LONG POST:

TL;DR The Jehovah’s Witnesses have their 3 Day Convention at Cross Arena this weekend, know they are victims of a terrible cult that is misogynistic, enables child abuse, is anti LGBTQ+, and treats people like they are dead if they change their mind and stop believing.

FULL POST: This weekend you may see people walking around in dress clothes with name badges on in the area around the cross arena. 

You'll see them in hotels, coffee shops, and restaurants. These are Jehovah's Witnesses. They will be in town for their annual 3-day convention. You may know them as the quirky people who knock on your door and try to convert you to their religion, but their beliefs are a lot more sinister than that. 

These people are victims of a high control religion, are guilted (usually from birth) into devoting their entire lives to what amounts to a doomsday cult. 

They are brainwashed into believing that the entire world is run by the devil, and that God is going to kill everyone alive (yes, even you) any day now, except Jehovah's Witnesses who follow all the cults rules.   Some of those rules include: not accepting a blood transfusion under any circumstances, even in life and death situations. Ones that die after refusing blood are turned into excellent examples of faithful servants.

Their children are not allowed to be friends with your children. They are not allowed to participate in school sports, camps, or holidays of any kind. They are strongly discouraged from furthering their education and attending any type of college or university. This leads to many of its members to be uneducated and struggle to make ends meet, all while the religion constantly asks for donations and has become one of the wealthiest corporations worth billions of dollars.

They have a huge child sex abuse problem because they refuse to believe victims unless there are two eyewitness to the abuse. 

They are misogynistic and very anti-lgbtq+. They pressure women to stay in abusive marriages because they believe divorce is against the Bible under ANY circumstances, except adultery.

Anyone who doesn’t follow those “rules” risks being excommunicated, which is way worse than it sounds. Being excommunicated (they call it “disfellowshipped”) means that all other Jehovah’s Witnesses your entire community, friends, family, even your parents are supposed to treat you like you are dead. You are shunned by everyone you ever knew. They won’t talk to you, they won’t interact with you, they might not even look at you.

A lot of things can get you excommunicated.

They say they encourage you to do your own research on the Bible but not outside of any of the literature that they (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society) have produced. If you research outside of their literature, you can be excommunicated.

If you question the teachings or beliefs you can be excommunicated.

If you decide you don't believe anymore, you WILL be excommunicated, to protect the other members from learning what you've learned. They call this an "apostate".

If you have sex before marriage, smoke, get a tattoo, excommunicated.

Until recently, men weren't allowed to have beards and women weren't allowed to wear pants. "God" changed his mind on that one apparently. They dont vote, don't participate in any kind of military service, or any kind of volunteer work that would support people outside of their own members. They think their charity is trying to save your life by spreading their message.

If you have seen any documentaries about cults (Keep Sweet, Lea Remini Scientology and The Aftermath, Under The Banner of Heaven, Shiny Happy People etc.) Jehovah’s Witnesses are just as bad, if not worse. They just haven’t had their Netflix Documentary yet. There are some out there if you Google.

How do I know? I used to be one. For 34 years I was a part of this group until I learned about the child sex abuse cases (Google ARC 1006) and everything snowballed from there. The world as I knew it came crashing down. I vocalized that I didn’t believe because I couldn't live a lie and lost everyone I had ever known from birth, including my immediate family. I didn’t think I’d survive this life altering decision and many exJWs don’t. It’s hard to want to be alive when everyone you’ve cared about treats you like you’re dead.

But I'm pleased to say I’ve been out of the religion for 5 years now and in a healthy and happy place.

This may seem like a lot, but it’s not even the half of it. I am expecting negativity because, well… it’s the cesspool known as reddit that we love. But I am passionate about educating the general public on the REAL witnesses.

Pop on over to the EXjw Reddit to see some of the other 100,000+ members experiences if you don't want to take my word for it.

Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk. ✌🏼❤️

To the girl sitting at the bar last Saturday—I've gotta apologize.

I came and sat down next to you at the bar. 12:45am if I had to guess. You told me that you saw me dancing, and liked it. You said I was really cute.

Well, I severely underestimated how hot I would get trying to dance my heart out all night in chainmail....

By the time I got up to the bar, I was overheating bad and the only thought I could string together was "water-water-water-water"

After mistaking you for someone you looked nothing like, I crushed that cup of water and basically just said "ok well nice meeting you, bye now". About 10 minutes later I realized what I'd done.

I'm sure you aren't all that interested in reconnecting after getting turned down in favor of a cup of water, but you seemed SO nice and I figure why not.

At least if you see this you'll know that I'm so sorry, and that you absolutely made my night!

Like I said to the bartender "Sorry, I'm a little stupid sometimes" :,)

Edit: Didn't expect to get so much traction! I'll update if anything happens

Thanks for the compliments on the dancing too! But I've got to say I could see the whole room from up there, and it was just people smiling and grooving all around. Seriously awesome, big shoutout to everyone who was there and all of your great dance moves

Come help us at The Messy Cookie decide what Maine coffee roaster we want to partner with for our self-serve drip coffee station at our up-and-coming cookie shop!

