Posts by Scully

8

They've basically lumped DFd and DAd people in the same category by stating from the platform that So-and-so Is No Longer One Of Jehovah's Witnesses™. The Legal Department will claim that this change was motivated to remove any negative association that might have come from the term Disfellowshipped™, which would be construed by those hearing as deliberate, unrepentant wrongdoing on the part of the person named, and potentially expose the Congregation™, the local Body of Elders™ and the WTS to allegations of slander against the individual named.

Nobody knows anymore who is DFd or DAd, presumably to remove the thought from the average JW's mind that someone might leave the JWs as a form of protest against internal corruption, or a valid disagreement over doctrine. The implication will be that the announcement serves to paint with the same brush both people deemed to be Unrepentant Wrongdoers™ and people who leave as a conscientious decision of protest against the WTS and/or its doctrines and/or practices.

Eventually, though, I can foresee a time when more and more individuals will be Disassociated By Their Actions™, which would practically eliminate the need for Judicial Committees™. All you'd need would be two people claiming to have observed someone doing something they shouldn't be doing, or the Elders™ approaching someone who is Inactive™ and asking whether they consider themselves to be a JW, and presto! you're Disassociated™ No Longer One of Jehovah's Witnesses™ by the next Service Meeting™.

32

"You should never look for/expect happiness in this world"

by ilikecheese in

jw
friends

my jw boyfriend says this all the time whenever i'm venting about life and some of its disappointments, career aspirations and how hard they are to make happen sometimes, problems with friends/family, or just random stuff that gets to me.

i'm not a negative person or anything; i only get moody occasionally.

i am a woman; it's kind of required.

Scully

You have a JW boyfriend and he says *that* to you??

So, what are you, chopped liver?? Doesn't he believe that your relationship is worth anything??

I would be freaking pissed off and ready to show him the cold side of the door after a psychological back-hander like that.

26

got hotmail hacked...anyone help me?

by Aussie Oz in

jw
friends

my hotmail got/is hacked.. i have no idea how, i never open links or downloads i dont trust etc etc.

started when i noticed i couldnt open hatmail in ei and had to use firefox.. it sent emails to all my contacts (i have multiple accounts with their own passwords, so i dont know if went thru them too) and i know my dad opened one and it shut his pc down so bad he's had to take it into a shop.. i ran a scan and removed one trojan win32.. i went onto a different pc and changed all passwords then logged off and back on, checked emails.

sent emails to warm my contacts.

Scully

You may have opened an email from one of your contacts that led to a link or had a file to open, without any other message, which contained a trojan horse type virus.

The virus would then send a similar email to all your contacts.

A long time ago, I read a suggestion (I can't recall where) to protect your friends from being inadvertently virus-spammed by you: you add a fake email contact at the beginning of your contact list (alphabetically speaking), so I created a fake email address with lots of aaaaa's in the name part and a fake domain (test it to make sure it's fake). Apparently the virus will launch a test on that first email address and when it bounces back, the virus shuts itself off and does not proceed to your other contacts.

As another precaution, I'm always suspicious of receiving email

from people I don't hear from very often
from people I don't know
when they contain attachments or links without any other text in the message - I never open / follow these
if the subject line is blank
if the message/subject line is out of character for the sender

33

Nothing More To Say

by Farkel in

jw
friends

i really have nothing much more to say, except to say thank you to all the people who have contributed to me in my threads and all the people whom i battled over the years.

the battles have been most entertaining and enlightening.

i've learned a great deal from them, and i've laughed a great deal from the idiotic attempts of fools to make a coherent argument (think "dubs").. it's been a roller-coaster ride for me over a decade and it has consumed a huge amount of my time.

Scully

384

Atheism 2.0

by Qcmbr in

apologies if this has been posted before or even discussed.. this ted talk gets at the heart of what atheism is missing and my wife an di discussed this for a long time last night.

in short religion provides a framework for meeting, for ritual, for art, education and sociality.

without this framework atheism can seem lonely harsh and certainly disorganised (the general idea that education and culture can replace the gap may well be true but without a formal structure the route to personal mental fulfillment is somewhat piecemeal and patchwork.

Scully

Atheism, imo, can be whatever you want it to be, though I agree that getting a group of atheists together is akin to herding cats.

You complained that there are no athiest social activities for you to join, but I wonder if you're going at it backwards perhaps?

Why not just decide with your wife what kinds of activities you enjoy doing together - ones that don't have a belief system as their starting point - and see what you can find locally?

For example, if you want to take cooking lessons, you wouldn't show up at a Catholic Church and expect to find cooking lessons, would you? You'd find a place nearby that offers cooking lessons and sign up for the ones that interested you. Or if you wanted to take up hiking or camping, you wouldn't go to an Anglican Church to find people interested in hiking, you'd go to an outdoors shop and check out their notice boards or find an online group and see if there are local people who are interested in hiking or camping and would be willing to share their expertise over coffee, etc. If you're looking for a few friends to take up fitness activities, join a gym that has the kinds of classes that interest you (yoga, tai chi, kick boxing, etc).

I've made some lovely friends by going to cooking classes and crafting classes, and I have amazing friends via my place of work. Mr Scully has made some good friends through his professional background. We meet people who have a similar interest in pets and people in our neighbourhood. But I don't expect them to come looking for me... we go out with an open mind and open to meeting new people in any situation.

One of the big disservices that has been part-and-parcel of "belonging" to a high control group like the JWs, is that the group fosters an unrealistic expectation of the social milieu, where everyone in the group is automatically your friend as soon as you walk in the door. Real friendships are not like that. Real friendships grow and develop over time, and require attention and thoughtfulness to cultivate them, in addition to having common interests. The thing is, when you start with a belief system as the "common interest", you still have to deal with the diversity of personalities beyond that. It's why there's often nothing to talk about between former JWs and the JWs that they used to be acquainted with and socialized with in the past... the only things they had in common were the JW belief system and their geographic proximity.

You can also try to find a local Freethinkers group and go from there. http://nobeliefs.com/freethinkers.htm or http://www.infidels.org/search.html

28

Preparing the Kool-aid - April 15 WT

by LostGeneration in

check this paragraph from the article about how jah spared noah, the israelites at the red sea, etc.... scary!.

pg 26 para 16. as events unfold during the great.

tribulation, christians will need to heed.

Scully

What a ringing endorsement of emotional blackmail.

45

How do I respond to this? from my father

by alamb in

a daughter .

daughters are precious, in so many ways,.

from the day of their birth, till the end of your days.. .

Scully

Doesn't sound like "he" tried anything. Sounds more like he "gave up". Don't you think?

Parenting is supposed to be about helping a child discovering their wings and teaching them how to fly, to soar even. What the JWs have done to parenting is compelled parents to lock their children up in gilded cages, clipped their wings, and made them fearful of the outdoors and any ability they might ever have had to fly, or even sing.

So unnatural.

20

Anyone EVER had an Elder with a beard??? I can't remember even one!

by Witness 007 in

the society once even pictured jesus as clean shaven for many years in it's books.

beards were "sort of" banned.

i don't remember a single brother who had privledges with a beard....anyone else?.

Scully

The Elder™ who Baptized™ me had a beard. Kept it for years after that... and then was coerced into choosing between being an Elder™ and keeping his beard. Guess what was more important?

6