Real stories, told by real people.
Today, F.S. joins us and he's got a story to tell. He's an ex Jehovah's Witness. From the womb, indoctrination is encouraged by the church. The listening of tapes, and sermons out loud while pregnant was something his mother did, "my doctrination started before I was born." Child to teenager, then to an adult, his entire world revolved around the ruling council of Jehovah's Witness.
Sharing life growing up as a Jehovah's Witness. And the trauma instilled in him as a child. Fear of Armageddon, and the destruction of its aftermath -"It made me suicidal big time, as a child, the first suicidal thought I had, I was 10 years old." F.S. also shares in detail, the death and abuse this organization is responsible for. It'll be surprising for some.
Just recently (a couple years ago) he separated himself from the organization, and because of it, lost everything. Family, friends, and ultimately the world as he knew it. Leaving him at ground zero, and alone in a world he was programmed to believe was against him. He had his truth, his conviction, and an awakening. But, it came with a price. That's his reason for wanting to share his story with us today. He's angry, and rightfully so. Another GIANT AMONGST US, with a passion and desire to bring awareness and shed light on what's really going on behind the curtain, of what he calls, a death cult.
If you enjoyed the Show, you can support it at no cost at all. Simple as giving a rating and review, if you feel it's been of value to you. We appreciate the feedback. Word a mouth is still the best advertisement, so if you know someone who also may find value in any of these stories, share it with them.
'Til next time
and very soon,
PEACE!!
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Links and references exposing JW's history and doctrines :
Website : https://avoidjw.org/
YouTube : https://youtube.com/@altworldly?si=S3Vo-AYASluB7OuR
YouTube : https://youtube.com/@Self-AwareNPC?si=UUDVlHEIrdmm2rWB
Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/
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Intro Track :
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Background music by :
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00:00:00
This is Giants Amongst Us.
00:00:26
Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome back to the show.
00:00:30
And you know the code.
00:00:32
This is Giants Amongst Us where we share in that unique human experience.
00:00:38
And if this is your first time tuning in, pull up a chair. Please do stay a while.
00:00:44
I hope this finds you all in good spirits.
00:00:47
Today we've got another one and we are joined by let's just call him F.S.
00:00:53
And he's got a story to tell.
00:00:55
This man from the womb was conditioned.
00:00:59
He was bred to be and only be a Jehovah's Witness.
00:01:04
And if you guys are anything like me, at first glance and just judging somebody off appearance.
00:01:10
When I would see a Jehovah's Witness, I would see somebody who's respectable, somebody who's wholesome, somebody who's living a pure and clean life.
00:01:19
But man, oh man.
00:01:22
You can't always judge a book by its cover, but I'm sure a lot of you, you already know that.
00:01:27
And sometimes that apple, it looks tasty, it looks juicy from the outside, but once you bite into it, worms all bad.
00:01:38
Today you might hear some things that are surprising, some things that are shocking, some things that you just won't believe is going on, has been going on, and is still going on with this organization.
00:01:51
Many ex-members call it a cult and after you hearing this, I'll let you decide for yourself.
00:01:58
So this man, he had the fire inside of him.
00:02:02
He was passionate about getting his story out, getting his word out and shining light and bringing awareness to what's really going on.
00:02:11
We had a little bit of a struggle trying to hook this thing up.
00:02:14
We had a couple of misfires, some fall throughs with the audio.
00:02:19
We had to reconnect, link back up and finish up the second half of the conversation.
00:02:25
But I just have to thank my man.
00:02:27
He was flexible.
00:02:28
He was willing.
00:02:29
He was eager to hook back up and to complete this conversation so that the word can get out.
00:02:35
That was the most important thing for him, to get the word out.
00:02:41
He's lost family.
00:02:42
He's lost friends.
00:02:43
This is something that is personal to him.
00:02:46
And I think after hearing his story and listening to his experience, you'll know why.
00:02:52
So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, this is FS in his story.
00:02:59
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another edition of Giants Amongst Us where we share in the unique human experience.
00:03:09
And today, I'd like to welcome a guest who has a story to tell.
00:03:16
He has an experience to share with us.
00:03:18
And I want to thank you first of all for taking time out of your day.
00:03:22
You could have been anywhere.
00:03:23
You couldn't be doing anything, but we're here now.
00:03:26
So thank you and welcome to the show.
00:03:28
Thank you.
00:03:29
Yeah, it's important to me.
00:03:30
Let's do it.
00:03:31
Right on.
00:03:32
So just for starters, to give us an idea of what some of your background is.
00:03:38
Can you just talk a little bit?
00:03:39
We don't have to get into specifics.
00:03:41
Like I said, let's talk a little bit about where you come from and how it was for you growing up.
00:03:46
Absolutely.
00:03:47
So I would just say that I'm from North America, the Canadian and American JW experiences from what I've read almost identical.
00:03:55
So it's pretty much the same thing, no matter what.
00:03:59
I came from a small town with one congregation.
00:04:03
My mother was born into the religion.
00:04:06
My father was recruited around the age of 20 something.
00:04:11
And they met and got married within three months, which sounds fast and is not entirely unusual in JW land.
00:04:21
And they had some kids and I was one of them.
00:04:24
I swear it all began.
00:04:25
Small town, one congregation.
00:04:27
So you were brought into it.
00:04:29
Your parents were already married.
00:04:31
They were involved with this organization or do we just go right out and call it a spade of spade and say this is a cult?
00:04:39
Yeah, you can definitely call it a cult.
00:04:42
Like I had mentioned to you before, sometimes it comes down to a matter of opinion on what a cult is.
00:04:48
But I think that there's check boxes and they check those boxes.
00:04:53
So we can call it a cult.
00:04:56
I was definitely, yeah, I was born into it.
00:04:58
They encourage indoctrination in the womb.
00:05:02
They want parents if possible.
00:05:04
You know, they, okay, they want, they encourage parents to listen to tapes and things like that out loud while they're pregnant.
00:05:12
So yeah, my indoctrination started before I was born.
00:05:15
That's, I mean, that's no different than you have some people that say musicians, they come from a musician family and they're playing music.
00:05:24
They're playing music to the baby while the baby's growing inside of them.
00:05:28
And, you know, these type of things because you know that I don't know, I believe that there's something to that.
00:05:33
You already, the child is developing and it's picking up on the inside of it.
00:05:38
Oh, the science of sound.
00:05:40
Yeah, the science of sound definitely influences the child.
00:05:43
So music would have been nice.
00:05:46
But I got indoctrination instead.
00:05:50
That's pre-programmed before I was even born.
00:05:53
Well, how was it for you?
00:05:55
Did you go to a regular school or were you, how did that?
00:05:58
Yeah, so growing up, you do go into a regular school.
00:06:02
There are some communities of JWs that are big enough to actually have their own school.
00:06:06
I know, and I think California or something like that.
00:06:09
So it kind of depends on how many are in the area.
00:06:11
But no, I went to a regular school because I was in a, like this city I was in had less than 10 people when I was growing up.
00:06:17
Like it was tiny.
00:06:18
So I went to a regular school and, you know, that was, that was an interesting experience being a JW kid in school.
00:06:27
There's a lot of things that you get confronted on very early in life that you don't even know or understand, but you have to defend.
00:06:35
Like we don't celebrate Christmas.
00:06:37
We don't stand for the national anthem.
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We don't sing the national anthem.
00:06:41
Oftentimes, like kids at various stances, a lot of times kids would be like put outside the room when birthdays were celebrated
00:06:47
or, you know, Halloween was celebrated or they did anything that was in violation of the JW thing.
00:06:53
You were often just put outside the room.
00:06:55
And that's kind of a common theme with JWs is just their extreme beliefs are self-isolating.
00:07:03
Right.
00:07:04
You had, okay, you had your school schedule.
00:07:06
Now how was it when you were outside of school, like people that are involved in that?
00:07:11
I mean, most of their extra time is pretty much took it up to the organization, right?
00:07:15
You're over there outreaching or you're being indoctrinated.
00:07:18
So your typical week would be about seven or eight hours of meetings or preaching.
00:07:27
So when I was growing up, they had three meetings a week.
00:07:29
They had something called a book study where it was just like we would study one of their books, usually some prophecy book.
00:07:35
The one that I studied the most was the Revelation book.
00:07:39
And I can get into that a bit later.
00:07:40
It's basically trying to interpret the book of Revelation.
00:07:42
Okay, this is separate from the Bible.
00:07:45
Yes.
00:07:46
It's like they go through a verse by verse analysis.
00:07:49
Okay.
00:07:50
So it's basically taking the Bible book of Revelation and saying, this is what this means.
00:07:55
This is what this means.
00:07:56
And the stuff they said is totally batshit and saying when you look at it 20 or 30 years later, it's kind of funny actually.
00:08:03
Yeah, because that book, that book in itself is just full of symbolism.
00:08:06
Yeah, like I don't trust any human to know what the hell that book means. That would have to be explained to me by whoever inspired it.
00:08:13
Right?
00:08:14
It's like, I don't understand, right?
00:08:16
So yeah, that was one of the things we called that the book study.
00:08:19
And then they would have another meeting on another week night.
00:08:22
So that was on one week night.
00:08:24
The next one would be on another week night, usually a Thursday.
00:08:27
And that would be a two part meeting, which was about an hour and 45 minutes.
00:08:30
So you're always up late to like 10 o'clock going to these day and meetings every kid.
00:08:35
How old were you? Like as far back as you could remember, you were attending these meetings?
00:08:40
Oh, yeah, like I was born into it. So as a child, baby, everything I went from youth, I stopped going when I was 35 something.
00:08:49
Wow. Was there it? How am I trying to put this?
00:08:53
Was there, you know, were you able to just call off?
00:08:57
You know, I'm not going this. I'm not going to that. I don't feel like it. I'm sick or I have something else going on.
00:09:03
Or they come in and follow up on you. Why aren't you, you know, why weren't you there yesterday?
00:09:07
Yeah, like people do miss meetings. It's not, you know, entirely crazy.
00:09:12
If you miss a whole bunch in a row, people start to get suspicious.
00:09:16
And if you continue to miss eventually, you'll be starting to be isolated from the flock, as it were.
00:09:22
Yeah, like, I mean, as a kid, if you ever got out of a meeting, it was the most wonderful thing ever because it was like the meetings were always primetime.
00:09:29
And the time when we went out in service Saturday mornings, right? Like that's when all the cartoons were on and where were we knocking on people's doors.
00:09:36
Yeah.
00:09:37
So it just sucked up all of your best time. But yes, I think I missed what your original question was.
00:09:45
Yeah, no, no, no, that's pretty much what I was alluding to.
00:09:49
And also, we were talking offline and man, I mean, we really got into some stuff.
00:09:56
Like I'm sure a lot of people listening like myself before I started to read and hear about what goes on behind doors is really surprising.
00:10:08
And it's just, you know, it's sickening that these people, they really put on a good front to where, you know, I'm blinded and ignorant to the fact that you would just think, oh, this is a regular religion.
00:10:23
They have the Bible or I don't most of the time it's the watchtower, but they have the ladies have their dresses, the long dresses and the men have their slacks and the young kids have even sometimes two piece suits and they look very presentable and righteous.
00:10:38
And what you hear about from a lot of ex members is pretty sickening.
00:10:46
I'm not even pretty, it's just disgusting. So like, how was it for you when you were involved with with this cult? How was it for you?
00:10:57
Did it always sit right with you? Or was there a time in a place where, you know, I guess maybe, you know, before we get into all that, like, can you kind of give a brief overview of what their doctrine is?
00:11:09
What exactly it is that they believe?
00:11:11
Yeah, it's where it starts. So they believe in 1914 Jesus took his throne in heaven invisibly. They take, they take several scriptures and they formulated a prophecy out of this that says 1914 is when Jesus came back.
00:11:29
And they feel very confident in that because they look at the World War One and they think that that maybe validates their prophecy.
00:11:36
I mean, this is kind of the retcon of that. Originally, they thought 1914 was the end of the world, and they preach that. So that's that's going way back. And when they got that wrong, they actually did, you know, four or five follow up every other year after that saying,
00:11:51
no, Armageddon is actually 1950, 60, etc. etc.
00:11:54
Cover face.
00:11:55
Yeah, and it kind of worked a little bit because they grew really fast, right? They scared a lot of people into joining.
00:12:03
So anyways, that much aside, so they believe Jesus did that. They believe there's two classes of Christians, an earthly class and a heavenly class. In Revelation, there's 144 spoken of.
00:12:16
And they believe that represents an actual hard number of people that are going to get a heavenly reward.
00:12:22
They believe the earthly class of people will get an earthly reward where they'll live in a paradise earth forever in youth and happiness, essentially.
00:12:30
They believe Jesus is the Son of God, not God himself. They believe Jehovah is God's name, even though that's not quite right. It's a bit of a mistranslation.
00:12:39
They believe that you should preach in order to, you know, be kind of counted as worthy of getting into this new system.
00:12:48
So is it is it by works or in tenets that you you're able to experience this heaven after after death? Or is it like by salvation, grace of God?
00:12:59
That's a great question. And and it brings out something that's very important with JW is they want it both ways.
00:13:07
They'll always tell you it's not works by salvation, but the other like they'll have two back to back talks without any sense of irony.
00:13:15
And they'll have one that will say, we don't do works by salvation. The next one will be why you need to go out and preach to earn salvation.
00:13:23
Like there's you can read all of their propaganda and you'll see a dual message with just about everything. There's always this.
