of trusted & true companions" is exactly what is happening in here and part of the larger problem. Before long, it will evolve to "our tribe" vs. "their tribe" which is exactly what we see happening between this board and other boards that are "forbidden" to name in posts. IMHO, there was really NO need for this to have developed the way it did, but that damage is already done isn't it?

  Now please realize that I'm not faulting you for wanting to avoid people who are as you say "players" or as others might call "assholes." I think you know already that nearly half our behavior is determined by genetics and we have a natural inclination to avoid people we consider unpleasant or even dangerous. And yes, what you see in here is typical in many ways to what you see in "real life." but my big arguement is this: Beware of Stupid People in Large Groups.

  What I saw when I first joined the ex-dub online communities was a message of hope and tolerance. We showed that you can survive the Watchtower and you can make a personal choice to pursue what YOU think is "truth." You didn't have to be part of a group, but there were friendships made and small social circles established. So far, so good. With the growing "success" of JWD though, the simple message of freedom and diversity begines to be replaced with "cliques" as you say who subscribe to the evolving form of social groups I made reference to earlier. Will this place become the "church" of JWD? Time will tell.

  Hi Abaddon, a pleasure to read your comments here as always. I commend your positive attitude and "kick butt" approach I see you do at times. I thought this sentence you wrote was especially interesting:

  But I would rather be part of a thriving but troubled community and try (as each member does) to push it what I think is the right way by my words and actions than watch it disappear into the sunset and disown it.

  I can't bitch about that dude and more power to you. I think though in my case, the motives I had in getting involved at all with the ex-dub community have run their course. I'm not playing "lifeguard" anymore and swimming out to someone to save them with the life preserver of " epistemology ." I'm tired of fighting with people who don't realize their drowning and dodging the sharks. Damn, I guess I mellowed out some in the years huh? I also don't drive my car 180 KPH anymore either. lol Next thing you hear, I will be an old hermit with a bunch of dogs living on a mountain somewhere.

  Also, interesting prediction about the future of ex-dub boards. You can well be right. There is a lot of maintence and moderation that goes into keeping one of these places habitable. I'm thinking that the next big thing will be Graphic Interface Forums, much like the Sim's Online, where people can not only interact via printed text messages but with avitar animation and characterization as well. I think boards of that nature will take off once Sim's Online proves itself capable of making a profit (they charge $10 USD a month for membership last I checked).

  Ok, I said my "piece." I'm outta here for now.

  Skipper
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  12

  Japan's statistics - surprising results

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
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  this years world wide report was unremarkable, except for a few things.

  britain had a net lost of 2,900 publishers, although the average was down by 500.. .

  canada had minimal increase and lost 5 congregations.

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  Mindchild

  I thought it might be useful to look at the larger picture between the performance of Japan vs. the World as a whole. You can clearly see from the attached graphic I made using data from 1952 to 2002 that the peak growth rate of Japan vs. the World's growth rate have shown remarkable similarity but also several magnitudes of difference in terms of the growth rate.
  

  Care to guess what caused the dramatic decreases and why the data is cyclic?

  Skipper
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  22

  How Low Have Ex-JW?s Fallen?

  by Mindchild in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just what is with ex-dubs these days?

  wait, please amend that.

  just what is with some ex-dubs these days?

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  Mindchild

  SanFranciscoJim

  I wanted to add that you made some good points in your reply. I certainly agree that people recover from their experience at different rates, and you may be right that a hopeful "emergence" is just that, hope. But what I really found interesting in what you said is this:

  Unlike the active JW community, we are not "Borg". We are no longer like-minded, speaking in a single voice. We have given ourselves the gift of freedom of thought. What's more, we are in the process of learning that if our current belief system doesn't work, we can say so and continue our search elsewhere without fear of formal shunning or expulsion. In other words, we can change our minds.

  I've recognized how much I've changed over the years, and especially the last few years. I'm really now at the point where I'm not even thinking so much of myself as being an ex-JW any more. I've healed, I tried my hand at helping others get out of this dips**t religion and recover but I realize I've got burn out in a big way and just stepped back in the door a few months ago to make a few friends and get in touch with old friends.

