Jehovah's Witnesses

Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. The person you're trying to reach is not available. Straight to voicemail? Twice? What the hell, Rosabelle? I don't know why it does it. It's quite disturbing because I'm always missing your calls nowadays. Yeah, it sounds like a likely excuse. Does this happen with anyone else? Well, to be fair, you're the only one who calls me on FaceTime audio. So, no, you are the only one calling me in this particular way. Interesting. All I know is that when I call you, I get forwarded straight to voicemail. Almost as if you're hitting a button that sees me there the second you see my name pop up. Look, today's Flight of the Spirit episode is about Jehovah's Witnesses. Those funky folk that come around in pairs knocking on your door, which we have in New Zealand, but they were invented, from what I understand, in America. Okay. What do I know about Jehovah's Witnesses? They don't celebrate birthdays, and children do, in fact, go door knocking by themselves, which is, like, quite scary when you think about it. Yeah, actually, that's the question. We see a lot of people knocking on the door of our house for different things. Like, that'd be power company. Or religions. Yeah. You would often not go to the door if I feel you hid from people. Yeah, because it's just so true. I can't say no. You know, it's like when people approach you on the street for, like, donating to Oxfam or whatever, it's really hard to say no, don't you think? Oh, incredibly difficult. It's just best not to, but I do remember some children came and they wanted to pray for me. Did you let them? Yeah, because, I don't know, it's so awkward. I was really anxious just thinking about it again. Did you feel better or worse after the prayer? I felt better than if I'd slammed the door in their face. You know, I used to do door-to-door marketing, so I'm, like, very well attuned to the specific kind of rejection you feel on a doorstep. What was the percentage of people that would happily talk to you at a door and people that would just say, get out of my face? Such a low percentage. Like, maybe one in ten. And I really had to, you know, like, I was maybe 16, 17. And so you really had to, well, I learned to try and look as prophetic as possible. So to take pity on you. Not difficult for you. It's actually quite a mean thing I said to Rose, but I just then apologised for that. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, back over in New Zealand, one of the most annoying things that can happen is you hear a knock on the door, and there they are. A pair of Jehovah's Witnesses, immaculately dressed there to convert you to their particular religion. To give witness to the message of Jehovah? I guess Jehovah's Witnesses. That's how it works. To be honest, until now, I've never really stopped to think about it. Most of my time is spent coming out with excuses to not be stuck at the stoop with a pair of people yammering on about the good news. Well, recently it occurred to me that there is one place and one place alone to blame for being interrupted in New Zealand while I watch TV. America. The United States invented Jehovah's Witnesses, rather an American man called Charles Taze Russell did. Quite a cool name. Charles lived in Pennsylvania, and somehow his breed of Christianity ended up getting really big, to the point where there's now over 9 million members all over the world. It's time to figure out what this religion is all about. So prepare to go knocking door to door, think about Armageddon quite a bit, and of course the earthly paradise that awaits you if you do things right here on Earth. Because this is the Jehovah's Witnesses episode. I'm a flightless, flightless bird touched down in America. I'm a flightless bird touched down in America. What's going on? Nothing. You're up to something. No, no, no, no. Rob's up to something. It's for my nose. Do you call people on FaceTime audio? No, that's crazy. It's because I'm in another country. Yeah, I mean, I get the logic, but if you're going to use FaceTime, you might as well use the video at that point. Yeah, I don't want to. I don't always want to, like, surprise people with my face. And I feel like sometimes Rosabelle doesn't want to, like, show her face. So we go audio only. Yeah, and if you're FaceTiming, you got to use video. Really? Yeah. I hate FaceTime. I don't like having to be, because then you're anchored to your phone. You're suddenly thinking about how you look, where you are. Audio only, I can be doing a variety of things. I can be naked. I can be indoors. I can be outside. I can be walking. Are you often naked while you're? Often. At home, I'm often naked. People. People are calling. So audio only just takes the pressure off, whereas you're saying it's kind of disrespectful almost just to do audio. Well, but again, you calling from different countries changes things a little bit, because if you just want audio only, you just call with your phone. Yeah, which, yeah. Whereas if you're going to use FaceTime as your form of calling. What is your main way of, if you're not calling or texting, do you have it like, what apps do you use to communicate with people? Because I'm WhatsApp and FaceTime. FaceTime Messenger on Facebook, because I'm an old man. I mean, it's call or text. That's all. I mean, I'll FaceTime some people. You're not using WhatsApp? Signal? I have WhatsApp for like preschool groups, chats. Yeah, like school chats. For big group chats. Yeah, right. I've got a couple, or like international friends. I've got a few of those on WhatsApp, but that's it. Well, all I can say is there's been some kind of update on Facebook. Zach's gotten involved and it go, when I call Rosabelle now, straight to voicemail. Do you have those friends that are terrible on text, but great on DMs on Instagram? Yeah, absolutely. There is a huge difference between DMing some people on Instagram and a text conversation. Yeah, I have some friends that will not respond to text for the life of them. They're so bad at texting. Facebook and Instagram straight away. Instagram, DMs, they respond. That's. I wonder why. I wonder why it is. Is it like people are moving away from phone calls because they're too socially traumatic. And I'm wondering if texting is falling into that category now, whereas Instagram