00:13:31
It's like it just feels so dishonest when I think about it now. But it's just like, yeah, they'll tell you straight to your face.
00:13:36
No, we don't believe in works based salvation. And then they'll also tell you right to your face.
00:13:40
Yeah, we believe you have to go out in service to earn salvation.
00:13:43
And what you were sharing before we started recording when we were offline was was the very strict measures that they had people on from work from studies and across the board pretty much.
00:13:58
Yeah, as far as strictness. So that's where you kind of get into checking off the cult boxes, right? It's like when you think of the JW in some form or another,
00:14:08
they control parts of your life as far as what you can do in your marriage bed, like no oral sex. It's not right.
00:14:16
What you can eat, which I understand, you know, no blood, right? So like you're not supposed to eat blood in the Bible.
00:14:23
So they don't want you eating blood. And that makes sense. But it's controlled. If you did that, routinely you'd be disfellowshipped and shunned.
00:14:29
They control what you wear. They want you wearing certain things modestly. They control if you shave or not.
00:14:34
If you if you live in a town where people typically don't shave and you grew a beer, they typically shave and you grew a beard, they would probably withhold you from certain activities, kind of a soft punishment.
00:14:46
So they control what you eat. They control what you think. Oh, my God, they want Jehovah living in your mind. They want you to think he is literally over your shoulder 24 freaking seven so that it influences and impacts every single thing you do.
00:15:00
How was that as a child living with that guilt or that feeling like he's over you at all times watching your every move?
00:15:10
To be honest, it made me conclude I would not get into the new world easily. I was just like, I'm like, I'm not good enough. I never felt I was good enough.
00:15:21
So I just concluded I'm not getting into the new world, which sort of led to a host of behavioral problems because it was around this time when I started having that thought, which was like eight, nine, 10.
00:15:33
I'm like, I'm not going to make it. I was also studying the Revelation book, which said basically the way they implied it was that the end of the world is kind of like super super fast.
00:15:43
And I was under the distinct impression it would come before I turned 18. And this is 20 Samad years ago. They actually put it in print that the end of the world would come before the end of this century.
00:15:56
And they did that in about 89. So me, I'm told that everything I'm learning in this meeting is the truth. I'm eight years old.
00:16:03
And they tell me that the end of the world is coming before December 31, 1999. So that fear of Armagedt, of every single person who's not a JW, will be destroyed.
00:16:17
And just like living in that every single day, it's like being in the walking dead, man.
00:16:21
Wow. Yeah, that's got to shake the hell out of you. I mean, and I'm sure you weren't alone. I mean, you had friends, you had peers and people around you.
00:16:32
And I'm sure maybe you spoke with them and they were going through something similar.
00:16:36
As a child, you don't know you're going through something right? Like this is life. This is just normal for me.
00:16:41
Right. That's normal. That's what you grew up in.
00:16:43
Everything they're teaching me like this is the truth. This is the way my reality is like literally every person you see who's not a JW is going to be slaughtered mercilessly by God at any moment.
00:16:53
Starting now, starting the moment I heard that it could happen any minute.
00:16:58
Anytime there was a thunderstorm growing up, a large snowstorm, super windy days, dark clouds, that kind of shit freaked the hell out of me.
00:17:07
I always thought it was the beginning of like this slaughter that we had all been waiting for.
00:17:12
Like they are an apocalyptic death cult like you would not fucking believe.
00:17:16
It made me suicidal big time as a child. The first suicidal thought I had, I was 10 years old.
00:17:23
And this was having to do with the constant fear of the world is coming to an end and I'm not going to make it.
00:17:31
At 10 years old, you're already instilling that in a child.
00:17:37
Well, you spoke a bit before. Again, there was people that were in your circle.
00:17:43
They ended up taking their lives because of these type of things.
00:17:50
Yeah, like to speak on the subject of, you know, like, I'll just cover all of the death in the organization and the things that I feel that they're responsible for.
00:18:01
So you have in the very, very beginning, I think even before they recall Jehovah's Witnesses, they didn't adopt that name until the 20s.
00:18:08
They were called the Bible students, but I believe I don't remember exact dates, but there was a time where they kind of said vaccines are wrong.
00:18:15
So we all know the science behind vaccines and you know, sometimes sure, whatever, I'm not here to express opinions, but we're talking like polio vaccines and shit, like stuff that like the science is pretty sound and some of the vaccines that were developed back then, right?
00:18:28
It's like, we don't have certain diseases today because of that. They denied that for a while and eventually said that was okay.
00:18:34
So when we were talking about death, you can probably guarantee somebody died because of that teaching.
00:18:39
In the 70s, they denied, they said that organ transplants were cannibalism and they said you should not do it.
00:18:46
And it was a for about a 10 or 11 year period that you could pretty much guarantee some people lost their lives.
00:18:52
And then at the end of that period, they just said, you know what, we're going to call this a conscience matter.
00:18:57
So now if you want to get that, it's a conscience matter.
00:18:59
And of course, every single person, there's been zero people who've chosen to not get an organ transplant.
00:19:05
As far as my understanding, like, correct me if I'm wrong if anyone knows, but so that's part of the and I definitely call them responsible for that death.
00:19:13
Because like I mentioned you before, if you you only had two choices, you took the organ transplant and lost all of your friends and family because they would be forced to shun you.
00:19:24
Or you didn't and you died either way, you're suffering a physical or the virtual death.
00:19:32
And then they said that for a long time they had forbidden blood, right?
00:19:36
So like they still do no blood transfusions.
00:19:39
But there was a certain point I think in the 80s where they said certain fractions of these blood you can take.
00:19:46
And it was like it opened up the door to a lot of treatment that initially like if you see that all the people that might have died before that point, because that door was closed.
00:19:57
And I find that they are definitely responsible and blood guilty for that.
00:20:01
And they also have no biblical backing for this teaching. They just pulled it out of their ass.
00:20:05
They're like, well, these like they've talked to doctors and every single doctor is like whatever.
00:20:09
Like you guys are insane for these things like saying that this blood fraction is okay, but not blood is or and having blood is not okay.
00:20:17
But this like fraction of a fraction. Yeah, sure. That's fine. It's like it's all blood.
00:20:21
It's just components of it, right? It's like it's silly.
00:20:25
Would you say that it was every kingdom hall was was preaching this exact doctrine or was this like was it specific to region or location?
00:20:36
Unity of doctrine and action is one big thing. Like they there's a scripture in the Bible that says you will know if you are my followers if you have true like love amongst yourselves.
00:20:46
So they take that extrapolate that scripture and kind of say this is our unity, right?
00:20:52
And I mean, the unity they have is essentially the same camaraderie. If I was, let's say, I'm a New York Giants fan and I meet a New York Giants fan across the world in Japan.
00:21:02
It's like an instant camaraderie will be there. Like, hey, we're pal. Like, yeah, we love the same thing.
00:21:08
And it's like, you'll be like miniature friends for a bit. You're not like the best of friends, but it feels good.
00:21:13
And that's the entire special thing, the special feeling they believe they have, that special Bible based unity is just camaraderie for believing the same crap.
00:21:23
That was a bit of a divergent, but you know what I mean?
00:21:25
No, no, no, no, right, right on. Yeah, no, you made it, you made it clear.
00:21:29
And then I'm sorry, because you were, you were carrying on about the deaths that you feel that they're responsible for.
00:21:34
You can keep going with that.
00:21:36
Okay, so to keep going with the deaths thing. So we had like, so they basically, they started to allow some sub components of blood and everyone who died before that, I would say that they're blood guilty for that.
00:21:47
Another part of what I consider the blood guilty for is there's a scandal that was called the Mexico Malawi scandal.
00:21:53
And it came down to political identification cards and army service or something to that effect.
00:22:01
But basically, the doctrine from the governing body, they said, no, the people in Malawi are not allowed to own up or purchase a political card.
00:22:11
Now, it was a dictatorship at that time.
00:22:13
So basically, it would be like if Putin ruled the world and he says, I want $10 and you'll get a card that says you are part of the Putin Party, which you have no choice.
00:22:23
He's a dictator. And that's what's going on in Malawi.
00:22:26
And they had to like everyone was under the same government, they just had to pretend like they were supporting it willingly with this card.
00:22:32
Now, the governing body said, don't do that.
00:22:34
And because of that, people were raped and killed.
00:22:37
And I consider the organization responsible for those deaths and rapes.
00:22:43
And it's a pretty horrific thing.
00:22:45
Now, how that translates and why I mentioned Mexico is because a similar thing was going on in Mexico where I think they had to sign up for military service or something.
00:22:54
They had to have a card that said, I did military service, but they could just bribe their way to get that card.
00:22:59
They could just, they don't have to do any military service.
00:23:01
They could just flip a thousand pesos and, yeah, here we'll give you a card that says you did it.
00:23:05
So people are kind of, you know, if there's a bit of a connection there saying on one end, I'm allowed to have this card saying I did something for the government.
00:23:13
On the other end, I'm not. And people are literally dying and being raped because of that.
00:23:18
So I would say that the organization is responsible for some horrors in that aspect.
00:23:24
Yeah. You were also mentioning, well, you can carry on with that thought.
00:23:30
I was also going to point out that I remember you brought up in Pennsylvania.
00:23:34
There's something recent, right, that they have going on with this.
00:23:37
This isn't having to do with death, but I mean, it's pretty damn severe.
00:23:41
Yes. And I can get to that.
00:23:44
I'll just finish.
00:23:45
I think it's important.
00:23:46
No, yeah.
00:23:48
For the final moment of like what kind of deaths I would consider them responsible for is, like I'd mentioned, I lost a few friends to suicide.
00:23:54
People I knew personally, people I worked with for years, people who I was friends with, I went on vacation, or not vacation, but, you know, work trips with for days and days.
00:24:04
I know these people and they ended their life because of the shunning they couldn't handle.
00:24:09
So I would say that the governing body and Chov's witnesses as an organization are responsible for the orphans that were made by that, the people who lost their daughter, people who lost their brother, uncle, etc.
00:24:22
Like all that loss I blame the organization for.
00:24:25
So, for an total, they have a lot of death on their hands.
00:24:28
And that concludes the full portfolio of the death.
00:24:32
A lot of blood in their hands.
00:24:34
And my goodness, when you think about just how good of a front that they put up and a lot of people, and that's why I think this was very important that we connected and you were so willing and eager.
00:24:50
You were game like I said, you were right away like, okay, let's do it.
00:24:53
Man, I'm all for it.
00:24:54
If it's about bringing light, then let's go ahead and do that, bringing awareness to the situation because like I was saying, the only way that these things could be brought to life.
00:25:03
As if people bring it to light and speak about it and you were, you were very willing to do that.
00:25:10
But yeah, my goodness, under the guise of religion and all of these things have been going on.
00:25:17
They still do go on.
00:25:20
I think it's probably fair to say.
00:25:22
Yeah, like there's there's thousands of people that lose their lives in the religion every year for refusing blood transfusions.
00:25:28
And I think I don't know any statistics because nobody's going to want to look those up or publish them.
00:25:34
Definitely not the JWs.
00:25:36
I think disproportionately it's often pregnant women and babies because that's like a very, you know, violent thing to kind of happen to the human body going through birth and a lot of blood loss a lot of times and saying no to blood loss in that situation is a dexence.
00:25:52
There was a guy I think who interviewed on a YouTube channel I watched who used to be in charge of like the contact at Bethel, which is what the headquarters is called and he would feel a lot of these calls were saying, hey, we've got a blood issue.
00:26:05
And it's like we've got a pregnant person their need of blood and basically they just organize a team of elders that go down and make sure that the blood policy is followed and provide some spiritual comfort as secondary.
00:26:18
But yeah, disproportionately a lot of a lot of it and that's really sad to me.
00:26:23
People just starting out their lives, young mothers, just families absolutely destroyed by it and it is a very common theme.
00:26:31
Like you could find so many news articles with headlines like that and it's it's never not soul crushing because it's a simple procedure to give a little bit of blood.
00:26:39
They could have given themselves and this is one of the weird things like JWs aren't even allowed to extract their own blood and store it and use it for a procedure later.
00:26:47
Like that's my own blood. I can't use that to save my own life.
00:26:50
And it's like it's just like these rules that they make the cost so many unnecessary lives.
00:26:55
They ultimately want the totality of a human being like you said your thoughts, your body, every action, all of it is now I guess it's of service to not God.
00:27:10
I mean, this is this is an organization. This is a cultish entity that is demanding all of you and without question, like you said, you're not to ask questions.
00:27:21
You're not to raise any concerns. You're pretty much just to go along with it without, you know, Pete.
00:27:27
You got to understand like the perspective of when you're in is it's something unique and very intoxicating.
00:27:33
Right. Like when I look at you, I see a worldly person who could die at any moment due to your ignorance.
00:27:38
So I know something special, right? Like I have this secret knowledge that you don't.
00:27:42
I am aware of what's going on in the world. Like I was so confident as a child.
00:27:46
You got the key.
00:27:47
I'm going to kill myself before I'm getting comes because I like there was this kind of doctrine loophole where if you kill yourself, you're kind of potentially forgiven and resurrected.
00:27:57
So I was like, that was my best shot. And growing up, that's a really fucked up thing for a child to think that killing yourself is your best chance to get to paradise.
00:28:04
But that's the truth. And now I forget what I was talking about just before.
00:28:08
Yeah, no, just the whole intoxication of the doctrine in that. Yeah.
00:28:12
Yes, right. So yes. So the experience of being inside, right?
00:28:16
Like we have special knowledge that you don't have. It's a very, it just consumes you and they tell you like you, this is, they call it, they call it within the organization.
