I remember seeing Michael Jackson at the assemblies in the Woodland Hllls, CA Assembly Hall. He had a huge entourage of Witness groupies. Clearly, this behavior was inconsistent with their prohibitions against idol worship, so this is just another example of the hypocrisy that is pervasive within the JW cult.
144thousand_and_one
JoinedPosts by 144thousand_and_one
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Michael Jackson is ....
by morrisamb inis michael jackson disfellowshipped?.
an elder visited my witness mother earlier this week and told her, "he is definitely disfellowshipped?
" now it wouldn't surpise me but i've never seen this confirmed anywhere.
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Help or advise wanted
by JG ini'm a brand newbie to your forum.
i'm a "non believing" husband (12 years) of a returning witness.
i'm a devout "cat lick" and my wife is returning to the kh after 12 years.
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144thousand_and_one
JG,
I'll add my voice to the others here who are telling you to keep the kids away from the JWs at all costs. The damage that this cult will cause your children is irreparable, and should be avoided by whatever means necessary.
Don't plan on getting any help from the elders as to your position as head of the house. That's only relevant when the head of the house is a fellow JW cult member. These idiots will only create more havoc in your life and traumatize your children.
If I were you, I'd start planning your affairs for the very real possibility of a divorce. The JWs encourage it when "worldly" folks marry JW cult members, and you'd be wise to consult a lawyer and start tucking some cash away.
Good luck!!!
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Voice your opinion- Organised religion.
by jerome inmy main problem with organised religion is when totalitarianism comes into play.
thats when you get institutions like the catholic church in its earlier years.
that should never be allowed.. jerome
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144thousand_and_one
Imagine how much better society would be without religion? It devalues life IMHO because of the 'god will fix it' mentality and without it people would probably value life a lot more than they do. - - Simon
Great point, Simon! Also, many "religious" folks commit more sins than others because they feel they can do communion and it's ok with god, write your check to the church, eat the cracker and all your unethical conduct is forgiven.
Folks without religion have a much greater burden, because we can't wipe away the sin with a blank check and some stale crackers.
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If You Can't Face A Witness Funeral Again..
by Englishman ini posted recently about how i attended a humanist funeral for my pal knocker john.
no prayers, no hymns, just a natural goodbye that, in itself, contained a healing element that somewhat counteracted our feelings of grief.. then i think back to the funeral of my dad in the 80s.
it was, quite simply, nothing more than a commercial for the witness religion.
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144thousand_and_one
Eman,
New Years day, 2000, I attended the funeral of a JW family friend who was one of the earliest "authority figures" in my life. The funeral was at a kingdom hall and the only speaker was an elder.
The decedent was a devout JW elder, who gave his life to the JW cause. He was an extremist in every sense of the word. The talk focused not on the decedent as an individual; rather, it focused on why we all must live like he did if we want "everlasting life."
I could have summed up the message in a much more concise manner than the speaker. If you want the hope of living forever with a bunch of Jehovahs Witnesses, you must slave away every minute of your present existence in service to a corporation based in New York. There was no talk whatsoever about any aspect of the decedent's life other than his witnessing activity. Nothing about family, hobbies, friendships, social activities, etc. Nothing but "you need to spend more time going from door to door so that you can have everlasting life like Brother X." It is shameful, to say the least, to use a funeral as a forum for delivering marketing messages and service commands to the faithful.
The JWs were very friendly with me and no direct comments were made to me regarding my departure from their faith (I guess that's because I was never DF'd or DA'd). It's so sad; many of these folks are wonderful people who are deceived by a cult but nevertheless zealously practicing what they believe to be right. I hope that some day the organization is weakened sufficiently to enable these folks to see the organization in its true light.
When the time comes, Eman, you can honor your mother's wishes and maintain your own self-respect by having the funeral at a neutral place (i.e. not in the kingdom hall), and inviting an elder to give the main talk. This way, you can control the content, by scheduling speakers such as yourself and any others you want to eulogize your mother, in addition to the Witness speech. I've been to a funeral that was done in this manner, and the elder who gave the talk stuck to a scriptural message rather than a "do more for us" message. It worked out well.
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My Original Identity?
by Cassiline ini just purchased, combatting cult mind control by steven hassan.. while reading i came across this comment,.
usually i am able to assist a person in making a dramatic recovery to his original identity.. -steven hassan.
i reread that statement over and over.
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144thousand_and_one
(((Cassiline,)))
I was also born and raised in the JW cult. But my perspective differs greatly from most of the other similarly situated individuals who have posted on this thread to this point. I NEVER bought what the JWs sold; I was an unwilling participant from day one, subjected to physical and emotional abuse as a result of my defiance. Sure, I feigned cooperation and belief in order to minimize the abuse, but my heart was never part of that cult. At the age of 14, I rejected it all and stopped attending meetings/field service, and paid the price for it. It just got to the point where listening to the endless streams of verbal effluent that spewed from the mouths of idiots at the podium was far worse than anything my parents could dish out.
