Very good post and use of that illustration. I think the point is proved by what everyone says to you when you try to point out something wrong in the organisation: "but where else can we go?" Of course the question is meaningless of itself in the arguments we are making, but it is meaningful and important to THEM, so we must be prepared to answer it in some way and acknowledge their feelings and the problem is creates for them if we want them to leave....
doubtfull1799
JoinedPosts by doubtfull1799
-
7
Helping someone to wake up to "the truth about the truth"
by stuckinarut2 inwe all have loved one that we wish we could "wake up" from the society.. of course it is not wise to force them with information, as that could just cause their defences to go up and make them dig their heals in.. this reminded me of an illustration that the society actually used at a convention many years back:.
if we want someone to move out of their dilapidated, run down and dangerous house that they are sentimentally attached to, we cant just grab them and drag them out.
they will object.. but, if we build a brand-new, safe, secure attractive home right next door and allow them to see it be built, their curiosity will be sparked.
-
-
-
31
Why more highly educated people are less into conspiracy theories
by Mickey mouse ini've seen discussions here about how jehovah's witnesses seem to be prone to believing conspiracy theories... https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/04/05/why-more-highly-educated-people-are-less-into-conspiracy-theories/.
this last paragraph seems particularly relevant:.
importantly, van prooijen said his findings help make sense of why education can contribute to “a less paranoid society” even when conspiracy theories are not explicitly challenged.
-
-
doubtfull1799
I can't comment on conspiracy theories, but I know from my own experience that Witnesses are hugely into (if not more prone to falling for) pseudoscience, especially in the area of alternative medicine. I was constant surrounded by brothers pushing pills and potions and weird "magic" remedies on me overtime I had so much as a sniffle or minor pain.
-
34
Regarding Correct Understanding of Bible Prophecies Have JWs EVER Been Right?
by minimus ini seriously doubt that any jw understanding of prophecy has ever withstood the test of time.
how can anyone trust them when they are always wrong?
?.
-
-
doubtfull1799
@blondie Intersting, That 1942 one is the one that really got me too! I was always so proud of the organisation for that one, believing it was a real modern day prophecy based on our understanding of the Bible... until of course I found out like you did, that the formation of the UN was common knowledge in political circles before Knorr gave that famous talk. It just was't common knowledge among witnesses, so easily exploited to look like a prophecy.
-
17
so much for babylon the great falling in 1919
by nowwhat? insuposedly babylon the great lost her power and influence over the people and government rulers back in 1919. flash forward to today the russian orthodox church is behind the banning of witnesses in russia.
yet another failed prophecy!
have these guys gotten anything right?!
-
-
doubtfull1799
Great point! Another failed prophecy. Another failed interpretation of prophecy.
-
-
-
doubtfull1799
See my most recent post - the experience touches on that subject...
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5109869029883904/thank-you-helping-me-through-bad-days
-
33
Has Anyone Ever Just Gotten Mad and "Popped" an Elder?
by Cold Steel init has to have happened.
people get stressed out, an elder or overseer takes just two steps over the line and gets a fat lip for his trouble.. does that ever happen?
or maybe someone "counsels" a brother at the wrong time and tempers flare at the old kingdom hall?.
-
-
doubtfull1799
Righteous indignation made me feel that way yesterday - I sure wanted to do exactly that. Not physically, that's just not my nature, but mentally. I kept my cool though, and my dignity. It only feeds their assumptions about you as the "enemy" to do otherwise.
-
9
Thank you for helping me through the bad days
by doubtfull1799 ini'm sure that whatever stage we are at with our journey in leaving the corporation disguised as a religion, aka the watchtower bible & tract society, we have good days and bad days.
maybe young ones who have managed to escape mentally do not suffer quite as much, or suffer in different ways, but after 40 years of indoctrination, what i now like to call the "machinery of reinforcement" it is unavoidable that you don't have days where your head is messed with.
yesterday was just such a day for me.
-
-
doubtfull1799
I'm sure that whatever stage we are at with our journey in leaving the Corporation disguised as a religion, AKA the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, we have good days and bad days. Maybe young ones who have managed to escape mentally do not suffer quite as much, or suffer in different ways, but after 40 years of indoctrination, what I now like to call the "machinery of reinforcement" it is unavoidable that you don't have days where your head is messed with.
Yesterday was just such a day for me. I lost a dear work colleague yesterday morning (who was only 27) so was already in a bad emotional state. Then in the afternoon I had, not one, but two visits from brothers in the congregation. One from a brother I haven't spent a lot of time with, who was fairly new to our congregation before I left, and one from my co-ordinator, a person I considered a true friend and colleague as we have served together for many years.