00:28:24
They call it the truth. It's constantly, constantly referred to as the truth, whether people are in the truth, out of the truth when they leave, you know, you're in the truth.
00:28:33
You know, you're, are they strong on the truth? Like the truth is constantly, like it's like a brainwashing tactic to like make you think, well, it is the truth.
00:28:41
I'm learning the truth, right? And it's kind of an insidious thing to do to children when you also tell them the world's going to end in 10 years.
00:28:47
So yeah, but it is very intoxicating when you're in it. You truly like they, J. Hope's witnesses are absolute true believers.
00:28:55
They've been compared to like Scientologists, like this fanatical belief that there is absolutely zero chance that their doctrine and ideas are wrong. Zero.
00:29:04
Like they have, they just can't, there's zero room for doubt. It doesn't even matter if the governing body comes out and says, we make mistakes, which they have.
00:29:12
We're not inspired, which they have said, but they still just have to follow that 100%.
00:29:18
It's just like they have true believers and it's very scary. I'm just glad they're pacifists because these are the level that they believe in our intensity is like the same as the jihadists.
00:29:28
It's just that they're pacifists, which is great. It's like, thank goodness, the worst thing they want to do to you is give you a watchtower and hope you convert.
00:29:36
But also, like that's one layer of it. But then we were talking about some of the things that has been known to go on and some of the cases that they've had, not even some of, but probably many where you have children that are being abused and you have that type of stuff.
00:29:54
Oh, yeah. So I can kind of do it the same way I'd covered death from the beginning of what I'm aware of to where we're at now.
00:30:03
So the original policies, which did a lot of damage, you know, throughout 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s was there had to be two witnesses to a crime in order for the elders to take action.
00:30:15
And since it's such a closed community, anytime crimes or accusations of crimes come up, it goes to the elders. It doesn't go to police or anyone else.
00:30:25
It's like, we got to take this issue to the elders. So if a child went to their parent, let's say, and said, this person touched me in this way, that would go to the elders and then the elders would form a tribunal.
00:30:37
So they'd have three elders in a committee and they would interview the child. I would hopes with the parent present. I've heard of times when the parent wasn't.
00:30:46
They would get into very explicit details, graphic details with this child. They would have to determine whether the child was a willing participant.
00:30:55
And that's a legitimate real thing that that was part of their instructions from Bethel was to find out if the child was a willing participant.
00:31:02
Wow.
00:31:04
Yeah, it's pretty shocking when you think of it. And disgusting, obviously.
00:31:09
I mean, how can the child have consent?
00:31:12
Exactly. So like they might say, you know, like, I don't even want to get into their mental gymnastics. It's just gross. It's just gross.
00:31:19
It's like, we're talking about adults praying on children and they still want to find out if the kid was willing.
00:31:24
Yeah, that's the point. Yeah, that's the point blank.
00:31:27
Some of these things have been kind of muted over the years where they're probably not as intense. I'm pretty sure nowadays, every time an accusation like this comes up, the parent will be present.
00:31:37
I don't know if that's true. I sincerely hope so. But they've also changed it so that like back in the day, like I was mentioning before, you had one witness or two witness rule, right, where two witnesses have had to be witness to this crime.
00:31:50
So if the child said, hey, mom, somebody touched me, they could go to the elders and it would just be a matter of this child versus this adult saying, he did this, the adult could say, no, I didn't.
00:32:00
And that's as far as it goes. That would get cataloged, sealed up in an envelope and stuffed away.
00:32:06
So it's the child's word over the elders.
00:32:09
The child's word versus like they like both versus the right versus the accused, right? So it's like a perpetrator and the child will both have their chance to basically plead their case to the elders.
00:32:21
And back in the day, since it was, you know, and it's still two witness rule is still abounds, like they still go by this.
00:32:28
If there wasn't another witness to it, the guy would just walk. And like in Australia, I mentioned to you that I think over in the last 50 years, since a certain date in the 1950s, the 70s or so, there's been about 100 JWs in Australia.
00:32:43
And they found that there was a thousand plus cases of individuals accused of abuse that never, like not one of those got investigated.
00:32:52
And I ended up being like, so 1% of JWs basically in Australia were pedophiles that never got that never got investigated.
00:33:00
Unbelievable.
00:33:01
Yeah. And all of that came to light during the Australian Royal Commission where they were investigated a part of as part of the whole government investigating multiple religions.
00:33:10
And they got grilled pretty hard. Like they lost some serious face.
00:33:14
Many JWs are on the XJW forum because they saw what was going down in Australia. And in fact, like that's one of our primary ways to try to wake people up.
00:33:24
Say, you got to look into the art, the Australian Royal Commission, because like they'll blow your mind.
00:33:30
You can see like the governing body, these people who are leading you, they get interviewed by judges. They're being deceptive.
00:33:37
They're being sneaky with their language, cagey, like they won't give a straight answer there. And they get like called out on it multiple times embarrassed.
00:33:45
Like these are people leading millions with absolute obedience and they're embarrassing. So yeah, recommending that.
00:33:51
So anyways, that's part of the child abuse scandal. They've also were investigated into in the UK.
00:33:58
One of the things I found interesting about the UK investigation, it was called IXA, I believe it was International Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, I believe.
00:34:06
They found they investigated a bunch of religions and some of them actually had no child abuse problems.
00:34:14
And it was something that was very interesting to see as a JW because I was kind of waking up when I was reading this and I was told, you know, it's like, well, you know, we can't blame the organization for child sexual abuse because it happens everywhere.
00:34:27
And I was just seeing the statistic that no, it doesn't. You got to understand JWs are true believers. They believe God chose them over anybody.
00:34:35
I almost called them Jod. That would have been great. They believe God chose them above everybody.
00:34:41
So all of this is like a, you know, they're the special people. So they shouldn't have any child sexual abuse and it's provable by statistics that there are organizations without it.
00:34:51
So how do you tell me that your religion is the one true religion? And then they also tell you that all of the religions are controlled by Satan.
00:34:58
So somehow Satan can run a religion without child sexual abuse, but Jehovah can't, right? And that's the main reason why they don't want people looking into these things.
00:35:07
They don't want people questioning the doctrine, starting to questioning the governing body because literally you pull a thread, man, and that sweater comes apart like a paid five bucks for it.
00:35:16
It's like it, their doctrine falls apart so insanely fast that their only hope is extreme information control.
00:35:25
And like I was mentioning to you before, they tell you that the media, the governments and any people who are not JWs are basically under the influence of the devil, not direct control, but influence.
00:35:36
Which means you can never fully trust the media, the government, anything you read shouldn't really be able to trust yourself. You can only trust Jehovah.
00:35:43
How do you trust him by trusting the governing body?
00:35:46
I mean, I think it's pretty strict about, well, I mean, you mentioned before how they're telling you how you can have relations with your significant other in the bedrooms.
00:35:55
So I mean, are they also telling you you shouldn't have a TV, you shouldn't put that radio on and not just telling you, but are they going in there and like ripping it from you if you do have one?
00:36:07
Just to keep that information, you know, that you have to filter it out and you're only getting what we want you to get. The rest is nonsense.
00:36:15
So there's a lot of like their control is kind of passive aggressive.
00:36:21
So essentially, if you were somebody in a congregation, you're like, Hey, I really like the Lord of the Rings movies, which would be kind of semi frowned upon.
00:36:29
I know tons of witnesses who have watched and tons of don't. It's an interesting thing to talk about because I know elders who watch it.
00:36:35
And they also go up and talk about, you know, how magic is wrong and how wizards are wrong and shit like that.
00:36:40
Right. So it's like this hypocrisy and you kind of touched on a bit of a sore subject for me, which is the hypocrisy within the religion.
00:36:46
And it is, there's just so much that I can imagine.
00:36:49
I have ten hours to discuss it. So yeah, just so that little part.
00:36:53
Yeah. I mean, and then you can always ultimately like what some religions do is if they can't get in there physically to control you, they always have God to put you say,
00:37:04
if you don't do what you need to be doing, you know, in the afterlife, there's there's hell to pay.
00:37:10
Exactly. And it's very like the reason why JWs have that kind of soft looking exterior and they seem approachable and kind is because everything is very subtle, right?
00:37:21
Like they don't usually come right out and say it. Say, if you don't do this, you're going to die.
00:37:26
That's a turn off.
00:37:27
They always use like examples like, Oh, people who did this in the past died because they did this.
00:37:31
Look at like they would talk about, you know, examples of like, there's this Bible character, Cor, I believe, and his his sons didn't listen to the elders of the camp and they all got killed.
00:37:43
And that's a favorite story for JWs to do because it's like they can reinforce what they want, which is obedience and back it up with a twisted Bible scripture.
00:37:53
Yeah. What was going on with the you also mentioned the case.
00:37:57
I believe it's more recent. I don't know how recent the other ones that you brought up the other one in Pennsylvania.
00:38:03
What was that happen?
00:38:04
Yeah. So I'll finish going through kind of like a bit of the the CSA explosion history.
00:38:08
So, oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Run it. Run it.
00:38:11
So Pennsylvania did like that did happen earlier this year. Yeah. I'll go through that actually.
00:38:16
So basically, I think there was 14 plus JWs, some of them were elders that were arrested for, you know, pedophilia and it's an ongoing investigation.
00:38:28
One of the guys ended his life before he could get arrested.
00:38:32
So you can take that as a in a center guilty plea. I'll leave that up to you.
00:38:37
So, yeah, I was going to say like, this is an ongoing investigation.
00:38:40
Like they set up they set up their own phone number for this investigation.
00:38:44
So like they had they said, if you are a JW and you've experienced anything, it doesn't matter where you're from, like they wanted to hear from people any part of the country.
00:38:52
Because like this is it's like just starting to unfold.
00:38:55
But some of the facts that were interesting from this case, I mentioned to you before that, you know, obviously obedience is a huge thing.
00:39:02
Obedience to the governing body and they talk about obedience to elders and they want you to mirror that the same amount of obedience you would give to your leaders should be the same as what you get to these elders.
00:39:12
And why that was a dangerous thing is because some of these pedophiles ended up being elders and they were using situations within the congregation to isolate and abuse children.
00:39:24
JWs oftentimes say that the child sexual abuse within their organization is not institutional like Catholics where you would have kids dropped off at Sunday school and there's 20 kids around a priest.
00:39:35
Obviously you can molest one.
00:39:37
So they say, yeah, we're not like that. But what they do have is like these service groups will have 20 people and then they'll break off into four groups of four.
00:39:46
And oftentimes, you know, back in the 80s, especially parents would let their kids just go with an elder, go with whoever because they trusted them implicitly.
00:39:55
And part of the reason why they implicitly trust them is because JWs believe elders are literally appointed by Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit has something to do with them getting assigned as an elder in their congregation.
00:40:09
So if you combine Holy Spirit appointed with I want you to obey them as much as you obey the leaders.
00:40:15
And then you combine that with a JW pedophile who's praying on these kids and these service groups. It just amounts to one big disgusting cluster fuck. I guess. I don't know what else to say.
00:40:26
Yeah, no, they you and they ultimately have the license to do whatever the hell they want because who's going to question God's chosen vessel precisely like it takes so long for the stuff to come to light that like all this stuff that we're talking about is probably a decade old or more.
00:40:43
Right. Like there's so much control and one of the big things with this organization is they don't want you to reproach Jehovah's name, which I can get into towards the end that it's not really a correct translation, but whatever.
00:40:55
So they don't want you to reproach. And when they say they don't want you to reproach Jehovah's name, they don't want you to bring negative light to the organization because Jehovah is virtually just the organization.
00:41:05
It's synonymous with the governing body and organization. Their God is the governing body.
00:41:10
They won't admit that they'll say no, that's blasphemy, blah, blah, blah, but it virtually that's what it is because they give them their absolute obedience to the point of death.
00:41:18
Many people have died for being like they are their God. So so this was tied into the Philadelphia, not the Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania thing.
00:41:27
So they were just getting investigated there. I can carry on maybe with another if you feel they're worth mentioning. Go ahead.
00:41:33
So like, I guess like the final like I'm just mentioning kind of like the big issues like they've gone through some class action lawsuits.
00:41:40
I think there's one going on in Canada and Quebec, I believe.
00:41:44
An interesting thing that just came up is I believe it's New Zealand is investigating. They're doing the similar thing to what you created with IXA and Australia with Australian Royal Commission.
00:41:55
They're doing like basically a countrywide investigation into churches and their institutional abuse.
00:42:02
Now, Jehovah's Witnesses, this interesting fact, are the only ones who were being counted as being investigated who tried to get out of it.
00:42:10
They actually sued to get out of being investigated for child abuse and they lost, thankfully, and will be included in the investigation.
00:42:19
But it just shows the level of arrogance these people have.
00:42:22
Even with the admissions in Australia of how many pedophiles they let slip through the net, how many children got re-abused and abused worse because they let them off because you need that to witness rule again.
00:42:34
It's like, it's just insidious, man. Like, it's a very dangerous religion. It's super dangerous for children.
00:42:44
They're just thickening it to know that they actually like say these are people that are part of the organization and the ones that are in the know that know what's going on.
00:42:54
And they are trying to keep it in house. Nobody is trying to have any kind of justice served. Let's just keep it in house because we're going to give ourselves a bad name and that's not good for business.
00:43:06
That's kind of why people consider them just absolutely corrupt because they're just, they're hiding crimes in order to keep their image. It's disgusting. It's like Donald Trump.
