Posts by MrMonroe

60

Jehovah's Witnesses Are NOT Under Mind Control

by PublishingCult in

how would you respond to the assertion that 7.2 million members of the jehovah's witness religion are not under any sort of mind control?.

the argument being that every one is responsible for their own actions and cannot blame the indoctrinator for what he says and does.

how could they possibly be under mind control?.

NZ Earthquake Update

by Murray Smith in

jw
friends

update from chch nz just in case anyone out there is interested .

we're still gettin kicked up the ass down here by some punchy aftershocks .

still coming at about 1 every 90 mins.

The role of the Home Bible Study arrangement in JW brainwashing

by MrMonroe in

i've just started reading "year of doom, 1975: the inside story of jehovah's witnesses" by english author j.c. stevenson.

it was published in 1967 as basically a memoir of his years in the dubs, including time as a pioneer, and an explanation of the methods used by them to make the organisation grow.. it's not the best "insider" book i've written, but there is a section i've uploaded below that makes some interesting points about the home bible study procedure and why it is so effective at turning interested people into baptism candidates.

reading through this, i see myself back in the mid-80s sitting there getting led, week by week, into the trap.. this section is from chapter 2, "the seed is watered" in which he explains the typical process following a few return visits.. .

MrMonroe

It's pretty weird, isn't it? I was doing quite a bit of smokin' around the time the Dubs first called on my door in 1984, and every week between their visits I'd think of all these questions while I was sitting in a cloud of smoke. I'd write them down so I wouldn't forget them. And after several weeks of this, the JW said those by-now legendary words to me, "Well, Mr Monroe, we could go on like this forever. But look, here's this book, You Can Live Forever In Paradise on Earth, that actually covers all those questions you've asked. And more! We could go on forever like this. But It would be more productive if we just started going through the book chapter by chapter."

Which of course I did.

In later years, sitting in front of a warm fire in Christchurch, I did a home bible study with the husband of a Witness, who had -- out of an admirable sense of loyalty to his wife -- relented and agreed to "study" as well just to see if it worked with him. (Maybe that's a bit like someone reluctantly agreeing to a homosexual encounter just to see if they're really gay). I remember going over the "time, times and half a time" dogma and him asking, "Why do you say "times" means two times? How do you know it's not three or four?" And me saying, "Weeelll, it just is. It must be because it fits in with all the other chronology!" Talk about bending the evidence to support the conclusion you're seeking. And he refused to buy it.

60

Jehovah's Witnesses Are NOT Under Mind Control

by PublishingCult in

how would you respond to the assertion that 7.2 million members of the jehovah's witness religion are not under any sort of mind control?.

the argument being that every one is responsible for their own actions and cannot blame the indoctrinator for what he says and does.

how could they possibly be under mind control?.

MrMonroe

I found this discussion about home bible studies interesting. It helps to explain why Witnesses all start acting like the Stepford wives.

48

Hello to everyone.... and could I ask a really basic question here please...

by JamesS in

jw
friends

i'm james i'm new to this forum as of today and i'm a ex-jw who was "born into the truth" and then left it officially at the age of twenty after "drifting out" of it for some time.

i'm now 34 and whilst i'm not exactly happy with the world i'm living in, i'm largely happy with my own life.. one question i've got about this forum - i didn't join for a long time because i thought it was for active jw's (based on the web-site url), not ex jw's, but then looking at the threads, it seems it is more for ex-jw's!

what is the demographic for the membership?

MrMonroe

Sheesh, a lot of Poms here aren't there? I'm in Melbourne, Australia. Was "in" for 22 years and have been "out" for three years and loving every minute of my freedom. My wife and I bumped into this website, as well as the excellent JWFacts, as we were making up our minds on whether to stay or go. The personal experiences were so valuable, helping to validate our own feelings of frustration and anger at the miserable life within "God's organisation".

It's a buzz joining the JWs and finding all these like-minded people, but an even bigger buzz getting out and discovering all these like-minded people who now know what those on the inside are suffering.

10

FACTS BASED ON 2010 YEARBOOK

by jakeyen in

facts based on 2010 yearbook.

top 30 lands with jw (from us - autralia) (mostly christian countries).

population : 1,978,714,595. peak jw : 6,264,293. ratio : 1 : 315. .

