Lolcow James Lloyd Evans / Lloyd Evans / John Cedars / The Reluctant Apostate / JWWatch / @cedarsjwsurvey - Self-appointed figurehead of ex-JWs, anti-sex abuse campaigner who spends his donations on hookers because he lacks "total mastery of his penis"

[Not Really Here]

@Hongourable Madisha , good thread, please link the glossary post at the top of the OP.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

@Hongourable Madisha , good thread, please link the glossary post at the top of the OP.

Done, thanks!

Btw the various posts from people getting called/stalked by JWs out of the blue: when they go out and do service time, they take down as much of your details as they can, and hand the papers in to the congregation. The congregations will then try to follow up with you. This has got them into a lot of hot water in Europe with data protection laws, especially GDPR, and subject access rights.
This may explain partly why ex-JWs make good Kiwis, they know how to document and track interesting people.

 

[naaaaiiiiillllll!!!]

Ok, this is a bit of a powerlevel. Jannies may need to get the mop. I’ve actually met JWs before. Spoke to them even.

I think you’re joking, but giving informative posts on a lolcow/lolcow community (and the associated religion they’re against for much-needed context), while we preface as a courtesy that we may be PL-ing (even though we really aren’t, given the definition of this site), seems like a good thing for this thread? If not, we can all just say:

“Lol, this ex-JW said icky sex stuff online, look at these (clearly not easily faked) screenshots, LMAO”. Is that better content?

Sorry for getting snippy: the last few weeks have been tense with users claiming jannies need to clean up threads do to other users not being happy. Clown world got us on edge…

 

[Fialovy]

Apparently there's an actual "rivalry" or bad blood between Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, but I have no idea what that's about. Only knew about it because of one scene in Mobsters & Mormons, in which it might be more of a Utah thing than anything else.

Well, they do have similar roots in that they are both from this "Burned Over District" in upstate New York. It was a breeding ground for a lot of new religions, Smith was very influenced by these new religions cropping and they overwhelmed him as a kid and he didn't know which one was right which made him want to found his own since he eventually concluded that none of them were right. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists were probably the most successful. Infact, Seventh Day Adventists actually share a common ancestor with the Jehovah's Witnesses. See, there was this doomsday cult called the Millerites which believed that some year in the 1840s, the world is going to end, ironically, that was the year Joseph Smith died, but since the prophecy didn't come true and the world was still fine, the group split. One group followed Ellen White and formed the Seventh Day Adventists and the other followed Charles Tase Russell and eventually became the Jehovah's Witnesses (at the time known as the Bible Students)

Seventh Day Adventists are pretty chill though. They are for the most part generic protestants.

 

[0 0]

I'm not going to delete any posts or warn anybody because it's a silly scenario to begin with, but if there's more posts just talking about encounters with JWs then I'll move them to a "Jehovah's Witnesses being weird" thread.

 

[LikeAStone]

I almost feel bad for him

Key word is “almost”

 

[No. 7 cat]

I didnt know there were British Jehovahs witnesses?
are there british hebrew israelites as well?
i though this brand of retardation was exclusively in the states.

'Bongs, Irish are both blessed with many kingdom halls, or whatever.

 

[The Great Chandler]

Will mention that I used to grow up into the JW cult, got almost intensely into it in my teens, and left rather quietly out of disillusionment and outside circumstances. One strange thing I noticed is that I didn't experience the odd disfellowship culture that's likely much more prevalent in other Kingdom Halls (well their churches basically) and the other odder cultush practices. Either the Kingdom Halls I attended were 'saner' than the others or maybe it so happens that I lived in a nicer town or region. Whatever the case, I may have dodged a bullet.

One positive is that it did got me into other religions and cultures.

That said, it's amazing how this guy failed tremendously to adjust into life outside of the cult. Could've at least not act like the cultists you laud against instead of being the reason why they're still in! Keep it in your fuckin' pants, man!

 

[malleusmaleficarum]

honestly good for him leaving the cult. i imagine the majority of people raised into that never get unconditioned from the lunacy. unfortunately however it seems he has only turned to a new cult in the form of TRAs

 

[Monokuma]

I used to be a JW, bros.

Although I live in the UK where the experience is quite different because there's a large religious gap between the US and the UK. In the US they take that shit super cereal. In the UK - not so much, unless you're literally a boomer or tomber.

