# Witness haters--are you happy now? :( **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 2, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221 "2013-10-02T23:02:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/581 "2013-12-05T14:38:31Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > In case it wasn’t clear, my reply wasn’t directed at you. 🙂 I wasn’t sure - and I wanted to be clear - @\*\*DrFidelius \*\*- exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/582 "2013-12-05T18:31:05Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > My family has a long history of alcoholism, lung cancer, and other results of various vices. > **My** notions keep me from smoking, drinking, gambling, and treating drugs like toys. The issue of transfusion has never come up with me (in 64 years), and I’ve never made a serious effort even to know what my blood type is. 😛 > > My ex-stepfather once said to me, “I hate Jehovah’s witnesses with a passion!” He was half-drunk at the time. See what kind of company you have? If you were able to think properly, you might note that even if I agreed with your step father on that one issue, it wouldn’t mean we were both wrong because he was a drunk. Think hard about it. It should be clear that not every opinion of a drunk is automatically wrong. If your stepfather agreed with you an an issue, would it mean that you were automatically wrong? That said, I don’t \*hate \*JWs, I hate the religion itself. People like you, the actual JWs, are just gullible victims. I feel sorry for you wasting your lives on such nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/583 "2013-12-05T18:50:04Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If you were able to think properly, you might note that even if I agreed with your step father on that one issue, it wouldn’t mean we were both wrong because he was a drunk. > > Think hard about it. It should be clear that not every opinion of a drunk is automatically wrong. If your stepfather agreed with you an an issue, would it mean that you were automatically wrong? > > That said, I don’t \*hate \*JWs, I hate the religion itself. People like you, the actual JWs, are just gullible victims. I feel sorry for you wasting your lives on such nonsense. The not so subtle point that I think dougie\_monty is attempting to make - Anyone that disagrees with his notions is a drunk, drug abusing gambler - and its only his ‘religion’ (or notions) that somehow prevent him from being the same - it was his density to be just like his family otherwise. Anyone that ‘hates’ the JW (whether the group or individually) is automatically an abusive drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/584 "2013-12-05T20:14:16Z")
> [@simster](#): > > The not so subtle point that I think dougie\_monty is attempting to make - > > Anyone that disagrees with his notions is a drunk, drug abusing gambler - and its only his ‘religion’ (or notions) that somehow prevent him from being the same - it was his **density** to be just like his family otherwise. > > Anyone that ‘hates’ the JW (whether the group or individually) is automatically an abusive drunk. Typo or _à propos_?.. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/585 "2013-12-05T20:22:52Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > Typo or _à propos_?.. on purpose - he’s dense and its a reference to a movie he hates. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/586 "2013-12-05T20:23:57Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If you were able to think properly, you might note that even if I agreed with your step father on that one issue, it wouldn’t mean we were both wrong because he was a drunk. > > Think hard about it. It should be clear that not every opinion of a drunk is automatically wrong. If your stepfather agreed with you an an issue, would it mean that you were automatically wrong? > > That said, I don’t \*hate \*JWs, I hate the religion itself. People like you, the actual JWs, are just gullible victims. I feel sorry for you wasting your lives on such nonsense. If ‘hating Witnesses’ were his only hangup, I wouldn’t consider him such a monster. But he ignored his son (my younger brother ☹ ); deposited his weekly paycheck at his bar so he could go in and drink–he was often falling-down drunk when he left–when he wanted to; he would slip off at times on the weekends for golf, and I never saw any equipment; and once, without telling us, he went to Las Vegas for a weekend; my Mom told him when he returned that she was frantic with worry; he didn’t bat an eye! :mad: When someone like\* this\* snarls that he hates the Witnesses, I can properly ignore him. There were things he and I agreed on; I once read that “the most depraved lunatic in creation has _some_ lucid monments.” Before I forget–what nonsense do you waste YOUR time on? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/587 "2013-12-05T20:26:58Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > If ‘hating Witnesses’ were his only hangup, I wouldn’t consider him such a monster. But he ignored his son (my younger brother ☹ ); deposited his weekly paycheck at his bar so he could go in and drink–he was often falling-down drunk when he left–when he wanted to; he would slip off at times on the weekends for golf, and I never saw any equipment; and once, without telling us, he went to Las Vegas for a weekend; my Mom told him when he returned that she was frantic with worry; he didn’t bat an eye! :mad: When someone like\* this\* snarls that he hates the Witnesses, I can properly ignore him. And so you try to cast everyone who has issues with your behavior as this sort of jerk so that you can safely ignore them, too. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/588 "2013-12-05T20:46:07Z")