DMs are seen as kind of fun and memes and like wacky, and so it's less awful? I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe it's like a volume thing. Yeah. Like their texts are just so overwhelming, because I do know those people that have like thousands of unread texts. Have you noticed a thing while we're doing phone chat? Mm-hmm. There's a trend that started for me, I feel like a year ago, where some friends really got into leaving voice memos. Yeah. And so you would come and have maybe five one-minute voice memos that you then had to listen to. Do you have that? Yeah. I don't like voice memos very much. No. Well, I don't. Horrific. I don't mind them. Are you trying not to offend a certain friend that's listening? No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's always DMing voice memos. I'm trying to think like. No, there's. There's some people I don't mind hearing their voice. Yeah. But if I'm texting, I'm doing it because I can't be on the phone and I can't play audio. Like most of the time, I'm not in a place where I can play audio out loud. Horrific. I think it's fundamentally selfish if you're sending voice memos, because it's saying, you owe me this time. Like, you owe me this five minutes to listen to all this shit. Yeah. I can't be bothered texting. I'm just going to ramble on as I go about my day-to-day business. And you, you owe me that time to listen. I don't. I don't listen to them anymore. I'm not listening to them. There are a few, though, where they start with like, this is too long to type out, which I will give people grace for that. Yeah. Slightly better. Like explainers or like, I had a friend recently, she just had a baby and like, it was hard to type. Quick housekeeping before we get into this episode, we've got live shows still, tickets still on sale for our live shows. You've got a few tickets left. Austin. No. Let's start chronologically. Can we do them out of order? Yeah. To keep people on their toes? Yeah, Austin. Our second show is in Austin. April 2nd. Before Austin. We're going to be in Utah in Salt Lake City on March 29th. And then post Austin, which is our middle date, we're going to be in. April 4th. We're going to be in Dallas. In Dallas. Yes. Which is also in Texas. Also in Texas. Yes. They're both in. They're all in quite iconic venues. I'm incredibly excited to do the shows and yeah, tickets are at flightlessbirdpod.com or in our Instagram page under the show links or in the show notes in this very episode. That you're listening to. Austin is showing up more than Salt Lake City in Dallas. So if you live near Dallas or Salt Lake City, don't let Austin show you up. No, you don't want that. Today's episode is about Jehovah's Witnesses, which to be fair, I do not know a lot about. Of all the topics we've done, this is almost the biggest murkiest area just because in my mind, my whole life, they've been like the people knocking at the door who I've kind of made an active effort to ignore. You got them in New Zealand? We do. And are they based in the US? All US. Yeah. US invented. US born and bred. Spread to New Zealand. Spread out all over the world and I just thought about this now. We both loved a movie called Heretic that was based around some door knocking Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah. They sort of, they knocked on doors. Hugh Grant was in the house. Topher Grace was the head Jehovah's Witness. Yes. The head witness. Things went badly for those particular Jehovah's Witnesses. I found. When I was putting this episode together and typing out the script, typing Jehovah's witnesses grammatically was quite difficult for me believe me when uh I had to I was texting about this topic no no and I was talking about this texting about this topic to our editors and our video guy and you the amount like it's difficult right I had to just come up with a nickname for them because I could not spell Jehovah yeah I think that's the most difficult thing about this religion I think the main point against it is how difficult it is to spell yeah JWs is what I've gone for um but those apostrophes and what word owns what in the sentence very complicated for me and then pluralizing witnesses yeah wiles yeah do not like that aspect to it at all talking about Jehovah's witnesses seems a little tricky because it is a religion yes it's a religion I think not tricky but just we want to be careful that we're not offending oh yeah that is an interesting thing with this no because in my you you you you you you know I'm sure people who listen to the show um know that I'm very skeptical of religion yeah um but it is funny where there's different and we've touched on a few religions and because this is a show about American culture a lot of them tend to be branches of Christianity because that's what this country is kind of built on so that's just the way it is but when you get into things like Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons Jehovah's Witnesses all that stuff I there's like almost a graph in my like a a line in my mind of like that's just what my brain kind of does by default it's interesting because you're right I don't want to offend followers of a religion but certainly in my mind certain religions I find myself more easily being tempted to be derogatory towards than others well and there's like it feels like there's some safety and being critical of Christianity for us because it's the giant one and we grew up in it the giant one and we came from it yeah um we've got skin in the game there's like a little bit of cover I guess oh no I I completely agree like we have lived experience in that yeah and and it's like a very represented one yeah and then you've got Scientology like you said on the other end of the spectrum yeah full-on cults yeah um not arguable at all which I don't think we were I think we were still weirdly could have been more disrespectful to Scientology yeah I'm here to say I guess it's good that we're not disrespectful and and which I mean yeah someone's beliefs are someone's beliefs um there's that I also there's certain I think what I would say about the little I know about JWs and talking to these former members and doing a tiny bit of reading the thing that makes me puts my heckles up a little bit about them is they are a an offshoot of Christianity that tends to be they