  I guessed I've changed my mind, and maybe that is a damn good thing. I'm going to be posting less as days go by.

  Kind Regards,

  Skipper
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  22

  How Low Have Ex-JW?s Fallen?

  by Mindchild in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just what is with ex-dubs these days?

  wait, please amend that.

  just what is with some ex-dubs these days?

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  Mindchild

  Craig...there is no universal answer that fits all to answer that question. Judgement of how far something should go in terms of freedom of expression obviously has several variables, including the target audience, the topic, and past poster histories. Just as an bug bite on your arm is more sensitive to touch than other areas, a remark from one poster to another can be exceptionally painful to a certain individual from another. The elements of censorship in my perspective shouldn't be so focused on filtering out the splinters we get from others but more of the rafters coming your way. Just my thoughts.

  Hi Cathy...kind regards to you as well.

  Phantom Stranger said:

  we have to stop blaming the WTS and say, OK, time for me to be responsible for what I choose to do, and for you to be responsible for what you choose to do.

  I have no problem with that at all.

  Sloan...aww thanks. At least I have a sister now, but where are Mom and Dad?

  ScoobySnax I left the Witnesses because I couldn't tolerate the thought of my being a hypocrite with what I discoverd about them. Hypocrites suck in my book. I have a lot of tolerance for world views and beliefs vastly different than mine until the person infected with them decides to punish me or someone I care about for my or our apparent violation of their moral or belief standards. It is especially disgusting when the said offender is a hypocrite to boot, and disfellowships you because you don't live up to their moral standards. When someone takes a swing at you physically, you can react by ducking; or defending yourself. The same thing applies in our social interactions. If you are gossiped about, put down by others, and defamed you can try to ignore it or you can rightfully be critical of the individuals who play these games. My post above was a slight rebuff for what I've seen others do to one of my friends on this forum. What you see here in print on this forum is only the tip of the iceberg, there is a lot of bitterness, stupidity, hatefullness, and Bull Shit running neck deep offline between lots of people who are here or who were here. Personally, I was disgusted with this behavior when I was a Witness and I'm disgusted with it now. I'm really leaning towards believing that people who want to recover from their negative experiences as a JW would be best advised to tread here and other ex-dub boards lightly, or they too can become fresh meat for entertainment.

  Mindchild
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  7

  When comes the resolution for some here?

  by ScoobySnax in

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  Mindchild

  There are many here who will say that their anger is justified and not to be denied. I think anger is a lot like mental vomit. We need to expell it out of ourselves to be well again. It is an emotion that warns us something is harmful and we need to distance ourselves from it. However, the way you express that anger doesn't have to be uncivilized. If you were physically sick, you wouldn't consider it an option to vomit all over your friends or others would you? We therefore don't need to express our anger towards others directly and personally in here at the extent it is done.

  I personally feel that if we find ourselves in a heated discussion online and start to feel anger, it might be signs that the issues we are discussing are not rationally thought out but rather are emotionally implanted with short roots, thus our Ego is sending the emotional warning that "danger lies ahead" if we follow this line of thinking. Once the anger reaches the stage of emotional flooding, then all reasoning is out the window and the endangerd meme or paradigm is safe for the time being.

  Mindchild
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  22

  How Low Have Ex-JW?s Fallen?

  by Mindchild in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just what is with ex-dubs these days?

  wait, please amend that.

  just what is with some ex-dubs these days?

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  Mindchild

  Just what is with ex-dubs these days? Wait, please amend that. Just what is with some ex-dubs these days? I was reflecting today just how much things have changed in the ex-JW community and I?m experiencing one hell of a bellyache.

  For those who don?t know me, I?ve been fairly active in the online ex-JW community now since early 1998. I?ve lived in several virtual ex-dub communities under a few different handles, typically either as Imaginalbud or Mindchild, and I guess you can say I?ve been around the block more than a few times, seeing just about everything you can imagine being discussed in ex-dub online forums from wild sex fantasies to serious Biblical discussions back again to the fluff that was so damn boring, I dare not mention it here. Yet, with all this experience, amid hopes that something beautiful was going to emerge out of this evolutionary process, I see a disturbing new trend that sickens me.

