The formatting I had when I pressed the button VANISHED and everything was squished into a giant block of dense wordage. Very sorry for that. I see no EDIT button. So, I'm stuck with it.
TerryWalstrom
JoinedPosts by TerryWalstrom
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Jehovah's Witnesses: DO THEY FACE REALITY
by TerryWalstrom inarticle
1.the organization itself denies access to reality and substitutes its own version, interpretations, and meanings.
a.only watchtower approved publications are allowed.
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10
Jehovah's Witnesses: DO THEY FACE REALITY
by TerryWalstrom inarticle
1.the organization itself denies access to reality and substitutes its own version, interpretations, and meanings.
a.only watchtower approved publications are allowed.
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TerryWalstrom
ARTICLE 1.The Organization itself denies access to reality and substitutes its OWN version, interpretations, and meanings. a.Only Watchtower approved publications are allowed. b.No higher education is to be pursued. c.No non-JW friends or associations are encouraged with their "outside" points of view. d.No freestyle questioning of doctrine or criticism permitted. Curiosity is verboten. e.Threat of being "marked" or disassociated looms over them 2.Between every real-world event and the rank and file, JW's mind is a roadblock. a.The moment of identifying is short-circuited by an interpretive moment of RE-LABELING in Watchtower-speak. b.All things happening are forced into a narrow storyline and propagandized as End Times happenings leading to Armageddon. 3.Social and Personal IDENTITY is expunged and replaced by a collective PERSONA: "Jehovah's Witness". a.Private thinking is red-flagged as selfish and sinful. b.Personal improvement, welfare, and ambition is crushed and door-to-door ministry substituted as "worthy" endeavors. c.Self-conscious obsession permeates Witness awareness as each person is transformed into a public spectacle of performance for judgment. d.Since you aren't an individual you don't really have a right to fall in love and marry or educate or earn. You are the property of the local Kingdom Hall, the Governing Body and ultimately Jehovah. 4.Both History and Future cease to be objective occurrences a.Every human activity is constantly represented as part of Jehovah's Plan for mankind leading to an inevitable conclusion b.Great Leaps of advancement for humanity are disregarded as "important" for civilization since the New World solves all problems eventually. c. The worst atrocities are magnified as proof positive of Satanic influence in a doomed world. d. Individual triumphs and tragedies have no particular value, but, only as indicators that the Watchtower is right about End Times signs leading to Armageddon. 5.Talent, Creativity, and Genius are transformed into useless and wasteful ego problems. a.No room is made in the Organization for personal praise for achievement since all glory is for Jehovah only. b.Neither Musical, Artistic, Scientific or Mathematical ability is needed or encouraged because of the preaching activity trumps and supersedes all. c.Critical Thinking leads to questioning, doubt, skepticism and eventual disfellowshipping--so--intelligence itself is marked as suspicious. 6.Ignorance, poverty, disease and mental disturbance are NOT worthwhile problems for charity, education or institutional asking for JW's. a.Building hospitals or colleges diverts precious time away from the JW ministry. Besides Paradise brings repair and perfection anyway. b.Becoming a physician, social worker, volunteer in the community or joining any established task-oriented organization DISTORTS rather than solves human problems because Armageddon is coming so quickly anyway. c.Humanitarian activity, disaster relief, and institutional charity promote secular and false-religious creeds instead of Jehovah's solutions. d.Personal financial concerns aren't important to the congregation. Your finances are a symptom of End Times only, not a focus of brotherly remedy. 7.Human perception is untrustworthy, corrupted by sin and dangerous a.Only thinking the thoughts which come from official Governing Body writings are safe. b.Personal opinions, life experience, and original analysis constitute hubris and running ahead of Jehovah's plan for his people. c.Calling attention to doctrinal irregularity, questioning "new light" and repeated calls for clarification red-flag spiritual weakness and danger. 