Was Rutherford Mentally Ill?

by VM44 38 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  james_woods

  So, keeping upon the topic - perhaps we need to answer in the binary format: Was Rutherford Mentally Ill? Yes or No -

  Now, here I suppose we drift into semantics: but, I would say that sociopaths are mentally ill. I would say that deeply paranoid personality types are mentally ill. I would suggest that persons with a compulsion disorder leading to addiction are mentally ill. Persons delusional enough to suppose the dead are coming to live in their home are mentally ill. There are many forms and degrees of mental illness, but you would have to say that any person suffering from remarkable tendencies of all the above are ill to some degree.

  I would further suggest that persons who have such a delusion of granduer that they think they personally caused it to not rain in spain upon the plain, are mentally ill. (all because the government would not let them spout anti-catholic rhetoric - in Spain, of all places, home of the inquisition!) Can you imagine the public outrage that would have followed?

  Further, KW, notice that I am not calling Rutherford a murderer. I merely compared some of his career tendencies and mental attitudes to Hitler. However, another poster has rightly pointed out that Rutherford was completely blind to the suffering that he inflicted upon many of his fold in Germany by elevating his anti-government rhetoric to the point that it could not be ignored.

  I suppose it could be said that neither Rutherford nor Hitler actually shot or gassed any JWs personally, but they personally set up the stage where this tragedy played itself out. Each with equal guilt, IMHO.
• 

  betterdaze

  Hi, new here, please bear with me as I learn how to post.
  
  One word: Demonized.
  
  Rutherford reported that "angels" imparted information directly to him through electronic radio waves or some nonsense. Not the Holy Spirit helper that Jesus promised, but ANGELS.
  
  Which angels do you think they were? Hmmmm?
  
  Okay, sorry, that's more than one word! Yet the WTS is certainly "Spirit Directed" to this day.
  
  Sue
• 

  The Mayor of Turiwhate

  Stephanus,

  Although your remarks were totally off the subject (i.e. Was Rutherford all there or not?) - good to hear them anyway:

  - a refreshing change from those on this board who lambast those that dare critisise the environmental laws (like government can do no wrong)!

  In answer to your question, no one around Turiwhate will ever get fined for felling a tree. Greenies, though, had better duck for cover -along the lines of "better be able to cross the paddock in nine seconds, because the bull can manage it in ten."

  The Mayor.
• 

  Terry

  Let's be accurate here, shall we?

  Any person who chooses between rational thought and make-believe is on thin ice with sanity.

  Once you abandon cause and effect and turn to the mysterious forces instead, you change the context of all your thinking.

  The people who came out of the 19th Century and spilled into the 20th Century were peculiarly susceptible to superstition and barely acquainted with the methods of science. In fact, many (if not most) were suspicious of science!

  Remember, this country was founded by religious zealots, fanatics, ne'er do wells and fringe-lunatic upstarts and criminals.

  The bedrock of society stayed behind on the shores of Europe!

  Having said all that; I'll say this.

  The first few generations of American was steeped in very weird thinking. If it weren't for the few truly rational deists who framed the Constitution and Bill of Rights this would be a carbon copy of medeival Europe.

  As the year 1900 approached the END OF THE WORLD fever became a panic attack for religious believers who had sucked on the teat of millennium-madness since birth.

  For people like C.T.Russell and Judge Rutherford there was a 3-dimensional cartoon of Armageddon playing in the background of their skull every waking moment.

  At first, Russell (I believe) was ernest, sincere and properly dilligent in his motives. However, as he became a super-star and an icon his honest slipped into a coma and he started fudging the proof texts and dates to avoid being seen as a crackpot false prophet.

  I think by the time Russell died he was well-aware that he was probably fooling himself (and others.)

  Rutherford jumped on the bandwagon and deliberately stole the corporate leadership for himself with wiley moves and insidious alacrity.

  He indulged himself in wild speculation, conspiracy theories, crackpot medicine, phoney science and otherwise reckless conduct because he could do so from the platform of the bully pulpit and hide behind the free speech of religious opinion.

  Rutherford went too far time and again.

  The question is: was he mentally ill?

  I think this kind of religious appetite for exotic endtime nonsense is neurotic. But, Rutherford was more of a megalomanic than a religious zealot.

  Rutherford was flexing his personality. His personality was sociopathic; he didn't seem to care who got hurt as long as somebody was listening to him and doing his will.

  The Watchtower Society hasn't grown more sane in the years after his death.

  In other words, they are all seriously neurotic and sociopathic.
• 

  Stephanus

  In answer to your question, no one around Turiwhate will ever get fined for felling a tree. Greenies, though, had better duck for cover -along the lines of "better be able to cross the paddock in nine seconds, because the bull can manage it in ten."

  Heh, heh! Glad to hear it!
• 

  VM44

  I suppose that when Rutherford wrote that "God created radio" and that "no man invented radio" he was trying to say that "God had provided radio, and so I, who speak about God's Kingdom and Jehovah's Name, am entitled to use it in any way that I wish with no restrictions."

  While it is true that radio waves are present in nature, radio as a communications technology is not.

  Rutherford was obsessed with "God's Plan of Salvation for Man" and that he had been chosen by God to proclaim the vindication of Jehovah's name on earth.

  Rutherford's thinking was so totally taken over with these beliefs that it distorted his view of reality.

  --VM44
• 

  M.J.

  Rutherford's thinking was so totally taken over with these beliefs that it distorted his view of reality.

  I guess the issue, as raised by James Woods, is this. At what point does a deviant view of reality become mental illness? It's kind of subjective. On one hand you have a guy who wars a foil hat, always ranting about how the government is trying to read his thoughts by a network of satellites. Not many would hesitate to say the guy is off his rocker.

  I would argue that Rutherford's rantings are every bit as far fetched as the foil-head.

  But is it the degree that someone's viewpoint varies from the norm which causes one to be classified as mentally ill?

  How about the followers of Rutherford, who accepted everything he said as truth. Were they all mentally ill too?

  Although I can't articulate it, and I'm no psychology expert, I know there are other factors that go into the mental illness equation. But I would argue that the author of a skewed model of reality (who actually believes it himself) is even more delusional than his adherents.
• 

  BizzyBee

  Tell that to the mudered people of Iraq.

  kwr: Still not sure what this has to do with Rutherford - ?
• 

  james_woods

  If you folks will forgive, let me go a little off topic myself -

  Welcome, betterdaze! If a person actually believes in demon activity (which I think is mostly WT hype, then I guess wacko behavior combined with admittedly occult fringe belief could be termed so. I tend to think more in the secular or scientific way nowadays, so what a JW would call demonized, I just call abberant behavior.) But, I was glad to hear someone make that point - JW being so afraid of the demons, but following a man who displays many of their so-called symptoms...

  And, let me defend KWR a little bit. (yes, I mean it...)

  I went back and read this new posters history...the claims indicate a Unitarian Christian background, an enthusiastic reader of the WT and Awake, a person who generally defends the Watchtower positions on the grounds of religious freedom, and who calls themselves the "Dixie Chicks" of religio-political opinion. I think I can live with that viewpoint - it is of course not mine, but most Texans are not such rednecks that we cannot let someone else have their opinion.

  That George Bush comment was probably a reflex action to something I did, which was to draw the Hitler<>Rutherford analogy. I would very much like to hear KWR expound a little more on the actual subject - Was Rutherford Mentally Ill, or Not? and Why?

  James