I can answer any questions you might have! Hopefully I don't power-level myself or give TMI but the most profound effect this faggoty organisation has had on my life is a litany of mental issues - some attributed to childhood illness but I'd say the most are a direct result of this cult.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

I'm not going to delete any posts or warn anybody because it's a silly scenario to begin with, but if there's more posts just talking about encounters with JWs then I'll move them to a "Jehovah's Witnesses being weird" thread.

I did wonder if it'd be worth a Community Watch thread on ex-JWs and JWs (perhaps including the governing body, even). There is a lot of them, though most of the ones with a big internet presence have interacted with Lloyd in some capacity.

Will mention that I used to grow up into the JW vukt, got almost intensely into it in my teens, and left rather quietly out of disillusionment and outside circumstances. One strange thing I noticed is that I didn't experience the odd disfellowship culture that's likely much more prevalent in other Kingdom Halls (well their churches basically) and the other odder cultush practices. Either the Kingdom Halls I attended were 'saner' than the others or maybe it so happens that I lived in a nicer town or region. Whatever the case, I may have dodged a bullet.

One positive is that it did got me into other religions and cultures.

That said, it's amazing how this guy failed tremendously to adjust into life outside of the cult. Could've at least not act like the cultists you laud against instead of being the reason why they're still in! Keep it in your fuckin' pants, man!

Not only did he fail to adjust to life outside, he was giving advice to other people on how to get out and how to adjust. He has a voicemail box where he acts like an agony uncle, and a book about how to escape the Watchtower.
Bear in mind this guy was an elder, he's used to giving other people advice and trying to tell them how to run their lives, while not being able to take advice himself.

Marks and Kims
Lots of the ex-JWs connected to this debacle seem to be called some variation of Mark/Mike or Kim, so here's a short guide:

Mark O'Donnell: aka John Redwoods. Former co-contributor to JWWatch, did most of their reporting and analysis on American JW news and legal cases. Based in Baltimore, picked his pseudonym after Lloyd: "Redwoods" because he's the American John Cedars. He doesn't use it much since he left the church publicly, though, and especially not since he left JWWatch. Doesn't believe the Gobbler emails are real.
Kim O'Donnell: Mark's wife and occasional contributor.
Marc Latham: Souf FC ex-JW, one half of the Marc Cora YouTube channel with his wife Cora. Believes the emails are real , made a police report in England.
Marko Petrovic: Mystery man who leaked/made up the Gobbler emails. Claims to live in Sisak, Croatia, where Lloyd is based. Claims to be related to Lloyd's wife Dijana (who has so far denied all knowledge of him publicly) and to have known Lloyd when he was an elder.
Mike and Kim Brooks: converted from JWs to mainstream evangelical Christianity. Run jehovahs-witnesses.com. Have beefed with Lloyd quite a lot over the years. They claim to have been in contact with Marko for years and claim both he and the Gobbler emails are real.
Kim Silvio: Retired Aussie lawyer, former JWWatch contributor and did most of the work on reporting and researching the Australian Royal Commission. The one who made Lloyd's hooker addiction public..

 

[Glass Eye Kurt]

The police reference isn't a crime reference number, just an incident one. It goes force initials, date, then whatever number report it is that day. Incidents could be anything from a car parked inconsiderately to a murder, it'll generally be kept open until a crime is recorded from it or it's determined there isn't anything to record.

 

[CoolSixtyNiner]

I realize since being on this site that I would be perfectly happy being a serf if a traveling freakshow came to my village once in a while. I am the target demo for freaks shows. Imagine the sign placed on our town board advertising the coming freaks for kf

 

[NSA]

I was a member for around 15 years before quitting. I didn't really have any weird or bad experiences so I don't have any entertaining stories, I guess I'm too much of a normie or something. This is just mildly nostalgic if anything, it was all very quaint. I just left because I disagree with their doctrine. There was no weird cult interrogation or shunning, that's news to me. My knowledge may be out of date, I don't know if they've changed since I've been out.

Here are some interesting things about the doctrine I still remember:

-1914 was the beginning of the "end times" and people born in this year would still be alive when the rapture happened. I think this has since been recanted, even though it's still technically possible if there are any 108-year-olds still running around.

-They did not believe the Earth/Universe is only 6000 years old, just that the whole Adam/Eve situation happened that long ago. So Evolution, big bang etc were mostly ok by them.

