Posts by Scully

40

2011 November Our Kingdom Ministry-PDF!

by Atlantis in

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credit goes to anonymous2011 november our kingdom ministry (and more).http://www.megaupload.com/?d=eq03rgzoatlantis

Scully

Lovely!

It contains the instructions for using electronic payment terminals and reconciling transactions therefrom for circuit assemblies and special assembly days.

B-e-a-utiful!

21

Your Help Requested With Research Paper Topic

by Justitia Themis in

jw
friends

i am looking for suggestions for a topic for my research paper.

here is a class description which outlines the perimeters of the paper.

"this seminar course deals with controversial issues arising from the interface and relationship between law and medicine.

Scully

It could also relate to access to new technology, tests, medications under development, research trials of new drugs, compassionate access to treatments for people with financial hardships, etc.

41

Was today's WT study an indictment of us who still attend the KH?

by compound complex in

given the interest shown in today's wt study, i got to thinking that the society knows many of us still attend meetings.

the wording of today's lesson doesn't allude only to outsider's breaking in with their filthy apostate literature and tv interviews but also to satanic insider's working the faithful sheep in the pen.. we've discussed on other threads how jwn and like sites appear to be monitored.

of course, the society's literature never clues the reader in on what exactly apostates teach nor how we infiltrators do our clandestine work of sabotaging the sheep's faith.. any thoughts?.

Scully

CoCo

There was a period of about 18 months where I was questioning whether or not JWs had The Truth™ before I finally had had "enough!" of their mental and emotional cruelty and just couldn't bring myself to attend any longer. Like you, I felt the need to get my immediate family out before I could cut the three-fold tether of Meeting Attendance™, Field Service™ and Association™. With my illness, though, Meeting Attendance™ and Field Service™ faltered, and subsequent to that Association™ was drying up quickly. We had a core group of "friends" who, little by little, gradually stopped including us in social events. I have to admit that, during this time I was doing my own research, and coming to the realization that this was a cult and that escape was necessary, yet I never tried to influence anyone other than Mr Scully. The criticisms that I felt comfortable enough to verbalize to Mr Scully had nothing to do with doctrine, and everything to do with the lack of love we were experiencing from our local congregation. He couldn't dispute what was happening, and nobody in the congregation could deny what they were doing either - so it was fairly easy to get him on-side. Having a mental illness (even an easily treated, temporary one) gave me a bit of leeway if I ever had a meltdown or an unseemly outburst. Once we decided it was time to leave, we started exploring doctrinal issues.

One of my biggest fears during that time was that I would be discovered and exposed as a thought criminal, and it was articles similar to the one from Sunday's study that induced a certain level of paranoia. "They know!"

So while I applaud your noble and generous efforts to help your family and loved ones to escape - I do hope you'll be able to remain under the radar, so to speak, for as long as necessary. Perhaps in your case, you can incorporate some criticisms and blame the 'outbursts' or 'crazy talk' on your recent strokes... which in some cases have been known to reduce a person's inhibitions. If this is something you've experienced already - including memory lapses, or memory loss, or emotional lability - perhaps some seeds can be planted. Of course, you would be profusely apologetic for upsetting people around you, and wish there was some way you could control the meanderings of your thought processes... our loved ones can sometimes be very patient and forgiving in cases of serious brain trauma. You know your loved ones better than anyone, so you can test the waters to see what you can get away with, or not, as you see fit.

As always, my very best wishes to you!

Your friend, Scully

24

Stressful Session with Uber-Zealous Parents--The Mermaid needs a hug!

by Cadellin in

okay, for those of you who don't know, i was raised jw by really great though uber-zealous parents.

i'm now an adult and have been inactive for about two years due a bunch of reasons, the primary one (or at least the one that got the ball rolling) being the pathological intellectual dishonesty of the wt in how it handles secular quotes and citations.

anyway, my parents are aware of all that and have left the issue alone for about the last year.

Scully

Anyway, it still left me feeling kind of lousy. So what do I do? My mother suggests "locking all my doubts in a room and just carrying on with Jehovah's organization, being part of the brotherhood and enjoying all the good things that the spiritual paradise offers."

Would they ever suggest "lock all your doubts in a room and just carry on with the Catholic Church, being part of the community and enjoying all the good things that the church does in the community" to someone whose door they'd just knocked on, who said they were having doubts about *their* church's teachings?

11

Please. One At A Time. But I Have Found The Answer... ;)

by headisspinning in

jw
friends

life is short and i regret the years i have wasted.

i feel like crying over the damage i have caused my kids by raising them in a cult.

but i really honestly believed all of it.