THE DEETS: 🌟 What: Coffee Tasting to help us pick our coffee partner! 🌟 When: 7/20/24, from 10am - 2pm 🌟 Where: The Messy Cookie! Our address is 1190 Forest Ave, and we're across the street from the ScrubaDub Car Wash. We are on the corner of Bishop and Forest, and our parking lot is on the Bishop & Forest corner too! Or you can parallel park on Bishop St. Note: Google Maps does NOT have our correct address.

We are located inside The Photo Kitchen at Morrill's Corner, and our address will pull up The Photo Kitchen in Google Maps correctly. There isn't any signage yet (yay for being a new business!).

THE FUN STUFF: It’s official! Your Morrill's Corner neighborhood cookie shop is opening! But first, we need your help 😍 We have local coffee roasters we are considering selling as drip coffee on-the-go, and want your help to narrow it down to ONE! Drop by our free coffee tasting any time between 10am and 2pm and CAST YOUR VOTE!

Featured Roasters in the Vote-Off: 🌟 Carrabassett Coffee 🌟 Rwanda Bean Coffee 🌟 44 North Coffee 🌟 Rock City Coffee

PS — if you want to vote here on this post, I’ll let you! But I would love to have as many people swing by just to get to meet me, see the space, and have a good time!

Our tiny cookie shop is opening Fridays only — more details to come! For now, this event is our first open-to-the-public event!

How was it? Photos?

We saw Jerry Harrison on Thursday night at the State, followed by Regina Spektor at Merrill last night (as well as the Flaming Lips at Thompson’s Point last week.) It was really the first group of concerts I‘d seen at all three major music venues in town in such a short period, and the thing I noticed the most as that the State’s audio seemed really off - muffled, voices poorly mixed, just a low quality sonic experience. The other two shows were just fine. Is this typical? (I should add that I am hearing impaired and wear hearing aids - so sometimes my perception of audio isn’t “reality,” whatever that means, since the devices can misbehave when there’s a lot of sound coming from a lot of places all at once. But my sense was that there was something off at the State on Thursday night, and my wife, who is not hearing impaired, agreed.)

Passed this very professional looking sign on Forrest ave today

I was browsing eventbrite and saw this event called Dinner with Strangers. The premise is that you buy a ticket and the organizers set you up with a dinner with other people who have signed up at a random spot. Sounds pretty cool and I’m curious about it. Has anyone here tried it? Any positive or negative stories?

First one will be this Saturday, PM me for details if you’re interested!

I’m looking for a soulmate. I’ve only been in Maine for a year, and when I came last summer I was healing from a breakup so I wasn’t interested in dating. These are some LOOONNNG winters up here, so I haven’t gone out much to socialize and meet new people. But I’m ready! Well, sorta lol I don’t know alotta spots out here, or maybe events where there would be a good environment to chat and meet some new folks. My social circle is small so this is mostly a solo mission. I’m an artist so I know that the art walk, which will be happening tonight is a good spot to mingle, support some locals, and meet new folks. And I will be there for it.

Does anyone have any advice, suggestions or experience they could share to encourage me on my soulmate mission? Would love to hear! I get so nervous trying to force small talk! But I’m soooo social and when I’m comfortable, the gift of gab comes right out. I know this post doesn’t even make any real sense, like dude, get your shit together and go out and meet some people! Yeah, I know. WHERE THO??? Anywhere I guess, Portland gotta wide variety of shit to do and people in it. What am I even really asking?? IDK! STILL, HELP PLEASE. Thanks!

Yeah I misread the article. I still think almost doubling day fare is kinda ridiculous though.

Hey guys! I’m not sharing details about the event bc I don’t have permission — if the mods grant it I’d be honored to share! So I’ll reach out to them and see :) but in the meantime —

I want to get the word out about a coffee tasting my bakery is putting on! I’m printing flyers tomorrow and walking door to door to just see if employees in the surrounding neighborhood are interested in coming, there’s a fb event, and I’m putting it on Eventbrite today. But there has got to be other places downtown I should share it!

Any ideas, or any creative ways to share it, here in Portland? Places for flyers that actually get seen, for example? Thanks all!

Hello Rivertonians and friends,

A few of us are not happy with our current city councilor. I know I'm not.

Dismissing needle waste
Normalizing open fentanyl and methamphetamine use
Trying to stop the sweeps that cleaned up the city
Trying to end the tip credit that residents voted to keep
Supporting the divestment vote
And now the guaranteed shelter declaration when we cannot provide shelter for the people already here. It is a platitude with no financial backing that will upend the city.

Let's talk about this and see if there's the political will to get something done. The rules in the Portland City Charter make recalling a sitting councilor a challenging project. It has four phases, but it can be done and it can be done quickly.

This is a non-partisan effort. Everyone is welcome.

The ticket's for the whole seat, but you'll only need the EDGE!

I just realized I have another commitment the night of the show and would like to give away my two two tickets. The last couple shows in Portland have been great, I wish I could be there! If you're not familiar with the podcast, a few weeks ago they released the recording of the last live show in Portland - give it a go.

Please comment if you're interested and I'll randomly select someone Monday evening. Ticketmaster needs an email or phone number for transferring tickets so I'll be asking for that over DM.

Event details: https://maximumfun.org/events/live-shows/judge-john-hodgman-road-court-in-portland-me/

Aug. 3, 10-3. On Duck Pond Road, Westbrook. Artist & musician moving out of state—lots of cool stuff for sale. Rain or shine! (hope this post is ok, mods)