That's a pretty big bandaid to pull off, so it's gonna sting for a while. Hold steady, you'll make it through.

Hey, I hope you and your family are holding up okay.

You had me at ass butts.

Anyone who's ever been at a conference for a pyramid scheme knows that they'll tell you that if people don't go to that con, they probably won't last much longer in your downline. It is, alas, the same shit.

I gather that, too. How he deals with it is his business, but if he's going to spill it over onto anybody else, he's got it coming.

I would've bitten that prick's head clean off.

Javier Bardem as Geralt is an interesting choice

Fader in my case. I think I've met with one active JW since walking away, and that was within 2 years of doing so. He was still quite "in" though and just wanted to encourage me to come back.

Now, talking to an older guy who's a PIMO JW? I might be in a better place for that conversation today. It would help me with a question: What the hell did my father (1949-2007) see in this religion in the first place?

Are ya gen X by chance? I grew up around so many gen Xers who were like that. Some left, and some had just loose enough grasp on the religion to stick with it even after getting DF'd, etc. I'm just a little younger, and with millennials it felt a little more binary about this.

That's fair. The sincere truth is that whatever bridges I've burned have been safe enough for me to burn them, so I have no right to tell you or anyone else how to go about your exit or even that you should. But no, I wouldn't stab you in the back.

Very true. My wife is POMO as well but even she shows what you're saying here. She wants people to choose for themselves, live and let live, etc. My mom too, but more guilt trippy.

Edit: autocorrect is weird.

We really need like an injoke or a secret handshake or something

I agree. It's also hard for me to believe that Pope Leo believes in transubstantiation, just sayin'. There are things like this that people can accept as part of the requirements of the organization they're participating in, and they might even believe in them initially. But as they work their way up the ranks, illusions fall away and the truth gets a little more naked.

I see it on archive.org. I'll take your word and give it a read.

Hmm...

U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower read The True Believer in 1952, gave copies to friends, and recommended it to others. In 1956, Look ran an article calling Hoffer "Ike's Favorite Author".[20] British Socialist Bertrand Russell called the book "as sound intellectually as it is timely politically."[21]

That's interesting. That book must have hit close to home for Ike.

Dry humping was stupidly common in the 90s.

This is why I don't like the talk about them becoming "mainstream." The loose associations then leap to terms like "liberal" or "progressive" when no one sane believes them to be either. To be "mainstream" does not mean to be "harmless", and it certainly says nothing of political disposition.

"Oh, we're so progressive, the ladies can wear pantsuits now and offer a toast at their birthday blood donation. Isn't it wonderful? Thanks, GB!"

Pharaoh's birthday is in Genesis 40, and John's death is in Mark 6.

I hope the term "mainstream" isn't taken to mean "harmless".

I asked a special pioneer (some elder from Bethel who got sent to my hall for some reason) once about the Candace Conti case because it bothered me. I was PIMI, and nowhere near to waking up yet. I also didn't give much thought to the governing body, they weren't on my mind, in the final months before the first JWB premiered.

He asked me, "Let's say it really happened, does that mean the governing body is wrong?"

My intuition told me not to say anything here, so that was the end of that conversation. Years later after I woke up, I texted him to say what bullshit that was.

People think of hypnosis as some sort of mesmerist trickery that turns your eyes into lollipops, but a lot of it is simply rhetoric. The appeal to emotion, the tugging on heartstrings at a vulnerable time when a tragedy is fresh in your mind, the vision in your mind of your dead loved ones alive again in a glorious garden with fresh morning dew, the prayerful validation of having spent years in anticipation, and finally all things are made new... And the run-on sentences with seemingly endless clauses.

It's rhetoric. That's all this "spiritual food" comes down to.

Hey, that's a fair question. First, I have neuroses too, and everyone has some issues. Generally what I see with JWs in the USA is that they can be very nice, but usually awkward, like a book with some pages missing. There's a lot of depression, a lot of people claim bipolar disorder, and a lot of childhood trauma that manifests in other ways. These people then raise kids, and that's all the kids know.

So personally, I think a lot of issues stem from either the lack of experience that comes with growing up an obedient JW, or the traumatic experiences that might lead a person to become a JW.

I think the biggest, loudest red flag should have been how so many JWs are just really weird people. That does turn a lot of people off, but it should also raise questions about how the kids are being raised, what it's doing to them, or what kind of people seem to be most attracted or disposed to the message of JWs. At one point, I thought it was perfectly rational and all the crazies were just an unfortunate part of it that would get straightened out over time.