Ok, so how big of a deal is it when a jw tells you this: (page 3)

Check_Your_Premises

You guys keep mentioning a vacation. Now that I think about it, she brought that up recently.

CYP

If she doesn't "feel like being a Witness anymore" that means there is something (a nagging longing) tugging at her. Something is off-kilter and missing from the equation. If you can find out what that something is and let her experience it during a "vacation" from being a Witness, she may snap out of it.

She may have in mind an idyllic sort of normalcy, a picnic in the park, a trip to the zoo, a ride into the mountains spending time with you (no time, available as a JW). She may have something materialistic in mind but feel awkward about pursuing it. She may want time to pursue a hobby or feel like her personal relationship w/ God is suffering because there is no time to commune. But there is definitely something missing. If you can find and fill that need, she might not "need" them anymore.

Just an idea.

Repectfully,
AuldSoul

M.J.

Ok so if you're going that route maybe you can start a thread on what kind of vacation would be best?

Watch out, the Griswolds are coming!

carla

How the United States Marine Corps Differs from Cults

Margaret Singer, Ph.D. and Janja Lalich, M.A.

The Marine recruit clearly knows what the organization is that he or she is joining.... There are no secret stages such as people come upon in cults. Cult recruits often attend a cult activity, are lured into "staying for a while," and soon find that they have joined the cult for life, or as one group requires, members sign up for a "billion year contract...."
The Marine recruit retains freedom of religion, politics, friends, family association, selection of spouse, and information access to television, radio, reading material, telephone, and mail.
The Marine serves a term of enlistment and departs freely. The Marine can reenlist if he or she desires but is not forced to remain.
Medical and dental care are available, encouraged, and permitted in the Marines. This is not true in the many cults that discourage and sometimes forbid medical care.
Training and education received in the Marines are usable later in life. Cults do not necessarily train a person in anything that has any value in the greater society.
In the USMC, public records are kept and are available. Cult records, if they exist, are confidential, hidden from members, and not shared.
USMC Inspector General procedures protect each Marine. Nothing protects cult members.
A military legal system is provided within the USMC; a Marine can also utilize off-base legal and law enforcement agencies and other representatives if needed. In cults, there is only the closed, internal system of justice, and no appeal, no recourse to outside support.
Families of military personnel talk and deal directly with schools. Children may attend public or private schools. In cults, children, child rearing, and education are often controlled by the whims and idiosyncracies of the cult leader.
The USMC is not a sovereign entity above the laws of the land. Cults consider themselves above the law, with their own brand of morality and justice, accountable to no one, not even their members.
A Marine gets to keep her or his pay, property owned and acquired, presents from relatives, inheritances, and so on. In many cults, members are expected to turn over to the cult all monies and worldly possessions.
Rational behavior is valued in the USMC. Cults stultify members' critical thinking abilities and capacity for rational, independent thinking; normal thought processes are stifled and broken.
In the USMC, suggestions and criticism can be made to leadership and upper echelons through advocated, proper channels. There are no suggestion boxes in cults. The cult is always right, and the members (and outsiders) are always wrong.
Marines cannot be used for medical and psychological experiments without their informed consent. Cults essentially perform psychological experiments on their members through implementing thought-reform processes without members' knowledge or consent.
Reading, education, and knowledge are encouraged and provided through such agencies as Armed Services Radio and Stars and Stripes, and through books, post libraries, and so on. If cults do any education, it is only in their own teachings. Members come to know less and less about the outside world; contact with or information about life outside the cult is sometimes openly frowned upon, if not forbidden.
In the USMC, physical fitness is encouraged for all. Cults rarely encourage fitness or good health, except perhaps for members who serve as security guards or thugs.
Adequate and properly balanced nourishment is provided and advocated in the USMC. Many cults encourage or require unhealthy and bizarre diets. Typically, because of intense work schedules, lack of funds, and other cult demands, members are not able to maintain healthy eating habits.
Authorized review by outsiders, such as the U.S. Congress, is made of the practices of the USMC. Cults are accountable to no one and are rarely investigated, unless some gross criminal activity arouses the attention of the authorities or the public.
In the USMC, the methods of instruction are military training and education, even indoctrination into the traditions of the USMC, but brainwashing, or thought reform, is not used. Cults influence members by means of a coordinated program of psychological and social influence techniques, or brainwashing.

--adapted from Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives, Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich, Jossey-Bass, 1995. Reprinted with authors' permission.

The url of the original is http://www.csj.org/studyindex/studycult/study_marine.htm

Read More about Margaret Thaler Singer

M.J.

Thanks Carla. There's no way in hell I meant any discredit to the USMC, or even any insinuation that they are a cult or cult-like. Sorry if anyone took it that way.

carla

No, I didn't direct at any post in particular, some people have (obviously) tried to say Marines are a cult so I thought I'd put this out for others who may not have seen it. that's all.

Check_Your_Premises

I take it you are talking about the USMC

Theocratic Jarheads...

That is funny to think about. I will noodle on that. Parallels between the JW and the USMC.

Regular Meetings Attendance - Daily Muster

Field Service - Recruiting duty

Book Study - Drill Instructor

Kingdom Hall - Barracks

Disfellowshipped - Dishonorable Discharge

All for now.. I have to get some work done!

CYP

AK - Jeff

Tom Cabeen [former witness] wrote an essay called "Does God Work Through an Organization?" It is online in many places I think.

Perhaps you could introduce this article to her non-chalantly in some way. It is not overly dogmatic against JW's, at least in my view, but it clearly points out the scriptural reasons they have it wrong. You might even be able to produce an 'edited' version that would take any 'apostate leanings' out of the picture for her. Not in a deceptive way, but to allow her to read it without guilt.

You know her, we don't, but if she is expressing the sentiments you have heard, she might be ready to look at something like that.

Jeff

Check_Your_Premises

OH yeah, sorry if I sounded as if I was besmirching my beloved Corps?!

It was without a doubt one of the greatest and most formative experiences of my life. I wouldn't be a fraction of the man I am today were it not for those bastard drill instructors. God Bless the USMC!!!

I saw it as more of a funny parallel... you know like jw's with their service bags storming the heights of Mount Suribachi to destroy the apostate menace.

CYP

M.J.

Somebody did post something yesterday about elders liking ex-military folks entering the "ministry", since they follow commands well. I think it goes a little deeper...you got the whole esprit de corps (sp?) mindset and everything...anyway back to work for me too.

Ok, so how big of a deal is it when a jw tells you this:

Share this