Interesting question. I had to give this one some thought and I did try to remove emotion from the determination.
There is no doubt to me that the religion is a cult. I wouldn't even describe it as a strange cult but a destructive cult - even though I suppose any cult could be defined as such.
Is it criminal? Well = I guess I see it as a fraudulent organization and since fraud covers a broad base, could there or should there be criminal charges that relate to fraud applied to the organization? I believe so.
NOUN: - A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
- A piece of trickery; a trick.
- One that defrauds; a cheat.
- One who assumes a false pose; an impostor
First of all the organization operates on deliberate deception - quite obvious from their blood doctrine, their generational doctrine, their disfellowshipping, their baptism contracts early on, their very existence. Reasons - changing a doctrine under the guise of 'new light', simply tells us that it is a doctrine that they don't believe in as bible based. Bible based is very clear and not subject to a change, therefore, each time a doctrine is changed or altered even in a subtle way, it is clear that the very doctrine was used to control the members. This can also be said for the 1975 fiasco, where there is actual proof of the society telling people that the world was ending in 1975. Homes were sold, assets sold, jobs quit, people got married and quit school - the list goes on but the ramifications were far reaching for many. Ditto the medical advice over the years - citing sources without really citing the source and providing direction to member on issues of vaccines, blood - changing the doctrine over and again without real medical expertise was fraudulent. One step further - there are people who consistently donate to the society who cannot afford to do so but who feel obligated to and people who sign over their assets to the society - they are under the impression that the society has no money. Financial information is withheld by the society, so are real estate holdings, so that a witness has no idea that while they are starving and wearing second hand clothes, going without medical care and living in a shack, the governing body is living well.
Theocratic warfare = acceptable lying. Along with perjury, telling a person that you do not shun people and that you do not have a child custody packet is fraudulent. A person studying with the witnesses is NOT told that the society shuns people and in fact, when I told one of the ladies at my door that this is the one thing I cannot agree with them doing - she looked me in the face and told me 'shunning..I don't understand. We don't do such a thing'..........so, if I were an unsuspecting person buying into the sales pitch at the door, and without this very important information, I would consider the society had misrepresented it's position in order to gain a member, who then becomes a paying member that will work for them. I won't even bother with the criminality of legal vs clergy obligations since we all know the difference but they choose to ignore it.
sammieswife.