Frank conversations were had with both. The publisher treated me as a friend, with dignity and kindness. He listened and acknowledged my viewpoints even though he no doubt disagreed with them, and shared a "scriptural" thought with me in a very kind way, which I thanked him for simply because I appreciated the kind intent behind it. It is nice to have dealing with brothers that still have humanity in them, not just for their own, but for outsiders as well.
The elder on the other hand acted like a tyrant and bully. He called all my viewpoints "rubbish", yes those were his words. When I offered to show him supporting evidence of my viewpoints he said it would be a waste of his time. Funny how they claim they would die for their brothers, but once they consider you the enemy that will not "waste" so much as half an hour of their time for you. He also had the arrogance to claim he is not accountable to me or anyone else, only to God. Funny, when I was an elder I always considered my self accountable to my fellow humans, especially the brothers I served in the congregation. As far as I know there is only one group of people who consider themselves unaccountable to their fellow humans and this is dictators and tyrants.
Anyway, getting back to the point of this post. I want to thank all the contributors here for your support in general. But I particularly want to thank @stuckinarut & @unstuck, two friends I have had the recent pleasure of getting to know in the real world as well as here online. People who demonstrate the real meaning of friendship, as the scripture says, "brothers borne for times of distress." People who have never (yet) met me in person, but have been there for me unconditionally over the last few weeks whenever I needed a shoulder to cry on. I know they know how much I appreciate it, but I wanted to acknowledge them publicly, and all the others too that I'm sure are out there that help others on their rocky journey to cult recovery.
I also wanted to say that there is nothing like having that human connection. It is lovely to share stories and comment on forums like this in the virtual world anonymously, but being able to talk to someone in the real world is important too. I know many of us are probably scared/paranoid/shy/burned/lacking esteem - pick one - when in comes to making new connections, but I think its still worth trying and reaching out to people. Other ex-jw's may or may not end up being the right friends or compatible friends. Being an ex-jw in itself is not enough in common if you lack other common interests of course, or you have different world views. But it is a good place to start. Because at least they understand you on one very big level. And most will at least share the same values.
To all those who open themselves to friendship and give of themselves to provide emotional support to their fellow ex-jw's THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You are the best of humanity.
P.S. In regard to the death of my colleague, I am very proud of the community of colleagues in my profession here in the city I live in. We started an online fundraising campaign and within hours hundreds of people in our profession chipped in and we had raised the $3,000 we needed to be able to fly our colleague's widow's mother out from the other side of the world to be with her daughter and be here for the funeral. And this from so-called uncaring, selfish, "wordy" people. People who don't really know what true love is. Amazing!
-
56
"There is evidence of a Creator if you just look for it"
by unsure in(for the record, i’m agnostic who is earnestly seeking an objective, honest and concrete hope for something greater).
“there is evidence of a creator if you just look for it”.
many of us have heard similar sentences from believers regarding proof of creator, proof that their religion is the correct one, proof that their particular sect is the right one, proof that their individual sects interpretation of a certain religious text is the right one, proof that their own personal interpretation of a certain religious text is the right one; the list goes on.. in one of my previous posts, i shared the following thought of mine:.
-
-
doubtfull1799
Yes, excellent posts and reasoning I agree with. This is one of the reasons I came to see the Bible as an uninspired book. As a simple "instruction manual for life" it fails miserably. It only works is you cherry pick the good and practical bits and ignore the rest (the ratio of those two things is quite disturbing when you think about it: The big things we really want to know and that we argue about, such as God's will, how the universe was made and our place in it, the nature of good/evil, if God has an organisation, God's purpose etc are all things that we struggle to interpret from singular and cryptic random verses (sometimes only one), yet other less important details, like genealogy, how to recognise leprosy, the ins and outs of sacrifices, random tribal squabbles, the morality of bodily fluids etc are given reams of detailed (and boring) chapters.
I forget where I read it, but someone once asked why couldn't God just spell out his purpose and requirements in simple skywriting for everyone to see that it was clearly and miraculously from Him, and in clear unambiguous language that everyone cold understand. Then we would have no need for the endless practise of "apologetics," otherwise known as the practice of coming up with creative excuses for why the Bible doesn't make sense.
God doesn't seem to abide by his own principle - here is what he says about communication: 1 Corinthians 14:8,9. The Bible is certainly sounding an indistinct call and is speaking into the air!
