i know some of the people that come to this board, used to go to the beyondjw.com boards.
if you have then you might have known dana, aka wingedgoddess01.
if you did, i am sad to report that yesterday her 14 month daughter died.
Ken I am very sorry for you.
My heart is sad for her, if you could ask for an Dana for an address that I could send flowers of a card I would be in your debt. If that is not something that she is not comfortable with that please send my condolences.
jayson
when you were getting fed up with meetings before you gave up, was there anything you did to deliberately get on the brothers nerves?.
i turned up to a meeting once with jeans on, and a red top with cccp on it with the 'hammer and sickle'.
i also went to another bs group a few times so that if i wasnt at one group they'd think i was at the other and vice versa.
Guest 77-ditto
And, ( proving ) an elder a liar in front of his family and peers really won me brownie points...But, I'm not holding out for an invite to Christmas dinner...
I think what really sent it over the top was not that I called him anything. It was that I asked him, "why?"
hi there..im new to the board.
i am a coptic orthodox christian right now, and i am good friends with a witness.
unfortunately, i didnt know enough about my own religion before i started listening to my friend and i am starting to question my faith.
Cyre-
Good luck to you. I hope you are happy with the choices that you make. I married into a Jehovah Witness family. I refused to convert then. I stand up to them now.. My wife was Df'ed days before our wedding for refusing to submit to an elder interview (hanging) before we got married. As a result no one from her family came to the wedding. She walked down to me and gave herself away because there was no one else, and she would not let my father do it. This is the real church, this is what they are really about.
I know Iwasyoungonce....About them.
I am just now begining to understand just how bad it is, That is after being amongst them for 10 years.
Jayson
i was born and raised a dub, and i've never been able to understand how jw's can claim to be a worldwide united "brotherhood" when there is so much racism within the org.
when i was 14, my father noticed that i liked a black teenage brother in our hall.
there wasn't anything to it, we weren't dating secrectly or otherwise, i simply liked him and thought he was a cutie.
P.S. The text was "Principles of Sociology" 3rd Ed.
i was born and raised a dub, and i've never been able to understand how jw's can claim to be a worldwide united "brotherhood" when there is so much racism within the org.
when i was 14, my father noticed that i liked a black teenage brother in our hall.
there wasn't anything to it, we weren't dating secrectly or otherwise, i simply liked him and thought he was a cutie.
Lin,
I wrote this (It seems like forever ago) in college. It's just a draft but I hope that it is useful to you.
Why are people prejudice?
Prejudge attitude is the prelude to discrimination. Prejudice beliefs usually cause an individual or society to preconceived ideas about a person, race, or ethnic culture. It is most likely to be a negative position.
From a Sociological point of view there is a emanate need to remove all issues of individual discrimination and focus on institutional discrimination. Sociologists believe the psychologists perspectives to be lame. Psychologists focus on a belief that Authoritarian Personalities cause prejudices. Beliefs held are that these are nothing more than insecure conformists that wish to submit to authority and love superiors. They are unable to deal with ambiguity, are anxious, and need scapegoats to assure themselves that others not like them are inferior and they are just. They are usually of less education, lower intelligent, and of low social class.
Another psychological perspective is frustration and scapegoat. These people are frustrated and are unable to deal with the roots of their anger and their own shortcomings. They transgress the frustration to a scapegoat. Usually it is a different racial, ethnic, or religious minority. This kick the dog mentality allows them to vent frustration in a safe environment.
Both perspectives ignore society and institutional prejudices by focusing on the individual while ignoring the factors outside the individual.
There are three sociological perspectives on prejudice.
Functionalism
- this is the belief that prejudice is neither good nor bad. Instead the social environment shapes prejudice attitudes. This environment can be shaped to create either positive or negative feelings about people. It can create an "I win You loose" mentality. It creates strong group identities. It is dysfunctional in the sense that it destroys social relationships.Conflict Theorists of course claim that the secret elite society of capitalists intentionally and systematically pits groups against one another. This causes workers to not unite, never form a union or increase worker safety. Weakened by fighting amongst one another the capitalists sits back and makes profits. Unemployment is a strong weapon in the capitalist campaign to exploit the worker class. With a split labor force capitalists can keep labor costs low and create profits for themselves. Minority workers create a terrific reserve labor force. White workers feeling threatened by them help capitalists with this manipulative practice. African Americans, Latinos, and Whites are then only able to move up the social class ladder by doing so at the others expense. This keeps the workers frustrated with each other. Capitalists then create a scapegoat for them to vent on. Disillusioned they never unite to a common goal.
