Jst2Lays (oops, typo :P) you really made me laugh...and shiver...
Posts by SYN
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31I'm Off To Vote! Let's see how long it takes them to DF me.....
by SixofNine ini'm going to guess 2 hours and 35 minutes from right now, unless the anouncements run long.
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6
An Essay on Faith.
by SYN inbeen reading some interesting threads here lately.
there's so many new faces here that i don't know...*sigh*.
does anyone else here who's been out of the "truth(tm)" for a couple of years feel like that part of their lives was surreal?.
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SYN
Been reading some interesting threads here lately. There's so many new faces here that I don't know...*sigh*
Does anyone else here who's been out of the "Truth(TM)" for a couple of years feel like that part of their lives was surreal?
Honestly, whenever I cast my mind's eye back, oh, about 5 or 6 years, to when I was still an unhappy little Dub kid, I get this enormously powerful sensation of weirdness. I betcha if I had to waltz into a Kingdom Hall today I'd probably run out again in short order.
To see all those people, those drones (the best word for Jehovah's Witnesses, in my opinion), taking (or, more often, ignoring) their "Spiritual Food(TM)", accompanied by music from a selection of just over 100 Kingdom Songs(TM) (please note, no other music will be allowed, only the Officially Sanctioned(TM) songs are permitted).
To see their glazed over eyes. I remember the effect of those monotonous words from the stage...always the same phrases, repeated over and over..."God's Kingdom"..."Faithful and Discreet Slave"..."Worldwide Preaching Work"...
It just freaks me out. I think that perhaps the greatest gift leaving the Organization has given me is a finely attuned brainwashing-radar.
All of that regulated, extremely bland, very boring Spiritual Food(TM) is an excellent brainwashing tool.
Remember that the brain always seeks the path of least resistance (well, most of the time). We are not creatures that actively seek out conflict, change, and confusion. We humans like having predictable lives. It's nice to wake up at a set time every morning, go to work for X number of hours, and have dinner at 7PM.
Jehovah's Witnesses take this to the extreme, by unwittingly using this trait of the human mind to enslave themselves. I doubt that your average Elder ever really gives this much thought. He (always a He) is typically too busy worrying about how many hours of Field Service he's put in.
Field Service in itself is also a monotonous activity. It's even worse than the meetings. Walking around for hours and hours, placidly ringing doorbells, and on and on and on...in most Western nations, when someone at the door actually seems interested, it's a pretty big surprise. 99% of the time it's a case of "not interested."
It's just like Chinese Water Torture. The water dripping slowly onto your forehead could never actually cause you pain, but it destroys your mind.
What I think (and this is my own, empirical opinion, be warned) is that a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses are INSTITUTIONALIZED.
Institutionalized (adj): Given the character of an institution or incorporated into a structured and usually well-established system
If you've ever watched (or read, the book is far superior to the movie) the Shawshank Redemption, then you'll know what I mean. Sometimes, when people leave jail after being there for most of their lives, they just can't cope in the outside world. They themselves would tell you that they hate jail, can't stand being cooped up, etc, but the minute they step foot outsite the outermost gate of their facility, they find themselves seized with immense fear. That's the fear of the unknown, and we all have it. It is one of the roots of xenophobia.
Witnesses find themselves in a prison of the mind, a place where all the big decisions have already been made FOR THEM. Examples:
* What am I going to buy my relative/friend for Christmas? Nothing. Decision already made!
* What am I doing this evening? Going to the meeting. Decision already made!
* What am I doing this weekend? Going out on Field Service. Decision already made!
...ad infinitum. Many people really take a shine to this highly structured, micro-controlled life, so that whilst they appear to be normal human beings, they have in fact given over vast swathes of their centers of creativity to the Organization, which eats up their time and money, and in return lavishes them with incalculable pain and ennui.
Ennui is really a great word for describing what I went through as a Witness. It's sharper than the word "boredom". It emphasizes a feeling of actual pain.
Of course, this pain and ennui is all indirect. It's not particularly painful to walk around in some strange neighbourhood for 3 hours in a suit, in the hot sun. Uncomfortable, yes, but not unbearable. Like the finest methods of torture, Field Service(TM) cracks its victims by taking advantage of the human sense of conservatism, or, to put it another way, the fact that most people will put up with a moderate amount of annoyance and pain, but not a large amount of annoyance and pain. They'll do this for a long time, and then, suddenly, they snap.
This is a very bad thing. Human minds can be like ceramics, which are extremely strong up to a certain angle of deformation, and then a catastrophic collapse of their crystalline structure occurs, and wham, all you're left with is dust.
For most people, the snap is hidden, an internalized breakdown. They go to less meetings. They don't go out on Field Service so much.
They contribute less to the agent of their ennui.
I believe that almost every Jehovah's Witness, deep down, knows the true nature of the Society. It's pretty hard to miss, if you really put the Organization underneath a microscope, which so very few Witnesses every do, sadly enough.
The structure of the Organization is terribly simple. I've arranged it in a hierarchical diagram for y'all, from most influential to least influential. Lower numbered people in the list give orders to higher numbered people.
1. Governing Body (in Bethel)
2. District Overseers
3. Circuit Overseers
4. Elders.
At least, this is what I used to think the structure was. Recently, through this board and others, I gained fascinating new insights into the TRUE structure of the Organization, which is:
1. Governments of the World.
2. Lawyers.
3. Governing Body (Bethel)
4. Circuit Overseers
5. Elders.
A few years ago, I would've hotly contested this diagram. "It canna be true mate!", etc.
But, if you really stop and think about it, what the hell would the Organization do if George Bush decided to brand it as a terrorist group and banned it outright? Would the Governing Body all move to London?