00:43:18
And I was going to say, I was going to point to the fact maybe I'm just not as hip to it or I haven't been paying close attention, but for some, for some reason, it seems like it's common knowledge that the Catholic church, they have a history of scandals.
00:43:36
They have Netflix documentaries. I mean, the thing is, is public knowledge is not any kind of conspiracy theory.
00:43:42
For some reason, I don't know. It seems like maybe up until now or recently, things are a bit more louder about it. But it seems like for me, at least my eyes that it seems like they've been J.Dubbs, I'm talking about, they've been flying under the radar.
00:43:57
You don't really get to, you're mentioning all of these cases and things like that. But I think people that are on the outside, maybe not involved with the, involved with the organization or have been involved with it.
00:44:10
They might not even know what's going on.
00:44:12
Oh, exactly. And why you said like spreading awareness was your objective. And I'm like, I'm on board because like people literally just look at you like Joe's witnesses, like they're just handing a literature.
00:44:22
There's some holy rollers.
00:44:23
Yeah, they're just whatever, man. Like they're a punchline to a joke who's knocking on your door 10am and Saturday.
00:44:29
Exactly.
00:44:30
It's funny because the perception on the inside is that they are doing a life saving work and that convincing themselves of that. I mean, most people would agree nowadays that it's kind of preaching to people as a form of self doctrineation.
00:44:42
Because the more you try to convince somebody else, the more you'll be convinced. And the only way JW doctrine works is if everyone's super convinced because the minute you let a tiny bit of doubt in that that thread on the $5 sweater I was talking about, it just rips apart in like seconds.
00:44:58
Do you know of any that because they've seemed to for quite some time keep things under wrap? Do you know of any, any kingdom halls or or any organizations anywhere where they've been pretty close with the government officials or something to kind of keep this under wrap and not get a bad bad
00:45:16
press for it? That's a great question. And I don't. I think you'll find that the main reason why it doesn't get out much like the news articles are easy to find but there's not a lot of people searching for JW news article or mainstream.
00:45:34
You won't see it on the mainstream news.
00:45:36
Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, it's a small religion. Let's face it, there's 8 million people, maybe or whatever, approximately in there. And it's just not a big deal, right? I mean, they're kind of just a joke. Like, they're not really like I mean, the Mormons, they're kind of an interesting deal because they're, you know, 17 million, they
00:45:54
have a lot of wealth and influence and they don't mind we're getting into politics, right? So that's an interesting religion. JWs are just this whatever they don't get into politics. They're literally every single JW is just waiting for God to come and fix everything.
00:46:07
Like, JWs will not plant a tree because it's not worth the time because God's coming to fix everything. Oh, wow. Very passive. That is the JW motto. I mean, like, that's how I felt growing up. Like, I like I saw JWs like they didn't even there would be a garbage bin right in front of them.
00:46:23
And recycling bin to the left of it. And they would just throw shit right in the garbage because nothing matters. Like recycling doesn't matter. It's just like, it's a very bizarre religion. It's like, you think you're the chosen one. And that's what it is.
00:46:37
Like, you have a special knowledge, man.
00:46:40
That's also kind of a, that's like a catch 22 with some religions or some aspects to where you're always planning for the future and you have this treasure in heaven awaiting you that they completely forget about the now and living in the present. Let's start enjoying what we have right now, right, right here.
00:47:01
But no, no, no, that means nothing. You know, that'll be gone tomorrow. This is what we need to work towards.
00:47:06
Exactly. So they don't, they do not invest in life in this world at all. Like they discourage education. Like they don't want people being higher educated.
00:47:16
And hypocritically, they also ask for lawyers and doctors to apply to Bethel, which is really funny. Of course, they want educated people, but only for themselves.
00:47:26
They don't control a group of people more if they're ignorant. Like you were saying, you mentioned before also that they're, they don't even want you studying in your own, you know, your own groups and looking over the Bible for yourself and learning.
00:47:39
And that's kind of like the olden days where they didn't, you had to listen to what the preacher said, you weren't to go on your own and do your own homework or do your own reading. They'd rather you not be able to read.
00:47:49
It's hilarious that you say that because one of the examples, like, I mean, they give a lot of examples where they'll always give you 80% of the truth that they're, they're trying to hide that they're doing the same thing.
00:47:59
So they make it seem like they're not right. So they say, you know, back in the day, they were, the Bible was only in Latin and the only people that could speak it was the priest.
00:48:06
So everyone just had to sit there and listen to what he said and he could manipulate and do whatever he wants. So they try to, they point that out as somebody else doing that.
00:48:13
And they try to make it seem like JWs aren't doing the exact same thing because you are, you can read the Bible as much as you want, but the interpretation of it is up to them governing body.
00:48:24
And if you try to make your own or try to spread your own, you're gone, buddy. It's called causing division, little dispelling if you're asked.
00:48:32
When or how was it that you found yourself questioning it and not just questioning it, but to the point where you started to separate yourself from this organization.
00:48:45
Yeah. So you're asking about the waking up story, which is kind of what we call it.
00:48:50
Yeah, the waking up.
00:48:52
Yeah. So interestingly enough, you know, as a child, there was a lot of things that I had difficulties with. But of course, I was being taught that what I was learning was the truth.
00:49:04
So I just had to bury that doubt and we're often taught to bury doubts and just trust the governing body.
00:49:10
As I got older, around the age of 20s, a friend of mine, basically was reading what they call a post-date material.
00:49:19
And he basically made the determination that it's a cult and he left and he told me a few things that I should look into.
00:49:27
And I did.
00:49:28
Wait, was this a friend that was also part of the J-DUGS?
00:49:31
Yes, he was a Jehovah's Witness, but he was doing like his independent research.
00:49:35
And this is why they always say don't do independent research because you're going to leave the organization.
00:49:38
And it's funny because it's true because you realize it's not the truth, but they don't want you to know that.
00:49:45
They just say you're only you're going to leave Jehovah's organization if you start reading on your own.
00:49:49
So anyways, my friend, he, you know, told me some things that he was looking into and he ended up just writing a letter saying I don't want to be a part of this anymore.
00:49:57
And so instantaneously, he was shunned by everybody, including me.
00:50:00
And, you know, one day I'd like to connect with him again and just say sorry, not that I would expect him to be my friend after 20 years.
00:50:07
It would just be to say sorry, 20 years, man.
00:50:10
Can you imagine like I did a lot of stuff with this guy and I just cut him out.
00:50:13
And just dropped him like that.
00:50:15
Yeah, he kind of helped me a little bit with the waking up.
00:50:18
So he sort of planted a few seeds.
00:50:20
And another seed was basically I had this conversation with an elder in my hall and he was trying to get me to do some math.
00:50:28
And I was humble enough that I thought that he was teaching me something and that I just was too stupid to understand.
00:50:35
But what he was teaching me actually just didn't make sense.
00:50:38
And I didn't connect the dots until years later.
00:50:41
I had mentioned before offline how they came to 1914 and they said that's kind of their big year for Bible prophecy.
00:50:49
And they get there by, you know, combining a few different scriptures that are unrelated into a makeshift prophecy that says Jesus came into power in heaven in 1914.
00:50:59
And he chose Jehovah's Witnesses as the religion to represent him.
00:51:04
So anyways, that whole prophecy that they're talking about requires ancient Jerusalem to be destroyed in 607 BC when essentially it happened in 587 BC.
00:51:16
They've been basically gaslighting their entire religion, like every 8 million people into saying no, it actually happened in 607 BC.
00:51:24
Because then if that event takes place in 607, then these cherry-picked scriptures that they've kind of put together adds up to 1914 and validates them being chosen as Jesus' representatives on earth.
00:51:38
And it all hinges on Jerusalem being destroyed in 607 BC due to their interpretation of the Bible when thousands, like 10, 50 plus pieces of Babylonian, you know, evidence has been left behind.
00:51:52
And it's the worst time to make up a lie about a date because the Babylonians were unbelievably meticulous about keeping records, man.
00:52:01
Like they even charted like planetary alignments so that you could say it's October 31st, they're saying the moon is here and 2 years later, since it goes in cycles, it's in the same spot again.
00:52:12
So you know they're right.
00:52:13
And so essentially it's just a big gaslighting lie that that was another thing that kind of woke me up. I was just like, okay, so Jerusalem wasn't actually destroyed when you guys say it was.
00:52:22
It was destroyed, you know, 20 years later.
00:52:24
So like that's a pretty big deal because without that they don't have their prophecy about that being chosen in 1914.
00:52:31
So those two things were very big.
00:52:33
Now, but what ultimately woke me up was stumbling across the JW forum, the XJW forum on Reddit. And I initially my heart jumped, but the titles were so intriguing that I just couldn't help it.
00:52:47
And I started to read.
00:52:49
Did you search that like when you went on Reddit, did you specifically put in XJ?
00:52:54
How did you come across that community? You just out of curiosity.
00:52:59
I don't know how I stumbled across it, to be honest. I might have searched something.
00:53:03
I think what it was is there was a Jehovah's Witness forum on there for a while.
00:53:07
And it's kind of like it's neither pro nor against JW. It's just it's like a second of JW. It's weird.
00:53:15
Like it doesn't make sense. But on there they link to the XJW and they're like, huh, this is interesting.
00:53:19
So I clicked on it and then I was like, oh, I better close this.
00:53:22
And that kind of happened for a few months where I was just like intrigued, but I felt guilty, intrigued, but guilty. And that just kept going.
00:53:29
But there's just like, it was a few stories and one in particular where I read about a disabled child who was I believe 15 or 16 at the time.
00:53:37
And they told their parents something about not believing.
00:53:41
It was something that was earth shattering enough that they wouldn't be able to continue being a JW.
00:53:46
It might have been that they were different sexual orientation, something along those lines.
00:53:50
Either way, they were saying that I can't be a JW anymore.
00:53:54
And they were special needs and they were around 15, 16, maybe even young as 14.
00:53:59
They were kicked out of the house like an on the street disabled child.
00:54:03
And that absolutely shattered my heart.
00:54:07
I have a relative who's, you know, disabled and young and thinking of this person being kicked out of their house for what they believe.
00:54:17
A young age where they can't even bend themselves and they're also disabled.
00:54:21
Like that is, that was probably one of the most heartbreaking things I had ever read outside of like the CSA allegations and stuff.
00:54:28
It's just like this absolutely shredded my heart.
00:54:31
And it was at that moment that I was just like, I'm reading everything.
00:54:34
So I went back to the very first post of XJW and I read all the backlog.
00:54:40
And then I started commenting.
00:54:43
And then I started posting and then I started looking up, you know, the YouTube guys and I went through Lloyd Evans, who's a very, you know,
00:54:50
he's got a pretty big following, 100 plus people and he's he really dissects the religion quite a bit.
00:54:55
You know, he dissects everything.
00:54:57
And when I was going through stuff like he's very, he's very reasonable.
00:55:00
He was also an XJW himself.
00:55:02
He was kind of forced out, you know, he got the religion because of, you know, he had some questions.
00:55:07
And basically, that's how it happened with me too.
00:55:10
I told my sister that I didn't quite believe and that was enough.
00:55:14
I didn't talk to her again after that phone conversation.
00:55:16
She wrote me an email that just said, due to this, I'm never talking to you.
00:55:20
I can't talk to you until you come back, until you change your mind.
00:55:24
Wow.
00:55:25
And then when that happened, another other family of members followed.
00:55:29
There was a few that still talked to me, a few that didn't.
00:55:31
And I just realized like these guys are just, they're so insane.
00:55:34
They're, they're shunning me before I've left, which was all I needed.
00:55:39
And that was the final push to know that this was just a fucking cult.
00:55:43
And so I wrote my letter saying, I am done.
00:55:47
And they tried not to accept it.
00:55:49
They said, well, you know, like, can you give us a call?
00:55:52
Can you do this?
00:55:53
And it's like, no.
00:55:54
And I just like, you know, I finally relented because one of the guys I knew for a long time.
00:55:58
And I just said, look, man, I'm like, I just don't like all this CSA that's going on, you know,
00:56:03
and I don't agree with the blood policy.
00:56:05
So I'm out.
00:56:07
And so I left.
00:56:08
And they actually have you right, or they expect you to write a letter stating your reason for separating.
00:56:16
You don't have to give them a reason.
00:56:17
All you have to say is I wish to no longer be counted as one of Joe's witnesses.
00:56:21
You can disfellowship me, dissociate me, effective immediately, date it, sign it.
00:56:25
You can take a picture of that document and text to an elder.
00:56:29
Email it to me.
00:56:30
Yeah.
00:56:31
Something like that.
00:56:32
You have to do an official resignation and sometimes you'll get an exit interview,
00:56:35
which I joke about because a lot of times we call it like a corporation or a company.
00:56:38
And then I make a joke that it's an exit interview.
00:56:40
If they try to contact you, why the heck are you leaving if you don't give them any reasons that kind of makes them crazy, right?
00:56:45
Like for them, it's just like you're giving up on an eternity in a perfect world.
00:56:50
Like it just blows their mind.
00:56:52
They can't comprehend that they could possibly be wrong or that reality is something different than what they know.
00:56:57
And once that happened, you said that your immediate family disowned you.
00:57:03
So when I wrote the letter, the only people that contacted me still were my parents for a few months afterwards.
00:57:11
And eventually I got eventually I got the email saying, this makes Jehovah's sad or some bullshit.
00:57:15
And we can't talk anymore.
00:57:17
Did you ever try to reach back out to them or you just left it at that for the time being?
00:57:22
I did a couple of times.
