JW Longo Story on ABC TV July 11th "Final Witness" (page 6)

The Oracle

The Watchtower Cult produces a-holes of the highest order.

This is just one of many real life examples that produce evidence that this is true.

Why are so many JW's pathological liars?

It may be because the demands are so heavy, and the consequences for non-compliance are so unpleasant that young JWs learn the easiest way out is to start lying. This pattern continues as they get older.

Lie to their parents about what they do at school, and who they hang out with.

Lie on their service timesheets.

Lie when accused of wrong doing.

Lie Lie Lie.

As a former elder I was constantly shocked by how easy it was for the rank and file JWs to lie through their teeth when they got in trouble. Even fellow elders would lie over the most ridiculous things.

Without a doubt the single biggest difference I find between the real world and the JW world is the honestly level. In the real world people simply don't need to lie to get through life. Don't get me wrong - there are plenty of liars in the real world too - but it depends what kind of people you gravitate too and surround yourself with. There are a lot of very honest and decent people in the world...you just need to find them and make them your friends.

Peace to all,

The Oracle

whathappened

I watched the show last night and thought it was excellent.

I'm in total agreement that if she had been of another religion she probably would have left him after finding out he was a liar and a thief. She probably felt since Jehovah hates a divorcing, she had to stay. Poor woman and so sad about the children. Another sad tale about lives destroyed by this horrible cult.

I Want to Believe

I wonder how much he really believed of JW teachings and how much was just pretending... like did he think his family would get a resurrection and he was doing them a favor? Did he believe, as a DF, that God was about to kill him (soon!) so he might as well live it up? How much did his JWness play into his actions do you think?

kurtbethel

I watched it and started wondering where he got the training to be so adept at lying and putting on appearances, and then I remembered my study...

Joepublisher1

I think the most serious matter that any JW should come to realize [if they even watched this], is that the religion that they belong to has some of the most dangerous people in it AND because JWs are constantly fed a daily diet of how "special" their religion is - the only true religion displaying 'the fruits of the spirit' - they can drop their guard against members like this who are pathological liars! Liars like Christian Longo are what they call "convincing" liars and are VERY, VERY good at it. They will use smooth words and cunning to deceive just about anyone, but esp. those who are gullible! It pays to have a healthy dose of skeptism about everyone and anyone today - even those in your religious group! btw: Does anyone have firsthand knowledge of Christian Longo's immediate family? The reason I ask is because - as we found out - Casey Anthony [a pathological liar herself] comes from a family of liars and Casey learned the art of lieing from a very young age!

LongHairGal

BA:

I watched this show last night and got that JW feeling of 'perfection' and how this guy's image was paramount, meanwhile god-knows what was going on inside his head. Of course, I don't think it's fair to blame the religion for this tragedy, even though some would argue that certain factors didn't help.

I almost puked to myself when one of the women (sisters) were saying how they looked like the perfect family and the wife looked perfect with the 'nails done', ad nauseum. People are always heard to say this whenever there is a tragedy in somebody's family and I often wonder if the outward seeming "perfection" in any family is a direct proportionate contradiction to how horrible everything is behind closed doors.

Even though I feel sorry for the wife, I have more pity on the innocent children who couldn't run anywhere.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Sad story. Of course JWs will say, "things like this can happen in any religion." That means that JWs really are just "any religion." There is no special holy spirit or sky-daddy that is working extra hard to keep the KH clean or protect this woman and children. The frauds committed by this guy were handled first by the police, then the congregation DFd him afterward. The elders didn't discover any wrongdoing until after "Satan's system" caught up to the guy. Jehovah was totally asleep at the wheel if JWs think he's busy cleaning and protecting the congregations.

Like The Oracle said, the dude was probably so accustomed to turning in fake time reports at the KH that he thought he could also get away with cashing fake checks at the bank. Maybe he thought that Armageddon was sooo close, the law would never catch up to him.