8.There are no "Good" people in any other religion. If they were good they'd join Jehovah's Witnesses. a.The appearance of goodness, charity, benevolence and selfless devotion to others by Catholics, Baptists, Buddhists or other religious types is only an artificial misunderstanding of their human ignorance of Jehovah's long-lasting solutions to mankind's true problem: sin and death. b.Most do-gooders are religious fakes, imposters and money-grubbing charlatans who should be exposed and not admired. c.There is no one good except Jehovah anyway 9.Everything you read, see, experience and think is a distortion by Satan for the purpose of deflecting you from Jehovah's TRUTH. a.Watchtower study replaces the corrupt images, thoughts, and ideas with clean, purified and approved versions b.The human heart is desperate and corrupt. What you "feel" is probably sin and not compassion. Don't trust yourself to know anything. c.The entire world is in the control and power of invisible demonic forces hellbent on destroying humanity 10.Doubting Jehovah's organization isn't the result of logical awareness of their errors a.They never said they were perfect b.Jehovah eventually repairs any damage c.Disloyalty to the Organization is disloyalty to Jehovah himself. Armageddon will settle that score. In view of the Ten reasons above there can be no doubt that Jehovah's Witnesses have REALITY completely REMOVED from their awareness. Being denied a right to reality is to have one's mind stolen from them. Without having your own mind to think your own thoughts you cannot be an actual person or individual. The only thing left is to belong to a group that thinks FOR you and instructs you what to do and say and be. Without that GROUP there is only terror, doubt, emptiness, and longing to be cocooned by the "other". And you wonder why it is hard to break free? You wonder why your JW family member won't listen to reason? You wonder why the obvious isn't at all obvious? Well, now you know! JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES SIMPLY CAN'T FACE REALITY. For them......it just doesn't exist! It has been surgically removed by the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses organization. (On purpose!)
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CRAZY THINKING and how to AVOID it
by TerryWalstrom in1. asking the wrong people the wrong questions in search of the wrong answers based on the wrong presuppositions.. 2. failure to realize you can't drive without a steering wheel by facing the loss of autonomy, individualism, and self-respect.. 3. self-righteousness in failing to acknowledge poor choices you made coupled with a lack of curiosity as to why and how you made them.. 4. unwillingness to learn what a category fallacy** is in searching for the "true" religion or "correct" interpretation of scripture, etc.. 5. blindness to the autonomic response mechanisms drilled into you by the watch tower society making non-bias impossible for you.
replacing the jw's with some other nitwit scheme of absolute certainty.).
6. failure to let go of black and white thinking by learning how to see the gray areas between extremes.
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TerryWalstrom
1. Asking the wrong people the wrong questions in search of the wrong answers based on the wrong presuppositions.
2. Failure to realize you can't drive without a steering wheel by facing the loss of autonomy, individualism, and self-respect.
3. Self-righteousness in failing to acknowledge poor choices you made coupled with a lack of curiosity as to why and how you made them.
4. Unwillingness to learn what a Category Fallacy** is in searching for the "true" religion or "correct" interpretation of scripture, etc.
5. Blindness to the autonomic response mechanisms drilled into you by the Watch Tower Society making non-bias impossible for you. (i.e. replacing the JW's with some other nitwit scheme of absolute certainty.)
6. Failure to let go of black and white thinking by learning how to see the gray areas between extremes. (Repair your rational thinking by constant drills.)
7. Obsessing over the inconsequential while neglecting the essential. (Food, shelter, clothing, money, education, career, relationships, recreation---which is which? Which come first? How?)
8. Developing the habit of surrounding yourself with people who will urge you to get out and DO something rather than holding your hand indefinitely.
9. Learning Self-Esteem comes from what you DO and not who you think you are.
10. Not embarking on a Self-Improvement regime every day of your life improving all skill sets equally such as Vocabulary, writing, reading, math, education, etc.
And . . . a special bonus!
FAILURE TO AVOID CRAZY-THINKING by spinning off on wacky reading material, conspiracies, fads, entertainment rumors, gossip, UFO's, Bigfoot, dead/alive Elvis, apocalypse speculations, food faddist lifestyles, etc.)
(Category fallacy: http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_categoryerror.htm
a semantic or ontological error in which "things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another", or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.)
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Step 1. Steal a cadaver (Check!)
by TerryWalstrom ini live in fort worth.
for a time, so did serial murderer henry howard holmes.henry, as a young medical student in 1861, was a future serial killer.
did he know his destiny?
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TerryWalstrom
I have many videos on YouTube on the subject. One author complained how many dead end stories had been published by reporters who didn't bother doing the actual on-the-ground legwork. These reporters made up lurid headlines and tickled the sensational aspect.
He tried to find stories by reliable reporters willing to chase down leads, witnesses, and verification.