-They don't allow any holidays that JESUS HIMSELF did not celebrate, so the one and only (very boring) holiday allowed is the memorial of the last supper/resurrection (I forget the actual name lmao), which is where they pass around bread and wine, no one eats it, then everyone goes home.

-Jesus is the angel Michael, and not an aspect of God himself. Needless to say, other Christians don't like this particular belief, though the bible is vague enough about the behind-the-scenes heaven mechanics to allow this sort of interpretation.

-Dead people are not in heaven, they're just dead. RIP. At least for now...

-Hell is not real, or at least, people don't go there because there is no afterlife.

-Instead of Heaven, the promise is eternal life as a human a la Adam & Eve. What happens if a really annoying relative also gets eternal life in the garden? I don't know, but it would make for a good sitcom.

-SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER ACT NOW: There are 144K special people who get to go to heaven. There is a part in the bible just after Jesus resurrects where God's holy spirit is washing over the faithful. In JW doctrine these are the first of the 144K super saiyans. The remaining would trickle in over time, with the FINAL CHANCE ACT NOW people being born in 1914. If you were born after 1914, you're TOO LATE, HEAVEN IS FULL.

-The blood transfusion thing is because there is something in the bible about blood being sacred. There is a way around it, if you're having a planned surgery you can donate blood to yourself by having it drawn a week or so ahead of time. Still fucked in an emergency though.

-(EDIT) Holy shit I forgot the dumbest/most random thing: They believe Jesus was not killed on a cross, but on a pole. In other words, there was no cross-arm piece. His arms would be tied above him instead of to the sides. LMAO this is how you can tell if a picture of the death of Christ is from a JW artist. So weird.

Met a few JWs and worked for one for a little while. He always looked for ways to screw his customers a little. Always wondered if they figured it was okay to do fucky shit to non-JWs, like outright stealing.

That's certainly not part of the doctrine, I think he was just an asshole. The whole point is to make everyone a JW.

I'd heard that the 144,000 were the only people who would be resurrected at the end of time. Of course, this vid was my main source of info, so it may or may not be accurate.

As others said, only the 144K go to heaven, everyone else lives on Earth in a sort of new Garden of Eden situation. When I was in, we were taught no one knows who gets to live in the new world, it wasn't based on being a JW specifically, I think the main thing determining it was if you proselytized about God or not. This explains why they run around knocking doors.

It is honestly fucked up though, since the whole "limited seats" thing for being resurrected makes it the perfect vessel for extremism in order to increase your chances, as well as introducing a sunk cost fallacy element to it. And it's not like the number is 100. It's set high enough that the possibility of being among them doesn't seem completely impossible, as long as you're devout enough.

I never felt any pressure about it, we were taught to look forward to living on a perfect Earth, unlike most Christian sects, Heaven wasn't the promise or motivation. We were all gonna be running around like Adam and Eve. I never did figure out how overpopulation would work with no one dying. Maybe it'd be like Star Trek and we'd warp drive our way to other planets? I have no idea what the plan was there.

See what I never truly understood about JW's was the whole anointed 144,000 thing. Like why even bother growing your memberbase if only a certain amount is promised anything? Isn't that just gonna make things harder for you?

Everyone worthy gets the resurrection, it's an alternative to promising heaven. Heaven is sort of tacked on as an afterthought.

 

[Uncle Buck]

Good grief, this "Cedars" buffoon...... A long time ago on the former JW Forum on Topix I said that this guy was a charlatan of the highest order, an acolyte of Ray Franz who thought himself a modern-day reincarnation of that particular lolcow... He admitted early on he had issues with chronic masturbation and porn addiction [most internets exJWs aren't actually "activists" in any real sense of the word; generally they were among the most devout and obnoxious JWs who end up getting caught with their pants down and only come to be critics of the JWGB because they're so envious of them] conveniently about the time he decided all the JW teachings he'd believed his entire life were "wrong".

He's exceeded expectations.

 

[Ratling]

this guy has suck a annoying punchable face and voice.

 

[Drain Todger]

I’m ex-JW. OP is accurate.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about the JWs or ex-JW communities aside from the endless amusement they provide.

There was one upshot to the whole experience. Having been in a cult, I learned to recognize cults on sight. So around the early 2010s, when I saw SJWs shunning and deplatforming people for being insufficiently woke, my first reaction was that SJW was basically an acronym for Social Jehovah’s Witnesses.