really don't like the gays you know there's certain things where they're a lot less you know within Christianity you've got some really like liberal Christians yeah who are like very inclusive and good JWs from what I can tell seem a lot more locked down and a lot of the idea their ideas that they spend a lot of energy on seem potentially more damaging to people more discriminatory which is yeah which is why I instantly tend to get a bit like yeah right heckly yeah heckly about it maybe it's the religions that we're less informed on their beliefs that yeah potentially in New Zealand um our old neighbors they were JWs and they seem really nice their parents seemed really nice I worked with a JWs witness what were they like? at a job and I he was nice quiet kept to himself a lot was Jill I I do remember when we've one I found out he was one I'd look fired him like he could straight go um well I knew he like couldn't have alcohol mm-hmm I think there was medicine that he was not allowed he's not allowed to have mm-hmm medicine yeah and he wasn't uh allowed to really make friends with people at the office outside of so he told you the religion like Roosevelt at the time I'm not taking my calls yeah it's like rough no I don't want to hang out it's against my religion but I mean it checked out for how reserved he was yeah with in like not social there'd be like lunch outings with the whole company and yeah right uh it made me want to be friends with him more yeah it's like a challenge almost yeah and it's like this guy needs friends our friendship will break override override your religious overrides your religious belief system did you get close do you feel you made progress or not really um no no I'm sorry Rob he I mean he was our coder to one of our coders so like already is kind of a personality type he sounds like you're being derogatory to coders no no no yeah what are coders like they're not the most social less social no friends nerds wow we need to talk about how we talk about coders on this podcast cause I think we're being pretty offensive I like coders some of my best friends are coders yeah I get along great with coders even though I think they're a dying breed now um okay one last question as far as door knockers um in America does your household have an attitude to people door knocking whether they are Jehovah's Witnesses or they're selling advertising or anything else cause Rosabelle would hide in her room I hate it yeah yeah I I've signed up for things because I don't yeah if I answer it cause I think it's someone that I need to answer the door yeah and then I I sign up for a company to spray our house once a month for bugs cause it's so hard to say no right yeah well they're they're good at it they're good at it um yeah you've got Rosabelle's problem where like she can't help being nice as well it's gotten it got to the point where I did get a plaque that says no solicitation has that helped nope it's still it's not well we haven't put it up we don't we actually don't get a what you got sorry you got the sign but you haven't put it up no you haven't put it up that's why it's not working we we live on like a dead end street so we don't get a ton of them yeah do you think you'll you'll put it up anytime soon or you're just gonna leave it I don't know where it is if I can find it I might it's not the prettiest sign I got like a metal one yeah like one of the ugliest things you can put on the house no no I got like a nice one but there's only yeah so nice a sign that says no solicitation can look yeah what is it sort of in silver or sort of like what's it sort of what is it uh no it's like forged in metal like in brass and where would you put it on the door or next to the door that's the problem yeah I think you're supposed to sign it up on the door that's the problem yeah I think you're supposed to sign it up on the door I think you should do it it's not very inviting though and what's the idea I know you're too nice you're so nice you can't even put up the sign you bought to get rid of them uh yeah we had at my parents house just had a sticker that said it little sticker on the door okay let's learn about JWs yeah knock knock there are a few ways to put together an episode about a particular religion you can get a religious scholar on to analyze it and break it down you could talk to them you could talk to a current member of the church to get their take or maybe a leader that's what we did with the seventh day adventist episode we talked to one of the big head honchos what I wanted to do for this episode though was to talk to some former members of the religion people who'd grown up as Jehovah's Witnesses and then for whatever reason chosen to leave I figured they'd have some direct personal insight and maybe enough distance from it all to be slightly objective so I spoke to Sarah in general so my name is Jen and I live in York, Pennsylvania but I work in Hershey, Pennsylvania Jen stepped out of work and is zooming from her car which is why the line's a bit dicey can you smell it in the air around the factory? yes and it doesn't smell good at all but the Reese's peanut butter cup plant is down the road from my office and when they roast peanuts it smells amazing she tells me she started off originally baptized as a Lutheran when she was a kid then the Jehovah's Witnesses came knocking they came proselytizing to my grandmother's door when I was two so she converted and then my mom converted with her and it's very it's tough because you don't have holidays you don't have your birthday you don't have Christmas you don't have Easter you can't play sports you can't do anything patriotic and so it's really isolating as a child to not be able to do anything that normal kids do it's weird Jen says her mom had her when she was just 20 years old raising her on her own Jen's dad was out of the picture back in 1972 that was a rough time to be a single mom without a lot of support they are giving you what you think you're missing you know maybe you feel like an outsider you don't have a lot of friends they're going to be there to support you but being a Jehovah's Witness meant things like Bible study which meant friends and support and help so Jen can understand why her mom was into it but she says from early on it made her life a bit weird compared to the other kids I