Of course, this is highly unlikely to happen (but never say never). A much more realistic scenario (and just as lethal) scenario is what's currently happening in France, where the French Government is attempting to recover large amounts of taxes from the Witnesses.
What did the Organization do when all of this tax business started happening? You guessed it. They changed their system from "publishers buy books from us, and maybe they sell them, maybe they don't, not that we care", to "publishers receive books from us, and we receive DONATIONS from them."
This is an extremely clever little tax loophole, if you think about it. And there's jack-sh*t the publishers can do about it, either. If you think about. Sadly, few Witnesses really stop to think about it. They never stop to think about their leaders, the ones who take their orders mostly from lawyers nowadays, those guys who have private planes and Armani suits and million-dollar chandeliers at their Patterson Headquarters.
And, let me assure you, their leaders never stop to think about them.
If you're leading 6 million people and live in a palatial ivory tower, why would it be neccessary for you to actually give a sh*t about one of them? As long as the peons continue "donating", all is well with the world.
Certainly, some here will accuse me of painting the Governing Body with an overly broad brush. I doubt that they're actively evil, like a character from Austin Powers. They are most definitely only human, though, and humans have an unbridled capacity for arrogance. I grew up on the lower end of the social scale in a 3rd world nation, so let me assure you, I know all about arrogance. It is something I find truly disgusting. I quote:
"Always fly first class" - Rutherford (or "Sparky" as I like to call the old ex-fella) to an unnamed Senior Bethelite.
I think that quite neatly sums up the attitude of the GB.
And if you can stomach that kind of careless abuse of power, well, you deserve it.
Regards,
Derek -
36
Found an Awake at the rest stop today..and I knew exactly what to do....
by Dawn infound it at a rest stop today while traveling.
i thought about tossing it, but decided it had a much better purpose.
it was an issue on what to teach your young child - cute picture of a little girl (about 4 years old) on the cover.. so - i took it to my car, got out a pretty purple pen and wrote on the cover "this religion has a major probelm with pedophiles and is hurtful to young children.
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SYN
Hey GDT, from one Queenslander to another, if you feel you can stand up for the Organization's destructive child abuse management policies of years past (which they only "updated" recently, after their spin doctors couldn't help them anymore), then I feel pity for you. Also, and I stress this very greatly, unless you yourself are high up in the Organization, believe me, you don't know the half of it. You're just a peon. And peons aren't generally told what's *really* going on. Oh well. Seems some people are happy as peons.
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15
Dream I Had a week Ago
by Satanus ini was w a small band of about 8 people on horseback in england.
some challenger/threat to the throne had just landed.
the leader of the group and the rest were going to go ride down and kill the person(s).
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SYN
Double Edge, I'm not being pedantic, but I doubt that you'd have much warning if a nuclear weapon was about to go off nearby. Those missiles move fast!
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24
Evolution and Man's Intelligence
by frankiespeakin ini was thinking this morning that we some where along the evolutionary trail we as a species developed a superior intelligence to other species.
where will it eventually lead,,i mean the evolution of our species could take a sharp right or left turn not to mention a complete u-turn.. will we as a species ever keep progressing in our explots of technology or will we start a reversal?
will we come to a realization of some sort and see all this grasping to learn more and more as a waste of time and start a reversal in that direction of our evolution as far as intelligence goes?
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SYN
Ah, the Surfing Ape theory! That's a particular favourite of mine, I must say. It very neatly explains a large number of odd mutations that humans have, but our close primate cousins don't.
One other handy thing it explains is how we managed to get so much protein to build our brains with. It's much easier getting protein from the sea (molluscs, fish etc) than fighting for it on the plains. In order to grow a big brain, you need huge amounts of protein. It's a rather large limiting factor, and although I say this purely as conjecture, it could be one of the reasons why the other primates have smaller brains than ours. But look at whales & dolphins...yep, big brains.
I think Abaddon is on the right track here, but I also think that a thing like the development of intelligence is too broad to be pinned down to just one "cause". Evolution is about the propogation of genes, not "causes" and "results". Genes will do anything they can to survive, including giving their hosts big brains and big willies.
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45
What languages do you speak?
by Pole inwhat languages do you speak/write/read (can be ancient ones as well)??
i speak/write/read polish, english and russian.
i know basic swedish and some survival phrases in finnish as well.
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SYN
I've actually had a weird linguistic history. I started out speaking Afrikaans (a South African dialect of Hoge Hollandsch, or Dutch) as a kid, and didn't speak a word of English until I was about 8, when due to circumstances I had to attend an English school. That sure was fun, not understanding a frikking word the teachers were saying! But I was young, so I learnt English pretty quickly.
Over the years I've had loads of exposure to other languages too, enough for me to be able to read some dialects of German, and speak really crappy Dutch...I'd like to learn French too, that could be fun
On the plus side, I can make phone calls back home to Johannesburg in total private, even when surrounded by people in my office If they can keep up with my machine-gun Afrikaans, I'll give 'em a medal
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SYN
Yeah, I'm surprised nobody's flamed me yet ;)
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9
Fark thread about girl who died after refusing a blood transfusion...
by SYN in.
some interesting comments here.. http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?idlink=1100346.
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SYN
Long time no see Matty! And I agree!
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9
Fark thread about girl who died after refusing a blood transfusion...
by SYN in.
some interesting comments here.. http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?idlink=1100346.
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SYN
Scully, yup. Couldn't agree more God, but that Dub at the end of the thread posted a long comment. I think he cut & pasted most of it from the Watchtower CD-Rom. He'll probably add a couple of hours to his timesheet this month for that!