Frazzled UBM

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Posts by Frazzled UBM

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  45

  It's official - JWs have least common sense of any religious group in US

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some fascinating results in the latest pew research.

  (how did i miss this before?

  ) including that jws rely on their religion the most of any group to tell right from wrong and rely on common sense the least.

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  Frazzled UBM

  Althansius - "When asked about the size of government, 50% of the JWs favored bigger government, while 32% were for smaller government.

  No doubt the Bethel lay-offs have contributed to their leftward political shift and the desire for more government among the JWs. But isn't it how they quickly turn to Satan's organization for assistance, rather than wait on Jehovah."

  I also was initially surprised by this but then reached the same conclusion as you: dependence on welfare is critical for survival for many JWs and this is part of the JW business model - an implicit subsidy from the government for the recruitment work.
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  45

  It's official - JWs have least common sense of any religious group in US

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some fascinating results in the latest pew research.

  (how did i miss this before?

  ) including that jws rely on their religion the most of any group to tell right from wrong and rely on common sense the least.

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  Frazzled UBM

  I found this very interesting - clicking on the trend button was illuminating - it shows that a lot of those who identified as JWs with doubts or had a semblance of independent thinking have left or been pushed out so the remaining people who idetintify as JW's are more hard core - so numbers who attend meetings, pray, rely on the religion for right and wrong and who absolutely believed in God etc. all went up since 2007, as did the proportion of those who are poor, uneducated and not white.

  It seems like they have circled the wagons and become more inward looking and weeded out dissenters or possible dissenters.

  They are also generally older and less have children under 18 (a very good thing). As noted, at 78%, they are the group most likely to rely on the religion (read the organisation) to know what is right and wrong. The number for Muslims was less than half (37%) with common sense being the commonest way Muslims worked out right from wrong.

  I found this very interesting given how much vilification of Muslims occurs on this site based on selective extracts from Muslim religious texts.

  I always felt that this way of viewing Muslims was a result of looking at Islam through a JW prism i.e. if the religion says it then the believers must believe it and act on it whereas my view has always been that it is only the extremists who act in this way and only on the basis of a very narrow selective version of the religion propagated by extremists.
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  61

  I'm Catholic and madly in love with a Jehovah Witness...

  by Luge62 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we are madly in love with each other and she is in the process of being divorced.

  let me make one thing clear i'm not the reason for the divorce.

  she attempted to reconcile with him but to no avail.

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  Frazzled UBM

  Luge - well that was quick. She had to make a choice and she chose the organisation. I know it hurts but better to know now rather than later. Still, this may not be the end of the story. The organisation has won round one but don't be surprised if she gets back in contact. She is probably torn between these two choices and she may come to realise that she has made the wrong choice. Wait and see - you never know. Frazzled
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  61

  I'm Catholic and madly in love with a Jehovah Witness...

  by Luge62 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we are madly in love with each other and she is in the process of being divorced.

  let me make one thing clear i'm not the reason for the divorce.

  she attempted to reconcile with him but to no avail.

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  Frazzled UBM

  Luge

  The best thing you can do is not take any of these posts as gospel but heed the warnings in them. You are taking on plenty of risk by getting involved with a JW but it could turn out a number of ways - it could go down the horror path painted by many or it could turn out fine as it has for me and others -- read back through some of my early threads to see how scary it can get and then the later ones to see how I made progress. The key though is to properly understand the BITE (behavioural, information, thought and emotional) control the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society exercises (principally through fear and psychological manipulation) over its membership and how that can impact the behaviour of your loved one and her family. It is a truly evil organisation. Do not let love blind you to the risks and dangers. My inactive JW wife and I are very happy after knowing each other for 10+ years and being married for 5. PM me if it would help.

  Good luck Frazzled
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  15

  Grandparents take disfellowshipped daughter to court to insist on right to preach to four year old

  by usualusername1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jehovah-s-witness-grandparents-ordered-to-keep-faith-to-themselves-1.3282193 .

  a pair of devout jehovah's witnesses have been ordered by a b.c.

  provincial court judge not to talk about religion in front of their four-year-old granddaughter.. the couple lost their bid for unsupervised access to the girl because they insisted on taking her to worship at their faith's kingdom hall despite the repeated objections of the child's mother.. the girl is identified only as a.w.

