News And Links For Atheists and Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses: Why I Left Mormonism Video

VIDEO: 6.0 – Why I left Mormonism – Gaining Perspective

The person who created the video above is a former Mormon. Back when he still believed in Mormonism, he noticed the similarities of Jehovah’s Witnesses to Mormons. He saw that Jehovah’s Witnesses were a cult and was forced to admit that his own faith must be a cult, too. Good times. ;-)

My Life as a Jehovah’s Witness Child

I was part of the fourth generation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in my family. Legend has it that my great-grandmother ran into some Russelites who were out street witnessing one day and brought home a Zion’s Watchtower. The rest, as they say, is history.

Shunning

The Watchtower instructs Jehovah’s Witnesses to disfellowship and shun members deemed “wicked.”

Why do Atheists “pick on” Christianity?

A study contributes to the deceptive rebranding of naturopathy as “lifestyle counseling”

Yes, you read it right. Weeks is using this study to argue that naturopaths should function as primary care physicians, despite how well documented it is that they are completely unsuited to such a role, as well demonstrated by Peter Lipson in his primary care challenge (also here and here and here). The study, of course, provides support for nothing of the sort, although unfortunately even physicians seem to be taken in by it, as evidenced by the very editorial that Weeks touts, with the cringe-inducing title, Can naturopaths administer complementary preventative care? More on that later. Let’s start with the study by Dugald Seely et al., for which most of the authors were from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. A finer example of the strategy of naturopaths to try to represent diet and lifestyle counseling as being somehow unique to naturopaths I have not seen in a long time.

Mailbag: When Can Opinions Be Mocked?

Austin Cline gets hate mail!

Subject: NO mockery is excusable

Mockery is frankly a sign of an inhuman person, and therefore is unbecoming of any intelligent person (regardless of religious position, political position, whatever). A civilized person should simply express their belief in a non-patronizing manner, not to mention good manners in general.

Golly. I wonder what Austin has to say about this one?

Have you tried these hilarious Jehovah’s Witness Chat-up lines?

Okay then guys and gals, it’s district convention time again and so I thought we’d spice some things up for you and your potential partner/marriage mate/divorcee.

Will Smith must be stopped

He has a new movie coming out this summer, After Earth. It looks awful, but then, that’s what I’ve come to expect from Will Smith’s Sci-Fi outings.

That one’s from P.Z. Myers!

News And Links For Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses And Atheists: Operation E-Shunning – AAWA Goes After The Watchtower In New Campaign

VIDEO: Operation: e-Shunning – AAWA goes after Watchtower over its destructive practice

Check out AAWA2013 – AAWA’s New YouTube Channel!

Punished for Choosing to Live

Twenty-two years ago a registered letter changed the course of my life. The letter stated that I had been judged guilty of “conduct unbecoming a Christian” and had been disfellowshipped from the Christian congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. What did that mean? What it meant was that unless I repented of my perceived sins in an acceptable way before a tribunal of church elders, I would forevermore be subjected to a life of shunning and ostracism by all of my church friends and four generations of family.

The webmaster of Emily Has Books is a friend, and so is the author! Check it out.

KU Hospital doctor delivers infusion of hope to Jehovah’s Witness

The cause was unknown. Maybe it was a ruptured vessel or a bleeding ulcer, which he had suffered before. But without oxygen-rich blood, his body was suffocating. He needed surgery. He needed to be stabilized. He needed blood. The problem: Watkins is a Jehovah’s Witness.

An Open Letter to Christians trying to “Convert” Atheists

Every time I get witnessed I have the same reaction, “Yeah, and?”. I’m completely baffled as to why you like to do this all the time. Sure it’s a great story. I liked Harry Potter too, but that had a better epilogue. The reason why this doesn’t work is simple. I and the atheist community, don’t believe you.

Hear ye hear ye!

Grandmother Says She is Persecuted if She is Not Allowed to Convert Grandson

One persistent sore point for me as a Heathen and even more, as a father, is the self-martyrdom of my mother-in-law…. She is my son’s only living grandmother, and as such occupies (or should occupy) a rather special place in his life. Not surprisingly he loves his grandmother and wants to spend time with her. I don’t begrudge him that. And I know she loves him and wants to spend time with him. Indeed, we, as parents, want them to spend time together.

