Leaving the M out seriously never gets old.

They tried to sign me up to Scientology; a massive work for free and we’ll keep you, contract. Can’t remember how long it went for now, but over a year I think. I read the contract and politely declined. Interesting, ‘religion’ though. I do like my sci fi

@girlwithsmiles Did you take the "E-meter" test they administer?

@Fletch no, they did an iq test and some other written ones. That would have been interesting. They gave you treatment in return for your servitude I think. It was back in 1999

I was Mormon too. Fortunately my mother didn't turn seriously devout until I was nearing the end of high school so escaping was relatively easy for me compared to some others. But two of my brothers are still in.

Scientology makes the Mormons seem sane.

I didn’t know that about the Mormons, we have a whole load of them in my family. Every day is a school day. Were you able to get to know Barbara?

@girlwithsmiles I did visit with her, but it turned out she and her family were all JW. After I came out as gay they lost interest in staying in touch. They are nice people, but with religious people, you always feel that their niceness comes out of a desire to convert you.

I had been meaning to find out is the JW religion one of the many religions that originated in Millerism? I know the 7th Day Adventists did, and I am pretty sure that Christian Scientists did, and there are a few other lesser known sects that are anti-medicine and science, but believe faith heals all, that also did. I was just wondering if teh JW faith had also originated in Millerism.

Of course I know the Mormon church teaches a very slanted view of their church history, as I suspect most churches do, so you may not know if it did.

@snytiger6 It seems that the Mormon’s didn’t take up millerism,
[rsc.byu.edu]
One of their main differences was a new section of the bible found in South America. Interesting stuff.
Sorry to hear about how it ended with Barbara, funny old life isn’t it?

@girlwithsmiles The Mormon church was started by a con man named Joseph Smith. He claimed he discovered ancient writings on plates (in Palmyra, NY) of gold, after beign visited by an angel, and he lso claimed to have spoken to god and Jesus personally. Anyway, he supposedly translated the ancient writings which supposedly were a record of Israelite who had come to America in teh B.C. and who were later visited by Jesus after the resurrection.

Anyway, if you googled "Joseph Smith criminal history" [en.wikipedia.org] You'd see that he was constantly moving to avoid criminal prosecution. Before the Civil War it was easy to escape prosecution simply by crossing state lines, as States had a lot more sovereignty and the Federal government didn't have much authority.

The Mormon church claims he had to keep moving due to religious persecution, but court records tell a different tale. Also, Smith was tarred and feathered more than once. Again the official church story was religious persecution, but in reality he was chasing after other peoples wives and daughters tryign to seduce them.

There were quite a few person who were sel declared "prophets in the 19th Century. Smith and Miller were just two of them.

Concerning a couple of your statements and question.

Charles Russel did promote a lot of the same ideas that Miller had and definitely followed the example of setting dates for the apocalypse. He said the last days began in 1799, Jesus would be present invisibly in 1874, become king in 1878 and the end would come in 1914. That date was moved to 1925. 1935 was the sealing of the anointed which was also a flop. The last big one was 1975 which I lived through where everyone was encouraged to sell whatever they had and preach.

Concerning Mormons and inter-racial marriage, I now live in a Mormon town which means that Mormons hold a lot of significance and political power here, My wife’s boss is a Mormon who just married a black man from Africa who she is still trying through the immigration service to get here. We joke about her bringing him to the little town she lives in because racism is very much alive and well there and there are no black people living there presently. Having said that though, it seems that she has to blessing of the church in this union and I haven’t heard of any black-lash about it. I wonder if their policies have changed in recent years about inter-racial marriage. My marriage in inter-racial and we have never received any criticism that I am aware of and they do try to get us to join.

@gearl Up until the late 1970's blacks were nto allowed to hold the priesthood in the Mormon church. Virtually every male adult is supposed to hold the priesthood though. Anyway, in the late 1970's the Mormon church hcanged their policies about blacks holdign the priesthood, but at the time they still discouraged inter racisl marriages. I left the Mormon church at the end of hte 1970's, and although Ihave family members who are still members, I really yhave not kept up much.

Even before they changed poolicies, there were still a few (mostly with races other than black, but there were some with black persons which were rare) rare inter racial marriages. I know two of my Mormon nieces married hispanics, which in the 1970's wouldhave been greatly discouraged.

They hnever outright forbade inter racialmarriage, but they have always greatly discouraged it. The official church policy is that the various races are the resutl of curses beign placed on different groups of people and mixing races subjects descendants to those curses. In my mind it was all mde up to justify racism. The idea of races beign due to god's curses comes from go dmarking kane. I cant' explain how they went from there to where they went, because it never made sense to me.