  Now I'll be candid. Craziness runs in the ex-JW community. If you haunt the online ex-dub forums, sooner or later you will see the results of the Borg mentally screwing over people, in producing people who have little connection with consensual reality, along with those who are so overwhelmed by dark seething anger, that they are no longer fully human but have turned into hate machines. This much is to be expected actually, as a natural consequence of the deleterious mind f**k people got from the Watchtower and their consequential expulsion from it. What is more surprising to me though is the evolutionary trend I see developing here and elsewhere of apostates becoming some sort of weird retrovirus that takes the worst socio/political features of Jehovah?s Witnesses and repackages them into mental slop they expect us all to stomach.

  Sprout off concerns that censorship is becoming endemic on this board and you can find yourself on the outside, looking in unless you accept the ?wholesome, benign community spirit.? Fish up an unpopular moral choice in your personal life, you as an individual have the right to make, and you see yourself being ravaged by moral ankle bitters, who judge you, condemn you, and then disfellowship you.

  Wouldn?t you expect a slave, who was suddenly freed, to celebrate freedom and condemn slavery? My expectation is that once you are free of the Witness mind virus, you would celebrate diversity, personal freedom, personal expression, (up to the point it wasn?t harmful) and be nonjudgmental towards others and leave the hate for others behind. If you didn?t agree with the choices someone makes in their life as valid for you, you certainly wouldn?t disown them. Yet, I see this happening too many times on this board and others to believe this is a random occurrence. In short, a lot of you are still Witnesses, still judgmental pricks, more than willing to hurt others, even your family members because you are so full of moral righteous indignation.

  Yes, if you are reading this and don?t have doubts about whom I talking about, then this post was for you.

  Mindchild
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  16

  Advice needed for a friend who has cancer.......what can I do to help her??

  by LyinEyes in

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  i just found out a friend i have know for 2 years,,,,,,,has cancer in a lymp node under her arm pit.

  her blood work came back , with spots in it she said, and irregular.

  she had breast cancer a year ago and some lumps were taken out,,,,,,,,,she was supposed to be well .. she told me not to cry when she told me the news, and i tried to swollow back the lump , it was on the phone so i could do it not seeing her face.

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  Mindchild

  Hi Dede,

  It's wonderful that you care so much about your friend and want to help her deal with this difficult situation. It is never a happy day to receive news like you did, but strangely happiness and a positive outlook might be exactly what your friend needs at a time like this. I would like to share what happened to a very close friend of mine, in her battle with breast cancer. When she discovered she had breast cancer, she took the news pretty hard, but decided to try both chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Anyone who has tried this knows it is no fun and makes you physically ill, which further discourages you. After about 4 months of treatment, she was showing almost no signs of improvement and decided to quit the treatment and just accept her fate, and die.

  She quit her job, and moved in with her 80 some year old grandmother, and did nothing but sit around the house feeling sorry for herself and crying. On the second day, she went outside for awhile and found that when she tried to get back inside the house, that her grandmother had locked the door to keep her outside. She asked her why she did this, to which her grandmother told her that she couldn't tolerate being around a "loser" and that if you want to give up and die, do us both a favor and do it outside the house. My friend was pretty shocked by this, and at first thought how cruel her grandmother was, but then stopped to think about how she was right, she was a loser and had given up hope, and was just waiting to die. Something clicked the first night she slept outside on the ground behind the house, and she was determined to turn her life around and prove to her grandmother that she could be a person anyone would be proud of.

  She explained her determination to change things the next morning, and once inside the house called up the hospital and arranged for the treatment program to resume. She got dressed in her very best clothing, and went down for the treatment with a huge smile on her face that day, and followed the program for another 6-7 weeks. She made an amazing recovery, and even more astonishing had no further ill effects from the chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Once she was cancer free, she decided to investigate the power of having a positive attitude and was pleased to read that sometimes just this alone seemed to be enough to change the course of dealing with serious illness.