Therefore, I have neither a "pre-dub" nor a "post-dub" identity. I'm just a guy who survived a horrible childhood disease known as Jehovah's Witnesses.
In some respects, I owe much of my success in life to the Jehovahs Witnesses. I used the extreme anger and negative energy they created in me to motivate me to excel academically, professionally, and physically. However, the WTS shouldn't be expecting a "thank you" card from me. Although most of that negative energy has since been consumed and used in a mostly positive manner, I still have some residual effects that surface on occasion and cause unhappiness.
Personally, asking myself "what might have been" serves only to exacerbate that residual negative energy, so I avoid asking that question and instead focus my energy on my future.
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DATELINE: BLACK ART OF PROPAGANDA
by You Know inhardly anyone has an honest opinion about anything of importance that wasnt craftily pre-packaged and handed to them by someone else whose job it is to craft public opinion.
the intention of the media is to present the illusion of impartially informing, all the while pandering to prejudice and ignorance in order to persuade to a particular point of view.
datelines presentation of the watchtowers child abuse issue was a case study in the black art of media propaganda.. from the very beginning of the presentation dateline was intent on giving the public a negative impression of jehovahs witnesses by portraying us all as oddball crackpots whose religion revolves around the doctrine that we dont celebrate birthdays and that all non-believers are possessed by the devil and that we want them all to die.
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144thousand_and_one
Aramaya25:
You are a perfect example of what happens when folks adhere to the Society's admonitions against education. Go back to your corner and put your dunce cap back on. Your literacy does not meet 5th grade standards.
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Dateline Dissapearing Act?
by cornish inim just starting to get this suspicious feeling.. .
why is it that there is no mention of last tuesday's sceening on the dateline page?.
all other recent shows have some sort of mention,and are even on streaming audio,prehaps they will get round to doing it for this one,but i,m sure they had the highlights to last weeks show up and running by saturday.. why am i suspicious?.
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144thousand_and_one
I forgot to mention one very important consideration. The media is more powerful than any lawyer could ever be. If the WT sued NBC, NBC would most likely retaliate by, among other things, using a team of investigative reporters to uncover additional news stories that would adversely impact the WT's public image.
I don't like the WT, but I'll give them credit for being wise enough to avoid a hopeless battle with the media.
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Dateline Dissapearing Act?
by cornish inim just starting to get this suspicious feeling.. .
why is it that there is no mention of last tuesday's sceening on the dateline page?.
all other recent shows have some sort of mention,and are even on streaming audio,prehaps they will get round to doing it for this one,but i,m sure they had the highlights to last weeks show up and running by saturday.. why am i suspicious?.
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144thousand_and_one
Gopher, the show was indeed a ratings success. The operative word here is "was." Why would Dateline want to continue to advertise a show that has already aired?
Sam, how do you know that JW legal works for free? Have you seen their financial statements? They don't disclose them, and I bet that if they did you would find that many of the people you and many others thought were volunteers are highly compensated. This would explain their refusal to publicly disclose this information.
Yes, a WT legal challenge is certainly a possibility. But they would most likely lose, and spend a lot of money doing so. Baseless speculation about the power of the WT legal team serves to intimidate apostates from exercising their rights to freedom of expression, and helps the Society's cause.
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Dateline Dissapearing Act?
by cornish inim just starting to get this suspicious feeling.. .
why is it that there is no mention of last tuesday's sceening on the dateline page?.
all other recent shows have some sort of mention,and are even on streaming audio,prehaps they will get round to doing it for this one,but i,m sure they had the highlights to last weeks show up and running by saturday.. why am i suspicious?.
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144thousand_and_one
William, thanks for the words of wisdom!
Folks, the WT corporation is an insignificant ant compared to NBC. If NBC had doubts about its legal position, they wouldn't have aired the show.
How many people that you meet are really interested in the Jehovah's Witnesses? For the vast majority of the public, Jehovah's Witnesses are nothing but fodder for jokes, or an occasional nuisance. NBC bases its decisions on ratings and profits, not fear of a cult's legal department.
The JW legal department benefits from this sort of hysteria. Let's not help them out.
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Who's Saying What?
by Psychdigg ini have been reviewing my tape of the dateline program and i will make some comments in depth.
however i have a question?.
in the call to the legal department at the watchtower did the person representing the watchtower identify himself by name?
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144thousand_and_one
After seeing him [Bill Bowen] in the Dateline program he reminds me of everything that is wrong with Jehovah's Witnesses. -- Psychdigg
Psychdigg, you're right. How wrong it was of Bill Bowen to speak out against an organization that allows child molesters to go from door to door preaching about morality. What a rotten thing Bill Bowen did by standing up to an organization whose policies appear to have protected pedophiliacs at the expense of their victims.
Psychdigg, have you ever engaged in any inappropriate conduct with children?