by "shadow elder".
before i express my opinion to the readers and contributors to this website (www.ex-jw.com), i would like to explain who i am and to present my bona fides as someone qualified to comment on this website and jehovah's witnesses in general.. first of all, i am an active jehovah's witness living just outside of new york city.
being a large metropolis, new york has many kingdom halls located within the city and several more in surrounding boroughs, counties, and suburbs.
Acknowledging the many lies perpetrated the JWs and the WTBTS - how can he still consider this "the Truth"? He must be heavily burdened with cognitive dissonance.
Oh - one more thing. He gave way too much personal information. Unless he was fabricating the details, he could be getting a visit from the gestapo brothers.
i had a friend named bob.
he was a damned wonderful person and i loved him very much, still do as a matter of fact.
thyroid cancer took him about 6 years ago and i count myself as lucky for the short time we got to spend and work together.
Sounds like ol'Bob was a real pistol.
are mind and matter the same if not how can they intereact?
dualism says they are different,, who is watching in our inner theater?
who hears the sounds from the ears, who or what does that?
I read Descartes Bones last year which gives a fascinating and illuminating account of his life, the French Revolution, religion vs. science and his life post-death. Highly recommended.
the last time i cried was about 5 weeks when i attempted suidice.. .
what was the last event that made you shed a tear?
.
March 17, 2012. Listening to a choir (on the radio) sing "O Danny Boy." Not connected to anything except the mournful words and music. It is about a father seeing his son off to war - and when his son returns, "If I am dead as dead I well may be" he will know his son is walking above his grave, and saying, "I love you" and his rest will be warmer and sweeter for it til his son joins him.
Pure sentiment - a great release.
someone started a thread about jumping ugly with jws who woke her up ringing her doorbell on a saturday morning.. then this thread was started by an ex-jw defending (or setting straight) misconceptions about jws and politics:.
.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/25/1077510/-some-facts-about-and-a-partial-defense-of-jehovah-s-witnesses#comments.
I like to see those with an uninformed, but tolerant POV about JWs get a glimpse into the reality of the cult. Couple of comments from ex-JWs (and a shout-out for JWN):
Numerous times. Against my Roman Catholic parents' wishes.
As a teenager and adult who ultimately chose to voluntarily attend their "bible studies", this was-and-is the M.O.:
1) Go out on "field service"(door-to-door proselytizing)
2) Try to establish a bond with the "householder"
3) Suggest a "bible study" with Watchtower material (never just the Bible alone)
4) Get the "study" to convert to through denigration of their current religion and love-bombing at the Kingdom Hall.
It is all about conversion. Nothing else. For the rank-and-file, that is.
The more "studies"(past converts and potential converts), the more bragging rights a publisher (active JW) has. And brag about it they do.
If anyone wishes to know more about the conversion practices of JWs, a great website to consult is Jehovahs-Witness.net/.
I like to keep up on the JWs, because it is a dangerous cult, and I still have family members that are still in it.
it leaves out the very real harm done by the Jehovah's Witness religion. Its adherents are literally brainwashed from a very young age into a world-view that forbids independent thought, secular education beyond high school, and friendships with non-believers. It restricts employment, leisure pursuits and auto-didactic curiosity.
Furthermore, their blood-transfusion policy has needlessly denied many people, mostly youngsters, the opportunity to access medical care that likely would save lives threatened by disease and accidents resulting in thousands of deaths.
Most of all, however, it has utterly and heartlessly destroyed family relationships because of unrelenting sanctions against association with non-believers, whether mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, spouses, and siblings through the practice of "shunning."
Depression, suicides, pedophilia and alcoholism are rampant. Many, many, many JWs are "in" and going through the motions only because they do not want to lose the fellowship of their families.
Once you are "in" you cannot leave without severe consequences, which are not revealed until it is too late to have second thoughts.
I speak from first hand experience. Please do not soft-pedal the evil of this cult.
this part;
(There is a whole lot of convoluted explanation about this that I do not care to go into.)made me lol. that shit about living forever aint logical. It don't work.
I left "the truth" at age 16 when my mother kicked me out of the house for willfully disobeyed her orders to not play basketball after school with the "worldly kids".
She packed my clothes up in garbage bags, and dropped me off at my fathers house.
I was so bitter about this, that I didn't talk to her for over 10 years. We were a very close-knit family, so this was a very painful thing for me at the time. Still is. I was cut off from everybody I knew.
She ended up drinking herself to death, dieing at age 54 of liver failure.
My step-dad was recently disfellowshipped for having premarital sex with a women that he fell in love with. I think it was the first time I ever saw him truly happy was when he was with that women. My Mother was awful to him.
Just thinking about this stuff makes me bitter and angry.