remember you know in elementary school if another student had a birthday party I would have to go sit in the hallway in class like I couldn't have cake I couldn't do anything I couldn't stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance I couldn't if I was in chorus and you know we would do a show for school if they sang a patriotic song they would have to stop the show and wait for me to come down out of the bleachers and sit down their reasoning is that you shouldn't be pledging allegiance to anything except for Jehovah God you shouldn't be putting anything above Him so if you're pledging the flag if you're you know celebrating your own Pledge of Allegiance celebrating your own birthday then you're saying that you're more important you're taking that glory then the Sarah story so my name is Sarah I'm 51 years old I live in Kansas City. Well, I work in Kansas City, Missouri, but I don't know if you've heard, we're on the state line between Kansas City, Kansas, and there's Kansas City, Missouri. So I work on the Missouri side and I live on the Kansas side. Oh, so you're constantly crossing over states. Yeah, I'm in two states every day. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Shopify. Now, if you've ever started your own business, you'll probably know that it is incredibly stressful because you have to wear so many different hats. I've sold clothes online in various forms for various things over the years. And good God, I wish I'd had Shopify as a partner. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, from household names to brands just getting started. 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Everything's all in the one place, making your life way easier and your business operations smoother. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash bird. Go to shopify.com slash bird. That's shopify.com slash bird. All new holiday drinks are now at McDonald's. Like the Frosted Cranberry Splash with Sprite. The Red Bull Frosted Cranberry Energy. And Cookie Butter Coffees. It is the season for seasonal drinks at McDonald's. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when network is busy. See terms. Like with Jen's mom, Sarah's mother also became a Jehovah's Witness out of a kind of necessity. A need for community and help. My poor mother, God bless her, was raised in a terrible, abusive family. Mom, terrible alcoholic dad, and in the total, five kids, so four siblings. And she was kind of the black sheep of the family. And I was two years old. And so the witnesses came knocking at the door because, you know, they go door to door preaching, right? And they came knocking at the door with promises of mothers and brothers and fathers and sisters in the faith. And for someone who didn't have that in their family of origin, that's very, very appealing. And so she was all in because she was already kind of a Jesus freak hippie. And so she was all in. So from two years old, she was all in on that. And so that was that. Unfortunately, Sarah says things weren't exactly what they said on the 10. But what they didn't tell her was that the fine print is that you have to be an intact, traditional kind of witness family where the father is in the faith, the mother is in the faith, and all the kids are in the faith, or you don't get all that instant family. You're treated as a second class citizen and less than. And when the witnesses told my, dad that he had to stop playing in a band and had to stop smoking pot, he said, deuces. I ain't doing that. So he wasn't a witness and she was, but he was so in love with her and so far up her ass that he never, ever like rocked the boat or made waves when she would drag me off to the meetings three times a week, drag me off door to door multiple times a week, wouldn't let me go to his mother's house for Christmas Eve celebration, all that. He never put his foot down and said, look it, this, that's fine for you, but she's my daughter too. And I'm taking her to my mom's house. Sarah's experience as a kid growing up in this religion also kind of echoes Jen's, including her experience at school. I'm the kid who has to sit down during the daily pledge of allegiance because the witnesses do not believe in politics. You can't pledge the allegiance. No, they are politically neutral. They don't vote. They don't participate in politics in any way. You cannot stand and say the pledge of allegiance. You can't sing the national anthem. None of it. So every single day, I'm the weird kid who sits down during the pledge of allegiance and don't forget with the last name sleazer. You're in trouble. You're in a whole world of trouble. So fucked. And then, you know, second grade art class when it comes Thanksgiving time, everybody else is making, you know, a turkey out of their hand. And I got to do that because it was a turkey and Jehovah made turkeys, but come, Christmas time for second grade art class. I could only make a construction paper pine tree because Jehovah made pine trees, but I couldn't have it with any decorations on it because that's Christmas and Christmas is pagan. I get her to drill more into what sets Jehovah's witnesses apart, what she remembers. I had to go to church an hour a week, every Tuesday night, two hours a week, every Thursday night and two hours a week, every Sunday. And then, a couple of nights a week after school that we weren't at the church, I was expected to go knocking on doors. So like the Thursday night program, the first part of it would be, there would be a couple of people and you went in rotation. Whenever your number came up, you had to do this, but you had to give what they called a talk. And so you had to make up a premise and sit on the stage across from a fellow congregant and pretend that this issue has come up and you are trying to preach to somebody who is a non-believer about topic A. And, you know, so that I could be the shining star that my mom needed me to be, boy, my first talk was given at around age nine or 10. As an introvert, do you have any idea, especially because I didn't even know what that was, but the anxiety that filled me anytime it was my turn for that exercise was so crippling and so horrible, but I could not show it. Had to just stuff it down and do as I was told. And then after that, then some dipshit would get up and talk for an hour. Then on