Journalism hasn't really changed all that much today. -
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Step 1. Steal a cadaver (Check!)
by TerryWalstrom ini live in fort worth.
for a time, so did serial murderer henry howard holmes.henry, as a young medical student in 1861, was a future serial killer.
did he know his destiny?
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TerryWalstrom
Diabolical, endlessly inventing, lying, back-stabbing, contriving, cheating...
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Step 1. Steal a cadaver (Check!)
by TerryWalstrom ini live in fort worth.
for a time, so did serial murderer henry howard holmes.henry, as a young medical student in 1861, was a future serial killer.
did he know his destiny?
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TerryWalstrom
Author Adam Selzer goes into as much detail as can be extracted from various sources still extant. One big problem comes from the ill preserved newspaper sources.
Holmes, he writes, is said to have killed more than 200 people in his “murder castle,” but he was only actually accused of killing one person at that location.
This fellow had one of the most extraordinary careers in murder as far as variety and bizarre circumstances.
I could spend days going through the newspapers if I could locate them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peX8B9DcLn8 -
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Step 1. Steal a cadaver (Check!)
by TerryWalstrom ini live in fort worth.
for a time, so did serial murderer henry howard holmes.henry, as a young medical student in 1861, was a future serial killer.
did he know his destiny?
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TerryWalstrom
Step 1. Steal a cadaver (Check!)
________________________I live in Fort Worth. For a time, so did serial murderer Henry Howard Holmes.
Henry, as a young medical student in 1861, was a future serial killer.
Did he know his destiny? Hard to say.
Here is what is known and true.
Henry was a medical student with a wild imagination. There were all these dead bodies lying about and nobody to exploit them for profit. If only somebody could concoct a scam and collect money from insurance companies using those corpses...hmmm?
Henry to the rescue!
Step 1. Steal a cadaver (Check!)
Step 2. Steal the identity of the deceased. (Check!)
Step 3. Take out a life insurance policy. (Check!)
Step 4. Name yourself beneficiary in case of death. (Check!)Let’s cut to the chase...you’re getting ahead of the story. Obviously, Henry was able to collect plenty of money. After all, he could provide proof of death, right?
The fun part was setting up an accident and positioning the body. Sound like fun? Well, for a future serial killer it sure would be!
This sort of fraud was more exciting than some of Henry’s earlier schemes, profitable as they were, such as Mail Order cures for alcoholism. (Synopsis: stop drinking.)
Then there was the wonderful contraption Henry invented which extracted “illuminating gas” from the water. (Do I have to tell you our boy had piped in natural gas from the city pipes?)
Investors were impressed.
The money rolled in. Henry rolled out.
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As Henry grew more sophisticated in his thinking, he turned to marrying rich widows!
These women’s assets found their way into our ‘hero’s’ bank account shortly before the honeymooners went off on a trip around the world. Henry always came back. The spouse never did turn up! Divorce was unnecessary.
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30 years passed from the corpse theft days. All sorts of criminality found its way into Henry H. Holmes’ biography. Cattle theft was the least exciting, while hotel building proved to be one of the grandest and most grisly schemes this man’s twisted mind embarked upon for murderous purposes.
As I told you at the start, I live in Fort Worth. For a time, so did serial murderer H.H. Holmes. In fact, Henry built a fabulous hotel in my fair city. The year is 1885 and the location was at the corner of today's Commerce St. and 2nd St.
H.H.Holmes had married a railroad heiress in Cowtown and took possession and control of his wife and sister’s inheritance, their property, (before he murdered them).
You can read the story here on the front page of the Fort Worth Gazette.
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth110022/m1/1/
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Upon prime downtown real estate Henry constructed a hotel which would house his own version of a chamber of horrors.
Let’s call this building what newspapers later called it, TEXAS MURDER CASTLE.
Another newspaper called it THE RUSK STREET FIRETRAP. Even that long ago, media couldn’t get its stories straight. (Commerce St. was the wrong street name, Rusk was the right name.)
We can gather facts about his macabre building by comparing it with a later hotel he also constructed during the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893.
