As with most things that might nail the JW’s down to a definitive answer, they redefine the meaning of “pressure” and call it “encouragement”. If a DF’ed one later comes back and tells their parents that they pressured them into getting baptized their parents adamantly say they did not, “it was the child’s own decision”, and that they only encouraged it.
The average JW learns how to redefine any given situation by their cult leaders to swing an explanation of anything toward what ever fits the JW mold. Such as “it was Satan’s or the world’s influence that made him do bad things” or “they did it because they were spiritually weak”. Or, you misunderstood what we said about 1975, it’s your fault for going before god”.
Now that the gentile times are being redefined “again” and all the ones who were alive in 1914 to see it are dead, I’m sure an appropriate explanation for their mistake will be packaged as “new light” and the rank and file will buy into it just like they do everything. They might have already done this, I seem to have let my watchtower subscription run out so I’m out of the new light loop.
With any cult, it is imperative to redefine what the rest of the world sees as normal, right, or wrong so as to convince the cult followers that their leaders are always right. When they are proven wrong, they blame somebody else like the talking snake or the original sin bullshit.
What we as JW kids saw as pressure, our parents saw as encouragement. Just like a pressure cooker encourages steam to blow out of the top of it or ignited solid fuel encourages a ten-ton rocket ship to go up in the air a little bit. Encouragement can be an awesome thing when used right. Pressure is just a figment of our imagination.
I had two main reasons I got baptized at 19. I wanted to get married and have sex and it was also 1974.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!
Dave
The last person to realize they are in a cult are the ones who are in a cult.