Sundays, some dipshit would talk for an hour and then they would go through the watchtower study because what they're peddling when they go door to door are these two magazines that they make called the watchtower and the awake. And they're like, weekly or monthly, they're just religious garbage, whatever. But they would go and you would study this one article and then they would go over it from the stage and then they would ask questions and the congregants are supposed to answer and then and raise their hand. And if they get called on, say the answer. And so once again, you know, I'd get the elbow of like, raise your hand, you know, the answer to this shine for me type of performative shit from my mom. And it was horrible, absolutely horrible. Do you think there's anything like good within Jehovah's Witnesses? Like, are they out there volunteering in the community? Are they very focused? No, what they call volunteering is they are saints because they're going to spread the word to people who might not have heard the word. I say all they do is doorknock. That's that community outreach. That's that's what they think is the community outreach. Yes. For Jen, growing up as a Jehovah's Witness came with some very specific problems that extended far beyond having to sit out pledging allegiance to the flag every morning at school. So I was born with a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot, which without surgical intervention, kids usually don't live past four. So I was on track seeing a cardiologist to have surgery. And then they joined the Jehovah's Witnesses and they have a very strict no blood policy. Their thought is it's in the Bible somewhere about eating blood, don't eat blood. And they translate it, which I think actually has to do with keeping kosher, but they translate it literally. And they just you will not have bloodless surgery. So I was sort of put on hold because the doctor that I was seeing wouldn't do it. My mom founded the doctor in the Bronx in New York, and he did bloodless surgery for Jehovah's Witnesses. So I saw him for years and I struggled. I had many heart failures every day. I weighed almost nothing. My heart was working so hard. And finally, at the age of nine, he said she can't wait any longer. But I have new hospital administration and they won't allow me to do bloodless surgery anymore. Listening to all this feels like watching an episode of ER or maybe the pit. Hospital dramas always seem to feature parents from this religion arguing with the doctors trying to save their kid. So we found a heart surgeon in Texas and we ended up going to Texas and he didn't use blood on anyone, not just witnesses. When I went to Texas to have my surgery, the pediatric floor I was on was it was mostly witnesses there was a boy from Greece who was a Jehovah's Witness and they came from Greece because they knew Dr. Cooley would do it without blood by the time I was nine I only weighed 44 pounds um I was yeah and I would my lips and my fingernails would turn blue multiple times a day if I was in the middle of doing anything I would have to stop what I was doing and rest uh it was it was really dangerous and so I don't know how I lasted till I was nine I really don't it was very clear to me that this was just the way it was I didn't I don't know I didn't think anything else I knew I was really afraid um but also being a Jehovah's Witness you always have an impending sense of doom because the world's gonna end any day right so um it was it was heavy um it was very stressful um it was very scary and I was really happy when I was able to get my surgery Jen says other kids weren't so lucky there was a couple that was in our congregation who had twins the twins came early um one of them needed blood and the hospital was trying to push the issue and the father who was an elder in the congregation went to court and they won and they let the baby die I wondered why and how these women left Sarah says she was skeptical from the start I was precocious enough and innately born with a bullshit meter enough that by about eight years old I was looking around at everything that we were supposed to believe and what we were learning and all this other stuff and in my little wee eight-year-old brain I looked around and I went this is fucked up none of this makes any sort of sense what are we doing here and so from eight years old until 21 years old I slowly and surely knitted my safety net bided my time laid the game just enough I pretended just long enough to survive and when I knew that I could support myself out in the world I bounced the book out of there so fast the witness faith if you reach about 1920 and you're not married yet they start to think that something's wrong with you or maybe you're gay and so that the clock was kind of ticking for me getting up there 1920 and there was this guy and from what i had to pick from within the faith this guy that i knew was going to be abusive physically or worse was a guy that i dated and got engaged to and the night that i called off my wedding was also the night that i decided fuck you here's your ring back i never want to see you anymore and fuck this cult i'm out goodbye jane wasn't quite as hardline but was still pretty skeptical as a kid i mean i was still pretty young when i started thinking you know this doesn't make sense so you're telling me that gay being gay is wrong but god made everybody perfectly so he doesn't make mistakes so that doesn't make any sense and so um just or you know i was meeting lots of people you know my friends family's catholic and they're wonderful so i think that there's really nothing wrong with catholic people um and my best friend was really the only reason that i stayed going she was my saving grace if i had to go and hang with her and her dad was also an elder and they moved them to california and after she left i just never went back i was i think 14 i was sort of beyond the point of my mom forcing me to put on a you know knee-length dress and go to church when you look at um jehovah's witnesses and compare it to you know say i grew up christian and that's generally not defined as a cult even though it has kind of cult-like elements i feel like when people talk about jehovah's witnesses they're more likely to sort of label it a cult do you have any thoughts on maybe what's different