To wit:
“The street-level floor was for shops and his pharmacy, while the upper two stories were hotel rooms (or boarding house rooms) and his office. However, the upper two stories were laid out like a maze, with doors that opened into walls, stairways that went nowhere, and gas pipes which he apparently controlled to suffocate people. There were also chutes and a dumbwaiter, purportedly intended to deliver the bodies of his victims to the basement where he might bury them, burn them in his own crematory ovens, or dissect and render them (in acid) in order to convert them to skeletons to sell to medical schools. He apparently lured quite a number of women into these torture chambers / charnel house, as well as a few men, before he was eventually found out.”
The problem with being a serial killer, fraudster, thief, and Con man is having way too many loose ends to tie up before somebody gets wise and comes after you.
H.H.Holmes was going by the name of O.C. Pratt in Fort Worth and one of his illicit enterprises involved a far more serious crime than serial murder: Horse thievery!
It would not be an exaggeration to say, it was the horror at his making off with a railroad car filled with fine horses which got him run out of Fort Worth and eventually arrested in Chicago where his serial killing via Hotel Horror chambers brought him into the crosshairs of police.
His life’s work of death was thus interrupted before he could chalk up new outlines on the floors of his Ft.Worth Hotel.
Now, this is the story as it is commonly told locally. It isn’t quite correct.
According to historian and author Adam Selzer:
Throughout winter and spring, 1894, Holmes supervised construction of the new building in Fort Worth, which was, in fact, actually completed, though never occupied or used. Though about twice the square footage, being on a wider lot, it was almost exactly the same design as the Chicago castle on the outside.
Galveston Daily News reported “The grim, half-completed building nearby, (and) the dark alley give the place an uninviting appearance. The weeds grow above the spot and the smell of the surroundings is suggestive enough.”
The same article further noted that in the middle ages, the place would have been called “The Castle of Many Doors.” Rumors suggested there was a chute leading right to a sewer, which would have been a great way to dispose of a body.
Worth noting:
67 people who checked into the Chicago Hotel during the Word’s Fair never checked out or were seen or heard from again.
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For greater details about H.H.Holmes try this new book:
H. H. Holmes The True History of the White City Devil by Adam Selzer
https://www.amazon.com/H-Holmes-History-White-Devil/dp/1510713433/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494094821&sr=8-1&keywords=H.+H.+Holmes+The+True+History+of+the+White+City+Devil+Adam+Selzer -
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WE CAN'T BECOME OLD LOSERS
by TerryWalstrom ingod has never been just one idea.god is always changing in the mind of true believers to fit the current situation.it's like a virus.
adaptation is part of evolutionary principles.change is powerful.superstition has almost always played a part in manipulating public opinion around the exploits of ruling powers.however...in the 20th century, the hold of superstition was sorely tested and found wanting.
"god is with us" became threadbare.communism promised a worker's paradise.
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TerryWalstrom
GOD HAS NEVER BEEN JUST ONE IDEA.
GOD is always changing in the mind of true believers TO FIT the current situation.
It's like a virus. Adaptation is part of evolutionary principles.
Change is powerful.
Superstition has almost always played a part in manipulating public opinion around the exploits of ruling powers.
However...
In the 20th century, the hold of superstition was sorely tested and found wanting.
"God is with us" became threadbare.
Communism promised a worker's paradise. That meant you could have your reward without having to die first. The simple solution was to divest the Rich and distribute his wealth among the rest.
Easy peasy.
The Russian Revolution tested this notion. Where was that promised Paradise? It was all a lie.
In WWI Christian nations shot each other on either side of trenches until they all gave up and went home. Lots of dead Christians were buried, mourned, and awarded posthumous medals. Each battered combatant nursed their wounds and grievances for 'next time.'
WHAT HAD BEEN LEARNED?
If God was on "our side" why did things turn out so badly?
These nations weren't just governments. No, they were large populations of people who had to be kept together and united by some common beliefs. For perhaps the first time ever, not all of these beliefs were based on GOD as a central focus.
WWII tested ideas, ideologies, technologies, and Strong Leaders. Germany (Socialism), Russia (Communist Workers under Pappa Stalin) Japan (Emperor IS God) Italy (Socialism),
America (God is with us) all clashed and tested their claims of superiority.
The end of WWII left Russia badly damaged internally without the possibility of GOD having won the day. It was the STATE and Pappa Stalin.
Germany was ruined and fascistic Master Race self-belief had not worked. Only the socialist philosophy remained.
