I grew up in a cult

Kanuck99 said:
Former Mormon cult member checking in. Tried Catholic cult for awhile too.
Click to expand...
Exmo checking in here too. Fuck that mormon cult and the JW cult and all the other life ruining cults out there.
 
PommyBen said:
And how do you do that? Maybe another genocide? Like the 20th century need another genocide right?
Click to expand...

Actually nah. I think if we survive long enough (i.e. no ELE or WW3) we'll outgorw religion. It might take time, of course, but shit's on a skid as is. With scientific advancements shitting down the throat of every religious notion on almost daily basis, religion is playing catch-up to rationalize all of it, but it can only go that far - once we start merging with machines, once we start body modding for real, extending lives well past the notional limits etc. - there's nothing religions (abrahamic ones anyways) can do to retain relevance they currently have. They may - and, frankly, should - survive as sources of solace, wisdom and morality for some people, but their gods will finally die on a grand scale...
 
I went and had drinks with this cougar back in the day.

She was like 48, long blonde hair, secretary glasses and tig ol....I'm talking tig ol bitties! She had recently left the Jehovas Witnesses after being in it since she was 18 and she was excommunicated from her entire family and had to live in this old trailer with some meth head dude because she had never worked or done anything with her life other than just be in the cult. So she had no money and nearly no possessions. She said her daughters refused to ever speak to her again.

Too poor for Mopar to do anything with tho. Wasn't about to go see what that meth trailer looked like.
 
Darth_Inv1ctu5 said:
Actually nah. I think if we survive long enough (i.e. no ELE or WW3) we'll outgorw religion. It might take time, of course, but shit's on a skid as is. With scientific advancements shitting down the throat of every religious notion on almost daily basis, religion is playing catch-up to rationalize all of it, but it can only go that far - once we start merging with machines, once we start body modding for real, extending lives well past the notional limits etc. - there's nothing religions (abrahamic ones anyways) can do to retain relevance they currently have. They may - and, frankly, should - survive as sources of solace, wisdom and morality for some people, but their gods will finally die on a grand scale...
Click to expand...

I agree with you on it seems inevitable, but as for wisdom morality and rationality.. Well there is no evidence we have any capacity for any of this without an underlying struture.. Technology is not an underlying structure.
 
I know a guy who grew up a Jehova.

When he grew up and decided he didn't believe and wanted to live a different life, his parents disowned him (and his brother) and have not talked to him since. These are some fucked up people disowning your own child because they don't believe the same made up stories.
 
astrozician said:
Blood transfusions. JW's will not receive blood transfusions.

This is an interesting topic because I work in Compliance at a hospital and JWs are known to abandon this tenet in life or death situations. And there will be serious cognitive dissonance for any clinician (doctor, nurse, etc) who is a fellow JW observing this happening; that would mean excommunication. This becomes an issue if the patient is in a coma where the doctor will look to a family member, friend, or even a clergy (someone aligned with the patient's beliefs) and You might have some pious JW who'd let the patient die believing, "He wouldn't have wanted that". The coercion is strong.

Good on you for seeing it and walking away from it.
Click to expand...

100% true. Their young child could be dying in the hospital where a transfusion could save them and they would allow their child to die instead of getting a blood transfusion.
 
Another exmo here. JW definitely a cult.
 
Darth_Inv1ctu5 said:
Actually nah. I think if we survive long enough (i.e. no ELE or WW3) we'll outgorw religion. It might take time, of course, but shit's on a skid as is. With scientific advancements shitting down the throat of every religious notion on almost daily basis, religion is playing catch-up to rationalize all of it, but it can only go that far - once we start merging with machines, once we start body modding for real, extending lives well past the notional limits etc. - there's nothing religions (abrahamic ones anyways) can do to retain relevance they currently have. They may - and, frankly, should - survive as sources of solace, wisdom and morality for some people, but their gods will finally die on a grand scale...
Click to expand...

The more benign religions seem to be dying but the more demanding ones seem to be growing.
 
astrozician said:
Blood transfusions. JW's will not receive blood transfusions.

