Posts by cookiemaster

49

Dietary Quirks Among JWs

by millie210 in

i recently had to accompany an older family member out of state to a family reunion.

it was a big reunion and not much was overtly made of the fact that i am "misguided" and not attending meetings (lost soul that i am) which was nice.

the thing i noticed that i was most struck by was all the dietary quirks in evidence during our 3 days together.

My JW mother is a hypochondriac and a germophobe, and she was battled tens of make belief illnesses, among her real ones. When I was a kid, she practically gave away most of the family's savings on medicinal cures sold by a local JW homeopatic doctor (who was later disfellowshipped for being a con artist). Even today she still complains endlessly about certain imaginary smells in the house that bother nobody other than her and believes all kind of homeopathic crap.

She's tried all kinds of idiotic health diets that do nothing for you. Her only real diseases identified so far by doctors have been depression and pernicious anemia (which almost killed her due to initial blood transfusion refusal). I'm sure she has several mental disorders that exacerbate her hypochondria and germophobia. What's worse is that she continues to try to waste money on all sorts of miracle cures and diets presented to her by other JW nutcases. I've noticed that many JWs kinda encourage each other on these increasingly "special" dietary and medicinal paths.

22

Will they drink the Kool Aid?

by Hecce in

as you know the question regarding the “kool aid” is related to the tragic events at guyana and jim jones.

blind obedience and faith in this man resulted in a massive loss of lives.. sometimes we see the same pattern of blind obedience to the watchtower from the witnesses.

this could be on major items or small details.

cookiemaster

Two years ago my mother was ready to die by refusing a blood transfusion. I've begged and pleaded with her and eventually she did get the transfusion, thanks to which she's still alive today. Due to all the brainwashing, she felt so guilty that she told the elders what she did. She didn't want to admit that I've convinced her to take the transfusion, which would've meant my disfellowshipping, so they considered her unrepentant and said she's disassociated.

A few months later a girl from a neighboring congo was in a car accident. She was just 18 and in a coma. Her parents refused to allow the doctors to give her a transfusion. She died. I know of at least a dozen cases of JW deaths due to blood refusal, throughout the country, in recent years. I think thousands of JWs drink the kool aid worldwide, every year, at the cost of their lives.

23

Does anyone under the age of 25 know what KFC stands for? (What about WT or JW?)

by stuckinarut2 in

as we have seen, the society has so smoothly rolled out the rebranding of the organization in just a few short years!.

(in fact, i remember a thread post here a few years back, where it was mentioned that all halls are going to get the jw.org signs on them.

it was initially laughed off and doubted) https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/279409/jw-org-signs-put-on-all-kingdom-halls-new-directive.

cookiemaster

I'm 24, from Romania, and I know what KFC stands for. You make a very good point however. The more they rebrand, they further away they move from their previous names and identity, which means that fewer people will find out about their history and past transgressions.

11

Are JWs the most corporate religion?

by cookiemaster in

i find it pretty shocking how corporate the jw religion is.

i never saw it this way when i was in but now that i look at it from a different perspective, it seems quite clear.

much of the terminology used by jws is corporate inspired.

cookiemaster

Thank you everyone! Really insightful replies from all of you. I'm shocked by how blind I was to all this. The more you look into it, the more corporate it looks. Other aspects that seem corporate that I would mention is their affiliation with the UN and their stock investments in other companies, their greedy use of the JW workforce to create a real estate empire and others.

11

Are JWs the most corporate religion?

by cookiemaster in

i find it pretty shocking how corporate the jw religion is.

i never saw it this way when i was in but now that i look at it from a different perspective, it seems quite clear.

much of the terminology used by jws is corporate inspired.

cookiemaster

I find it pretty shocking how corporate the JW religion is. I never saw it this way when I was in but now that I look at it from a different perspective, it seems quite clear. Much of the terminology used by JWs is corporate inspired. It's also the case for their dress and grooming code, the hierarchy of the organization, the conventions and the talks there, even the goddamn name tags. Most of the things JWs do seems to be corporate inspired. The GB is the board of directors, there's equivalent of company memos, brochures, etc.