  Our immune systems are remarkable and are closely related to our emotional state of mind. If we are frightened, fearful, and thinking negatively about our chances of success, it just makes things that much tougher to beat something like cancer. Cancer after all is actually cells that have lost their identity in the body. The cellular recognition process is simply not working. It is possible in some cases for these cells to be reintegrated into normal cellular identity or to be dealt with by the immune system. Considering this, I would think the best thing you can do for your friend is to give her the encouragement to really believe she will win the battle and will use this as an opportunity to make the most of her life. Never underestimate the power of belief in ourselves.

  Kind Regards,

  Skipper
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  24

  What is the Best Way to Reach a Witness?

  by JamesThomas in

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  this post was motivated by these two excellent posts:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/61040/1.ashx

  by mindchild, and

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  Mindchild

  There have been some good points made in this thread in relationship to helping someone who is a Witness, help themselves to realize that they are victims of a mind virus. Perhaps it might help to also look at the person you are trying to help as a victim of these deleterious beliefs much like it was a physical illness. The way the human body overcomes a virus infection is by activating the immune system to recognize and destroy the foreign invaders. It also helps to keep the victim strong enough to fight off the infection. The Witness Mind Virus recognizes that to keep the victim down, it needs to supress the immune function (the ability to recognize harmful things and to mobilize the defenses to take out the invaders) and to keep the victim weak socially. This is why the rejection of all things NOT Watchtower friendly is a big deal, including relatives, loved ones, and friends.

  I would think therefore, that the more association the victim had (positive and upbuilding association) and the more those outsiders passed on information help them to recognize the mind virus for what it is, and how to get rid of it, the quicker the recovery. A few examples of this from my own life experiences might support my point here.

  A few years after I started attending college, I happened by chance to meet the first ex-JW I came across after I left the Borg. In our conversations, I asked her what was the defining moment of when she woke up to the truth about the "truth." She told me it was the result of an serious automobile accident right outside a Kingdom Hall during the Sunday Watchtower Study. Everyone in the congregation, including her, ran out of the Kingdom Hall because they heard a horrifc explosion. Two cars had collided head-on directly in front of the Kingdom Hall on a city street. Several of the victims were laying on the street with serious wounds and bleeding. The now ex-Witness, rushed out to the street and started helping people to stop the bleeding, but to her astonishment, nobody else in the entire congregation would help. She pleaded with them to get clothing to stop the bleeding of the victims, and nobody would help. She ended up tearing off her own clothing to use as emergency bandages. When this started to happen, everyone of the Witnesses went back inside the Kingdom Hall to finish the Watchtower Study. They never even bothered to call 911. She told me that one of the people she was trying to help died in her arms. That was the last day she ever walked in a Kingdom Hall, and I don't blame her one bit.

  While this dramatic and true experience was pretty sensational and rare, just hearing about it from her made me furious with the Witnesses for their true disregard for life. I was already out then of course, but I know without a doubt that if I were an active Witness, I would have been both ashamed and "stumbled" by this inhuman reaction on the part of Witnesses. This suggests to me, that anytime there is a shocking news story regarding the Witnesses negative behavior, that we can file that away to use some day to give to some poor dub who doesn't have a clue. There are of course dozens of emotional hot button issues you can think of that might give a kick in the pants to a Witness. Too many of them at one time, might be overwhelming and defeat the purpose of what you are trying to accomplish. Perhaps doing it a little at a time might work, but it all depends upon the individual.

  Just my two cents worth.

  Skipper
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  114

  International Freedom Fest going strong

  by Mulan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we are having so much fun talking with everyone.

  there are about 30 here tonight, and we just had dinner, ...............chicken on the bbq, coleslaw, and lots of good appetizers.. angharad, and "her ladyship" (also known as englishman's wife), and inky are in the hot tub, and there are little groups of conversation going on all over the house and outside on the deck.. cruzanheart, bigtex and sixofnine got here a few minutes ago.

  there are 8 from england so far, including a very nice couple who were on my flight from atlanta.. several of us went out on joy and steve's big sailboat for several hours and it was so fun, and relaxing.. tomorrow we get ready for the big halloween party.

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  Mindchild

  A few pics from the party last night Note the forbidden crosses and boob teasers for you guys who couldn't make it.