or what is more cult-like about jehovah's witnesses or if it's just as cult-like as you know some of the more intense forms of christianity say i feel like it is more cult-like because it's very we're right i mean they actually call it when you're a jehovah's witness they call it you're in the truth so that's what they would say about each other while they're in the truth or she's in the truth um they they really try to take all your time you have meetings three times a week you're supposed to be out in field service and if you can't do field service you start to lose privileges you may have in a congregation um they limit your education they limit your exposure to outside people um they're very insular and they really rule you with fear if you don't do these things then you're you're not going to be you're not going to live forever in a paradise on earth because that's what they believe they don't necessarily live in heaven so um i feel like the monopolization of your time and just the constant just you know ruling you by fear really is very cult-like they really and you know also letting your child die it's also not something that i think christianity or any normal sane religion was the witnesses do not believe in higher education because they are convinced that jehovah is going to eventually bring armageddon and armageddon is going to kill all of the just unsalvageable evil people and then there's going to be a testing period for those that are left and it's going to last a thousand years and then if god deems you good enough to have survived the thousand years yeah and you're truly good then whoever isn't that gets destroyed forever and who is good during the thousand years gets to live forever and be reunited on this very earth where we sit with every single loved one who has ever died is going to be resurrected brought back to life and be back with them in this paradise earth sounds pretty good uh it sounds stupid as fuck it's not possible can you imagine if everyone on this planet who had ever died before came back all of a sudden to be crowded it'd be a crowded time i mean the just the logistics of the bullshit they believe are so insane you just wouldn't believe it they're obsessed with the devil they're absolutely obsessed with like the devil and demons and blah blah blah and so whatever they deem demonized you're not supposed to have i mean they would tell wild tales from the pulpit of like a demon entering into a smurf doll that a child had brought to church and the demon inhabiting this smurf doll caused it to get up and dance down the aisle and out the door of the church and so my mom made me throw away all my smurf stuff i was absolutely crestfallen because she heard that from the pulpit and she didn't want to tangle with the devil or demons and so she made me get rid of my smurf stuff i actually grieved the loss of those things we were poor and so those things that i had came at a high price you know before i wrap up i wonder what these two women make of the religion now outside of having to throw away their smurf toys they're years out of this thing now they have some perspective i think about my sliding door self and what she would be doing all the time and so i ended up falling into a friend group of mostly dudes that were older than me that taught me everything i know about partying and being out in the real world and i tried to mask what a naive green bean dum-dum i was because i i was so like shocked that the cool kid kids wanted to hang out with my dorky ass you know and so um when you're a witness and they tell you you shouldn't associate with worldly people that's what they call people that aren't witnesses because the world will chew you up and spit you out well guess what i have never been as judged and persecuted and treated badly in the world by any of these people as i was by those jehovah's to this day still in my tribe we call it the tribe they're in my tribe of chosen family i'm thankful that i have kind of worked through the grief of what i missed out on during childhood and now i can just look back on it ironically with a gallows sense of humor and because of the life that i thought i was going to have to live which is just under somebody's thumb and impoverished and just miserable um every single thing i've gotten to do since leaving has just been gravy and has been so awesome any place that i've traveled in the world all of it i'm just like yes i made the right decision i'm really appreciative of the ability to be open-minded and know so many different people and accept them and just realize that the world is the world can be a scary place but it's not not everything is scary you know and i'm just really grateful that i had that experience to make me value and appreciate the people that i have now and the ability to parent kids and you know just have a good life do you give blood now i do i started doing that in 2022 so um i was terrified of needles i still hate needles but i thought what is one way that i can really give back and sort of give a big middle finger to the witness organization and i donate blood as often as i can i think i'm up to three gallons um and it makes me so happy every time i do it it really does stay tuned for more 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with stamps.com print postage on demand 24 7 and schedule pickups from your office or home save up to 90 with automated rate shopping that's why over 1 million small businesses trust stamps.com go to stamps.com and use code podcast to try stamps.com risk-free for 60 days all right jw's one thing that i had in common with them that i just realized as i was um doing the story she talked about how smurfs were evil in her faith oh the same in whatever the christianity i was sort of adjacent to i definitely remember hearing that smurfs were evil did you get this no yeah no they were bad well they had gargamel he was scary yeah gargamel was scary and the cat that he had i think maybe something about the smurfs i think maybe they were gay the smurfs papa smurf was gay i think is what i was told and and that was a bad way part of the story no it wasn't but that's what like within my religion that was a part of it it's like gay definitely wasn't part of it and if it was who gives a shit yeah i mean that mostly just made me feel bad for all of the kids