Okay, JWs. You want to stand around every train station in Boston and hand out flyers? Fine. More power too you. Anyone who wants to find out “Is Satan Real” and “What is the Truth about Jesus” can ask for your pamphlet. At least you’re not grabbing passersby by the arm or knocking on my door.
But you cross the fucking line when you stand there with signs asking if we know the “truth” about mental illness. I didn’t read your pamphlets. I don’t know the specifics of your claim, nor do I fucking care. What I know is that any claim that religion–or lack thereof–is responsible for schizophrenia, bipolar, or depression is grossly irresponsible. Mental illness is not a failure of faith. Mental illness is not demonic possession. Mental illness is not punishment from whatever evil imaginary God commands you to abandon your children if they question your faith.
But worse, you’re preying at people at their most vulnerable. I know the condition I was in before getting effective treatment for my bipolar disorder. It absolutely sickens me to think that you would use that vulnerability to convert (even if it turns out you don’t actually claim any kind of causal relationship between religion and insanity (which I’d bet good money you do, even without reading your vile filth)).
If you had any shame left after your religious indoctrination, you should feel ashamed of yourselves. So get your fucking lies out of my trains, and out of my city.
The little asshole sang the wrong, heretical version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Plus, one of the most annoying versions of* I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus* it has ever been my profound displeasure not to be able to avoid hearing.
Having moved out of the city to a private patch of woods has me feeling a bit jealous–no one comes to our door.
Of course, I was the type of kid who would say Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! just to see what would happen, so maybe it’s good for my own sake.
And Lisa Marie Presley was a Scientologist (she’s not any more) . . . that’s why the marriage didn’t work out. Michael just could not handle weirdness!
Don’t see this as me castigating you guys, as I jumped to the same erroneous conclusion you did. But this actually is the truth about mental disorders. Even if you disagree with the Bible part, you can’t disagree that many people have found comfort in the Bible.
Good on you, Jehovah’s Witnesses. For once, I’m okay with saying you’re doing the Lord’s work.
Yeah, I don’t see the problem with that. Given my usual knee-jerk to inserting spirituality into the treatment of real problems, that should tell you something. It’s really straight-up good advice, with a garnish of “believing in God might make things a little easier, if you’re also getting good professional help”. A far cry from scientology’s schtick.
I have no regrets. The version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town that was performed by the Jackson 5, the Ronettes, and Bruce Springsteen is an abomination, and I’m not backing down from that.
Clearly, you are taking the recruiting pamphlet as if it were an accurate representation of JW views on mental health. In my experience, their actual views on mental health contradict the pamphlet, in that they do view mental illness as spiritual rather than physical in origin, and that they prefer such illnesses be addressed by and through the JW organization. See, for example, this ex-member’s take on the same article,
Also, I don’t think they go door-to-door so much anymore, now that they have discovered the ease of haunting mass transit.
You don’t just put extra phrases into a song like that. ONCE, at the end, as a coda for a little stylish flair, is acceptable. But not throughout the song, as though it was written and intended to be performed that way.
Plus, preying on the vulnerable conversion is scummy, even if one disguises one’s proselytizing with largely nonspecific (See a doctor! Don’t skip your medicine unless it’s unBiblical!) advice.
Nope. These people are nice and there are some whom I would count as acquaintances, if not friends, and I’m working on not offending nice people. As a group I have found they are not deep, and some seem like they were dropped on their heads as infants, but they are God’s creatures and we should be kind to them, even to the point of inviting them into our homes and giving them a cold drink so they don’t die because they are too witless to not walk around in business suits in August, even if it means we take a copy of The Watchtower out of sympathy. And as good people we wait until they are gone before tossing their gift in the recycling.
I find their new-found understanding of mental illness a wonderful sign of God’s power, in that even a people who, collectively, were oxygen-starved at birth have reached a fifth-grader’s understanding of basic medical science, though I assume He had to knock them upside the head with a 2x4 to get their attention, that being one of the “mysterious ways” He works in.