00:57:24
I sent, you know, a couple of news articles.
00:57:27
You know, it's like, I think I sent, I said, hey, like, I mean, if I was you, I would at least want to be aware of what's going on in Pennsylvania.
00:57:32
Like, I don't want to, I don't want to go knocking on a door trying to sell my religion to somebody only to find out 14 pedophiles just got arrested.
00:57:39
Right.
00:57:40
So it's like, how do I convince them to be a J W when the religion is an absolute danger to children?
00:57:46
Yeah.
00:57:47
Like, you can't.
00:57:48
And because of me not being able to promote it anymore, like, I mean, eventually it leaves you to leaving.
00:57:54
And it's all, it's almost like, I don't know what, what there, I can't get in anybody's head and figure out the right way.
00:58:01
And figure out the reasoning behind it.
00:58:03
But some, I don't know whether they feel like they're too invested into it.
00:58:08
It would be a shame to find out that this is false because then you have to come to the realization and face the fact that you've wasted 20, 30 years.
00:58:19
That's that sunk cost, fellas, where you've put so much into it.
00:58:22
It just has to be true at this point.
00:58:24
And you get that with older people.
00:58:26
Like, I didn't, I had no intention of leaving.
00:58:28
Like, I was what was called faded where it's like, yeah, I don't go to meetings.
00:58:31
I don't go preaching, but I'm not bothering anybody.
00:58:34
I'm not promoting J W's.
00:58:36
I'm not trashing them.
00:58:37
I'm just, I'm on my own.
00:58:38
They're on their own.
00:58:39
We're leaving each other alone.
00:58:40
I didn't want to break my parents' hearts, right?
00:58:43
It's like, they're old enough that it's like, I don't want them to all of a sudden think they're not going to wake up when they die and see me.
00:58:49
There's probably a lot of people, you think it's fair to say there's a lot of people that are in that position like you were.
00:58:55
They're not, they're not that invested in it.
00:58:58
They're not outreaching every Saturday.
00:59:00
They're not going to every meeting.
00:59:01
They're not meeting up with their, their text studies or Bible studies.
00:59:05
They're, they just are, they put that label on them.
00:59:08
I'm a J Dub.
00:59:09
I was brought up this way and this is the way that I am.
00:59:12
Like what I would call myself was basically physically out mentally out.
00:59:16
I hadn't officially left or anything.
00:59:18
I just like mentally, I had no intention of promoting this religion anymore or following it.
00:59:23
So like I was a hundred percent out.
00:59:25
As far as what you're saying is like, if there's never any, like they've worn against that kind of attitude.
00:59:30
They call it lukewarmness, right?
00:59:32
Yeah, lukewarmness in the Bible.
00:59:34
Yeah, you're either hot or cold.
00:59:36
And so they, they really embed that in the J Dub personality.
00:59:39
Yeah.
00:59:40
So like there is nothing but true believers in that religion.
00:59:42
Okay.
00:59:43
So they promote that.
00:59:44
They don't want any kind of wishy-washy stuff.
00:59:46
They want you to be all for it.
00:59:48
Like, like we were saying, you're either, you're either for us or you're against us.
00:59:52
Or you're against the other.
00:59:53
Exactly.
00:59:54
There's, and it's, yeah, and black and white thinking absolutely abounds in that religion.
00:59:58
It's an extremely unhealthy religion for children to grow up in.
01:00:02
It's, it's so damaging to your worldview to view every single person you see who's worldly as if they're just like the walking dead.
01:00:11
They're like, this person's just their bird food, man.
01:00:14
Any minute now.
01:00:15
And it seems like when you were speaking about all these cases, this is a worldwide thing where we're slowly, but surely the light is being shown and people are waking up to the corruption.
01:00:27
The reckoning is, is coming.
01:00:30
The day of reckoning.
01:00:31
There it is.
01:00:32
Like, I mean, they got their asses handed to them in Australia.
01:00:35
I don't know how you could be an Australian JW and show up at somebody's door.
01:00:39
Like I would be embarrassed.
01:00:40
I just don't get it.
01:00:42
But they're investigated there.
01:00:44
I honestly hope that this investigation in Pennsylvania, because there's a million JWs in the USA that can benefit from knowing the truth.
01:00:52
And it's not that I want to influence what people believe.
01:00:55
I don't care if you will, as long as you know, if you know that you're supporting this religion and what the religion is all about, you know all the facts and you still want to support it.
01:01:04
That's fine.
01:01:05
Like, I don't agree with it.
01:01:07
But if, as long as you know, but if you don't know that there's all the CSA and hidden problems and that elders are not actually appointed by Holy Spirit and these guys can be pedophiles taking your children out of the service, you don't know these things.
01:01:20
That's a danger.
01:01:21
That ignorance is a danger.
01:01:23
And they also still fall under that tax-exempt law, don't they?
01:01:28
Oh, yes.
01:01:29
Yes.
01:01:30
I mean, speaking of them, they are registered charities almost every country in the world.
01:01:34
As much as they can get it, they'll get it.
01:01:36
I did mention that they lost it recently in Norway.
01:01:39
And that came down to the fact that Norway found their shunning treatment to be very cruel, especially since it was directed towards children.
01:01:47
You know, often kids get baptized quite young.
01:01:49
And when you're a 12-year-old kid, you're not thinking about sex or drinking or anything like that.
01:01:55
You're just thinking, I'm going to be a good kid and do what my parents say.
01:01:58
You know, when you're a teenager, 13, 14, 15, all of a sudden sex and drinking and things that you can get disfellowship for come into play.
01:02:07
And it's easy for you to see a scenario where kids are underage, being disfellowship, being shunned, losing all of their family structure and friends structure.
01:02:15
And Norway said, bullshit.
01:02:17
And they said, you're not a charity.
01:02:19
And I want to see that happen throughout the world.
01:02:22
And that's what we were talking about was the fact that, like, what could be some of the reasons that people would choose not to separate themselves from it or wake up to it.
01:02:35
And a lot of times also because it was briefly mentioned about being invested, but you have, you're separated from everything outside.
01:02:45
And all you have is this organization.
01:02:47
So now if that's taken from you, you have to hit the floor and start from the screen.
01:02:51
Like for you, for instance, now, how was it once you, once you woke up and you said, you know what, if there's some amount and you wrote your letter, did you, you lost the support pretty much that's your world.
01:03:04
I don't, I don't know.
01:03:05
Is it safe to say you had no outside friends, no worldly friends beside every people in the organization.
01:03:11
Exactly what they're called.
01:03:12
They're called worldly friends.
01:03:14
They, they call, they call worldly people, worldly people.
01:03:16
And you are encouraged to not make friends with them.
01:03:19
I followed that encouragement.
01:03:20
So I had never had a single worldly friend.
01:03:24
Like I, I've made a few friends over, you know, gaming and a few ex.
01:03:29
So you had to start from scratch.
01:03:31
Oh, I'm still at scratch, man.
01:03:33
Wow.
01:03:34
This was how long ago?
01:03:36
It's a couple of years ago since I've disassociated, but it's like, it's, it's very hard when you're like, you know, I'm not quite middle aged ish, but it's like, you don't have a single friend.
01:03:48
COVID is around.
01:03:50
Yeah.
01:03:51
It's extremely isolating.
01:03:52
My closest friend was the guy who ran the convenience store next to me for a few years because it's like, that's all I had.
01:04:00
How, how, well, I mean, it's very damn fresh, especially considering the fact that you, that, that's your whole life up until a couple years ago.
01:04:09
And you're being introduced, you're like now you're, you're probably entertaining things that you, you've never known was, was out there before all these worldly things.
01:04:20
Like how has that experience been for you?
01:04:22
Um, yeah, like it's honestly like, I'm not like a teenager anymore, right?
01:04:29
So I'm not quite like as crazy as I used to be.
01:04:32
But it's, it's interesting.
01:04:34
Like I've, I've opened my mind up a lot to relationships, like a lot of being a JW is like, you know, people get married young because they can't have sex without being married, which is fine.
01:04:43
You know, I understand that principle.
01:04:45
Um, but a lot of them get married too young, like stupidly young, like teenagers.
01:04:50
And just seeing that and seeing a lot of unhappy marriages years later and people trapped because they made this one time decision because like divorce is, it's, it is happening quite a bit more in the day to day view of religion than it used to, but it's still very frowned upon.
01:05:03
It doesn't happen at all.
01:05:04
A lot of people would literally just ride out the most miserable fucking marriages ever because there's a scripture in the Bible that says God hates a divorce.
01:05:13
And that's all they do.
01:05:15
They use that scripture and it guilt all these people to stay in shitty religion.
01:05:18
I think, I think it says something about like only if it's for infidelity, but other than that, um, you have to write it out to the end.
01:05:26
Precisely.
01:05:27
And like they even have, you know, they've even had articles in the past about writing out domestic violence situations just saying, you know, he might beat you.
01:05:35
But if you've like, they had a, you know, interviews with J.W.s who were like, my husband was physically violent with me for 25 years, but eventually he became a Jehovah's Witness and stopped beating me.
01:05:44
I mean, that leaves the door open.
01:05:46
That leaves the door open for something like that.
01:05:48
And like someone who's distorted a couple and you have either the husband or the wife and they can, they can play with that and just say, you know, I'm, I do anything and everything and say, well, you can't leave me because you know what the Bible says and you know how God looks at that.
01:06:03
Dude, like you're, when you expand on that, you're looking at there's probably marital rape scenarios.
01:06:09
And I got a lot of weird rules back in the seventies and eighties. One of them was that homosexuality was not counted as fornication. So a guy could cheat on his wife with a dude and she would have to be married.
01:06:21
Oh, wow.
01:06:23
And so people were going out and doing that just so they can have a little side, side piece going on.
01:06:29
That even animals, like the, if you believe the crazier rumors, like bestiality was not considered fornication. So it wasn't a divorce.
01:06:39
And this is like, this is old stuff, right? Like this is like seventies, eighties.
01:06:43
We're, I don't know what their stance is now. I don't even want to know to be honest, but back in the day they had some weird stuff where it was like, dude could hook up with another dude and it would not be considered fornication.
01:06:54
I mean, it's like it was wrong and they would get disfellowshipped anyways or in trouble, but the wife didn't have her grounds to leave him grounds for divorce, which is what they call it.
01:07:04
Man, that's off the hook.
01:07:08
I know dude, like the layers of this religion will blow people's that's why I love doing this because it just blows people's fucking minds like they have no idea how absolutely insane these super nice people that come to your door.
01:07:20
And that is, yeah, that that was the whole point of it because like I said from the beginning, I mean, that was my impression and I'm sure I'm not the only one I'm sure there's there's many probably damn near everybody who isn't directly involved with them thinks the same thing.
01:07:38
You know, these are fine people they mean well, and I'm pretty sure there are not not to taint everybody involved in it like like we were talking about before.
01:07:47
There's some people that get in it. I probably the majority they get in they get into this religion because they're looking for something to fill a void and they're seeking for a peace or love and they mean well and they want to go out and they want to help others.
01:08:01
But man, when you start unpeeling that onion, it is not.
01:08:07
It is very like shocking to wake up from this reality right because like I think one of the famous one of the more famous youtubers Harrison Coulthard coined the term false reality possibly coined it.
01:08:20
I don't know he called it a false reality. I like using it and I want to give him props because he's awesome.
01:08:25
So they call it a false reality like when you're a JW they say we live in a spiritual paradise where you can go to any congregation of the world and get love.
01:08:34
Right and like I was mentioning before that's just camaraderie. It would be the same as if I met somebody like my sports team halfway across the world.
01:08:40
We would instantly have something to talk about. I could drink a beer with that guy. No problem.
01:08:44
Whatever right and that's that's what that's what they're selling is this spiritual paradise.
01:08:49
But that actual that bubble that bubble is keeping them from reality and it's it's it is an addictive bubble.
01:08:56
Let me tell you dude living thinking that any minute now you could step into a new world where everything's perfect and everything you could ever want dream will happen and you'll see your dead loved ones again.
01:09:07
You could see why that's addictive like it's like I don't want to give that up if I have to never talk about that again so I could see my dead relatives and live forever.
01:09:16
That's gonna happen. Sorry son.
01:09:18
Yeah. What's been helping you along the way with with your your transition or you're already out. You're physically out. You're mentally out.
01:09:27
But what have you found to help you because like you like you said you're still you're at scratch. You're at you're at level zero starting back up.
01:09:38
I mean you have any you have any things that that are helping you build and just you know move forward.
01:09:44
Yeah that's well and here's where I would love to give advice to anybody who's in my in that situation but I don't have a time because it's the truth is it's honestly incredibly difficult to start scratch.
01:09:57
One of the things that makes it really hard is all of a sudden these people that you looked at that were worldly that were dangerous possibly under the influence of Satan are now your only friends and family and trying to trying to drop that veil that screen.
01:10:13
You see that lens you see through where I see you as a worldly person as somebody who's potentially dangerous potentially trying to lead me into trouble.
01:10:22
It takes a long time to drop that lens and learn to trust people who were not Joe's witnesses. That's all you can now.
01:10:29
And it's a very difficult thing like I I did kind of start to make one friend and he like scared me a little because like he you know was showing some different sides to himself and it's just like I'm like oh is this like you know it just kind of knocks you back
01:10:42
because it reminds you of your training like these people are dangerous to you so it's like that immediate trigger like maybe think oh this person is dangerous but I wrote it out and it's just like you know I'd he's just the same as everybody else we all over faults.
