ChrisIncredulous

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Posts by ChrisIncredulous

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  23

  Who Is In Charge of the Governing Body?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  who is the top dog now?.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  I reckon the one with the most clout is Lösch.

  This is why:

  Lett is clearly two sanwhiches short of a picnic.

  Herd is too traditional, stuck on the past, old, and a bit slow.

  Sanderson is too new.

  Jackson is a bit of a joker and doesn't have really important oversight roles, translation is his main focus.

  Splane is possibly a big influence, as he's the studious one, and is probably responsible for finding new light. He is on the writing committee that produces magazine content.

  Morris is on a number of important committees, not least the teaching committee, which supervises preparation of teaching materials, and which he clearly treats as his personal fiefdom, seeing that his child-indoctrination videos get made and that conventions include more and more video. But... he's just a bit of a loose cannon. I can't imagine him having much personal influence on people like Lösch and Splane.

  This leaves Lösch, cool, sober and business-like, and on committees that really influence the organisational stance and structure. The Personnel Committee controls Bethel, the hub of the organisation (the power to fire people) and the Service Committee. The Service Departments in Bethels around the world are the power bases of each Branch. Service brothers are like the "elders" for the whole country. I'm sure this is where the power lies. All inter-branch communication flows through it.

  On the other hand... Stephen Lett is on three committes, two of which hold the purse strings of property and convention revenue, and the other is the loftily named "Coordinators Committee" so... But come on... Stephen Lett?
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  2

  JWs on The Seeker Daily

  by ChrisIncredulous in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i found this on my youtube recommendations this morning from a news/opinion channel i'm unfamiliar with.

  what do you think?

  strong on the made up prophecies, but nothing about shunning.. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gmmfbxsod8e.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  I found this on my youtube recommendations this morning from a news/opinion channel I'm unfamiliar with. What do you think? Strong on the made up prophecies, but nothing about shunning.

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GMmFBxsOD8E
  
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  127

  Racial Insensitivity

  by Coded Logic in

  1. social
  2. current

  "blue" lives matter!

  - sheriff david clarke at the rnc.

  this bs really makes my blood boil.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  I was just going to post this video here:

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qxbfjtj1II

  But I also thought: Replace the threat of Islamic terrorism and immigrants with Satan the Devil and Apostates and you basically have this year's JW convention... Fear is a powerful tool in the hands of anyone grasping for power.
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  30

  What would you like to have known about JWs before deciding whether to get baptised?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if you could go back in time and tell yourself one thing about jws would you do it?

  and what would you choose to say to yourself?

  do you think you could have convinced yourself not to get baptised if you chose the right thing to say?

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  ChrisIncredulous

  I've thought about this a lot, but I can't say I've ever found an answer.

  As a teenager I was so convinced of the truth and so scared of the Devil lurking to trap me in falsehood that you probably couldn't tell me anything.

  I rejected the offer of help from a teenage counsellor who wanted to see me alone - it was rumored she'd helped one girl in the congregation leave home to escape her witness parents making her attend meetings.

  What I would have needed was a caring, trusted and skeptical friend to keep regular contact with and to ask me: "Do you ever doubt?"

  I think space to consider my own feelings and doubts might have made a difference but it's hard to say.
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  36

  But where else should we go? Can you answer this question?

  by purrpurr in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  having watched many jc youtube videos one question that gets asked is "where else would you go?".

  in other words if not jehovah's witnesses then what other religion or organisation would you go to?.

  it's one that i have trouble answering, what would you say?.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  I would just say:

  Believe it or not, you don't (in fact you shouldn't) go anywhere. At least not right away. As someone considering leaving a cult, you will feel a natural vacuum in your life left by all the cult friends, beliefs, and activites you had.

  Resist the urge to fit yourself in another box, because the sad fact is that many people go from cult to cult trying to fill the void. Breathe, relax. Do something non-demanding and all encompassing like a classes in a new hobby, or busy yourself with a personal project. Go out with your workmates or any outside person you feel comfortable with.

  Rushing to plug the gaping hole in your self-image might make you settle for less. As a cult survivor, you deserve more. Be kind to yourself! Eat, drink and be merry!
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  6

  Atheism

  by TheLiberator in

  1. social
  2. humour

  enjoy.

  .

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds1icessoum.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  Sounds like this guy has some sage life advice straight out of the JW playbook. Listen to your heart/brain, people:

  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0sYr4ZzY3GU

  Because we all know that quitting your job based on a sudden emotion to follow your heart is a great idea.
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  20

  My Issue With the Kingdom Melodies

  by humblepotato in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the organization really has some talented people in it.

  seriously talented.

  artists, musicians, animators, and any other creative venue you can think of.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  This is so true.