@snytiger6 Thanks that makes sense especially from my experiences over the years.

I so appreciate you sharing your story.

That would be funnier if it didn't hit so close to home. I'm not sure I'm alive yet.

Sorry, but I disagree. I was brought up Church of England and my friend’s a JW. Her life is very different to mine, I’m lucky we still have a tenuous relationship and she would love me to join them.

@Allamanda Cult " A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. Wear Yarmulkes Hijabs Burkas and Cowls robes vestments and all worship in specific buildings designated for those who must contribute a specific amount of their income toward the church. If your travels take you down south on any country road and you will see churches with manicured lawns which look far better than any of the residents homes. Take a peek at Jimmy Swaggerts spread or Joel Olsteens planes. The list is endless and the givers haven't a clue about what they believe or what their return is. FYI

@Allamanda, @girlwithsmiles The History of the Church of England has more blood on it then it cares to remember. They murdered more over the good book then you have yet to read about. Start with the Crusades and then work your way up thru the Renaissance and the body count will need a computer to compile the actual figures which are way beyond the borders of England.

@Allamanda To Follow and discussion is what I was doing. I was responding directly to facts which were presented by yourself and another person from England. I gave direct responses to the issues you mentioned concerning money, isolation and visible exposure in public. When your only response is that you found my FYI not polite, I found it more informative than 'obtuse' what ever you thought was suppose to be of anything worth discussing. I do not argue and if you cannot discuss without stating something informative then you should learn how to improve your communication skills.

@Nevermind345 yes, but I’m talking about it’s input in my life personally, as a pose to the personal experience of my friend. I’m not claiming that what Martin Luther experienced wasn’t a lot like leaving the jw fold now.

Almost funny how someone asks about their experience within a cult … a multitude of responses describe ‘their church experience as cult-like,’ another comes along and claims ‘they’re all cults’ … then gets harassed for being right

me too

All of culture is imagined orders: money - corporations - government - religion

The imagined order is an inter-subjective order that exists in the shared imagination of millions of people. Things like any monetary system, the idea of human rights, or the United States of America itself exist as inter-subjective realities.

The imagined order shapes our deepest desires, how we view ourselves and world around us. We believe the fictional realities of our culture because we are born into it. “If you don’t think your money is real, give it to me.” Well yes, but it is only useful because of the inter-subjective belief of all of the other people within the system.

The imagined order is embedded not only in the desires of a single person, but of countless people. It is an inter-subjective order that exists in the shared imagination of millions of people, but it probably started with the coming together of related tribal groups of humans in places like Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. Creating large shared fictional realities resulted in rapid innovation of social behavior resulting in, or related to, the development of agriculture and towns and cities.

The vast information capacity of human language seems to have evolved so that we could talk about other humans (i.e. gossip) and to screen potential mates for intelligence. Sexual selection is a driving force for quick changes in species. The guy who could sweet talk the most smart females into having sex with him got to pass on his genes.

@DaveSchumacher That’s a lot of speculation. Do you have any research or primary texts to support it?

@DaveSchumacher In retrograde, the 'guy' who was generous with his genes for the last six millennia was as often as not a conquering rapist. Females' status only recently emerged in the West as more than livestock. In the roughly 800 or so years most of that progress has only been over the more recent half. Not to dispute your 'inter-subjective' views, because they aren't that far fetched. Regardless of what forms societies have taken, my point was that they've all been poisoned by exclusive leadership of the least capable,(qualified) sex. Leadership can come from both sexes in wonderful ways, as demonstrated in the few surviving Matriarchal and Matrilineal cultures in remote areas of the world that were out of reach and awareness of destructive male conquest.

I’d take a session of Sunday school over being assaulted ( not that it’s called that when you’re a kid) and being emotionally degraded any day. I don’t think theology is the problem for me. A discussion is a walk in the park compared to some things kids are subjected to.

@Geoffrey51 Naw, just regurgitating from popular books, mostly Harari. But it explains why humans have so many languages, cultures and religions. The diverse culture of the New Guinea's Highlands is an extreme example. [goodreads.com]

@Geoffrey51, @Silver1wun The culture of massive war and conquest was a result of domestication of grain and large animals. Many cultures were stable over long periods of time before the growth of city states. Jared Diamond wrote about that in "Guns, Germs, and Steel". [goodreads.com]

@DaveSchumacher Yes that’s true. It’s got to do with structure and functionality in per-Industrial societies. It’s apparently still true today in parts of Africa and Asia where tribes that share environments next to each other cannot understand each others language.

@DaveSchumacher Population density is a important facet of warfare also.

I think the first record of skeletons with embedded arrow heads is around 13,000 years ago and the first pictographic evidence of the same around 30,000 years ago.