john.prestor

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Posts by john.prestor

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  18

  Jehovah's Witnesses: A Coercive Organization?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so in sociology we divide organizations up into three categories or types, you got utilitarian, voluntary, and coercive.

  utilitarian means people join to accomplish some purpose like selling food or making furniture, voluntary means they join up just for fun or to hang out with people like the freemasons or a lot of churches, and coercive means they don't really want to be there but they gotta because someone will punish them if they leave, so labor camps, armies, or prisons.. in a paper i wrote for a class a while back i argued that jehovah's witnesses should be seen as a coercive organization.

  yeah, people join up and they do leave, nobody beats you up if you stop attending or preaching, nobody imprisons you, shoots your dog, kills your kids that kind of thing, and nobody makes you join up either.

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  john.prestor

  Yeah, the right choice meaning the choice we want...

  LongHairGal, I see your point, that is coercive if others try to pressure you to do what they want using little looks, snide remarks, that kind of thing. Glad you didn't listen either.
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  18

  Jehovah's Witnesses: A Coercive Organization?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so in sociology we divide organizations up into three categories or types, you got utilitarian, voluntary, and coercive.

  utilitarian means people join to accomplish some purpose like selling food or making furniture, voluntary means they join up just for fun or to hang out with people like the freemasons or a lot of churches, and coercive means they don't really want to be there but they gotta because someone will punish them if they leave, so labor camps, armies, or prisons.. in a paper i wrote for a class a while back i argued that jehovah's witnesses should be seen as a coercive organization.

  yeah, people join up and they do leave, nobody beats you up if you stop attending or preaching, nobody imprisons you, shoots your dog, kills your kids that kind of thing, and nobody makes you join up either.

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  john.prestor

  Thanks jp, I appreciate that. I'm totally with you, emotional coercion is still coercion and that's what disfellowshipping amounts to, a way of punishing you socially. They say it's biblical, that's besides the point, it reinforces the rule of the Governing Body and that's why they keep it around.
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  18

  Jehovah's Witnesses: A Coercive Organization?

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so in sociology we divide organizations up into three categories or types, you got utilitarian, voluntary, and coercive.

  utilitarian means people join to accomplish some purpose like selling food or making furniture, voluntary means they join up just for fun or to hang out with people like the freemasons or a lot of churches, and coercive means they don't really want to be there but they gotta because someone will punish them if they leave, so labor camps, armies, or prisons.. in a paper i wrote for a class a while back i argued that jehovah's witnesses should be seen as a coercive organization.

  yeah, people join up and they do leave, nobody beats you up if you stop attending or preaching, nobody imprisons you, shoots your dog, kills your kids that kind of thing, and nobody makes you join up either.

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  john.prestor

  So in sociology we divide organizations up into three categories or types, you got utilitarian, voluntary, and coercive. Utilitarian means people join to accomplish some purpose like selling food or making furniture, voluntary means they join up just for fun or to hang out with people like the Freemasons or a lot of churches, and coercive means they don't really want to be there but they gotta because someone will punish them if they leave, so labor camps, armies, or prisons.

  In a paper I wrote for a class a while back I argued that Jehovah's Witnesses should be seen as a coercive organization. Yeah, people join up and they do leave, nobody beats you up if you stop attending or preaching, nobody imprisons you, shoots your dog, kills your kids that kind of thing, and nobody makes you join up either. But that doesn't change the fact that the Governing Body and other elites tell Jehovah's Witnesses that if they leave Jesus will kill them at Armageddon. In my mind that's the essence of coercive. In fact, what could be more coercive? Just last year Kenneth Flodin got on JW Broadcasting, compared a wine glass to lax Witnesses, and then smashed it on the floor and gave the camera a long dark stare. Now Tony Morris tells audience he's going to help Jesus kill unbelievers at Armageddon, and the Watchtower prints the same thing, along with colorful illustrations of the carnage, the kind of suck stuff they showed kids in the 60s and 70s, I mean, can you make more blatant threats?

  Jehovah's Witnesses don't qualify as a voluntary organization, period. There's no real difference between telling someone your friends (Jesus and his angels) will kill them soon and you'll kill them soon, and besides... the Governing Body already said they would kill the unspecified 'wicked' any day now on multiple occasions.
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  11

  Awake! No. 2 2018 on marriage

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so i'm sitting here at the laundromat waiting for the bus, there's a kingdom hall across the street and somebody must come in here regularly cause i found about five different magazines hanging out on a counter by the door and three different jw.org business cards pinned to a bulletin board.

  i picked up an awake!

  for the hell of it, i could use a good laugh, and i ran across this right away in the article '12 secrets of successful families', yeah, you can probably tell where this is going:.

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  john.prestor

  To me it comes down to what they want and why they write something like this. They want to make people weak and submissive, it's not just about women, they try to make the men like that too, and it means people walk all over you becauss you never stand up for yourself, you dont think you should, you don't know it's an option. The Baptists raised me like that and it took me ages to figure out why people harassed me on the street and walked in front of me or outright made fun of me. When I stopped acting submissive and weak, I started acting more dominant, and now people show me respect.