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  Frazzled UBM

  A good decision but still unfortunate that the court's treat the JW religion as just another religion rather than abusive indoctrination that is harmful to children. The mother obviously learnt this over time and realised the improtance of protecting her child from it. I hope in future that courts can see through the freedom of religion dogma and recognise that some so called religions are harmful to children and that children need protection from the indoctrination they practice.
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  38

  A nuclear war take place and a 1/3 of the world population is wiped from the face of the earth.

  by James Mixon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how many of you would return to jehovah, wt?

  better yet, how many jws would walk???.

  i do believe it will happen one day....

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  Frazzled UBM

  "I do believe it will happen?" Please spare us your delusional thinking. We survived MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) during the Cold War and with every year that has passed since then the risk of nuclear war has diminished.
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  14

  My brother-in-law just graduated PSS

  by Frazzled UBM in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i was scrolling down facebook and i saw that my brother-in-law was getting lots of likes and congrats (including sadly from my wife) for graduating pss.

  initially i thought peter pan (he is incredibly immature for a 23 year old) had gone against character and completed some sort of educational or vocational course until i found that pss stood for pioneer service school.

  i was tempted to comment how sad this was but instead commented that "no matter how much you do they will always make you feel like it is not enough".

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  Frazzled UBM

  stan - you are right - Filipino JWs don't shun disfellowshipped family members but others in the congregation do. Good luck with bringing her over to the UK.
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  14

  My brother-in-law just graduated PSS

  by Frazzled UBM in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i was scrolling down facebook and i saw that my brother-in-law was getting lots of likes and congrats (including sadly from my wife) for graduating pss.

  initially i thought peter pan (he is incredibly immature for a 23 year old) had gone against character and completed some sort of educational or vocational course until i found that pss stood for pioneer service school.

  i was tempted to comment how sad this was but instead commented that "no matter how much you do they will always make you feel like it is not enough".

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  Frazzled UBM

  So I got home expecting a reaction from my wife but nothing - she hadn't seen my fb comment I suspect. I then checked my fb account to see the reaction and saw that I had a like for my comment. "Ah" I thought "an apostate on fb" but then I realised that it was another member of my bro-in-law's PSS graduasting class who had posted the "like". So much for my comment causing congitive dissonance - these people are so far gone that they think that a comment suggesting they can never do enough is a good thing. Very sad.
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  14

  My brother-in-law just graduated PSS

  by Frazzled UBM in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i was scrolling down facebook and i saw that my brother-in-law was getting lots of likes and congrats (including sadly from my wife) for graduating pss.

  initially i thought peter pan (he is incredibly immature for a 23 year old) had gone against character and completed some sort of educational or vocational course until i found that pss stood for pioneer service school.

  i was tempted to comment how sad this was but instead commented that "no matter how much you do they will always make you feel like it is not enough".

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  Frazzled UBM

  Mad irishman - maybe you are right, it was crappy but it was also true - he might think that by Pioneering he will be doing the right thing but it won't be long before he is made to feel that whatever hours etc. he has been putting in it is not good enough because -- making the r&F feel bad about themselves is what the org specialises in...it was my attempt at sowing some cognitive dissonance...it just turned my stomach to see my wife Liking this state of affairs and other people congratulating him on something that is self-evidently not a good thing for him. As for being kind, like they say in the classics: "sometimes you need to be cruel to be kind". Frazzled
• 
  14

  My brother-in-law just graduated PSS

  by Frazzled UBM in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i was scrolling down facebook and i saw that my brother-in-law was getting lots of likes and congrats (including sadly from my wife) for graduating pss.

  initially i thought peter pan (he is incredibly immature for a 23 year old) had gone against character and completed some sort of educational or vocational course until i found that pss stood for pioneer service school.

  i was tempted to comment how sad this was but instead commented that "no matter how much you do they will always make you feel like it is not enough".

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  Frazzled UBM

  Magnum - my wife and I live in London - she is Filipino - I am Australian. I don't mind assisting the family as the Philippines doesn't offer the same opportunities as London but I do get annoyed when family members are not doing everything they can to become self-sufficient. I would be very happy to provide money so my brother-in-law could study something to improve his capacity to work but that ani't going to happen anytime soon. My father-in-law is to blame for the cult's influence over the family. They lost one family member due to this cult (the elders pushed her so far into a corner she took her own life) but he would never recognise this and so now he has pushed his youngest down the Pioneer route. Very sad.

  Kate - my wife has more money in the bank than I do because she keeps what she earns, I give her a monthly allowance and I pay the mortgage and all the household outgoings. It works for us because when we need money for holidays or other lumpy expenses it comes out of her account. In due course we will also use that money to buy property in the Philippines (hopefully on a beach).