that didn't choose the religion and then had to just be so isolated and yeah like the idea of an assembly have like i just pictured full assembly one kid having to just like walk already a hard time being a kid and trying to fit in yeah and then having to walk and leave when there's something yeah it's some of those and it's interesting because you know in new zealand we're not pledging allegiance to the flag but those seem like these group activities that are at least meant to kind of bond you as a class uh allegiance pledged allegiance not really but but like but still to to like oh there goes the one kid that can't be here yeah during this yeah seems rough from what i can tell about it it's just seems like a sort of extreme version of christianity where like it's very restricted and well yeah and then arbitrary rules like no blood transfusions which leads to people dying which is yeah in every hospital drama but hearing it directly from her yeah was this whole other level of it that kind of hit it home for me if you're if you're a driver's witness and you love it email me flightlessbirdchat at gmail.com like very glad to hear about some amazing community outreach you do or something but from what i've read i don't know as far as like championing in a religion it's not the one i'd like choose to back a few quick facts oh all the facts are so boring to be honest um let's let's hear i mean maybe do them in a fun accent uh so 1881 charles tase russell who i mentioned in my intro founded zion's watchtower tract society um to organize and print all of um jw's beliefs which we heard about again in that doc there was a leadership dispute um after russell's death joseph frank and rutherford retained control of the watchtower society he changed some of the doctrines which all reading them seem exceedingly boring it's the trouble with like a lot of these like niche religions watchtower society sounds kind of cool it's not it sounds cool dead boring um and yeah as of last year 9.2 million um members worldwide and they get you in by sort of promising you community and um eventual um avoiding armageddon that kind of thing it was pretty amazing like how all the people who are living on earth are living on earth for a thousand years which is fucking long just the idea that they're gonna decide who's pure enough to stay alive yes but if your family of anyone that stayed alive you'll be resurrected anyways because all of their family and people they knew are coming back no idea so just need one person in your family to to put in the good work yeah and then you kind of get that bonus we get that bonus thousand years maybe but then after that maybe you're like destined to how you live in forever if someone in your family makes it through that thousand years right oh yeah i don't know it's a good point i know what you're saying that that's that's a great loophole yeah maybe it's the one to join yeah i mean my sister's very good so you're in i'm just gonna i'm gonna hedge your bets yes slightly are there specific regions of the country that they're more prominent because i i have seen jehovah's witness facilities around la there's one in highland park california half a million florida 300 000 followed by texas new york new york particularly in brooklyn formerly the world headquarters is generally considered to have uh one of the highest concentrations of jehovah's witnesses okay uh they do not publish city by city member statistics but the u.s has one of the largest populations overall i love that um one of the biggest ones is is selena gomez a jehovah's witness answer no she's not apparently a common google thing i think the confusion is selena you know the singer selena uh no but happy to learn about her she was a jehovah's witness ah so people hear selena before she died rest in peace but people are thinking she is gomez that's what it seems like solve that mystery the confusion often stems from the iconic singer selena who was raised as a jehovah's witness before her on timely death god she died when she was just 23 yeah like a car accident right gunshot wounds gunshot yeah there was a movie i saw the movie about selena really in the movie seriously this is all new to me there's like a massive wikipedia page she was huge yeah oh every oh my god she's so big yeah her wikipedia page is like a hundred pages long all right so look jehovah's witnesses difficult um two words to say and write to me don't seem like the greatest religion to join that's just me um if you have any great inside info if you're ahead of the jw's email in flight the spread chat at gmail.com okay feedback as always a lot of people responding to um the format being on the latest next session people of the format they're good they're good morgan wrote in um she said listening to the mario wilson episode about child stars and the story of la trees that fall over at the roots and any gust of wind i grew up on the east coast and had never seen that until i moved to la i learned it's because the root system of trees in la are very shallow essentially in most places the roots go deep to get groundwater sources but there is no groundwater in la so there's no reason for the roots to go deep and search for water the roots stay shallow and it's super easy for them to blow over it's a very timely bit of feedback since um benny's preschool just had a tree fall over and it is now shut down for a couple days school's off because of a tree school's off for the next couple days it also seems it's a very timely bit of feedback since benny's preschool just had a tree fall over and it is now Dangerous. It does. They like call in and are. an arborist to come assess like how serious it is as it removed this giant tree that fell near one of the classrooms just a root system that's too shallow yeah and whenever there's any storm if you're driving around they'll inevitably there'll be a tree on a car or across the road which yeah it storms like four times a year here so it's not that often yeah la trees if you're listening put those roots deeper even if you're not getting water they'll stop you falling over yeah it's just a practical thing for you carly wrote in about the schizophrenia simulator episode i'm another indigenous person north of the 49th parallel although that border means nothing as white men from abroad drew that line through our