Posts by jwundubbed

24

Come on, Mainstream Media!

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

it has been sickening to read the most recently leaked documents by faithleaks.

it makes me so angry because so many of us have experienced first hand the horrible policies of the watchtower on abuse.

i feel like these documents are finally the smoking gun we have all been hoping to expose the watchtower, and so far, the only mainstream news that i have seen pick it up is newsweek.. what will it take for the mainstream media pick this up and give it the attention it deserves?

jwundubbed

But the problem is how members are counted - is it purely by turning up for a service? or just saying they believe in it? - darkspilver

All statistics have this problem. All studies have this problem. How did you come by the information and what was the criteria for the information. To be honest, that is a bigger problem than I am willing to solve. My only attempt was to find any information from the source itself and from a third, unaffiliated party. Providing that information doesn't do anything... other than to show people how popular Catholicism is in reality and in the minds of the Catholic organization versus how popular the Jehovah's Witness cult is in reality and in the minds of the JW org.

No matter how you look at it... the Billions of Catholics makes them a part of the mainstream world stage and the few million JWs makes them irrelevant. If you want mainstream media to pay attention... and you don't have the numbers to be a part of the world, then you have to do something that puts the JWs in the forefront of social media. Even though the JWs have a website and a broadcast, I don't think they nor exJWs have any idea how much YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook impact the mainstream media these days.

24

Come on, Mainstream Media!

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

it has been sickening to read the most recently leaked documents by faithleaks.

it makes me so angry because so many of us have experienced first hand the horrible policies of the watchtower on abuse.

i feel like these documents are finally the smoking gun we have all been hoping to expose the watchtower, and so far, the only mainstream news that i have seen pick it up is newsweek.. what will it take for the mainstream media pick this up and give it the attention it deserves?

jwundubbed

@darkspilver,

That definitely helps. Any statistics not provided by the JW is helpful. But it doesn't tell us the accuracy of their worldwide counts. Third party research is what I was trying to find. I didn't look horribly hard. But it was much easier to find that information for the Catholics than for the JWs.

24

Come on, Mainstream Media!

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

it has been sickening to read the most recently leaked documents by faithleaks.

it makes me so angry because so many of us have experienced first hand the horrible policies of the watchtower on abuse.

i feel like these documents are finally the smoking gun we have all been hoping to expose the watchtower, and so far, the only mainstream news that i have seen pick it up is newsweek.. what will it take for the mainstream media pick this up and give it the attention it deserves?

jwundubbed

It isn't just that the JWs aren't as big as the Catholic church. There is a delusion that all JWs are taught and that is playing a big part in this conversation. We were all taught that the world was watching us, that the JWs were the center of the universe. The reality is that every single person I have spoken to after leaving the cult has almost no idea who the JWs are. Every time I tell someone I was a JW they ask me what that is.

No one is covering this 'big leak' because it is only a big leak to the people involved in it. To everyone else it doesn't matter any more than it would matter if a leak of the same type was made about the policies of the ONE Campaign (an international campaign with 8 million members). To them it would be huge, but we are all asking what that is.

Catholicism is the original christian religion. Every other christian religion is a spin-off of that. The JWs are spin-off of a spin-off of a spin-off. No one else cares or even knows who or what we are. If you want mainstream attention then you have to get the Jehovahs Witnesses into mainstream media in the first place. Most JWs don't have the charisma for mainstream media. If you had some people who understood mainstream media and also had charisma... A youtube channel that was entertaining and highlighted the crazy of the JWs might take off. People love watching crazy, when it is entertaining and done well. If you had some entertaining people doing a podcast that views the world from the crazy perspecive of the JWs that might also work. But the JWs and the exJWs seem to think that the world will care about a group of people who don't care about and are not part of the world. This should be a 'Duh!' moment, and instead ex-jws are dumbfounded as to why the rest of the world doesn't care about them. The rest of the world doesn't have any reason to care about the JWs.

One Campaign - International ogranization with 8 million members.

Catholic count by country - Wikipedia from Catholic citations

Catholic count by country - Pew Research Center (1910 to 2010)

Jehovahs Witness count by country - Wikipedia from JW citations

Unable to find statistics on the JW religion that don't come from the JW.