To me, it seems that in recent years JWs have been going even more corporate. The new style of conventions where talks often contain videos and presentations. The cart witnessing. The JW.Org pins. The entire re-branding they've gone through. The shift toward the focus on real estate money. The new style mid-week meetings. Everything seems to be going into an even more corporate direction.

To me, when you compare this to most other religions, it seems very bizarre and absurd. All religions are absurd in my opinion but at least some religions try to create a most mystically oriented image for themselves, but JWs seem to strive to be a corporation in almost all regards. What do you guys think? Is there any other cult or religion that does this? (Maybe Scientology?)

13

Thoughts from the International Summer Convention in Romania

by cookiemaster in

we just had a huge international convention here in romania.

at least huge by local standards.

22,000 in attendance in one location and around 44,000 throughout the country.

cookiemaster

Thanks everyone for your interesting replies. Yes, they still do the gift exchanges and the native costumes thing. The brothers and sisters here waited everyone at the airport dressed on full on native costumes. It was pretty cringy, especially as the clothing is traditionally quite thick and there was a heat wave going on.

The whole job thing is insane. They just demonize having a career and make it seem like any well paying job will demand of you to be there 100% of the time, not even being able to take a few hours off for a meeting, which is just false in most cases. The videos they present have such unrealistic scenarios, it's almost laughable. Even if some scenarios are realistic, it's often worth the effort to work more. Especially for people who have old or sick family members or other issues to deal with, and want to have physical and financial security.

They show these movies with JWs that live prosperous middle class lives while doing almost no real work and spending their time pioneering. That's not how the real world works in my experience.

13

Thoughts from the International Summer Convention in Romania

by cookiemaster in

we just had a huge international convention here in romania.

at least huge by local standards.

22,000 in attendance in one location and around 44,000 throughout the country.

cookiemaster

Steve2 - About 22,000 people attended the convention I was at and around 280 got baptized.

13

Thoughts from the International Summer Convention in Romania

by cookiemaster in

we just had a huge international convention here in romania.

at least huge by local standards.

22,000 in attendance in one location and around 44,000 throughout the country.

cookiemaster

We just had a huge international convention here in Romania. At least huge by local standards. 22,000 in attendance in one location and around 44,000 throughout the country. I went two days to make my parents happy and because they had no ride and it was far away. For some reason, you can only stay at borg approved hotels. The brother in charge of the accommodations in our congo said that it should be clear to everyone that the hotels on his list were approved by Jehovah himself and the rest were absolutely not, which I just found preposterous.

Then it was the convention itself. Almost every talk and video seemed to be about giving up your job. They've vilified having a career to ridiculous extents which I honestly don't understand. It's almost an obsession at this point. I know they want people dedicating their lives to the cult but who's going to donate when they're all going to be poor? Such great advice. My parents both followed it and now after a thankless life of pioneering they're in their 60s and depend on me financially.

Although, to be fair, almost everyone else seems to be ignoring this. One of the brothers that gave one of the talks against putting career first drives a 100 grand brand new BMW X5M. Living such a simple, bare necessities life. The cognitive dissonance must be strong in that one and in a bunch of the brothers and sisters that seemed super rich and yet very approving of this teaching.

I guess the Gibberish Buddies love them either way. The rich for their donations and the poor for their life of servitude. Another interesting thing was a talk about watching out for pedos. Basically, it was all about watching your children closely because there are many potential pedos. Nothing specific about pedos in the congregation, about ACR or how they refuse to report pedophiles to authorities. Interesting.

The new songs are ridiculous. One of them almost felt like something you'd hear at the end of a Disney movie and people almost started dancing to it. My life-long brainwashed JW mother was like "WTF is this song!". She couldn't believe they would make such a pop sounding song official.

The good part was that everyone has electronic devices now, so you don't stand out if you spend all the convention time on one. I played games all day, fell asleep in my chair a few times and almost finished reading a novel. Another highlight was the young, beautiful women at the convention. Too bad they're going to waste their youth and beauty slaving away for a cult.

Overall, the convention and the teachings seem to become more and more absurd. A brother was talking about how we need to follow anything the borg says, even if it sounds irrational and demands our death. It was very much a "WTF!" moment. It's absurdity, piled on more absurdity, in a "religion" almost unrecognizable from what it was even just a few decades ago.