01:10:54
Whatever right and it's like that's all it was it was just like my initial reaction was the pre-programming so it's tough little bit to get past that pre-programming and to start to trust people and start to start to you know really be a human again because
01:11:10
they are not really humans they essentially have any potential any desires any worldly desires any any desire to grow as a human being is scooped out of them and what's placing them is a watchtower salesman who is going to wait for God to do stuff for them.
01:11:29
So they just wait and they preach and they go to meetings and they wait and they preach and they go to meetings there's no soul there's no life.
01:11:38
That's difficult to do I can't even imagine like you this is something that was programmed into you for so long there is no it's not feasible it's not realistic for you to be able to drop that in a year in two years this is going to be a life this is going to be a lifelong journey where you're recovering
01:11:58
killing and you know you're just pressing pressing forward the best you can.
01:12:02
Like I like I mentioned before I was indoctrinated before I was born like I was listening to these tapes you know in the womb and you know we talked a bit about how that definitely starts the influence of the child and it's just it takes so long to undo that indoctrination it's wild right like to see the storms to see the world the way it is now to try to think that because I'm like a JWs absolutely believe we are on the verge of Armagedt like they are convinced
01:12:31
more than ever that it is any second and I look at the world and I don't I don't not see a bit of a chance of some sort of a nuclear Armageddon but it's like trying to see past that and grows a human being when you're no longer having these apocalyptic fears is a real challenge and you're not really a normal person trying to integrate its life
01:12:51
like if I just sat down and just met somebody and I was like yeah hey I just spent the first 35 years of my life thinking people like you are going to die here's why it's like I'm a damaged individual and trying to recover that.
01:13:05
I can only imagine but I commend you because you had something inside of you it was being rubbed the wrong way about what was going on and you acted on it that's that's the whole point because there's a lot of people I'm sure that are were in your situation that are that are in your situation they feel that but they don't act on it and I think I think the more and more you ignore that the smaller
01:13:34
and lighter that voice gets to the point where you like you said some of these people they're just numb and cold in the inside and it's left them.
01:13:43
I honestly like I wish I was that noble but I didn't have a choice and the only reason why I'm talking to you now is because I because I just spent, you know, years alone without my family and now I'm pissed.
01:13:54
Now mad. I'm mad at the organization and I want to see it brought to accountability for the lives taken lives that has taken its blood guilty absolutely when I look back to our death conversation for the children's lives they've destroyed and failed to protect for just the regular like living your life and pursuing education and love destroying that part of people I want them accountable for like they have they are just an absolute cancer
01:14:23
as all cults are and bring an awareness is awesome and that's all I live I will do whatever I can to bring awareness you know I could I could tell like right when we specially because you know we we were talking a bit offline and then I can tell that this is something that is you know it's burning inside of you and this is having to do with all of the press that has been coming out with a lot more people that are
01:14:49
awakened to what's been going on with the J the J W organization do you feel that they are as an organization feeling the pressure from outside.
01:15:03
Yes without a doubt they recently I mean I don't know if they recently renamed it but they've got this department down called the public information desk the P and ID ID department and it's held by somebody called Robert Hendricks who.
01:15:21
You can find a few videos of him on YouTube they're not usually the comments have been turned off and if you see the comments have been turned off it's pretty likely like we all kind of suspect that it's a paid time slot.
01:15:37
Because the questions that are asked are all very scripted and people you know between the scripted questions the very bland answers and the fact that comments are turned off everyone kind of in the J W X J W community is assuming that they've paid for this section of time.
01:15:56
Because anytime you see him in a YouTube video that doesn't have the comments turned off like people from the X J W community will always show up and they'll always correct him because he's trying to he's trying to minimize and misrepresent the nature of certain doctrines that they have in certain practices.
01:16:15
One of the things that he talks about is like shunning and he I can't remember the exact video it's something I'd have to kind of comb through the X J W form to find but he talks about shunning how we don't cut people off from their families.
01:16:29
You know he said stuff like that where he's like misrepresenting it which is that's exactly what they do. They have training videos and they do like these little emotional dramas where it shows people who have been to fellowship and they're calling their parents and their parents are sitting there watching the phone ring not answering.
01:16:45
They have no idea if this kid is in trouble or anything and they need help.
01:16:49
And this is the kind of thing so that with one side of their mouth they'll say no we don't cut people off and then they'll show these dramas internally where they show people being completely cut off.
01:17:00
Like the parents didn't even know like why this person was calling like how often do you get a phone call these days it's usually pretty important.
01:17:07
Otherwise people send a text or an email so they're definitely feeling the pressure because they've got this guy out there he's you know he's trying to do the occasional scripted interview.
01:17:16
Anytime you can see him on channels where he's not you know he always tries to keep things on script it's very interesting.
01:17:25
So they're definitely like they're trying to change the perception of JW's they want to have it both ways.
01:17:31
They want to be able to shun people but they don't want the public to think that that's what they do.
01:17:36
And that's almost kind of what this guy's job is to go around misrepresenting their actual policies and procedures.
01:17:43
Like they don't want people to think that kids are dying from blood transfusions they want them to think that they're you know they would rather just highlight kids who have survived crazy surgeries without blood.
01:17:55
Like they won't talk ever about the negative aspects it's just only the good always.
01:18:00
Do they actually put pressure on members to shun or disown family that has chosen to separate themselves from the from the organization.
01:18:13
Yeah so it doesn't like if you've sinned and you get disfellowshipped there you're going to get shunned.
01:18:20
Essentially the group of three men who are determining whether you get disfellowshipped or not have to determine whether your repentance enough to stick around.
01:18:30
And if you're not repentant enough they'll disfellowship you and then your family would cut you off at that point.
01:18:35
If you're living at home you might have limited communication with your family.
01:18:39
They're not going to talk to you about spiritual things but if you're not living at home there's a really really really good chance that you'll just never speak to your family again until you come back.
01:18:48
And it doesn't matter if you're leaving because you sinned or if you don't agree with the religion anymore.
01:18:54
And that's basically what started my awakening process was reading a story about a kid who was a teenager and he didn't believe in the religion anymore.
01:19:04
And they ended up kicking him out and to add to that situation he also had a disability.
01:19:10
So thinking that this kid is underage and getting kicked out he's completely on his own and he's special needs is pretty mind blowing to me.
01:19:20
Like there's so many kids on Reddit who are like I'm 13, I'm 14, I don't believe anymore.
01:19:28
I don't know what to tell my parents and it's like once a week or more you'll see these stories pop up.
01:19:35
And it's just like these kids are in a desperate situation because their parents are true believers and there's no middle ground.
01:19:42
There's no possibility the JWs could be wrong. It's either they're right or you're in a postage.
01:19:49
So it's almost like a 100% chance if this teenager 13, 14 years old if they were to say something the parents would kick him out the house?
01:19:58
It's definitely not a 100% chance. There is situations where the parents will try to work it out with them.
01:20:06
I was one of the kids who was a bit rebellious. I got kicked out as an underage child.
01:20:11
My parents literally didn't know where I was, didn't know if I was safe.
01:20:15
I think I just turned 17 so yeah I was starting to become an adult but still I was a teenager.
01:20:22
They still had illegal responsibility.
01:20:24
So it doesn't happen all the time. You'll get the odd story of a parent who will try to accept and understand.
01:20:32
A lot of it usually depends on whether the child is baptized or not.
01:20:36
The baptism is that's how they control you.
01:20:38
If they don't baptize you they can't disfellowship you.
01:20:41
If they can't disfellowship you they can't make other people shun you.
01:20:45
So they get a lot of flack. They claim they don't baptize children but they also have countless stories about people getting baptized.
01:20:53
You can spend less than 5 minutes and find 10 stories of kids baptized before they were teenagers.
01:21:00
You're not exactly taught everything right?
01:21:03
They withhold a lot of information.
01:21:06
They teach that ancient Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 which combined with a few other unrelated scriptures
01:21:13
equals this prophecy of them being chosen in 1919.
01:21:17
They already teach an alternate history compared to 50 pieces of evidence that prove 587 was the correct date for Jerusalem's destruction.
01:21:27
But if that's the correct date then it destroys their prophecy of being chosen.
01:21:31
So they have to stick to that.
01:21:33
It's a tough pill to swallow and as a kid you're not taught the reality, the truth that Jerusalem was destroyed when it was.
01:21:41
You're taught this alternate timeline which includes a vague prophecy which includes them being chosen which includes their basically Jesus's brothers and you have to listen to them.
01:21:53
Speaking about...
01:21:55
Sorry keep going.
01:21:57
No, no, no. I was going to say speaking about some of their teachings.
01:22:01
What is it about the whole name Jehovah and the organization?
01:22:05
Is that God's? I know you had it.
01:22:07
So they really latched on to that name early in the 1920s or something like that I believe is when they adopted the name Jehovah's Witnesses.
01:22:16
They were initially called the International Bible Students or something along those lines.
01:22:22
So they found this, you know, the name Jehovah in one of the translations and they'll kind of include the truth about where it comes from.
01:22:32
So they'll they have an article they say they'll describe how it was translated.
01:22:37
So the guy who translated it, the ancient Israelites were kind of superstitious about saying God's name.
01:22:42
So they didn't include the full name in their text.
01:22:45
They included just the consonants which is the Y-H-W-H also called the tetragrammaton.
01:22:50
Yahweh.
01:22:51
Exactly.
01:22:52
So above the tetragrammaton they would write the vowels for a different word which was a title they used for God.
01:22:59
It was father or something along those lines.
01:23:01
I can't remember.
01:23:02
So the guy who translated the name Jehovah took the vowels from the title which was written above the tetragrammaton and inserted them into the tetragrammaton and then came up with Jehovah.
01:23:14
And kind of Latinized from Yahweh to Jehovah.
01:23:18
So since the Jews were kind of superstitious, the odds of them putting the correct vowels above the name, you know, when you're trying to obscure and hide it, doesn't really make sense.
01:23:30
You also don't know what order those vowels would go in.
01:23:34
So the chances of that actually being God's name is very, very, very, very slim to the point where most people would comfortably say it's a mistranslation.
01:23:44
So, but it's kind of, it's become a brand for them now.
01:23:48
And a lot of the reason why these child abuse cases got swept under the carpet was to protect Jehovah's name.
01:23:55
And that is a theme that you will find in many, many of these cases where if it was just a one witness, a one time thing, they would try to sweep it under the carpet and just say, can we try to forgive and blah, blah, blah.
01:24:08
And we want to make sure that we're not bringing reproach on Jehovah's name, which is a huge thing to them because that's basically their brand.
01:24:15
They don't want to reproach the brand.
01:24:18
They really run like a company and the more you look into it, the more you realize how much of a company like organization it is, like their policies around child abuse and reporting, everything is done to protect their financial interest.
01:24:33
If there's a case of child abuse being reported, you don't call the cops first.
01:24:38
You call the headquarters because the headquarters wants to ensure that their finances are protected, they're protected from a legal standpoint.
01:24:46
And then they'll advise the elders, okay, you should contact the police or you should encourage the family to contact the police or something.
01:24:53
But it's like, it's never the first call to the police.
01:24:56
It's always the beffle.
01:24:58
You call them.
01:24:59
Keep it in house.
01:25:00
Keep it in house.
01:25:01
They'll determine what the liabilities are and the next steps.
01:25:04
Inside the religion is that this is the absolute truth.
01:25:07
From the outside, we look like magazine salesmen.
01:25:10
And that's what a lot of people think we are.
01:25:12
Because J.W.s believe that they're warning people that the end of the world is imminent and they need to join this religion or else they're going to die.
01:25:20
Nobody ever gets that message.
01:25:23
They get a magazine that talks about some fluff and they hope that you'll just sort of look at their website and become indoctrinated.
01:25:31
Yeah.
01:25:32
And that's their big strategy right now.
01:25:34
And that's why they're not growing as a religion.
01:25:36
They're shrinking in most major places that have good access to internet.
01:25:43
The places where they're growing the most are places with that internet.
01:25:46
Which should be pretty telling, right?
01:25:48
Because nobody can do research on this religion.
01:25:50
Because what's the first thing you do nowadays if you want to join something?
01:25:54
Yeah, you might do a little research.
01:25:56
And if you were to Google J.W.s witnesses, if you look past their own website,
01:26:01
you can find so much information about this religion that absolutely devastates it.
01:26:07
The only way that the governing body can control it is by telling people not to look at it ever.
01:26:14
So they are afraid.
01:26:16
J.W.s are afraid that it's like...
01:26:19
I remember when I first started looking at this stuff, my heart would jump when I would read just one scandalous title about Jehovah's really God's name.
01:26:28
And I would just make my heart pound and I'm like, oh man, I shouldn't be reading this.
01:26:32
Because they condition you so heavily that you are terrified.
01:26:37
You are self-policing and you're terrified of taking that step of independent thought.
01:26:44
And that's so important.
01:26:45
Out of curiosity, and that was something that it came up.
01:26:50
And I believe you might have touched on it early in the beginning.
01:26:54
But just to kind of clear that out, because I know there might be other people also wondering,
01:27:02
like I told you beforehand when I was speaking with my mother and she was like, yeah,
01:27:06
and it kind of just brought it back to me also.
01:27:10
And knowing people that when I went to school with, they were Jehovah's Witnesses.
01:27:14
And every kind of event, celebration, festival, whatever it was, birthday,
01:27:20
they completely excluded themselves from the environment, from the situation.
01:27:25
And they weren't, it seemed like they just weren't allowed to or they didn't want to.
01:27:30
But what are the reasons behind that?
01:27:32
All right.