I'ts been 22 years since I've been to the Kingdom Hall.
wife of the army sgt robet bales, the one that killed 17 afghan civilians, was interviewed.
she steadfastly maintains that he couldn't possibly have done it.
"nothing could change my mind that he did not do this.
Part of shock is denial, but Bales admitted the act (leaving out the part about killing children), so she is going to have a tough time remaining in denial for very long.
someone started a thread about jumping ugly with jws who woke her up ringing her doorbell on a saturday morning.. then this thread was started by an ex-jw defending (or setting straight) misconceptions about jws and politics:.
.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/25/1077510/-some-facts-about-and-a-partial-defense-of-jehovah-s-witnesses#comments.
Someone started a thread about jumping ugly with JWs who woke her up ringing her doorbell on a Saturday morning.
Then this thread was started by an ex-JW defending (or setting straight) misconceptions about JWs and politics:
Raining here in sunny southern California. And cold.
Nice day to curl up with a good book or three. So far, dipped into a volume of W. Somerset Maugham short stories, (after reading the newspapers).
healthcare law repeal hurts deficits: cbo10:50am estby richard cowan.
washington (reuters) - an effort by republicans in the house of representatives to repeal the healthcare law enacted last year would add to already huge federal budget deficits, the congressional budget office warned on thursday.. in a preliminary estimate of legislation the house is set to begin debating on friday, the cbo said repealing the law that president barack obama and his fellow democrats enacted would "increase federal budget deficits over the 2012-2019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion.
" it said that figure would rise to $230 billion by 2021.. the cbo also said repeal would result in 32 million fewer people having health insurance.. the nonpartisan cbo analyzes legislation for its impact on government spending and revenues and develops forecasts of economic performance.. republicans won majority control of the house last november after campaigning on promises to slash the deficit, now at around $1.3 trillion.. during the 2010 campaigns for congress, republicans also said they would repeal the healthcare law, saying it places too many job-killing burdens on business and is unconstitutional because it requires individuals to purchase health insurance if they are not already covered.. democrats still hold a majority, although narrower than last year, in the senate, where any healthcare repeal bill is expected to be blocked.. on friday, newly installed house speaker john boehner plans to begin debate on republican legislation to repeal the healthcare law, which aimed to reduce medical costs and insure millions of people who currently can't afford coverage.. the law also prevents insurance companies from refusing to cover patients with pre-existing conditions.. house republican leaders have dismissed cbo's forecasts that the healthcare law would reduce u.s. budget deficits, saying there were too many unrealistic assumptions in such forecasts.. a house committee began meeting on thursday to put together rules governing the house floor debate of the healthcare law.
Here's a quote from a healthcare reform article in this morning's LA Times:
Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at MIT who helped fashion the pioneering healthcare reform act in Massachusetts says, "In today's political climate, once you have an explanation that takes more than two sentences, you're screwed, because someone else will have a one-sentence lie. This is about getting people to understand the law. We've just got to get it in place, let Americans feel the benefits, then they'll like it."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120322,0,901197.column
And a few choice quotes from the NYTRB that brings it full circle:
"The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit."
"It took years of indifference and stupidity to make us as ignorant as we are today..."
"I recall being stunned some years back when I read that a majority of Americans told pollsters that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11 terrorist attacks. It struck me as a propaganda feat unsurpassed by the worst authoritarian regimes of the past—many of which had to resort to labor camps and firing squads to force their people to believe some untruth, without comparable success."
"No doubt, the Internet and cable television have allowed various political and corporate interests to spread disinformation on a scale that was not possible before, but to have it believed requires a badly educated population unaccustomed to verifying things they are being told."
"To the ignorant and the bigoted, lies always sound better than truth:
Despite their bravado, these fools can always be counted on to vote against their self-interest. And that, as far as I’m concerned, is why millions are being spent to keep my fellow citizens ignorant.Christians are persecuted in this country.
The government is coming to get your guns.
Obama is a Muslim.
Global Warming is a hoax.
The president is forcing open homosexuality on the military.
Schools push a left-wing agenda.
Social Security is an entitlement, no different from welfare.
Obama hates white people.
The life on earth is 10,000 years old and so is the universe.
The safety net contributes to poverty.
The government is taking money from you and giving it to sex-crazed college women to pay for their birth control."http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/mar/20/age-of-ignorance/
The pervasive ignorance of our citizenry is going to bring us down.
with gas prices on the rise the republicans and fox news are blaming it on obama.. .
but wait, back in 2008 when gas hit $4.11 a gallon they said just the opposite about bush: the president has no control over gas prices.. .
sure, "we report the news, you decide".
>>>>>>Oil prices are multifactorial. Are you seriously claiming that lifting a ban and creating an expectation of increased future supply had nothing to do >>>>>>with it?
Just so you aren't seriously claiming it had everything to do with it.