Scully

HIS

It's been almost 17 years since we stopped going to meetings, and it was around this time in 1994 when Mr Scully and I decided we needed to get out of the JW cult. Earlier that year, after the Memorial™ (where the Attendants™ were instructed not to pass the Emblems™ to me because I had postpartum depression and the Elders™ thought I might Partake™ unworthily) I became suicidal and had to be hospitalized - it was the last straw in a year-long pile-on of mental cruelty and emotional abuse by the local JWs, while at the same time trying to maintain Meeting Attendance™ and Field Service™ expectations.

It seemed like every time we tried to have a little fun with our kids - going apple picking or putting up some gourds and hay bales in the fall, or going to a local farm in the spring to see the baby animals, or putting up decorations of snowmen and snowflakes around the house in winter (all the while emphasizing Jehovah's hand in making all these things) - I'd get reamed out for "celebrating" or observing holidays. I was expecting our youngest when this was happening too, and the stress ended up with me being on bedrest for a month. Of course, the Elders™ - with their vast knowledge and experience in obstetrics - discouraged us from listening to the doctor's advice (after all, what did he know? besides Jehovah will look after you if you keep doing his will). When we followed our doctor's advice, that's when all the "hazing" behaviour ramped up exponentially - and that is when I started questioning the JWs' claim of being the most loving people on the planet.

Anyway, putting up little seasonal decorations is a fun place to start with your kids, and baking seasonal treats is a fun thing to do as well. One of our favorite things was to pack them up in the car at Christmas time, with some hot chocolate (marshmallows optional), and drive around looking at the lights on peoples' homes. Our town has a bit of a Christmas competition every year and the evening news features different homes with amazing Christmas decorations - so we'd drive around and try to find our favorites.

24

Stressful Session with Uber-Zealous Parents--The Mermaid needs a hug!

by Cadellin in

okay, for those of you who don't know, i was raised jw by really great though uber-zealous parents.

i'm now an adult and have been inactive for about two years due a bunch of reasons, the primary one (or at least the one that got the ball rolling) being the pathological intellectual dishonesty of the wt in how it handles secular quotes and citations.

anyway, my parents are aware of all that and have left the issue alone for about the last year.

Scully

And then my dear father pulls out the ad hominen like crazy. Did I know that I sounded just like an apostate? What right did I have to expect the WT to comply to my own (tainted) academic standards? My example might seem off to an academic but those weren't the editorial standards the WT was required to adhere to. Did I know that there were many Ph.D.s in the "truth" who had no problem with this? Was I aware of how I had been tainted by the university atmosphere (see preceding para)? (Kind of a contradiction of the preceding query, but I didn't point that out)

I'm shaking my head, just dumbfounded by the twisted reasoning.

Just for fun, the next time your dad asks you what right you have to expect the WT to comply to standards of academic honesty, ask him how he'd feel about taking medication whose research methods, and empirical results were published to the same "standard" as the WT? For example, if we found out after years of administering chemotherapy and radiation to cancer patients, that the research was flawed and that those treatments actually hastened patients' deaths instead of ridding them of cancer? And what if it was further discovered that the companies producing chemotherapy treatments published those flawed or concocted results so that their bottom line wouldn't be affected?

Every time something like this is discovered, it makes news headlines all over the world because people have certain expectations of honesty from those they trust with their health - their lives. The GB claims to represent Jehovah God - should we not have even higher expectations of them, considering their claim to publish what god wants of those serving him? They claim the most authority and should likewise be expected to demonstrate the most accountability and honesty to the highest degree possible.

Or what if the Worldly™ standards for building homes, apartment buildings, shopping centers and skyscrapers were based on flawed research and flawed science? People invest so much in their homes, and trust that the people building them will adhere to safety standards and use the appropriate materials. But some contractors won't build to code to save money, and yet they will sell you a house claiming that it meets building code requirements. Ask him: Dad, what is the legal terminology for what this individual has done in selling you a home that doesn't meet code, knowingly cutting corners to maximize their profit, and putting your safety at risk, while claiming that all legal requirements have been met? If his answer is anything other than FRAUD, then he really doesn't get the principle of academic dishonesty. Because, essentially the academic dishonesty perpetrated by the WT is fraudulent behaviour - its goal is to twist the words of a scholarly work, using out-of-context quotes, ellipsis (...) to omit important words and meanings, and so on for the benefit of the person(s) perpetrating the academic dishonesty.

He may counter with an objection like "The Society™ has nothing to gain by doing this - so why would they bother?"

Of course they have something to gain!! Or more to the point, they have something they don't want to lose - their followers! Just like a cheating husband trying to explain away strange expenses, weird phone calls, late nights at the office and so on with false stories, the WT doesn't want to lose their followers or to be exposed as frauds. Think of the money they'd lose if everyone stopped donating. Think of the property they'd have to sell off to keep afloat. Think of the cushy lifestyle afforded to the GB and all the higher-ups in the Organization™ that couldn't be maintained without the base of followers that keeps financing them.