MrMonroe

I was showing my daughter the World Population Clock the other day, counting up the world's growing population.

"Look at that," I told her. "All those people. Do you reckon people are being baptised as JWs as fast as that?"

The consequences are clear: the longer God delays Armageddon "in order that more may be saved" (ha! and he's been doing that since 1914 ...) it just leaves him with more people to kill.

Would a loving God do that?

9

blood - a different approach

by inbetween in

as often discussed here and on other places, there are many good arguments against the wts blood policy.

basically the distinction between what is a component and what a fraction, is often , and right so, target of critisicm.

however, it can get confusing, especially when apologists like thirdwitness or standfirm argue for any spot of reasonableness in it.

MrMonroe

@Inbetween, the WTS regards the mere offer of blood transfusions in a life-and-death situation as a direct attack by Satan. Opposition to God, in fact.

The faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses is under attack from all sides—by the clergy of Christendom who hate the Kingdom message we take from house to house, by apostates who collaborate with Christendom’s clergy, by medical authorities who want to impose blood transfusions on us and our children, by atheistic scientists who reject belief in God and the creation, and by those who try to force us to compromise our neutrality. All this opposition is orchestrated by Satan, the ruler of darkness and ignorance, the enemy of accurate knowledge. - WT, December 1, 1989.

40

UN & Watchtower : link deleted....

by yalbmert99 in

hi everyone, someone just made me notice that the pdf document on the u.n. website proving that the watchtower associated itself as ngo from 1991(demand) to 2001 has been deleted or is missing.

http://www.un.org/dpi/ngosection/pdfs/watchtower.pdf i sent an email (very short since they don't allow more than 200 characters) to the un to inquire.

i doubt that they'll respond.i suspect that the watchtower pressured the un to deleted that link.....

MrMonroe

Well what a turn - the UN dissassociated them....

No, I think the WTS DA'd from the UN. Does that make them apostates? New York neighbours they may be, but I think the UN should never say a greeting to them again. It will impress upon them the seriousness of their action.

2

Wanted: Info on TV doco on the JWs in the late 1990s, possibly Canadian

by MrMonroe in

does anyone remember this?

i saw it on australia's sbs, probably 1997/98.

i remember i stayed home from the meeting to watch it and it was very depressing viewing, very discouraging!!

MrMonroe

I can't find it anywhere outside the Films Media Group website where the doco is available on DVD for $149. Made in 1994 for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's "Rough Cuts" doco series.

Does anyone know if it's available elsewhere, or has it on tape?

2

Wanted: Info on TV doco on the JWs in the late 1990s, possibly Canadian

by MrMonroe in

does anyone remember this?

i saw it on australia's sbs, probably 1997/98.

i remember i stayed home from the meeting to watch it and it was very depressing viewing, very discouraging!!

MrMonroe

Found it after all that.

Children of Jehovah. Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1996. 1 videocassette (60 min.). [OhioLink]
Jehovah's Witnesses are a fast growing, media shy religious sect that believe that Armageddon is rapidly approaching. Children are often torn between the rewards of conforming to its laws and the freedoms of a secular world. This program focuses on the pressures adolescents and adults come under as they decide to stay in the church or leave, and on the impact of the terrible penalty faced by those who do leave.

Sydney Morning Herald, September 4, 1995: ABOUT US - Children of Jehovah: SBS , 8.30 pm. Who are those disturbers of the peace, the Jehovah 's Witnesses , who knock on doors and specialise in being told to go away? A Canadian look, through young people's eyes, at the media-shy religious sect.

Comment by Alan Feuerbacher, http://www.exjws.net/pioneers/alanf.htm "This practice of shunning obviously creates much unnecessary pain and is extremely destructive. About 1994, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) produced a documentary called "Children of Jehovah", which largely consisted of interviews with young people who quit, or were expelled from the JWs, and whose parents shunned them. One can hardly keep a dry eye watching this film. All of this shunning, of course, is done at the direction of Watchtower leaders."

Has anyone seen this doco? It was very moving. I'll try to see if it's obtainable on DVD.