  Their advice sets people up for abuse. That's why it upset me.
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  9

  Would this scenario make a totally devout JW renounce their faith?

  by BourneIdentity in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we’ve all heard the stories of someone pointing a gun at a jw telling them to renounce their faith or die.

  some live to tell about it, others don’t.

  but what makes it seem easier to stomach is it just involves that person, no one else.

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  john.prestor

  It's impossible to say the situation won't ever occur *shrug*
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  16

  JWs - Followers of Men - 100% Proof

  by BourneIdentity in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for those that are convinced they are not following man, but jehovah, this example is 100% proof they follow men.

  if they twist this to say they don't follow man, well, there is no hope for them.. the bible is very clear to honor your father and mother, it was and is so important, it's listed as one of the 10 commandments.

  when that parent leaves the truth, either due to disassociation or being disfellowshipped, the child shuns them for life.

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  john.prestor

  I always felt this sense of unreality when I would sit at a circuit assembly and some Elder would get up there on the platform and start talking about how they don't listen to men, as they listen to men telling them they don't listen to men.
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  11

  Awake! No. 2 2018 on marriage

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so i'm sitting here at the laundromat waiting for the bus, there's a kingdom hall across the street and somebody must come in here regularly cause i found about five different magazines hanging out on a counter by the door and three different jw.org business cards pinned to a bulletin board.

  i picked up an awake!

  for the hell of it, i could use a good laugh, and i ran across this right away in the article '12 secrets of successful families', yeah, you can probably tell where this is going:.

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  john.prestor

  I trashed them, those things are... sneaky.
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  11

  Awake! No. 2 2018 on marriage

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so i'm sitting here at the laundromat waiting for the bus, there's a kingdom hall across the street and somebody must come in here regularly cause i found about five different magazines hanging out on a counter by the door and three different jw.org business cards pinned to a bulletin board.

  i picked up an awake!

  for the hell of it, i could use a good laugh, and i ran across this right away in the article '12 secrets of successful families', yeah, you can probably tell where this is going:.

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  john.prestor

  It's allow yourself to be wronged, I miswrote that.
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  11

  Awake! No. 2 2018 on marriage

  by john.prestor in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so i'm sitting here at the laundromat waiting for the bus, there's a kingdom hall across the street and somebody must come in here regularly cause i found about five different magazines hanging out on a counter by the door and three different jw.org business cards pinned to a bulletin board.

  i picked up an awake!

  for the hell of it, i could use a good laugh, and i ran across this right away in the article '12 secrets of successful families', yeah, you can probably tell where this is going:.

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  john.prestor

  So I'm sitting here at the laundromat waiting for the bus, there's a Kingdom Hall across the street and somebody must come in here regularly cause I found about five different magazines hanging out on a counter by the door and three different jw.org business cards pinned to a bulletin board. I picked up an Awake! for the hell of it, I could use a good laugh, and I ran across this right away in the article '12 secrets of successful families', yeah, you can probably tell where this is going:

  For couples: Commitment

  If you are committed to your marriage, you allow yourself to be wrong. You are quick to forgive and quick to apologize. You view problems as obstacles, not deal breakers. -Micah

  What do you mean allow yourself to be wronged, you mean let your husband smack you around if you're Selma, or stay with him even if you fear for your life and safety like it said in a recent Watchtower? And why would you apologize if someone wrongs you, those two don't make any sense, if you did nothing wrong you shouldn't apologize. What horrendous advice for women coming from another one of their anonymous source, Micah, let's call her Andrea that's how legit she is.

  The advice might as well amount to Lay down and take it. Fuck these people.
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  16

  The Classification Sheep & Goats Come From Reaction To The Good News Preached By Members Of The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  it seems that the more one analyzes the wt premise that people are being judged by jehoho and his angelic lackeys on their responses to the messages they proclaim as good news of the kingdom(destruction of all the governments of the world by god's kingdom), the more flaws one sees in such an arrangement.. firstly why would jehoho judge people as worthy of everlasting annihilation because they don't respond appropriately to an organization's membership drives house to house service calls?

  surely jehoho needs to take into account that they have a very bad child abuse problem that sullies their reputation as his representatives, surely an intelligent reasonable almighty god would find this a very poor touch stone to judge people on especially when their everlasting life is at stake.. all these court cases of child molestation lawsuits brought against wt corporation we now see being broadcast all over the internet should make an intelligent god like jehoho see that this is a very bad idea or way to judge people and that all the people classified as sheep with this process will just get you a bunch of gullible desperate people without any critical thinking(which when you think of it pretty much describes a sheep).. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucju-ey1tyg&t=68s.

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  john.prestor

  I remember seeing an Our Kingdom Ministry prompt where it encouraged Witnesses to explain what you just described, that Jesus would judge them worthy of survival or not depending on how they responded to the door-to-door preaching. Can you just imagine going up to someone and saying that on their porch or on the street.

  'Good morning, how you doing today? You better listen up and do what I tell you cuz if you don't Gods gonna kill you any day now.'

  It's such an obvious threat. That's what it.