This is an interesting topic because I work in Compliance at a hospital and JWs are known to abandon this tenet in life or death situations. And there will be serious cognitive dissonance for any clinician (doctor, nurse, etc) who is a fellow JW observing this happening; that would mean excommunication. This becomes an issue if the patient is in a coma where the doctor will look to a family member, friend, or even a clergy (someone aligned with the patient's beliefs) and You might have some pious JW who'd let the patient die believing, "He wouldn't have wanted that". The coercion is strong.

Good on you for seeing it and walking away from it.
Click to expand...

There are many who believe in the power of prayer over doctors.

Here is a couple who were sentenced to prison because they prayed for their daughter instead of taking her to a doctor.
Homicide convictions upheld for Wisconsin parents who treated dying ...
 
tonysmasseuse said:
What made you start thinking for yourself, initially ?
Click to expand...

I had stopped attending mostly due out of laziness and "took a break". The religion is very demanding and you live it 24/7. I had moved from out of state and had not yet picked a congregation. That anonymity allowed me to take time off which turned in to a few years. After those few years I made an attempt to go back. When you are "in" you just blindly follow orders no matter how ridiculous. Taking a "break" then going back really opened my eyes to the control they try to exert. Fast forward a few more years and I began to draw my own conclusions about God and the bible.
 
PommyBen said:
I agree with you on it seems inevitable, but as for wisdom morality and rationality.. Well there is no evidence we have any capacity for any of this without an underlying struture.. Technology is not an underlying structure.
Click to expand...

Except of course for all the evidence you ignore to support your beliefs?
 
It sounds like Jehovah Witnesses are Amish, but without being farmers and pretending like technology doesn’t exist.

I don’t know, I really don’t know much about the Amish other than what Weird Al told me, and from what I’ve seen in movies like Kingpin, For Richer or Poorer, and Witness.
 
Timetravel_0 said:
I had stopped attending mostly due out of laziness and "took a break". The religion is very demanding and you live it 24/7. I had moved from out of state and had not yet picked a congregation. That anonymity allowed me to take time off which turned in to a few years. After those few years I made an attempt to go back. When you are "in" you just blindly follow orders no matter how ridiculous. Taking a "break" then going back really opened my eyes to the control they try to exert. Fast forward a few more years and I began to draw my own conclusions about God and the bible.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply. It's interesting that in a way made you made your own intervention.
I have only read about cult-interventions (in books like Stephen Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control) and they seem so dramatic - abduction, deprogramming, big conversion, meetings and confrontations with all and sundry from their pre-cult days and lots of realisations and facts to absorb in short period of time...almost like a new type of spiritual abuse.
I imagine your way is so much stronger and healthy because it happened organically and over long time...

Is there anything you miss about belonging to a religious organisation (assuming you don't belong to one now) ? Is there anything you definitely don't miss ?
 
the muntjac said:
It sounds like Jehovah Witnesses are Amish, but without being farmers and pretending like technology doesn’t exist.

I don’t know, I really don’t know much about the Amish other than what Weird Al told me, and from what I’ve seen in movies like Kingpin, For Richer or Poorer, and Witness.
Click to expand...

The Amish are rather strange. They don't use electricity but are forced to to use lights on their buggys on the roads when it's dark. They will use sawmills powered by water or diesel engines that don't use electricity. They wrap a rope around a pulley and use a horse to start the diesel engine. They hire people to drive them around.
 
ralphc1 said:
The Amish are rather strange. They don't use electricity but are forced to to use lights on their buggys on the roads when it's dark. They will use sawmills powered by water or diesel engines that don't use electricity. They wrap a rope around a pulley and use a horse to start the diesel engine. They hire people to drive them around.
Click to expand...

That’s interesting about using a horse to start an engine. Where I grew up, there were Amish people living in the nearby rural areas, but I never had any reason to interact with them. I would see them being haul around in vans by drivers.

I’ll tell you one thing though, they are damn fine carpenters. They would make furniture and sell it out of a warehouse. I bought a bookcase from them, and the thing is solid as a rock.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,237,173
Messages
55,473,698
Members
174,787
Latest member
Biden's Diaper

Share this page

Back
Top