Symbolic Interactionism is the last sociological perspective. This is the belief that labels cause selective perception. This causes people to see somethings and blinds us to others. Racial and Ethnic labels are strongest. This would include terms such as "nigger," "spic, or "gringo". These words are used to belittle ethnic groups. Such words are meant to blind us with emotion, this blocks out rational thought about people. Symbolic interactionists believe that we are not born with prejudges. Instead they are learned.
Jaysons perspective on prejudice attitude
Society is ignorant to its prejudices. To it the prejudice attitude is a norm.
I also believe in functionalism. Discrimination has its functions for those who know how to use it. You first must install prejudice attitudes. The younger you start training a person to hate the more deeply rooted it will be ingrained. My warning to Society is that if you succeed then you will create a person with an "Authoritarian personality."
I think that some prejudices are O.K. The author talked about Barcelona. My experience like that was in Hawaii. I could relate to him.
why can't we all just drop it.
talking this to death won't change anything!!!!!!!!!
i don't understand the reason or need to "take sides".
I think it is disinformation. Argue the irrelevant. End my discussion.
does anyone know of incidents of child molestation outside of the witness org?
how many incidents do you know of?
details are not required (in fact not desirable), .
G dude! How many witnesses are there compared to the Global popualtion?
How many people do you know in the real world compared to the other world?
How honest and forthright is that offworld compared to the real world?
Have you been studing with Stark?
Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!
i have been out of the religion for over six years now.
in doing so, i think i have made my own share of mistakes and done my own measure of personal growth.
what i was wondering though, if you were to tell someone who just left the religion the most important mistakes not to repeat, and the most important goals to strive for.
I look at Jw's and ExJw's as alcholics and recovering alcholics. You can be ruined by addiction. You can be ruined by religion.
For me in my family I had to take control of my life. (After all I am responsibile for it.) That meant a choice between constant gossip and backbiting, or standing up to it, and calling a lie a lie. I have never met so many people so ready to accept a lie. And I cut ties with prejudice.
I have met some people who have no idea what "Unconditional love is." What can you say; Everything about me, and how I live is foriegn to them.
So I just give them a hug. I tell them that they are free to make choices. Then I ask 2 questions. "What do you need." and "How can I help you?" Thats all. With that many people are able to help themselves, free themselves, and begin to learn who they are.
I don't know how to balance a group like the Jw's if you will not submit. Yes, you can slip by, hide or pretend to be someone, or something your not. But I can't. I AM who I AM. I have no desire to be someone or something else. I love where I am in life and love what I do. I wish the same for everyone. And I hope you accept that you can have it all in life; So long as it is for your life. Try to change a JW? Instead I recomend going to a park and try to convert a tree. At least it has use for your breath.
Black Propaganda...Well, East Germany fell like a heart attack. Such is the fate of all organizations built on fear and propaganda. Where and when we don't know.
What would I say? I just did. Welcome all newbie's
this is a genuine question... i mean no disrespect to anyone...especially to my heavenly father....but i have this gnawing question in my head that just wont go away...... okay... with that out of the way.... let's take the holly and jessica story that hit the headlines in the uk recently...two innocent kids, murdered and left to decompose in a filthy mud trench....;or worse than that, the story about the two people in the usa who have been busted for running an internet child porn site that features pix of children...babies as young as five months... five months!!!!!!
!.....being sexually abused..... if i start to think about what these poor kids went through it drives me mad!
and then if i start to think about what some kids are still going through even as i write..... welli can hardly bear it!.
This is right up with churches taking money via holy extortion.
If God needs money so bad then he can get a f*&king job like the rest of us.
Who has stopped more evil in your life; Man Or God?
Who has done more damage in your life; Man Or God?
Maybe God is asking us WHY IN THE HELL DO YOU ALL KEEP SCREWING YOURSELVES?
If we want to see God then we are going to have to learn to stop doing the evil that we do. It is up to us to stop it. Also, it is up to us to stop doing it.
GOD is in us. So is the Countergod.
Internal faith I have; external belief I do not bet on.
my wife recently had her baby shower for the up coming birth.
now that we have not been witnesses for over six years, many of our relatives thought that we would not have much of a turn out.
the reason they would think this, is for the most part we do not do much with them any more and thus they have no clue of what kind of social life we have beyond the days they knew us in the religion.
Very good.
Then just a blessing for a happy, healthy, heartfeeling life for you and yours.
Jay