-
2
Special Pleading + Blind Obedience = Compromised morality and even extremism.
by doubtfull1799 ini had an interesting discussion over the weekend with a coupe of witness on the carts.
i asked them if they put much thought into the rights/wrongs/consequences of writing letters to russia before doing so or did they just do it without thought because the gb asked them to.
one said yes, they would always do what the gb said to do because they completely trusted that the gb would never ask then to do something that is wrong.
-
-
doubtfull1799
I had an interesting discussion over the weekend with a coupe of witness on the carts. I asked them if they put much thought into the rights/wrongs/consequences of writing letters to Russia before doing so or did they just do it without thought because the GB asked them to. One said yes, they would always do what the GB said to do because they completely trusted that the GB would never ask then to do something that is wrong. The other one, perhaps not wanting to appear as a non thinker declared that he has thought about it.
However when I started to ask questions about how the letter writing would sit with their stated policy of neutrality it was clear he had not thought about the issue in those terms at all, and admitted as much. What was really interesting was that I actually got them to admit two things: 1. Their offical statement of neutrality excludes lobbying, and 2. Their writing letters constituted an act of lobbying, a violation of their stated policy. (of course they did try to weasel out of that one by at first claiming that their letters were merely to "inform" the Russian Govt of how they felt, but this was easily debunked by referring them back to the instructions the GB provided with the request to write letters. They eventually agreed that if one followed those instructions then yes the letter would constitute an act of lobbying. We further discussed how sending millions of them multiple times to multiple Govt officials really amounted to a denial of service attack on the Russian postal system, and was really no different to an organised peaceful protest march at the Kremlin with picket signs.
So having basically admitted to compromising their stand on neutrality they resorted to special pleading. They claimed that it was OK to Lobby, in this particular instance, because blah blah blah.... the reason is not really important, one can always find a reason to compromise ones principles if they look hard enough.
I pointed out that this is the same philosophy that leads to another immoral act - lying. One can special plead that in certain situations lying is justified because the person asking the questions is an enemy. (classic example: testimony at the ARC) Or because you are defending God's interests. Or because God approved of you doing so (classic example: Jacob lying about his identity when he could have just told his father that Esau had sold the birthright to him instead of playing charades)
So I asked them, even though they are currently carrying out their worship in a peaceful way what would prevent them from acting violently if God asked them to do so? We both agreed that God had done so in the past, that he had his human representatives carry out his violent judgements, but they claimed they would not violate the command "though shall not murder" NOW because Jesus changed that way of doing things. I pointed out that when they pray for God's Kingdom to come they are praying for and supporting the judgement of millions of people, the sentence of that judgement being the murder or violent deaths of those ones. They are merely outsourcing the carrying out of that penalty to their God. As a thought experiment, what would they do if God changed his mind again (which the Bible shows he is quite capable of doing)? At this the cognitive dissonance was too strong and they tried to run off....
I pointed out that even though Abraham should have known that murder is wrong, that child sacrifice is wrong, he was happy to do both when he believed that God was authorising it. I challenged them: Wouldn't you, like Abraham, commit murder if you believed God (or his representatives) was asking you to do it? Would you not stone me as an atheist right now if God sent a message saying you did not have to wait for Him to exercise vengeance, he was going to be too busy, you could do it for Him right now? At this point they did walk away claiming I was evil and was only trying to tear down a good and sincere religion.
So to sum up what I learned from this discussion and thinking it through is that special pleading will always compromise even the most righteous or ethical of positions, and while it may be harmless in some cases it can easily lead to more extremist actions in others - suicide bombing for one: "Though shall not kill.... except where God authorises me to do so." Morality and principles in these cases are discarded in favour of blind obedience.
-
13
Russian Earthquake Forces Putin to Reconsider – Won’t Ban Jehovah’s Witnesses
by ILoveTTATT2 inap – april 1st, 2017. russian earthquake forces putin to reconsider – won’t ban jehovah’s witnesses.
in a stunning reversal of events, vladimir putin had an emergency meeting with all un members and made a proposition unbanning jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.. after the devastating 6.9 earthquake in eastern russia, and after receiving nearly one metric ton of letters from jehovah’s witnesses worldwide, putin changed his mind and decided not only to not ban jehovah’s witnesses in russia, but proposed to the un to remove all restrictions from jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.. surprisingly, jehovah’s witnesses were not pleased.. david a. ssholian, the spokesman for jehovah’s witnesses, said that “this reversal is a disaster for jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.
we just can’t be unbanned everywhere, that would be a severe blow for our faith.”
-
-
doubtfull1799
Great April fools article. Love it!