Anthony Morris gave a couple of talks. They were pretty idiotic and he looked like he was about to have a heart attack. One was about a new indoctrination book for children, of course only available as a pdf because they don't bother publishing stuff anymore (first summer convention I attended in which no new physically published materials were offered) and another tried to convince that the end is here but was quite self-contradicting and irrational. Anyway, that was my weekend. How was yours? What do you think? Is this religion getting more absurd or what?

39

Are Jehovah's Witnesses a cult just as evil and dangerous as Islam?

by cookiemaster in

i know you might think i'm exaggerating but if you really think about it, maybe i'm not.

these two religions originate with the same ancient belief system.

islam is a dangerous middle eastern cult that seeks to control every aspect of its members' lives.

cookiemaster

Also, concerning Simon's point about being able to criticize today's Christianity without fear of violence, I would like to remind him that this was not always the case. Christianity was just as barbaric as ISIS in the past and the only reason why we can criticize it today is because people have fought for centuries for reformation and most importantly secularism. We live in secular societies, not Christian societies. It's only this wonderful invention of secularism that allows us to do that, because without doubt, a theocratic Christian society would be a nightmare. That was perhaps also my main point about JWs, so I would like to rephrase. Would JWs be better than Islam is they had their own theocratic society to run, with absolute legal and governmental power?

Also, you might try the counter argument that Islamists are dangerous to those that criticize them even in Western secular societies, but you have to consider that these people came from theocratic Middle Eastern societies by the millions and were never made to assimilate with the local culture, so they uphold the same behaviors as they had in their previous societies, or create entire secluded communities where they enforce their theocratic rule, like in Britain's Luton.

39

Are Jehovah's Witnesses a cult just as evil and dangerous as Islam?

by cookiemaster in

i know you might think i'm exaggerating but if you really think about it, maybe i'm not.

these two religions originate with the same ancient belief system.

islam is a dangerous middle eastern cult that seeks to control every aspect of its members' lives.

cookiemaster

Interesting replies. I think Simon misunderstood the most what I was trying to say but some of the others have as well. English is my second language so perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I was also referring to JWs potential for danger. They currently pose no danger but to themselves and the people they trick into believing their delusions. However, this is only because they've been founded in the secular West and have never had the opportunity to grow beyond the numbers of a small sect.

My point was to try to imagine if JWs had grown so much that they'd become the dominant religious group in a country and they'd assume theocratic rule over that country. Would you tolerate life in a society in which the congregation elders have life and death authority over you? A country in which the governing body would be the ultimate governmental and legislative institution? I think any society run by JWs would be just as bad as the Saudi Arabia of today. Of course they aren't as bad now because they're not legally allowed to, by virtue of being a minority group in a secular society, but their destructive potential is much higher.

As for Simon. Your notion that all Muslims are waging Jihad is ridiculous. Most of the world's Muslims are not waging any Jihad. It's not their Jihad that is the worst aspect of their religion but its total control over the life of its subjects and its ideological aspects that inevitably lead to the formation of theocratic societies instead of secular ones. For the rest that said I shouldn't call Islam a cult, I don't agree.

Most of the world's Muslims live in theocratic societies and in the few lucky Muslim countries where secularism was installed, there are countless pockets of fundamentalists, especially in rural areas, eager to punish those that aren't "real Muslims". There are entire Muslim communities in secular countries, even in the West, where barbaric practices are upheld. The example of Indonesia was given. Here's an interesting article on Indonesia and Muslims: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/rita-panahi-cut-indonesia-aid-until-sharia-law-barbarism-ends/news-story/5c9d670a653b11cb370e8bfd24590d16

I don't think Islam is anything but a cult, in any country. If JWs qualify as a cult, Islam certainly does, in all it's forms. You may choose to leave Islam in the U.K. and still have to fear for your life. Anyway, I see that people think that the thousands of deaths of children and young adults because their parents chose to refuse life saving medical treatment for them is not as bad as terrorism, even though in the West it results in even more tragic deaths that any terrorist attack. Regardless of that, what about the danger potential of JWs. Muslims teach that the penalty for apostasy is death. What would the penalty for apostasy be in a country run entirely by JWs?