communities i'm a psychologist who specializes in indigenous best practices and mental health i was glad to hear your conversation about psychosis that being said i was itching to write to you the entire time indigenous understandings of psychosis acknowledge that the entities voices etc are there you not all of us can perceive them the problem is not the gift the problem is society and the system that doesn't understand it or properly support people experiencing it thank you carly for writing in elena said thanks for bringing the guys from the format on one of my all-time favorite bands great to hear them on one of our my all-time favorite podcasts would love to do a live show in tampa maybe we'll do a tampa show have you been to tampa yeah elena i love tampa my favorite cities tampa is really hot um the last time i went to florida was in the middle of july on tour and it was so hot that you would go outside and instantly be sweating oh that's it was very humid yet toasty not my um favorite temperature you don't want to be sweaty all the time no not instantly either but if you want to be sweaty yeah tampa would be the place to be met a lot of people i liked on that time in florida good people in tampa good people in florida they're all sweating pouring the sweat shelby i live in alberta canada and i just wanted to share how much i appreciate um the canadian the indigenous canadian representation of your episode in schizophrenia my sister is a psychologist who specializes in indigenous mental health and works with people who have schizophrenia and other conditions um she's done a lot of research on indigenous wellness and uses a cultural land-based approach and working with people um she's done a lot of research on indigenous wellness and uses a cultural land-based approach her and i work closely with an organization that helps indigenous people who have experienced forced sterilization which this episode also touched on eugenics is a very real part of canada's history that not a lot of people are aware of thank you shelby okay two more stacy the world has a funny way of showing up in a week that is a complete american dumpster fire there's a shining light in flightless bird as i did my gym workout yesterday i listened to schizophrenia simulator what a guy i'm a mental health therapist and my first session of the day within hours of listening to your show was a client who i hadn't seen in over a year we were catching up and she told me that her son had been diagnosed with schizophrenia disorder and was struggling with substance use issues of course i recommended this episode as a resource to her she's been looking for resources and ways to connect with her son chris is just what she needed i thought that was pretty cool yeah finally ian sent in a rebuke i love rebukes first off love the show it's great hearing topics you pick and your take on the us so he's leading into this rebuke with a bit of kindness in there which is nice but also i'm always thinking where's what's gonna happen next if people open up with too much of a compliment it's a little harsh something bad coming now the real reason i'm emailing please in all caps for the love of god stop referring to san francisco is san fran it's cringeworthy and not something respectable people should say when talking about the great city of san francisco acceptable options are san francisco san francisco sf the city or the bay i say this with the utmost respect just looking out for you dude ian i accept look i understand your criticism in um new zealand we have a city called christ church and it is sometimes people shorten it to chicha it's christ church so they just go with the christ ch church ch and just say chicha and that i feel elicits a rage yeah people in christ church i mean it even sounds annoying yeah sanf yeah so look i'm gonna respect san francisco yeah you're the one doing this not me right and that's me yeah yeah i don't like calling it that to me it feels like it just slides off the tongue yeah you call it st louis st louis god it's hard sometimes but ian i would shoot back and say you signing off that email with just looking out for you dude i think calling someone dude as a new zealander that line comes across as being um deeply sort of like dude you know if you say dude it's like calling me a piece of and so no it is not here and so to to eat it no not here but i'm just saying culturally in new zealand where i'm from saying san fran is a sign of respect in the same way that you saying looking out for you dude is a nice thing you thought you were saying to me whereas i received that as one of the most saki insults i could imagine hearing well let's get call someone dude can we get feedback from our new zealand listeners is calling it san fran a sign of respect like the spread chat so that's what you're saying is that it is it's you new zealanders say that as a sign of respect they do okay sam fran we'd love to take can we book a trip from new zealand to san fran please that's what they would say at the travel office whilst booking a trip to san fran and we would never say looking out for you dude oh my god ian so what i'm saying is we've both learned something i will now call it san francisco ian you'll never say looking out for you dude to someone from new zealand fair someone from new zealand but what if you talk about the nickelodeon show hey dude hey dude that totally felt different if i didn't feel like an attack okay just looking out for you dude that line specifically okay so it's not dude it's the use of dude in the sentence just looking out for you dude you might as well be saying i want you to die you know it's the similar i don't know i don't know san francisco beautiful city i respect you when you did a live show there last year love being there beautiful crowd beautiful grounds for my first waymo it's very exciting now they're everywhere all right we're gonna go we're gonna be back next week flight the spread chat at gmail.com if you have any feedback uh please share episodes around on social um like and subscribe give us a review and a star rating that helps other people find the show whether you're on apple or spotify or wherever you listen and live shows coming up in salt lake city austin and beautiful dallas end of march early april we'll see you there and see you next week Thank you.