01:27:33
So let me all run through them, the various different holidays.
01:27:36
Oh, there's a whole grocery list for the reasons.
01:27:41
So with regards to Christmas, Christmas has some pagan origins.
01:27:47
That's why there's like a tree and a star.
01:27:50
Okay, yeah.
01:27:51
The tree is a pagan symbol.
01:27:53
And so as soon as you say the word pagan, if it has pagan origins,
01:27:56
JWs will do anything to avoid it for the most part.
01:28:01
So that basically covers Christmas.
01:28:03
Plus, like the idea of Jesus being actually born in December 25th doesn't really align with details of the Bible.
01:28:10
Like shepherds were out in the field, which they wouldn't have been doing in the wintertime.
01:28:14
It was more likely autumn.
01:28:16
So just things like that.
01:28:17
So that's part of the reason why they don't celebrate Christmas.
01:28:20
And you know, it's essentially pagan.
01:28:24
So New Year's Day.
01:28:26
So that's another one.
01:28:27
We don't celebrate New Year's Day because I don't know,
01:28:31
there's really no, I could never really figure out a good reason why we didn't.
01:28:34
It was just sort of, I mean, a new day does have, there is some pagan origins celebrating the new year.
01:28:41
So that was basically the main thing they latched onto.
01:28:43
But also the idea of a lot of people do like New Year's resolutions.
01:28:47
And that was something that was frowned upon because it's like you should be resolving to be a better person every single day.
01:28:53
Okay.
01:28:54
And that's kind of the way they go through that.
01:28:56
So then fast forward to Valentine's Day.
01:28:58
Valentine's Day has to do with what?
01:29:01
Saint Valentine, basically Christian figure from, you know, a millennia ago or whatever,
01:29:08
that like JWs believe that after, you know, 70 years or so after Jesus died and all the apostles died,
01:29:15
the church became a postate.
01:29:17
So that postate church became the Catholic church.
01:29:20
And so anything like related to those saints or anything would be frowned upon.
01:29:27
Because we don't, we don't recognize those Catholic saints and all that jazz.
01:29:31
So that's kind of the reason why we don't do Valentine's Day.
01:29:34
We don't do Mother's Day because it's too much excessive attention on one individual,
01:29:41
which could be almost like a form of worship.
01:29:44
This is how it's kind of spread.
01:29:46
And that same reason is carried on to birthdays.
01:29:50
Too much attention on one individual.
01:29:52
Never mind the elders or the ones in the church that are holding high positions.
01:29:57
I mean, it seems like they get a lot of attention, don't they?
01:30:00
Oh, for sure, man.
01:30:02
Like the governing body and if you speak against them, that's like blasphemy.
01:30:06
It certainly certainly is speaking against the governing body is like a speaking against Jesus because they like JWs are 100% convinced that the governing body is basically they're going to be co rulers with Christ.
01:30:21
They're going to be sitting there in heaven, like working side by side with him having the same level as him.
01:30:28
Oh, wow.
01:30:29
In a way above angels themselves.
01:30:31
Talk about having power.
01:30:33
You hold the key right there.
01:30:35
You've got the golden ticket.
01:30:36
Yeah, like people and who's not going to like if you can convince somebody that, you know, Jesus is directing you and that you're going to be ruling in heaven with him over you.
01:30:46
You've got it made, right?
01:30:48
Like people are going to follow you to the ends of the earth to their own deaths.
01:30:51
And that's exactly what's happened.
01:30:53
Man.
01:30:54
So the birthday situation, those in the mother's days and the father's days, that's specifically having to do with too much attention being brought on one person, like as a form of worship or idolization.
01:31:05
Yeah.
01:31:06
And same as like, I think with Easter, like the bunny thing is kind of a pagan symbol.
01:31:11
Pagan, yeah.
01:31:12
Had to do with fertility crap.
01:31:14
They obviously do celebrate the Passover, but the fact that Easter kind of got combined with the Passover, it really sort of makes JW uneasy to go anything near Easter.
01:31:25
Because it's like a pagan holiday that, you know, you can actually see that, that it got intertwined with, you know, the Passover, which is the Jewish holiday as well later became the Christian one about Jesus, you know, going to the tomb and getting risen three days later.
01:31:39
So that's how we don't do that.
01:31:41
I'm trying to think a lot of JWs don't celebrate Thanksgiving, although there's literally no reason why they can't.
01:31:47
It's just that once you're already not celebrating everything, one more, you may not celebrate that.
01:31:54
And it's such a weird thing.
01:31:57
All out, right?
01:31:58
Like it's funny, a little funny story.
01:32:00
This guy tried to ask me once at work and people are usually ready to defend their faith.
01:32:04
And the one thing I was never ready for is, hey, you guys don't celebrate Thanksgiving, right?
01:32:08
And I'm like, no. And he's like, is that because it's pagan?
01:32:12
And I'm like, I don't know. I guess so.
01:32:14
Like I had no defense.
01:32:16
Like I have zero reason why we don't celebrate Thanksgiving.
01:32:18
It's like, who gives a rat's ass?
01:32:20
You get together for a turkey and you say thanks for things you're thankful for.
01:32:23
It's like, it's a nice holiday.
01:32:25
Right.
01:32:26
Maybe they say something like the same thing with the New Year's resolutions.
01:32:29
Like you should be every day you should be thankful.
01:32:32
So it's not that you have this one specific day to be thankful.
01:32:35
So why not be thankful every day?
01:32:38
Precisely. Yeah.
01:32:39
And you're getting, you're getting the mindset of it.
01:32:41
And it's weird, but yeah, that's the way it is.
01:32:43
And then Halloween is hopefully self-explanatory.
01:32:46
You touched on a whole lot of information.
01:32:52
You were running down the cases you were talking about, the beliefs, the doctrine, some of the pending cases
01:32:59
and some of the past cases from abuse and everything.
01:33:02
Now, do you have any places where you can point people to so that they can, if they want to do their own
01:33:10
homework and research and look for themselves, if they're more curious as to what's going on behind the scenes
01:33:16
and some of the dark truths that this organization is trying to conceal?
01:33:22
Yeah.
01:33:23
So I guess it might be a good time to just speak to, speak to J.W.s out there.
01:33:29
If there's anyone who might listen to this, it's okay to question and it's okay to ask.
01:33:36
There's a very famous story in the Bible about doubting Thomas, who did not believe Jesus was risen
01:33:42
and the man in front of him.
01:33:44
So Jesus had manifested the wounds he had received from the cross and allowed Thomas to even stick his fingers in his side.
01:33:50
It wasn't offensive to Jesus for his own apostle to doubt him or question.
01:33:56
He provided him truth. He provided him immediate response and answers.
01:34:00
So any J.W. out there hears that, just remember Jesus is the example.
01:34:05
And he questioned his religious leaders. It's okay to question yours.
01:34:10
So outside of that, I guess that was just something I wanted to get out.
01:34:16
Yeah, that's solid, especially because it's from the Bible and Scripture.
01:34:21
This is a story and so now that's solid.
01:34:24
And I don't believe so much in the Bible myself anymore. I'm on the fence about it.
01:34:29
I don't really know what it is.
01:34:31
So when I talk to J.W.s, I try to use the Bible because there's many things in the Bible that really appeal to them.
01:34:38
And there's a lot of things that identify this religion as a false religion.
01:34:43
Luke 21 and 8 is the most damning Scripture in J.W. world you could possibly find.
01:34:49
And that's where it says, be on the lookout because there's people who are going to come on the basis of my name saying, I am he.
01:34:55
I am definitely the one who's with Jesus. That's what they say when I am he.
01:35:00
That this guy, above any other religion that says they're the ones with Jesus, this is the one.
01:35:05
And then the Scripture continues. And then they say the end is near.
01:35:09
And do not go after them.
01:35:12
And that describes J.W.s to an absolute T.
01:35:16
They believe they are truly with Jesus.
01:35:19
They will say and have been saying for a century, failing Armageddon predictions, the end is near.
01:35:26
And the Bible simply says do not go after them.
01:35:29
And that's what I would say to J.W.s is they don't analyze that verse in their own publications.
01:35:35
It's very hard to find that because they can tell how damning it is.
01:35:40
So like they just sort of leave it out. They'll mention it a few times.
01:35:44
You can search their hundred years of their, or like 75 years of their documents
01:35:49
that they've been producing all their magazines and stuff.
01:35:52
And you'll rarely find Luke 21 and 8 anywhere.
01:35:56
Or any of the Scriptures that kind of mirror that in the different Gospels.
01:35:59
Do not go after the people who say the end is near.
01:36:02
Because it's just slam-dunks this religion.
01:36:05
So they don't really encourage people because they, like, you're talking about
01:36:10
they have their documents and everything with some of these Scriptures excluded.
01:36:14
So it seems like because if anybody wants to do their own research,
01:36:18
and especially, I don't know if they hold, if the J.W.s, if they hold the Bible, like some religions,
01:36:25
they hold that to be the unquestionable Word of God.
01:36:29
Do they encourage people to read the Bible, like at home and do their own homework?
01:36:33
Absolutely. So they want you to read the Bible every single day.
01:36:38
They want you to do your own independent research.
01:36:41
If you're going to do research, you have to use J.W..org.
01:36:45
They want you to use their website so that you're always getting the same consistent answers,
01:36:51
whether they're right or wrong.
01:36:52
Yeah. If you're reading the Bible, like say, for instance, if they're strict on,
01:36:56
okay, we're only reading the King James Version or whatever, it is the New International or something.
01:37:01
But if somebody's doing that at home and they're reading the Bible and they come across,
01:37:06
like Luke, and then they start, I guess maybe that would start planting some seeds of doubt in them.
01:37:10
Like, why am I...
01:37:11
Dude, that was probably one of the earliest seeds that was planted in my own mind.
01:37:15
Oh, was it?
01:37:16
I was just bored at the meeting one day, and we were reading from Luke, and they stopped reading.
01:37:22
And sometimes I would do that. I would just keep reading because I'm like,
01:37:25
I'm not really interested in this talk, so I'll just keep reading the Bible.
01:37:27
And I felt like it was a little bit rebellious because I'm not listening,
01:37:31
but I'm also reading the Bible, so there's nothing wrong with it.
01:37:34
And then I came across that scripture, and I was a teenager, 13, 14,
01:37:39
and I was just like, this describes our religion exactly.
01:37:43
And it just, like, that's probably the first crack.
01:37:47
That was the first crack in the JW indoctrination, and it just stuck in my brain, you know, from there.
01:37:52
It's just like, it takes years. It took years to develop to finally question things and wake up from it all,
01:37:58
because it's just so intense.
01:38:00
It's so intense. Your life is literally on the line,
01:38:03
and your heart will jump if you look at this information.
01:38:06
Also, I didn't really finish, you're saying, for other people, if they want to look up at the religion,
01:38:11
your best resource is probably the XJW Reddit forum, because it combines everything.
01:38:18
It goes through the academic things.
01:38:20
You know, it has a really good detailed history of a lot of their publications that they don't want you to see.
01:38:27
Right, because if you look up online, most of their publications, you can only go back to the 1950s.
01:38:33
They won't let anyone see their previous to 1950s stuff, because it is that shit insane.
01:38:43
Like, these guys were talking like always, like they are the one true God-given religion.
01:38:49
God is going to smite all these religions.
01:38:51
Like, the stuff they were saying is just an endless stream of the most hardcore, self-righteous, narcissistic Christians you've ever seen in your entire life.
01:39:02
And so, they kind of, as they realized they failed predicting Armageddon a few times,
01:39:08
they sort of dialed back on some of that stuff, which is interesting to see.
01:39:11
Like, regular JWs can't get the full history of their own religion.
01:39:16
And it's actually tiered, because they do have all the information.
01:39:19
They have everything they've ever produced since like 1878.
01:39:23
And it's all available in a database, but they only have levels of access.
01:39:29
And only the most spiritual people who can handle all the old bullshit that they tried to sell are allowed access to the full archive.
01:39:38
Because, like, no JW alive today would be a JW if they could read the whole history of this religion.
01:39:45
They would just think that they were scammed.
01:39:48
That's how it goes with organizations is how do you keep what's really going on behind the scenes secret to people?
01:39:56
You compartmentalize it.
01:39:58
And like you said, there's different levels and there's different tiers to where you're going to have access to certain things.
01:40:03
So maybe at the ground level, just a regular goer, he has no idea as to what's going on.
01:40:08
But the higher you get into it, the more invested you become.
01:40:12
And once you're finally exposed to this, usually you're already at the point where it's all or nothing anyways.
01:40:19
And there's really no turning around.
01:40:21
And who knows, maybe they already have some dirt on you.
01:40:24
So if you do try to blow the whistle, you know what, we have this also to share with people.
01:40:30
It's that sunk cost fallacy, man.
01:40:32
It's like, well, like people by the time they get to that level, they're in Bethel.
01:40:37
They've given up normal life.
01:40:39
They're not working.
01:40:40
They're not saving.
01:40:41
Their life is Bethel.
01:40:42
So did all for the cause.
01:40:43
They take a vow of poverty so they can't earn more than, you know, five grand a year or something like that.
01:40:49
Like they put everything on the line.
01:40:51
So by the time you get there, it's almost like you're a Scientologist.
01:40:55
Like by the time you get to the ninth level, then you start finding out about Xenon.
01:40:58
You're like, what the fuck is this?
01:40:59
Yeah, yeah.
01:41:00
My French.
01:41:01
But you know what I mean?