I thought it was interesting in the story that they included the remark that his being DFd made it difficult for him... but also make it very difficult for her and the children. Isn't that often the case? The husband is in big trouble, but the wife and kids also get punished when they need more support than ever. And what did the DFing accomplish? Besides punishing the family, it probably was the straw that pushed this troubled and criminal man over the edge into dangerous craziness. As is sometimes the case, after somebody is DFd for doing one thing wrong, they go off the deep end, thinking "I'm already DFd, what more can they do to punish me further if I ___ now?" In my opinion, rather than DFing, the congregation should have demanded professional evaluation, professional marriage counselling, or something like that.

As Flipper noted, JW wives are required to stay submissive to their husbands. Since he 'evidently' hadn't committed adultery or been physically abusive, she would have had no grounds to leave him according to WT. So, she was stuck in a JW-enforced dangerous situation. She probably had married young, had no 'higher education' nor valuable work experience, so she probably felt helpless at the thought of taking the children and leaving the doomed situation.

flipper

BTTT, Peace out, Mr. Flipper

Shawn10538

I watched last night and was totally unaware that it was going to be a show about a JW family. I thought it was going to be about Scott Peterson, and case VAERY similar to this one but invilving a family in California a few years ago. The similarities between this and the Peterson case are numerous. It just looked like a good show so I planned to watch it and all of a sudde I'm looking at a New World Translation (cheap paper back bersion) and a Watchtower magazine.

My take on this is that this guy was probably a typical A-type personality with lots of testosterone. He could probably tell you at any given moment how much he could bench. (Although the real guy was tall and thin). But I think to say he was a real c@ck-type. What Randay Watters would call primal. But his true desire was to be rich and successfull. Well being rich and successful requires an education usually. So that was one strike against him. The bit about having a construction clean up company was just TOO FUNNY! BTW

So he was in a religion that would never help him be rich. In fact, it would take him down to poverty if anything. So this was very frustrating. Then cam marriage and kids. But he was still not acknowledging to himself that what he really wanted in life was to be rich and live like a playboy, and his religion was not the type of thing that would help him analyze his true self. he was not self aware. And thre Watchtower just drained him. It took all his time and he couldn't break free to be as successful in the way he wanted to be. He was between a rock and a gard place and he didn't have the psychological or socialogical tools to help himself break free so he began to act out in ways that were unethical. First a little stealing here and there.

Then came his feeling entitled to be rich. he resented his clients taking their time to pay him and this just compounded his now psychosis of failure that he was running from. He was cornered. Between a religion that was blocking him on one side, his family was blkocing him and his own lack of education and self awareness was blocking him. He was really a trapped rat.

Shawn10538

Then there is the lies that we all know as ex JWs are so easy to tell. All JWs lie. They don't know they are lying. I didn't know what a liar I was until I left the organization. It was a slow realization. And when it started to make its wy into my life when I left I had to sit down with myself and make a stand for truth, even when it hurts, or the lie and the temporary relif they provide.

The lying in Longo's case became a real social evil. His lack of self awareness kept him in the dark about his real situation, and what he really wanted out of life. I can empathize with his feeling trappd. Being a JW with above average intelligence, plenty of ambition, I remember feeling trapped myself. Realizing that if I pursued alife in the full time service, what Jehovah most wanted from me, I would probably always be poor.

I remember that grubby feeling of poverty when I was a JW. I remember feeling trapped. Especially when I came home from bethel in 1996, I was so green to the world I didn't know which end was up. Education was what I chose to get myself out of poverty (that still hasn't really worked for me yet but at least I have the self awareness of my situation and I am pursuing the kind of life I want to pursue. This guy had major baggage. He had to unload it. And he did it the only way he could figure out. He was profoundly lacking in imagination unfortunately. Plus the psychosis had become so entrenched that he probably said to himself, "Either I am going to kill or die, but I am going to have my ideal life one way or the other." He chose to kill.

JW Longo Story on ABC TV July 11th "Final Witness"

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