> [@simster](#): > > on purpose - he’s dense and its a reference to a movie he hates. Oh, do please clue me in as to that film. I already know from another thread that he gets all worked up when I refer to people who believe the world was poofed into existence a few thousand years as “functional retards”. Another button to push would be great… ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/589 "2013-12-05T20:48:42Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > Oh, do please clue me in as to that film. > > I already know from another thread that he gets all worked up when I refer to people who believe the world was poofed into existence a few thousand years as “functional retards”. Another button to push would be great… “You are my DENSITY!” (or something like that) is a line from “Back to the Future.” I’m assuming that’s the film in question. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/590 "2013-12-05T21:07:53Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > “You are my DENSITY!” (or something like that) is a line from “Back to the Future.” I’m assuming that’s the film in question. Yes - that is it. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/591 "2013-12-06T01:33:55Z")
> [@simster](#): > > Yes - that is it. Why? I’ve known people who didn’t particularly care for that movie, but none I can recall who actually hated it. Is it on some sort of _Watchtower_ forbidden list? ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/592 "2013-12-06T02:04:55Z")
> [@Fuji](#): > > Why? I’ve known people who didn’t particularly care for that movie, but none I can recall who actually hated it. Is it on some sort of _Watchtower_ forbidden list? While the Watchtower certainly would not want its members to partake in worldy things - I do not know of any specific ‘forbidden’ list beyond probably ‘nothing rated R or X’ and there are likely generic references against things like Harry Potter, etc - that might make an interesting search - However - this particular rant comes from dougie\_monty’s own very pwecious mind - here - I’ll let dougie\_monty’s own insanity describe things - as there is no way I could do it justice - In this thread - [Critical issue about “Back to the Future”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14198800#post14198800) > [@Critical issue about "Back to the Future"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/critical-issue-about-back-to-the-future/594600/1): > > I expended considerable energy years ago on a thread I started in The Pit, on movie content I disapproved of, including _Back to the Future._ > However, what I would like to know is this: > During the 1950s sequence–which I did not see–my understanding is that Fox’s character desperately tries to get his parents together to preserve his own existence. I recently read something–I forget the source–suggesting he even considered _raping_ his mother to accomplish this!:eek: That is a horrifying thought. Am I anywhere near correct on this? ☹ and this gem from [is the from the pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=47127) (the first part is about Smokey and the Bandit!) > [@Unabashed rant: What I object to about specific movies](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unabashed-rant-what-i-object-to-about-specific-movies/41770/26): > > You bet I object to the anti-hero! > A clarification: The _movie poster_ shows a big rig crumpling a police car. (The TV ad for the movie also showed a totaled police car being dragged away). If the movie was as good as Dopers seem to make out, I see no acceptable reason the movie company could have, to resort to false advertising on the posters to attract moviegoers. (I had heard the bit about trucker-flattens-a-row-of-motorcycles six years before the movie came out; it was even alluded to in Jan Harold Brunvand’s book _The Baby Train.)_ > The ads for James Garner’s movie _Tank,_ likewise showed a good ol’ boy mashing cop cars. > And something else I alluded to on the Snopes website, under “Glurge Gallery” on the UL Message Board: the movie _Back to the Future._ I had been urged to see this movie by a family I have known since the 60s; the year before an older customer of mine, whose daughter was also a classmate of mine in 1967, had urged me to go see [í]Amadeus;\* I did and was quite impressed. With this in mind I went to see _Back to the Future,_ and had one too many straws put on my back. > Specifically: these elements each irritated me just a little bit: > > 1. The movie opened on a filthy laboratory which had obviously been abandoned for a week. > 2. Fox’s character was a snide little smart-aleck, the likes of which would, or should, get his teeth knocked out early on in the real world. In one scene, he pays as much attention to the infuriated high-school principal as he might to a blank wall. > 3. At one point he hitches a ride (on skates) by holding on