Miss Fit, your sister, Little L, is certainly one "L" of a girl!
Are we pro-shunning or against it?
by Simon 55 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Simon
I think it is very important for all of us ( active, nonactive, ex, JWS) to get away from black and white thinking.
I hope your OP will help people think past their knee jerk reaction to everything JW. The issue isn't all or nothing most times.
It is a very black / white mentality and that definitely seems to be a leftover trait from the JW thinking. When people were 'in' they were in. Some were completely in and so utterly confident of the truth that they would see no problem with viewing those who left it as evil.
Now those people themselves are out thought they are suddenly just as convinced that all those who stay in it must be evil.
Very arrogant and egocentric - the world and truth literally revolves around whatever they are doing at any point in their lives.
The reality is that we are all of us very often wrong about a great many things so making such outright determinations is frequently unwise. It's far too simplistic to draw a neat circle around everything to do with the WTS and label it "evil" and misses a great many nuances. Far too often people are keen to criticize the WTS for things that are really not worthy of much comment but people are so keen to "see evil" that they lose sight of any reasonable objectivity.
I think we'd do better as a community not being so black and white in our thinking and the irony is that for those who truly want to damage the WTS it's likely to be far more effective..
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MissFit
Simon: I agree. Great post. I noticed the same thing.
This site has opened my mind to new ideas and concepts. I am still on a journey of discovery. Discovering shades of gray ( 😉not the book, the color) is one of them.
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MissFit
Oubliette: my sister was awesome. She was a fighter. If I told you what that little girl had to go through at home, it would break your heart.
I miss that little girl. My sister lost her some where along the way trying to be a good JW. I wish I could some how help her find her, but the pain might be too much.
She still marches to her own drum, but she has to stay in the bottom of a bottle to stay sane. Just dont threaten her family in any way.
She refused to shun our nephew when he was dfd. She helped him with his daughters and tried to befriend his baby mama. He behaved badly (drug induced behavior ) and mouthed off threats when she was trying to protect his children.
She cut him out of her life kids and all. She could not take the stress and betrayal.
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wallsofjericho
I shun idiots
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talesin
To address the OP and this:
For the record, I think shunning is wrong except for cases when the person should probably be removed from society as a whole (making their shunning largely irrelevant) and it demonstrates that any group who does it fundamentally knows their beliefs are weak and cannot stand up to any questions.
Asked and answered. Even people who commit heinous crimes against humanity (eg, sociopaths who are obviously unhinged) have family members who accept their mental illness and still love them, may communicate with them either in person or through other means.
Shunning in the JW sense is more akin to (imo) the practice of making someone an outcast, and leaving them alone, in the wilderness, to fend for themselves, merely for disagreeing with the group-think.
So, on two points, I say the argument is moot, before it gets started, points being;
a) comparing people who are mentally deranged and need to be isolated for the safety of others, to 'innocents' who are outcast for no good reason, is 'apples and oranges'
b) even the above 'mentally deranged' usually have family that support and love them.
Succinct and to the point. Big scores in the TMS. Just kidding! It's only my 2 pence.
:P
tal (imagine smiley with sunglasses, I'm TTTC)