28

Why did the Governing Body come behind the curtain?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

in the movie the wizard of oz, while the whole yellow brick road gang was being addressed by the great and powerful wizard of oz, the dog toto ran off to the side, pulled back on a curtain, and showed that a normal-looking humbug of a person was operating cranks and levers.

for a short while, the normal-looking man kept yanking levers and cranking cranks, and said into the microphone (which made the great and powerful wizard speak the same words) "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

i am the great and powerful wiz .

jwundubbed

There is a major difference between the Wizard of Oz and the GB. It took a moment, but the WoZ understood that once the curtain was pulled back he couldn't keep the act up. The GB believe that the curtain is irrelevant. They are completely clueless!

42

Would You Go To A Memorial Service For A JW )if you were no longer attending the KH)?

by minimus in

jw
friends

some of my old jw friends are sickly and getting on in age.

so far, i’ve only gone to my mother’s memorial and have avoided the kingdom hall altogether.... your thoughts please?.

jwundubbed

Memorials and funerals aren't for the dead. They are for the living. It gives us closure. It is a necessary part in processing the death of a loved one. Not everyone needs this to be part of their process of grief but many, if not most, do.

One day my mother or my sister will die. I will go to both their funeral/memorials. I won't listen to the indoctrination that the JWs insist on foisting on the bereaved. I also won't allow members of a religious group to control me. It isn't about them any more than it is about the dead. It is about me and what I need to process the death of people close to me. It sounds selfish, and to be honest... it should be. There is no reason to be selfless and thinking of others when processing your grief. That is the opposite of helpful.

What I need is to see their dead bodies. I need proof that they are dead. Once that is done I can go and finish processing elsewhere. No religious organization gets to control my right to grieve for people I was close to. Allowing them to have that control over me is a power that I refuse to give them.

83

The Scientific Method

by cofty in

.

jwundubbed

Science is like technology. It is usually the human factor that gets it wrong or keeps it from working.

83

The Scientific Method

by cofty in

.

jwundubbed

Sometimes the minimalist approach makes everything clearer and easy to understand. In this case the result is the opposite. I don't really get it.

23

A Former Jehovah's Witness shares her me too story

by LisaRose in

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/12/16/a-former-jehovahs-witness-shares-her-metoo-story/.

when i was 23 years old, i started dating a (jehovah’s) witness boy and we’d go out to some dance clubs.

there was a night in particular where i had too much to drink.

jwundubbed

@Nemesis and others who don't think these stories are valid unless a victim goes above and beyond their circumstance.

Here are some really good, short videos that address why women don't report abuse, why they stay in abusive situations, and what victims of assault would like out of a reporting system.

Why women stay silent after sexual assault.

Why domestic violence victims don't leave.

The reporting system that sexual survivors want.

178

Charging $150 To Tell Your Stories

by Bangalore in

jw
friends

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/how-to-escape-from-jehovah-s-witnesses-religion#/.

for $150: collaboration with the backer so that their story of successfully escaping an abusive belief system (300 words max) features along with others in the final pages of how to escape from jehovah's witnesses.

the text will be written by the author but will include a minimum of one quote worded by the backer.

jwundubbed

@Hecce, where is the explosive response part? I don't see that.

23

A Former Jehovah's Witness shares her me too story

by LisaRose in

https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2017/12/16/a-former-jehovahs-witness-shares-her-metoo-story/.

when i was 23 years old, i started dating a (jehovah’s) witness boy and we’d go out to some dance clubs.

there was a night in particular where i had too much to drink.

jwundubbed

If a woman claims a man raped her while she was drunk and then he counters that she had sex with him while he was drunk, both people can be charged with rape. See how that works? The law doesn't make as many distinctions as you seem to think it does, because laws don't cover every single possible situation. That is what prosecuters, lawyers, judges, and jurries are for.

I think you are the one who is mistaken. Got to any university campus where they are teaching students about what rape actually is and you will find that if a person cannot consent, then it is rape. If a person is under the influence of a substance which removes their ability to consent... then it is rape.

Is every single person charged just because they had sex while drunk? No. Again, the law doesn't work that way.

It's only rape if there's no verbal consent...

Your understanding of the law is outdated.