They’re exactly the same. Wokesters proselytize aggressively, they practice shunning towards those who aren’t pure in their faith, they promise a paradise to their followers if they can ban enough conservative speakers and get enough naughty and insensitive books removed from store shelves, et cetera.

See what I never truly understood about JW's was the whole anointed 144,000 thing. Like why even bother growing your memberbase if only a certain amount is promised anything? Isn't that just gonna make things harder for you?

The 144,000 are the only ones who “take communion”, so to speak. They’re expected to go to heaven and become part of god’s bureaucracy. The JW idea of the “rapture” is for the majority of followers to remain on Earth after surviving Armageddon with their regular ol’ meat bodies which have now become immortal.

 

[Verxis]

This dude is if Russell Greer and DarkSydePhil merged into one, except British. A cultist turned punter who's also a consoomer manchild with a ten year beg-acy.


I love that, the "JW to SJW pipeline"! I immediately thought of Rudy aka ExCultBaby, a Tumblrina they/them who's been on Lloyd's show a few times. Usually to talk about JW women's experiences, which is weird given that she now doesn't believe she's a woman and he's a punter.

Here she is trigger'd by apostate material:
View attachment 3050883

Here she is annoyed that the worldly people don't know the right jargon:
View attachment 3050885

Here a TERF actually tells her outright she's swapped one cult for another, and recommends other minor ex-cult (detransitioner) cow Exulansic:
View attachment 3050888
View attachment 3050889

Good spot on the Legos too! Note that his wardrobe is entirely his own merch or it's Star Wars crap. He even had his TIE fighter shirt on in the drunken hookers livestream.


Excellent point, thanks! I'll add this to the glossary. It's an important legal point too because that's what a lot of Watchtower's defences hang on: they claim clergy-penitent privilege to get around mandatory reporting of child sex abuse laws.

Why do people latch on to the tranny movement? It's almost as if mainstream media told them that pedophilia was cool, they'd latch onto that and support pedophiles. But if they did that, then the elites would have nothing to blackmail politicians with.

 

[Hongourable Madisha]

That's certainly not part of the doctrine, I think he was just an asshole. The whole point is to make everyone a JW.

There is "theocratic warfare", which AIUI isn't nearly as extreme as Scientology's Fair Game policy, but more like Shia Islam's taqiyah policy. That is, you can lie to people outside the religion, if it helps the religion. Though there's all sorts of interpretations of it, like in Mexico JWs were allowed to have fake papers that exempted them from military service, but in Malawi they weren't allowed fake party membership cards. Lloyd talks about this in one of his videos, where he says his dad came home one day all excited and said, "did you know we're allowed to tell lies?" like it was a special treat and he was looking forward to lying to some worldly people.
Fantastic explanation of a lot of the terminology and practices too, thanks!

Why do people latch on to the tranny movement? It's almost as if mainstream media told them that pedophilia was cool, they'd latch onto that and support pedophiles. But if they did that, then the elites would have nothing to blackmail politicians with.

Partly because it's the latest thing being pushed by the corporates, because a lot of the grooming/recruitment is done on the internet and these ex-cultists are left without any friends IRL so they tend to be online too much, and partly because it appeals to people with a background in religions that teach mind/body duality, like most protestant Christian denominations. If you're used to believing you are a soul trapped in a body, you can quite easily be convinced that people can be woman souls trapped in men bodies and vice versa. "Cult hopping" is quite a common phenomenon too, people leave one cult and are very vulnerable to joining others.

 

[Slobs]

No.
Also illegal in England and Thailand, so wherever he did it, he actually has committed a kind of sexual offence, possibly several.

Might be late here, but prostitution is in fact legal in the United Kingdom, OP. The laws are a bit funny about it, such as disallowing public soliciting and advertisement, pimping, owning/operating brothels, etc. However prostitution on a personal level is acceptable; there are many websites that facilitate this, and while it is a legal grey area that's not technically allowed there are in fact massage parlours, clubs (essentially brothels in another name), and escort services that openly offer prostitution with no repercussions. Not only that but these businesses are not just known about by local authorities, but they're expectated to pay taxes properly, and were even subject to covid regulations; so it's difficult to actually consider it a legal grey area as it's essentially unofficially approved of by the government.