to the rear bumper of a police car. This may show Spielberg’s contempt for the police, but it’s a foolhardy and dangerous stunt that could even have put the stuntman’s life in jeopardy. > 4. At Fox’s home, he finds out, not only has his father’s employer used Fox’s family car (without permission, presumably), but has wrecked it. And he treats the family, whose car he has just wrecked, to severe verbasl abuse in their own home! Sounds like something I might read about in _The Daily Worker._ > 5. Huey Lewis and the News (billed in the opening credits, so I was at least forewarned) played one of their songs at one point. I stayed out in the lobby until it was done. > 6. The topper was the old man (Christopher Lloyd) with Fox in a mall-parking lot; a VW bus full of maniacs approaches and they fire on Lloyd with sub-machine guns. > As I have noted elsewhere, it isn’t the existence of negative elements in a movie that irritate me; it’s the combination of the six, and the apparent use of these elements to appeal to the viewer. Why would I want, for example, to see Arnold Schawrzenegger (in _any_ movie) gun down helpless people with a howitzer, or whatever, unless I condoned murder myself? > The six items in _Back to the Future,_ put together, pushed me past the point of tolerance. Without a word to anyone I left, just after the sub-machine-gun attack, and went home, lest I lose my tempter in the movie house and run the risk of being thrown out or arrested. (As for the family that recommeneded the movie to me: about two months after IU went to see it, the father died. I went to the funeral. _This_ sure enough was a low point. :(:(:(:() ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/593 "2013-12-06T02:14:49Z")
Wow. As I’ve said twice now, this guy has really got to lighten up. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/594 "2013-12-06T04:00:51Z")
dougie\_monty’s head would explode if he read Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love, never mind To Sail Beyond the Sunset. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/595 "2013-12-06T04:03:15Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > In an Archie comic, Archie brought a rather salty sea parrot to school. Very outspoken bird. Betty or Veronica called him “precious,” and he squawked, “The last swab what called me ‘precious,’ got deep-sixed off Barbados!” Feisty critter. Oh well…You want wit, I can deliver. 🙂 Aye aye, Sir. > [@Telemark](#): > > Your jokes are bad, and you should feel bad. Well, it wasn’t that bad. I mean, y’know, Archie comics. They specialize in really weak jokes, so it isn’t **dougie\_monty** ’s fault. Of course, quite obviously, he can’t get us deep-sixed off Barbados, it’s actually a fairly good “Pit” threat. He little recks with my myriads of Star Battalions and Galactic Dreadnoughts! > [@Lobohan](#): > > . . . That said, I don’t \*hate \*JWs, I hate the religion itself. People like you, the actual JWs, are just gullible victims. . . . Very much how I feel about Christian Science. The people who follow that insanity are victims. I’ve seen too many of them die horribly, because their idiotic religion tells them to pray for healing rather than actually go and get medical care. The JWs are the same way: their ban on blood transfusion is a hellish distortion of human moral values, but the poor actual shits who believe that are the victims, not the villains. Somewhere in the hierarchy of both churches, however, are at least a few highly-placed leaders who both know the truth about real medical care, and still preach the doctrine that sends their members to death. Those are the true villains. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/596 "2013-12-06T04:04:22Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > To Simster and Kaylasdad: Thanks…I’ll try it, and I think it’ll take some practice… > Now if I understand you aright, “clipboard” is a feature of Windows rather than of the Internet server…? (OK, it may be something I am already familiar with from Word, Cut and Paste and all…) 🙂 Yes. “Clipboard” refers to the magical space where data strings go when you manipulate them with Windows commands. Don’t go looking for it; even if it has a physical presence, at your level of computer usage, even if you found something, it wouldn’t do anything more interesting or useful than you can already make it do. Don’t take the above as an insult. It also applies to me and my level of computer usage. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/597 "2013-12-06T06:08:14Z")
> [@simster](#): > > I’ll let dougie\_monty’s own insanity describe things - as there is no way I could do it justice - > [Critical issue about “Back to the Future”] > [the first part is about Smokey and the Bandit!] NOW I know why this thread had a familiar tone to it. I remember reading that Evils of Culture thread and feeling sorry for _ **d-m** ’ty._ He was such a tragic blend of judgmental and paranoid. And the inability to understand another person’s point of view, or to see that what happens in a movie is fiction sounded almost autistic. There was a lot of “How can you condone (an act like disrespect toward authority)? You must therefore do that, or be in favor of it, in real life!” Now, I’m NOT blaming Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s more likely that a person with a borderline personality would gravitate to a group that has clear-cut guidelines as to What One Must Believe. A religion that demanded that you think for yourself would be better, but my point is there are people who, psychologically, wouldn’t be able to handle a group of people like that. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/598 "2013-12-06T06:52:06Z")