Japan's Emperor (God) had been humiliated. General MacArthur stepped in and a hybridized Capitalism was grafted in to heal the wounds.
Italy and the Fascistic cult of personality collapsed like a tent without a pole and the Catholic church rushed to fill the void.
America had the Atomic Bomb and Jesus. Chalk up a win in those columns!
Now why mention all this history? We all know these things, don't we?
My point is this, ideas are tested by history.
Jehovah's Witnesses have ideas and make predictions and history TESTS the validity of those assertions.
As old believers become disaffected apostates, NEW members take their place and easily accept the NEW lies with equal confidence.
GOD, as an idea, can be changed generation by generation as old true-believers stop believing and new eager believers take their place accepting the "adjusted" beliefs.
We are living in ADJUSTED times always. NEW ideas replace the old one which was proved wrong. Apostates become Atheists and nobody cares about them. New believers replace them.
Arguments, debates and disaffections were always and will always remain--BUT NONE OF IT MATTERS because new generations are eager while old generations are bitter.
Old ideas are worthless.
Old Losers are irrelevant.
WE CAN'T BECOME OLD LOSERS or we give up our effectiveness in controlling the mechanisms of change.
GOD HAS NEVER BEEN JUST ONE IDEA.
GOD is always changing in the mind of true believers TO FIT the current situation.
It's like a virus. Adaptation is part of evolutionary principles.
Change is powerful.
We become powerful when we take on the Governing Body on OUR terms and not theirs. We don't engage in debates over "interpretation" because that is the chief power of the Governing Body: they can print the currency which determins WHO Jehovah is and exactly what He says.
We can't do that.
What we must focus on is our power to EXPOSE THE LIE of interpretation and hypocrisy alone.
HOLD the GB and Jehovah's Witnesses up to their own "high standards" and demonstrate how they FAIL measured by their own standards.
Why?
Because it takes away the necessity of showing WE are right and they are wrong.It becomes a case of: IF you were right how ould you be so wrong.
There is a big difference.
Otherwise, like the idea of GOD throughout our history, the "TRUTH" will keep on changing and adapting to each new test which disproves the old one and new generations of converts will step in unwittingly and buy the new bill of goods. -
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Crow Woe
by TerryWalstrom in“oh mommy!” the little girl in the floral dress cooed to her mother.. i felt the same.. that splash of vivid brightness on such a perfect creature takes your breath away!the delicate robin whose crimson colored breast chased ugliness from sight delighted little children on starbucks patio.. better still, her nest in a nearby tree stirs a keen anticipation for summer’s hatchling sounds of chirpy appetites and a renewal of hope for our futures, the little things and we ourselves.. i barely spy her nest, exquisitely fashioned, basket-like; roundish and stout.
she flits charmingly now...and again keeping custodial observance of her eggs.
such treasures!
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TerryWalstrom
I suppose when you get right down to it, humans are so far removed (in experience) from the actual continuum of the Food Chain awareness of the EAT or BE EATEN dynamic has faded to black.
Those drives (even if hidden in the amygdala) lurk insidiously in our skull.
Humans possess two character traits I find absolutely baffling inside the same person at the same time: empathy and malice.
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“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle -
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Soon will be no choice but to invade North Korea.
by Witness 007 inthere is no way in hell that these brainwashed fools will cease making nukes.
their doctrines are based on "death to america"..."never surrender" they are much more messed up then iran!
war will be the final solution..
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TerryWalstrom
There will be no war. No invasion. This, as per usual, Kabuki theater (even if it is N.Korea.)
We justify spending on weapons using the threat of a 'crazy' and evil strong man.
The last time we were attacked domestically, we got the idea we needed to punish somebody even though the perpetrators died in the plane crashes.
Saddam was an evil strong man with WMD's. Except...well, you know.
He had zero to do with nine eleven. Oh, and those weapons?
Afghanistan is baloney. Iraq is baloney.
We supply weapons and support ISIS rebels in Syria.
Trump couldn't get one word of positive description UNTIL he launched 59 cruise missiles. Suddenly, he was tossed garlands, pats on the back, and the Russia conspiracy story is melting like an ice cream cone in August.
We ex-JW's were once held in thrall by a cult of men who made things up out of imagination as a pretext to get us to do their bidding.
We need to have learned something from that. (Like NOT letting it happen politically.)