So it breaks our heart when her insistence on some imagined right to proselytize our son gets in the way of what should be a wonderful relationship. I have cherished memories of my maternal grandmother and the time I spent with her and with her sisters. I know what my son is missing, what he has missed, and what he will miss in the years to come. And it breaks my heart. Grandma’s visits, if visits there are, should not have to be supervised. And they should not carry with them the prerequisite of conversion.

Notre Dame Professor Debunks Christian Myth of Persecution

She goes to lengths to argue that Christians were prosecuted, not persecuted. With true government persecution, victims have no room to negotiate when trying to convince the government to stop targeting them, Moss said. But when the government’s laws inadvertently lead to the persecution of Christians, there remains room for dialogue and debate over changing those laws.

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Panorama | Secret database protects paedophiles

Pain of ostracism can be deep, long-lasting

Dangerous message for Domestic Violence from JWs

Paris Jackson stands up against her grandmother’s Jehovah’s Witness beliefs and ‘refuses to preach door-to-door’

Oh, and don’t tell anybody, but AAWA (newly renamed to Advocates For Awareness of Watchtower Abuses) has been dealing with a slew of cyber attacks at their website. From where?

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Shunning

Shun the nonbelieverWhen one of Jehovah’s Witnesses does something that his local elders deem a serious offense against God and Watchtower, he will probably be disfellowshipped by a closed-door tribunal. From that point forward, he is basically dead to all Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide. It’s a bit like that one episode from the Twilight Zone, actually. If he tries to communicate with them in any way, he will either be ignored or angrily told the error of his ways.

They call it “congregation discipline” and make it sound like it’s a punishment from Jehovah God himself. As if Jehovah floats down from Heaven and plays judge and jury instead of congregation elders. If those elders were truly being influenced by Jehovah or Jesus in any way, then why is it that some disfellowshippings get annulled? As in, oops, the elders made a mistake!

But you don’t hear about those very often, do you? (They do happen, though.) Never mind. Keep reading to learn more about disfellowshipping.

(more…)

News And Links For Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses: Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists in the News

As mentioned in my last post, the Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists (AAWA) is here to make the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society a less crappy place to live in1 and to help ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses who need it.

I have some updates for you about the Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists below.


AAWA has an update for us at An eventful journey – summing up AAWA’s launch | JWActivists.org

There have been highs, and there have been lows! I will do my best to state candidly and factually what we did right and what we got wrong.

My fellow board members and I went into this with our eyes wide open, expecting to divide opinion and make mistakes – but it was always going to be impossible to predict the response to something that has never been done before to this extent.

Atheism TV ran a story about the AAWA via The Infidel; News for the Damned (2013-04-12). The part about AAWA is about two minutes in. Note that this is a video link to an online news channel on YouTube.

Religion News ran a story called New organization takes on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watch Tower Society

AAWA says it is a strictly religiously-neutral organization. Legally incorporated on March 7th 2013, AAWA works with a Board of Directors, an Advisory Board, and volunteers.

Here’s a link at Topix called Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists about the AAWA. One commentator had this to say:

They selected a politically incorrect name out of the gate

Interesting name selection

Folks like to be For something. hence Pro-

While they are not to excited to Be against something. Hence Anti

The abortion groups learned this and on both sides of the issues changed their names to

Pro life

Pro choice

As jw we were so shutout of political things we never learned these techniques that others learned years ago from being involved in politics

Just my 2

I confess some misgivings about the name as well. I do think it conveys the wrong message on one level. Yes, it’s a strong name for a strong stance, but it also makes the association sound like it could be full of extremists who want to picket Bethel headquarters. On the other hand, what do you call it? “The Association of Pro-Ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

There were also some rumblings about the name at JWD.

Time will tell. If need be, I suppose they can always change the name.

The AAWA was also mentioned at a blog called 100 USES FOR MUESLI at this link: Watchtower, beware!

You can volunteer to help the AAWA through their website and can join their Facebook page (but you have to be invited first). You can also get a badge added to your Facebook profile pic here to show your support.

  1. Yes, if you’re one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, we already know what you will say. The Society’s “truth” is awesome, every day is a dream come true. I know. I just disagree.