> [@digs](#): > > NOW I know why this thread had a familiar tone to it. I remember reading that Evils of Culture thread and feeling sorry for _ **d-m** ’ty._ He was such a tragic blend of judgmental and paranoid. > > And the inability to understand another person’s point of view, or to see that what happens in a movie is fiction sounded almost autistic. There was a lot of “How can you condone (an act like disrespect toward authority)? You must therefore do that, or be in favor of it, in real life!” > > Now, I’m NOT blaming Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s more likely that a person with a borderline personality would gravitate to a group that has clear-cut guidelines as to What One Must Believe. A religion that demanded that you think for yourself would be better, but my point is there are people who, psychologically, wouldn’t be able to handle a group of people like that. editied - going to find a better way to phrase what I am trying to say. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/599 "2013-12-06T07:59:43Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > […] > Somewhere in the hierarchy of both churches, however, are at least a few highly-placed leaders who both know the truth about real medical care, and still preach the doctrine that sends their members to death. Those are the true villains. Golly, I hope you have a good lawyer in case someione decides to sue you over this… I have a quote from an ancient source, 2nd-Century Christian writer named Tertullian: “We do not include even animals’ blood in our natural diet. We abstain on that account from things strangled or that die of themselves, that we may not be in any way polluted by blood, even if it is buried in the meat. Finally, when you are testing Chrtistians, you offer them sausages full of blood; you are thoroughly well aware, of course, that among them it is forbidden; but you want to make them transgress.” And a modern one, from the _Journal of the Florida Medical Association_ of Sept. 19, 1952: “[Widespread use of blood transfusioins produces] a weird assortment of antibodies, which may prove too be the source of crossmatching difficulties and may even endanger the life of the patient if he is given more blood.” You may object to the analogy of “eating” blood; but if a doctor told you that you may not drink alcohol, would that mean you could properly have it injected into your bloodstream? :rolleyes: I happen to know that in recent years surgeons have worked out means of “bloodless surgery” specifically to accommodate Witnesses who will not consent to transfusion. If you have any published information that has come out in the sixty-one years since the Florida Medical Association article, and countermands it, by all means show it to me. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221/600 "2013-12-06T08:16:36Z")
> [@simster](#): > > While the Watchtower certainly would not want its members to partake in worldy things - I do not know of any specific ‘forbidden’ list beyond probably ‘nothing rated R or X’ and there are likely generic references against things like Harry Potter, etc - that might make an interesting search - However - this particular rant comes from dougie\_monty’s own very pwecious mind - > here - > I’ll let dougie\_monty’s own insanity describe things - as there is no way I could do it justice - > In this thread - > [Critical issue about “Back to the Future”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14198800#post14198800) > and this gem from [is the from the pit thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=47127) (the first part is about Smokey and the Bandit!) You’re walking a steep ledge in a hurricane, Buddy. Before you pass pompous judgment on my movie tastes, I think there is something you should know: My disdain for movies goes back almost to the start; when I was a kid my parents pretty much _made_ me go to the movies, with my brother and sister, as a regular thing on Saturdays. Most of the movies they showed were not geared for kids, and I would go out and sit in the lobby or even leave the building altogether, and look at the clocks in the jewelry store up the street. When we moved away in December 1959, I stopped going to movies on a regular basis and have gone only irregularly since. I stopped in July 1971 with _The Love Bug_ and resumed in 1982 with _Time Bandits;_ five years later the last movie was _The Believers._ The other movies I saw in that time were _Amadeus, The Thing, Back to the Future_ (the first part only), and _Little Shop of Horrors_ (only because it had music in it and I needed a musical for a college-course assignment. I thoroughly detested the movie.) So I don’t ascribe my reaction to any movie to “paranoia” or “insanity,” but rather to the simple fact that I don’t care much for movies in the first place. Occam’s Razor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/witness-haters-are-you-happy-now/670221.md?page=31)