One of the first things the WT does in the Home Bible Study™ paradigm is to break a person's allegiance to their religion, by attacking the religion for neglecting to teach them that god's name is Jehovah, and for not teaching them about the bible's promise about Living Forever in Paradise on Earth™. It riles them up over dishonesty, and gets the person to a state of righteous indignation about being lied to by their church. And then, once they have the person in their clutches, they have to keep them in the cult by lying to them and being dishonest with them - practicing Theocratic Warfare™ on them.

The Insight volume, under the heading "LIE", claims that it is not necessary to divulge truthful information to those who are not entitled to it. Clearly, in practicing Theocratic Warfare™ against its own followers, the WTS doesn't even believe that its own followers are entitled to truthful information. I wonder how your father would feel about that?

14

WTS Legal Dept: "Try to make your kids seem normal."

by irondork in

just finished reading the segment on setting double standards from in search of christian freedom.

franz gives as an example what is probably the most wanton display of in-your-face hypocrisy.. citing a brochure produced by the legal department designed to help witness parents in child custody battles:.

this can be used to show that they are normal.

Scully

Yeah, I swear the working title for the Child Custody Cases brochure must have been the Let's-Pretend-We-Aren't-A-Cult brochure.

27

another sad blood story

by Found Sheep in

so i had a patient this week that needed blood.

as i always do i give the signs of a rejection and pros and cons... she said of course i'll have one since i need it... i just don't understand people that don't!!!

and they would rather die.

Scully

A long time ago, I suggested that the number of deaths that occurred due to the WTS teaching forbidding blood transfusions was at least as many as the lives lost at Jonestown. The WTS has the advantage of having all these incidents occurring at different times and places over many decades, so each one - as an isolated incident - catches our attention momentarily, until the next one, and the next one, and so on. It would be a huge shock and a much louder outcry if all the bodies were piled up together in one place, just as it was with Jonestown.

This was the original intent of the Watchtower Victims Memorial. I think it's hugely important to catalogue the names of victims of this insane policy, including ages, dates of death, and surviving family, and the circumstances of the death beyond refusal of blood transfusion (accident? childbirth? cancer? etc.). It is the only way to itemize the carnage in a globally accessible format.

51

Suggestions for finally talking to my parents about my doubts?

by stillstuckcruz in

i'll give my story again:.

i was raised a believing witness.

i had a normal life and very loving parents who would do anything for me and my brother(who is 21).

Scully

You say that you did very little personal study. I would use that to your advantage.

Let's say you find a topic on JWN that uses the WTS's own literature to make some points that you fundamentally disagree with, and know that your family would have a problem with it too.

Always, if you are going to discuss your doubts regarding doctrine, protect yourself by raising it as something you are trying to understand better. For example, because you're 20, so you probably have very little recollection regarding the changes to the "generation" teaching. Your father, on the other hand, probably remembers how it went, because for most of the 20th century, JWs believed that "this generation will not pass away" until the things Jesus spoke about in "the composite sign" occurred.

Originally, This Generation™ referred to people who saw the events of 1914 [when Jesus began ruling from heaven] and understood them to be a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

Later, This Generation™ referred to people who were alive in 1914 - so even a baby born on December 31, 1914, were part of This Generation™.

In 1995, the understanding of This Generation™ changed so that it included the contemporaries of those who were alive at the time when Jesus began ruling in heaven.

Most recently, the teaching changed again so that This Generation™ included the next generation of individuals, who could learn first hand from those alive in 1914 and their contemporaries, about Jesus beginning his parousia.

Now, having said all that, if you have older literature in the house - like most JWs do - you could find some reference to the older teachings and bring it to your dad and say that you're confused by the difference in the teaching as it was compared to how it is now. You could say "if this was any other church teaching this kind of thing, and then making such dramatic changes, I'd be thinking that they were just trying to buy time - because nobody knows the day or the hour, right?? But how would I deal with someone who asks me a question like that? How do I defend my faith? How do I convince them that the Society wasn't just trying to buy time, and keep people from leaving in droves?"

You are leading the conversation, even though you are asking thought-provoking questions. You are not directly attacking the WTS. It is subtle and effective, if used judiciously.

138

My Father passed away during the night

by jwfacts in

dad was a great man, great, despite the religion.

he was powerful, tall and intelligent, yet humble and kind.

he was an introvert, and a circuit overseer.

Scully

Sorry to hear about your Father's passing.

I'm very happy that you and he were able to mend fences somewhat over the past year or so. That must have meant a lot to you.