  Because of the stubborn fundamentalist conformity of the org, it is impossible for creative people to give free reign to their imagination. In a borg world, there is nothing to paint, sing, dance or write about. Everything is negated by its uncleanness.

  The committees they decide in make up arbitrary, inconsistent rules about content and style. They are often led by a strong personality with his own ideas about propriety,
  

  This is why JW paradise would be terrible. There would be no human creative expression that could pass their test of cleanness and perfection and not be boring as hell. And if life was perfect, and we had the answers to all our questions about life, what would you write and sing about?

  I could never understand how the Watchtower liked to make it sound good that the angels day-to-day life was to stand around God and sing praises to him. That sounded like a pretty boring existence to me. Yet that's kind of how the organisation sees the future.
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  41

  One Thing I Don't Get About Brexit

  by JW_Rogue in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  how did such a weighty decision get put directly in the hands on the average citizen?

  and with only a simple majority required?

  in the usa the biggest thing that people vote on directly is city building projects or infrastructure.

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  ChrisIncredulous

  I think JW rouge begs an interesting question which boils down to "does democracy work?" Why would you offer such a foundational decision to people who can't tell a deficit from a default? (I include myself in voters mystified by economics.)

  I read a book recently that completely undermined my assumption that people are rational called Thinking, fast and slow, by psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

  He explained that human minds are computers prone to bias, machines for jumping to conclusions. We are easily persuaded by sentiment and emotional appeals, risk averse, and too easily convinced of our own expert intuition and the stupidity of others.

  Why would you leave any decisions to us?

  I felt strongly I should vote Remain, and I flatter myself it was the smarter choice, but if I can allow myself to be honest, I was fated as a remainer the day I married an EU citizen. The vote I cast was based not so much on rationality as an "approach reaction" towards the EU, rather than the "avoid reaction" other people experience when they thought of the EU. A slender majority of voters were primed by certain politicians and media outlets to feel avoidance towards the EU.

  Democracy replaces tyranny by one man with tyranny by the majority and that majority is never going to have faultless reasons for its choice. So of course you'll end up with a huge slice of disgruntled people like me. Still, it's a better form of government than all the others, right...?
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  81

  No! No! No! This can't be true? brexit? No!

  by purrpurr in

  1. social
  2. current

  it seems britain has voted to leave the eu in a move of total madness!

  the markets are already in free fall and the moronic bigots who campaigned for this are celebrating the demise of our country .. i can't see how a 49-51% split can be democratic?

  there is still the postal vote to come in, maybe there's hope in that?

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  ChrisIncredulous

  Anyone else want to claim Sweden is as rapist as f***ing India? What is more probable? That Sweden actually has 3 times more rapes than Norway (a country which is its political and demographic doppelganger) or that Swedes are just more meticulous, hair-splitting statisticians?

  But what this has to do with Brexit I don't know.
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  81

  No! No! No! This can't be true? brexit? No!

  by purrpurr in

  1. social
  2. current

  it seems britain has voted to leave the eu in a move of total madness!

  the markets are already in free fall and the moronic bigots who campaigned for this are celebrating the demise of our country .. i can't see how a 49-51% split can be democratic?

  there is still the postal vote to come in, maybe there's hope in that?

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  ChrisIncredulous

  On the subject of sweden being the second most sexually violent country in the world, this BBC report might be interesting:

  The Swedish police recorded the highest number of offences - about 63 per 100,000 inhabitants - of any force in Europe, in 2010. The second-highest in the world.

  This was three times higher than the number of cases in the same year in Sweden's next-door neighbour, Norway, and twice the rate in the United States and the UK. It was more than 30 times the number in India, which recorded about two offences per 100,000 people.

  On the face of it, it would seem Sweden is a much more dangerous place than these other countries.

  But that is a misconception, according to Klara Selin, a sociologist at the National Council for Crime Prevention in Stockholm. She says you cannot compare countries' records, because police procedures and legal definitions vary widely.

  "In Sweden there has been this ambition explicitly to record every case of sexual violence separately, to make it visible in the statistics," she says.

  "So, for instance, when a woman comes to the police and she says my husband or my fiance raped me almost every day during the last year, the police have to record each of these events, which might be more than 300 events. In many other countries it would just be one record - one victim, one type of crime, one record."