i think the wt will never give up this practice unless forced to by the courts, even if they are financially failing terribly they will keep it because the moment they do get rid of it the whole thing will collapse even faster and they know it(or afraid of it happening).
they have painted themselves into a corner of financial ruin.
.
No. This is Social Control 101. It’s an essential tactic of all high-control, authoritarian groups.
Ostracism and exclusion is and always has been the number one way people in power try to keep everyone else in line—that and public executions, which (if you think about it) is essentially what disfellowshipping accomplishes, but without the legal problems associated with private groups actually murdering someone without the consent of the State.
hi all.. it's being a while that i don't share in the forum.
after moving to another country and finding a job, i asked my congregation in my country to send my publishing card here.
once i did it, i stopped attending meetings.
Skepsis, congratulations and welcome to the rest of—and the best of—your life!
PS: It’s crazy that a person has to move to another country to get free from a cult, but that’s what sometimes needs to be done.
'lead us not into temptation': why pope francis is wrong about the lord's prayer.
m j c warren, lecturer in biblical and religious studies, university of .
pope francis recently announced that he thinks the common english translation of the lord’s prayer is mistranslated.
Jesus spoke Aramaic and Hebrew. The gospels were written in Greek.
So the Pope is taking issue with a translation of a translation of what Jesus allegedly said. That’s problematic in and of itself. But what should be of greater concern is that the padre’s reason for wanting it changed is theologically motivated, not linguistically.
The verses say what they say, not perhaps what we want them to say. If Holy Spirit inspired the recording of these words, then it was there for the translation as well. If it wasn’t, well then, it wasn’t.
You can’t have it both ways.
You say eisegesis, I say exegesis; let’s call the whole thing off!
for me, beyond any shadow of a doubt, it's the extreme shunning policy.. at a recent sunday meeting, i listened to a complete brainwashed sister saying how important it was that we stick to the shunning policy even if it is a close relative.. i just thought.
wtf.
there is a big difference between the brainwashed and the awoken class!.
A: Self inflicted wounds.
for the december monthly broadcast instead of jws from around the world waving to you and items of how to shun people we will have to make do with repeats of of old gilead videos that have been on the jw website for a good while.
Morpheus,
When I became a JW in the '80s Herbert W. Armstrong was publishing "The Plain Truth."
His mags were so similar to the WT and Awake! that both groups thought they were plagiarizing each other.
for the december monthly broadcast instead of jws from around the world waving to you and items of how to shun people we will have to make do with repeats of of old gilead videos that have been on the jw website for a good while.
SBF: Worldwise Church of God
Methinks you meant the Worldwide Church of God (now known as Grace Communion International).
greeting everyone!
it is good to be back on here, i used to be on here years ago (prob.
8ish) under the moniker mystruggle.
IronSnake: One of the topics of interest is the influence of religion in the field of academic education, specially in K-12 in my country.
I also work in education here in the US.
Where are you?
jp
greeting everyone!
it is good to be back on here, i used to be on here years ago (prob.
8ish) under the moniker mystruggle.
Also, you might enjoy In Gods We Trust by Scott Atran. Atran is a French-American cultural anthropologist who is a
Director of Research in Anthropology at the Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique in Paris.
His book is an ambitious undertaking and a fairly challenging read, but it’s the most thorough scholarly and interdisciplinary examination of the question of which I am aware.
greeting everyone!
it is good to be back on here, i used to be on here years ago (prob.
8ish) under the moniker mystruggle.
Aaron,
While we're on the subject, and since we have similar interests, I'd like to suggest you take a look at a couple of threads I started recently:
I'd appreciate your thoughts on these two subjects.
jp
greeting everyone!
it is good to be back on here, i used to be on here years ago (prob.
8ish) under the moniker mystruggle.
Hi Aaron, welcome back!
People like Steve Hassan, Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Singer, Louis Jolyon West, and Michael Langone, have contributed invaluable work. Unfortunately, most of their work is unconsidered or discounted as extremist in academia.
I am sure that the majority of academics aren't concerned about cults in particular or even religion in general. They are concerned about their own particular field of study and research. That's to be expected.
What is your basis for saying that "most of their work is unconsidered or discounted as
extremist in academia"?
I know Michael Langone personally. He and many of his colleagues working in the field of cultic studies and other high-control, destructive groups are held in high regard by many academics.
jp
