I also want to mention Steven Hassan's second book "Releasing the Bonds: Empowering people to think for themselves". Lots of suggestions in that book!
detective
JoinedPosts by detective
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20
How to get someone out?
by Hyghlandyr ini am seeking information on stories of those who have assisted relatives or friends out of the organization.
particularly i would like books, or websites, or personal experiences, suggestions on step by step methods, to carefully present ideas to those who are staunchly pro jw, without alienating them further.
i am especially interested in situations in which a df person was able to finally break down the barriers.
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Kinky details to JW boys death
by Kep inthis boys disappearance was big news in nz.. searches were done a number of times in the area.. finally his body was found.. this article has just appeared with some rather unusual details surrounding his disappearance.. http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,1159345a11,ff.html.
you might have to key in the full address to open the article, but i've pasted it as well.. teen went missing after prank .
07 april 2002 .
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detective
I'm not actually suggesting that anything even remotely inappropriate resulted from the pranks but I would like to point out that if you substitute the title elder with priest, more than a few eyebrows would be raised.
Just another point of view.
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More JW urban legends
by NikL inwell here is a new batch of jw urban legends (oops, i mean experiences) i just got in the e mail.
thought i would share the joy and lighten your day ;-).
a sister took her granddaughter to the circuit assembly with her.. later that evening at home, the sister told her granddaughter to get .
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detective
Love that last story there. I'm not really sure I see the mythic quality of it though.
A woman gets followed and harassed on a bus? Yeah, so? If he was following her and harassing only because she was a witness then she must have been butt ugly because there isn't a woman I know who can't name their own personal horror story of harassment- particularly if they take public transportation.
Getting harassed by a crazy person on a bus. What a surprise, Opie.
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JW email poetry....<gag>
by Pathofthorns in> > subject: "he doesn't serve god" .
> > even though this is just a poem, we know from experiences that we read .
>in> > > the publications that this has indeed been the sad outcome for .
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detective
This stunning poetry reminds me of a quote I pulled off the old greatcrowd site.
Taking anyone from the world is settling for not even 2nd best, and isn't worth it.
It's amazing how someone can couch their words of bigotry and hate in a piss poor rhyme scheme and actually pretend it's art. -
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JWs and Blood Transfusions
by MavMan inthese are some excellent links for those that are investigating the pros and cons of blood transfusions.
the bloodless medicine & surgery institute .
the nj institute for the advancement of bloodless medicine and surgery .
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detective
Again you miss the point, yoyo.
You are trying to derail the validity of the argument against watchtower blood policy by doing two things:
1)saying that blood transfusions will not necessarily save lives
2)by saying that witness refusal to have transfusions has contributed to modern medicines exploration of blood alternativesBoth points, unfortunately, are irrelevent to the concern over watchtower policy.
You have admitted that:
*there are no blood fractions in the bible
And yet you would have us believe that some blood parts, after fractioning, are no longer blood. At the same time, some blood parts after being fractioned remain "blood" and are therefore unacceptable to God.
Just a reminder... there are no blood fractions in the bible.
So, Mavman, why does God want hemophiliacs to live but Leukemia patients to die?
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JWs and Blood Transfusions
by MavMan inthese are some excellent links for those that are investigating the pros and cons of blood transfusions.
the bloodless medicine & surgery institute .
the nj institute for the advancement of bloodless medicine and surgery .
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detective
You're missing the point of the blood issue, Mavman. The blood issue is about a cruel ban on life saving medical treatments that the Watchtower inflicts upon it's adherents. In addition to being an act of manslaughter, they don't even have a scriptural basis for their claims that some fractions are acceptable and others are not! MANSLAUGHTER. That's what this is about.
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Amway and JW's
by apostate man inhttp://www.angelfire.com/or/amwaydreamers/index2.html .
i found it very interesting that amway and jw's have so much in common.
this is from an x-amway site.
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detective
This made me think of a friend who is involved in Market America (the "unfranchise"). I decided to see if any of the cult pages had info on Market America. I found an interesting article on Equinox, which is a multi-layer marketing scheme similar to Amway.
The link to the article:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/groups/equinox/mills.aspan excerpt:
Other people say they've lost family members to Equinox. Charles*, an
artist in Connecticut, says his 29-year-old sister Katie and her
husband, Mike, joined Equinox more than two years ago. In a family of
11 children, Charles says, "Katie was my closest sibling. We talked on the phone two or three times a day.We biked across the country together." Now, the two rarely talk.He says Katie has begun to tremble and shake during conversations about Equinox. Once, Charles broke down crying, telling her, "I feel like I've lost my sister." He claims she yelled at him and told him not to
exaggerate.Charles has since contacted cult specialists for help.
According to him, Katie and her husband are running from collection
agencies, driving unregistered vehicles and throwing bills in the
trash unopened (which the family found). After hitting everyone up
for loans and credit cards, Katie abandoned her family almost
completely. Charles believes she now owes more than $100,000. In her
notes from one of the company's seminars, he found these scribbled
words: "There are two kinds of friends: true friends and false
friends. True friends support Equinox. False friends don't believe
in Equinox."If anyone knows anything about Market america, let me know.
And no, I'm not thinking of joining up!
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"Dubs For Dummies"
by Farkel indear brothers and sisters in the worldwide brotherhood of jehovahs witnessestm,.
there has been much public interest in our beliefs lately, so we have prepared a very brief summary of our core beliefs in a new pamphlet which you may offer to interested persons.
hopefully, this pamphlet will generate enough interest with honest-hearted people and enable you to start many new bible studies.
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detective
Very good!
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CULT, if JW ,how about Christ?
by happy man inwhen so much peopel say jw is a cult,comperd to the most religions we are very diffrent yes.. but if we go back to christ and was he was teching,you must say this was a cult to, he was telling he was the only one, a remark as you say on a cult, he was saying he come from the lord also a remark as you say,he was telling you must obey him also a remark on a cult as you say, he say if you dont se him as the son of the lord you have no life ,also a remark on a cult as you say,and he say he give his follower power from heaven, oups this is a very bigg remark on a cult.. littel confusing isnt is?
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detective
I don't believe religions and cults are the same thing. I tend to think of cults in social/behavioral/psychological terms as opposed to religious ones. Group structure is more telling of cultishness, in my opinion.
But for comparison purposes- from a social/pyschological perspective, I believe religions vary from cults in many ways but one of the most obvious is that you can leave most religions without unusual punishment. Cults never allow you to leave without some sort of repercussion- either implied threat of divine or literal punishment, shunning etc.
Besides, cults encompass more than just religious groups. There are business cults as well, for example.
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Traits of Abusive Churches and Toxic Faith Systems
by Richie inan exhaustive study has been done on the behavior of cult groups - in several books about "cults", they enumerated 21 major points where you can identify the traits of a cult-like organization.
bear in mind that the authors did not target jehovah's witnesses as a specific group at all, which made it all the more frightening!
but this dissertation generalized all cult-groups existing in the world.... 1. control-oriented, arrogantly assertive, power-posturing leadership.. 2. authoritarian and legalistic with dictatorial, dogmatic doctrines that are proclaimed to be "the truth".. 3. claims of being the channel of communication between god and humankind; having unique knowledge that makes them special.
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detective
I posted this link on another cult-related thread. It's got criterion from a variety of cult experts.
I also have a questionaire that I took from another posting board awhile back. I think I have it at home. If so, I'll post it here later.