this is a rumor i heard back in november, it comes to me third or fourth-hand.
feel free to poke holes.
i have many doubts about this myself.
When I look at people like Anthony Morris and Stephen Lett, it makes me doubt some of this. They seem to believe their own hype.
It makes me wonder. If this were just a business looking to survive and increase profit, why would they let these folks on the stage?
And why not let Loche take the stand?
Sometimes it seems that they are bumbling at the wheel of the ship as they head toward the lighthouse.
http://time.com/3583781/jonestown-massacre/.
it was 36 years ago today.. the watchtower has caused far more deaths due to the blood transfusion ban and the suicides from disfellowshipping.
unfortunately, these deaths are mostly invisible to the public, since they didnat occur at once and in one location.. .
Gregor, I’m glad it worked out. A bullet dodged...more than once.
i need to explain this to someone later and need a concice way of putting it.
f you had to give a "in a nutshell" definition of ttatt, what would you say or what main points would you use to define it ?.
( thanks in advance for your help ).
TTATT = The Truth about the Truth = Jehovah's Witnesses are not the one true religion, the Watchtower never had divine appointment or authority.
http://time.com/3583781/jonestown-massacre/.
it was 36 years ago today.. the watchtower has caused far more deaths due to the blood transfusion ban and the suicides from disfellowshipping.
unfortunately, these deaths are mostly invisible to the public, since they didnat occur at once and in one location.. .
Powerful thought: "a blood card was a suicide note you carried around with you at all times".
That calls to mind the Heaven's Gate cult. The leader redefined suicide, so that in the end, those not killing themselves to reach the next level and get swooped up by the UFO following the comet were the ones who were deemed as committing suicide. Only by killing themselves could they avoid suicide...as they defined it.
For anyone out there who still might be troubled by the theological aspects of accepting blood transfusions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWNlyyM32ts&list=PLyNx0oM_bmgBuDVZWWiInBRGoovkUj95B&index=0
http://time.com/3583781/jonestown-massacre/.
it was 36 years ago today.. the watchtower has caused far more deaths due to the blood transfusion ban and the suicides from disfellowshipping.
unfortunately, these deaths are mostly invisible to the public, since they didnat occur at once and in one location.. .
http://time.com/3583781/jonestown-massacre/
It was 36 years ago today.
The Watchtower has caused far more deaths due to the blood transfusion ban and the suicides from disfellowshipping. Unfortunately, these deaths are mostly invisible to the public, since they didn’t occur at once and in one location.
i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.
i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.
i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!
I love Steve Hassan’s books. He thoroughly describes cult dynamics and undue influence for the everyday person. Whatismore, his background helps...he knows what it was like.
However, sometimes I wonder if his solutions are more geared toward individuals who are in the process of being indoctrinated, or are recently indoctrinated, or are on the verge of awakening or are awake and need exit counseling. The scenario his techniques seem to work best for is one where most of the person’s family and friends are on the outside. The individual in the cult then has a support system to fall back upon when they leave. That support system in fact can be mobilized to extract that person.
I do wonder about the effectiveness of the same technique for born-ins. I’m sure they are effective to a degree, but when a person is a second or third generation indoctrinated cult member, it is exponentially more difficult to extract them. I’m not sure there is a silver bullet solution.
i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.
i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.
i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!
"I don't see the issue there"/"so? Jehovah is backing Jehovah's Witnesses"--both are thought stopping techniques. She can file anything she hears in a nice labelled package and put it in the mental attic.
Don't make the same mistakes I and countless others have made. It's very difficult when you just learn TTATT not to spill everything you know. But this is a delicate operation, like diffusing a bomb. Pull one wrong wire and boom! You can never unpull that wire. She is on aposta-alert--sometimes the best thing to do is to leave it be until the situation defuses.
it has been a few months since i hear this from an elder.
he said that the c/o told them this new requirement.. "men that wanna be an elder or ministerial servant has to go out to field service on sundays.
if there is an elder or ministerial servant that is not going out to field service on sunday can lose the priviledge".
COs are made to appear autonomous in an attempt to let the Watchtower off the hook in court, but they are still company men who will follow the company rules. If they overstep, Watchtower will remove and replace them. There might be some individual variation, but COs don’t have carte blanche.
i remember hearing about this rumor around the time of the annual meeting.
did this really happen?
i haven't heard anything about it at my meeting yet.
It wouldn't suprise me if this does happen at some point.
it has been a few months since i hear this from an elder.
he said that the c/o told them this new requirement.. "men that wanna be an elder or ministerial servant has to go out to field service on sundays.
if there is an elder or ministerial servant that is not going out to field service on sunday can lose the priviledge".
There are written rules in this organization and unwritten rules in organization…kind of an “oral law” as it were. For instance, nowhere is it written that JWs should not have beards.
When the elders evaluate the pool of males for appointment, they might split hairs. Do they go out at least one Sunday a month? How many return visits do they report? Some elder bodies can be quite fickle. It is one of the most judgmental organizations on earth, after all.
I’ve known of people who do everything “right”, even exceed the written rules, and the elders pass on them because they don’t make enough return visits or because their enrollment in “higher education” was an “inconvenience” to them.