01:41:03
It's like, when you get to a certain level of JW, you know, you might get access to the full archive and you start realizing,
01:41:10
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
01:41:12
They used to worship Jesus.
01:41:14
These guys used to celebrate Christmas.
01:41:16
You know what?
01:41:17
In Germany, I haven't seen Jehovah's Witness or I haven't seen Mormons.
01:41:22
And usually back in California, you see them on a Saturday.
01:41:26
You see the Mormons because they have their specific attire.
01:41:29
And then you see the Jehovah's Witness on Saturday going door to door and passing out their publications and their pamphlets.
01:41:37
Yeah, so an interesting thing happened over the course of the pandemic.
01:41:42
Like all of this, when I first started questioning happened just about a year before the pandemic started.
01:41:47
I didn't tell my parents.
01:41:49
I didn't tell anyone.
01:41:50
I was just keeping it secret.
01:41:51
I'm like, oh my God, I'm in a cult.
01:41:54
How do I handle this?
01:41:55
Right.
01:41:56
And I just read horror stories after horror stories of people saying their families cut them off without any word.
01:42:02
So anyways, I joined Reddit.
01:42:03
There was only about 16 people in that forum when I joined.
01:42:06
Today it sits in 92.
01:42:08
94 I think actually.
01:42:10
So that's in less than four years, like 80 people joined.
01:42:17
Wow.
01:42:18
So something big happened over the pandemic and you can see it in their numbers.
01:42:22
Like they used to preach the peak preaching in 2017 at over 2 billion hours.
01:42:28
Today they're sitting at 1.5 billion, which is a huge drop.
01:42:32
If you were a company and you said I could produce 2 billion hours and I'm down to 1.5 billion with roughly the same amount of people, there's something going on.
01:42:41
And people basically, the reports that we've been hearing is people are just, you know, they're just not interested in going in service anymore.
01:42:48
There's the hardcore people who will do the carts.
01:42:52
But your standard JW is really just not doing a whole lot of service anymore.
01:42:57
And I think you're just like, you might see them once in a while now, but it's definitely died off.
01:43:03
Like COVID really beat the crap out of this religion.
01:43:06
It gave people years to basically be at home, research things, think about things.
01:43:14
And at the beginning of this pandemic, one of the governing body guys said, this is the end.
01:43:20
Basically, he's like, this is the final part of the final part of the last days, shortly before the final part of the last day.
01:43:28
Right? Like he's going on, he's hammering this home.
01:43:31
And JWs are all expecting Armageddon to start because it's a big global pandemic.
01:43:35
But it's like, after years of nothing happening, people are just sick of it.
01:43:39
They're sick of hearing the same thing.
01:43:41
And they just started waking up.
01:43:43
He was doing everything except telling them, here you go, drink up, drink it.
01:43:49
They're coming. They're outside drinking.
01:43:52
And basically, I think you're just going to not see that many witnesses out in service anymore because many, many people woke up over COVID.
01:44:00
And even now, they're having a tough time having service groups.
01:44:05
People are reporting a 30, 40, 50% drop in what they used to have.
01:44:10
They might have had 60 people going out of service on a Saturday and they all meet for groups and disperse from there.
01:44:16
Now it's like 20 people, 30 people.
01:44:19
And I have no doubt that it's hard to go out in service and be like a JW when you have to knock on doors.
01:44:26
And in the news that you're not allowed to read, there is story after story of child sexual abuse in your religion.
01:44:34
There's stories about people dying from not getting medical treatment.
01:44:38
There's stories about people killing themselves from being shunned.
01:44:41
The religion is just so much a stain on humans and on themselves.
01:44:48
Like they did it to themselves.
01:44:50
Like they wouldn't have an apostate army out there trying to tell everybody about the child sexual abuse if they didn't shun people.
01:44:56
They wouldn't have a huge child sexual abuse problem if they just involved the police and stopped relying on Jehovah who obviously did not show up and did not help them.
01:45:06
And many, many times these kids were just told to lead these things in Jehovah's hands.
01:45:11
And that's the big thing with JW is they just wait and wait on Jehovah who as of now has done absolutely nothing.
01:45:21
The waiting game. How long will you wait?
01:45:24
Oh, you'll wait your whole life if you're a JW ready. You'll wait your whole life.
01:45:29
Like my parents, I think are old enough now that they are just starting to realize that they're probably going to die before they see the new world.
01:45:36
And that was something that they never in a million years would have thought.
01:45:40
They lived through 1975. So they were basically expecting the end then.
01:45:44
They lived through the year 2000, which was another soft prediction date because they said it'll likely come by this time, like before the end of the century.
01:45:54
And that was last century, you know, quarter of a century ago already.
01:45:59
And my parents, I think they're just starting to realize that they think it's hidden them hard.
01:46:03
And it's even hard for them because they now have a son who's an apostate and it's such a weird dynamic and they're going on in their minds that it's like they have to accept the reality that things are not going the way they thought.
01:46:15
And then you have somebody who's very close to them telling them, not only are things not going to go that way, but your entire religion is wrong, right?
01:46:22
I know it's a tough pill to swallow because they're older and it's not something I wanted to do.
01:46:27
I wanted to just let them live their lives. But since they kicked me out, my only choice is to fight back or do nothing.
01:46:34
And who knows? Maybe like that one scripture you had came across years ago, it was a small seed.
01:46:45
But all of these things accumulating within them, maybe there is sometime, hopefully sooner than later, that awakening moment.
01:46:55
Do you have any kind of final words or anything that you'd like to share to anybody that may be going through something similar?
01:47:02
Yeah, there are countless, countless religions and organizations that are high control groups.
01:47:10
And the line between high control group and cult is very fine. And it comes down to personal definition.
01:47:18
And the high control is, are they controlling who you can talk to, who your partner is, how you have sex, what you eat, what you drink, what you wear?
01:47:29
All these are things that are packaged in a way to make it seem like you're getting closer to God when you align with them.
01:47:36
But you're really just aligning with a corporate image. They want you to be as presentable as possible.
01:47:42
And that's what all these religions are. That's why people who are in cult seem like they're so happy.
01:47:47
They're so full of energy because they're all brainwashed to feel like they have something special, they have the truth.
01:47:55
And I can tell you, the only truth is that no one, no one knows the truth of reality. No one knows.
01:48:02
And people make money off of trying to convince you they know the truth of reality.
01:48:07
No one knows if we're a creation, we're living in a simulation. No one knows if God made us, aliens made us. No one knows.
01:48:16
So question everything. Never stop. And for the love of God, don't follow people who say they know the truth of reality because no one does.
01:48:27
That's what I always like to say myself is question everything.
01:48:33
That critical thinking, that's really one thing that is a threat to any kind of establishment that is trying to take dominion over your life.
01:48:42
And like you said with this organization or any kind of system, if you still the mind, the body's going to follow.
01:48:48
And that's one thing that we have to really protect and we have to be mindful of when we're navigating ourselves through life.
01:48:57
And also, like you said, question everything. It doesn't matter if it's coming out the pope's mouth, if it's coming out whoever it is, your fate.
01:49:05
Nowadays, it's not even really the religious leaders, but just leave it to whoever makes music or whoever's on the big screen or whoever's an influencer on.
01:49:14
Those are the new stars and the idols these days.
01:49:18
Yeah, dude. People under the influence of people. That's right.
01:49:22
It's a dangerous concept. Like you can see people aligning themselves with certain political leaders, you know, and it doesn't matter what sort of scandal these leaders have gone through.
01:49:32
Like they just don't care. They won't see it. They just look at this person as if they're almost like a demigod.
01:49:37
And it's kind of scary because these people, at some point, you stop thinking for yourself and you start just doing the group thing.
01:49:46
And the group thing is just at some point you get to the top and there's a dude pulling the strings.
01:49:52
And you need to ask yourself, why am I following another man? You should be leading yourself.
01:49:57
That's right.
01:49:58
Take yourself where you want to go. Nobody, nobody knows the truth.
01:50:02
Anybody who thinks they know the truth of reality wants your money or something else for me.
01:50:09
That's why sometimes people don't look at JWs as like they're a cult because, you know, it's not like you have to go to the top to have sex with the leaders.
01:50:16
There's nothing weird like that. But it's like they just want your money.
01:50:19
Cults can be cults for many different reasons, but ultimately they're going to sap you of something.
01:50:25
They're going to sap you of individuality, your critical thinking ability, your family, your money, your dignity.
01:50:32
You will never end up in a better spot when you join these things. I just can't imagine it.
01:50:38
Be your own person, man. That's it. Be your own person. We're all humans trying to get from A to B.
01:50:43
Everyone's on the same journey. Nobody has not died yet. We get born. We live. We die. Be kind.
01:50:51
That's right. Right on. I second that.
01:50:57
And man, am I glad that we were able to work this thing out because for just everybody that will have this playing through their ears at one point,
01:51:09
it was a bit of a, it was a bit of doing. I mean, we had some external forces really trying to keep this thing from happening.
01:51:17
There was a knockoff on the end of the first recording. We tried to do it the other day and things didn't work out,
01:51:24
but we finally got it right today. So man, I appreciate you being as flexible as you were and so fired up about this message
01:51:37
because I think that just shows how important and how real this is to you and for sure that's going to come off and hit somebody where it's fitting.
01:51:48
And so yeah, thank you for your time. Thank you for your words. And for everything that you shared with us today.
01:51:54
I appreciate it and I wish you well. And I think maybe your loved ones also will see the light and wake up,
01:52:01
waking up to their own reality. If it's them, your loved ones are just people in general that have been tied up to this for quite some time
01:52:10
and they've been robbed of their creativity, their individuality, their freedom, everything like that, that awakening comes sooner than later.
01:52:19
Wake up to the real reality. You've got to get out of the false reality.
01:52:23
Yeah, all the best to you and I wish you well and your endeavors and everything that you set out to do.
01:52:29
Thanks man. And same to you. I appreciate the opportunity and great job by the way. I know you're starting out.
01:52:36
You're natural. You've got the talent man.
01:52:38
Appreciate it.
01:52:42
Question everything. And especially nowadays, it would behoove us to think critically.
01:52:50
When you lose that, when that isn't functioning anymore, when that goes silent or you're on airplane mode,
01:52:57
then that leaves room for someone or something to put their thumb over you, to put their importance over you and tell you how you should live,
01:53:06
how you should move, what you can and can't do.
01:53:09
FS had that awakening. He came to it years later having grown up with this ideology that controlled his life, the life of his family,
01:53:22
the life of his friends. That was his world for so long.
01:53:27
I mean, we're talking about a fresh start starting from ground zero again.
01:53:34
When all of that is pulled from you and you have to pick up the pieces yourself and do it without the support that you've known without your family there,
01:53:43
without all the people that were in your life at one time having nothing, risking all of it.
01:53:51
Because that ideology no longer aligns to the truth within you.
01:53:56
As much as he said, I'm not that noble, I still have to say that takes courage.
01:54:03
Not to just be mentally out, but physically out and speaking out against it, not just keeping quiet.
01:54:10
This is the burning conviction inside of him. He's pissed off.
01:54:13
Like he said, that's a righteous anger and there's nothing wrong with it.
01:54:17
He's standing on moral, he's standing on principle and he went against the governing body, which cost him everything, but he stood for something.
01:54:26
He stood on moral, he stood on principle, he stood on truth on what's right.
01:54:32
My man, you are a giant amongst us.
01:54:37
Stick your chest out and be proud of what you've overcame, what you stood up against, and I sure do hope in time that your loved ones come to it as well.
01:54:51
I think you're leading the way. How important is it for the freedom of information?
01:54:56
Imagine that. Imagine had there not been any access to the Internet so that he can do his own study, research, stumble across a couple of stories and words from people who were once a part of this organization, but no longer.
01:55:11
To hear these stories and to hear these allegations and these cases and what's going on, things that he would have had no idea about.
01:55:20
But because the freedom of information, he got hip to it. He woke up.
01:55:26
He took that information, chewed on it, digested it and he acted accordingly.
01:55:33
So FS, thank you for your spirit. Thank you for your passion. Thank you for standing for something.
01:55:40
Thank you for voicing your concerns and sharing your story with us.
01:55:44
If anybody's interested in doing their own homework, like what was mentioned, to think critically for themselves and not just take what he was saying at face value and as gospel.
01:55:56
But if you want to look into it yourself, if you want to comb through this information that he provided, he spoke about a website.
01:56:04
He spoke about a few places that you can do your own research and come to your own conclusions about how you feel about this organization and whether or not you think it's cultish or something that you want to be a part of.
01:56:18
The websites that he spoke about, the references that he mentioned, I will leave that information in the show notes so you can check out those links and see for yourself.
01:56:30
Thank you for tuning in. Everybody from Tennessee to overseas. Hope you enjoyed today's story.
01:56:37
If you found value in it, if it resonated with you, if it spoke to you, you can go to that favorite platform of yours, leave a review, a rating, share your thoughts.
01:56:48
You can also find us on GiantsAmongstUs.com, the website, on Reddit.
01:56:55
The Instagram is there. I haven't been too active on it lately, but we're going to keep this thing going and hopefully before the end of the year, I'll have one more story to share with you.
01:57:06
And when you get a chance, not even when you get a chance, but make some time to tell your loved ones you love them.
01:57:15
And to give them their flowers while they're still here, because tomorrow it isn't promised. And before we go, if you would like to be a part of the show and share your story, or maybe even a story of someone in your life that has impacted you in a positive way,
01:57:35
you can always reach out to me via email. I'd be happy to connect. Until next time, and very soon, peace.