Would Witnesses Kill If Ordered? Probably!

by metatron 30 Replies latest jw friends

  • metatron
    metatron

    As a functioning cult, would Jehovah's Witnesses kill someone, if ordered? I believe that many would.

    While some might think this is farfetched, I can cite some examples that manifest a lack of concern

    for the lives of others, that could easily be extended into murder or manslaughter.

    1) forcing older brothers into jobs at Bethel that were far too strenuous for them - as a means of

    punishment. A former C.O. named Fred got this treatment while I was in Bethel and suffered

    a heart attack. I thought of this as similar to Uriah the Hittite being sent to the front lines to

    die - to get rid of a "problem".

    2) The Mexico-Malawi scandal showed a lack of respect for the lives of African brothers while

    allowing compromise in Mexico, where the Society had financial interests. They simply let

    the Africans suffer torture and die for a principle they ignored elsewhere.

    3) In Nazi Germany, brothers freely sent each other to concentration camps because they hated

    each other! This is why the Society kept talking about 'what would happen if you hated a brother

    and got sent to prison together'. It was based on actual events!

    4) The Society showed a callous disregard for brothers in 3rd world nations and communist

    countries by refusing to allow alternative service when confronted with the military draft.

    I encourage you to read Crisis of Conscience about how this critical issue was derailed

    after a Governing Body member came back from lunch! Because of this, brothers suffered

    and died in prisons.

    5) Blood transfusion? Not allowing any individual conscience here? After overwhelming evidence

    has been presented on the internet - without reply?

    6) Disfellowshipping the elderly and infirm: How much discernment do you need to realize that

    booting elderly men out of Bethel ( like Dunlap) was nearly a death sentence? Or that

    disfellowshipping some weak people can lead to suicide?

    I could on - but ask yourself: how much of a jump does it take to go from forms of manslaughter

    to get to outright murder? All you need is an absolute belief that you are right and that God is

    behind you, all the way. A cult is a cult, is a cult, is a cult.

    metatron

  • Pioneer Spit...oh, i mean Spirit
    Pioneer Spit...oh, i mean Spirit

    NO kidding. Great points, great topic. After seeing parents and sisters and bros turn on family with such hatred--besides the shunning, I believe they would do anything WTS ordered them to.

  • changeling
    changeling

    Metatron: Being a witness as long as I was I certainly saw much of what you expressed. There is definitely a disregard for the individual and his/her particular issues.

    That being said, I don't think the average witness could be "ordered" to kill. Though, you ceratainly have enough "kooks" in the ranks that would jump at the oppostunity.

    But I don't see the what the point would be.

    changeling

  • James Free
    James Free
    ask yourself: how much of a jump does it take to go from forms of manslaughter to get to outright murder? All you need is an absolute belief that you are right and that God is behind you, all the way. A cult is a cult, is a cult, is a cult.


    I asked myself. How much of a leap? To the moon and back. Hate the WT as much as I do, but let's not get so carried away that a hypothesis so ridiculous gets taken seriously.

  • the dreamer dreaming
    the dreamer dreaming

    the HIVE mind works like the borg of startrek, the individual drones are expendable without batting an eye as long as the collective marches on. In nature this is like allowing the week and sickly to be sacrificed to the predators by keeping them at the back of the line... makes for efficiency in a cold nazi like way. the JW that CONvertED me once told me that if the GB told him to slay all non-JWs because it was the big A, he would do so without hesitation.

  • blondie
    blondie

    jws lack the "courage" to do it. They would expect someone else to do it. By the time Jonestown occurred these people had been culled out and isolated. The WTS has not reached that stage yet.

  • anewme
    anewme

    Perhaps it is a leap but really, if the Watchtower can talk people into going door to door for free and giving up their careers and weekends and all their holidays and birthdays and turn their backs on their loved ones,

    then it seems no leap to believe they could persuade them to do anything.

  • Clam
    Clam

    Metatron that's strong medicine.

    Who would they (hypothetically speaking) kill anyway? Apostates? Surely they don't hate Apostates that much.

    If someone used to be a Jehovah's Witness, "We must hate in the truest sense, which is to regard with extreme ~ active aversion, to consider as loathsome, odious, filthy, to detest." Watchtower, 10/1/52, p.599.
  • Warlock
    Warlock

    Great points, met, but kill?

    No.

    Warlock

  • maxwell
    maxwell

    I don't hold strongly to the notion that Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult. I could label them a high control group, perhaps. But I don't think it is farfetched at all that they would kill if ordered or for any group of people with a strong belief in all powerful deity whom they believe has ordered killing before. I would not bet on this ever happening, but in the hypothetical situation that "governing body" of JW decided there was a new interpretation to some part of the bible, (for example the army of locusts in Revelation) and said those verses meant JW should go out and kill people, I have no doubt that some, perhaps most JW, would interpret that as a direct order from god and go out kill as many "evil" people as they could.

    It isn't far-fetched at all. We presently have terrorists who refer to god or allah as the primary reason for killing, we have a president who uses evil and a God-calling as at least a part of his reason for killing, some abortion fanatics use this rational. Almost anyone who claims belief in some powerful invisible deity has the ability to kill with this rationale. I will even admit that when I was a blindly beleiving JW, I probably would have followed such an order. I certainly shunned some family members and the hypothetical situation of having to shun my own parents certainly crossed my mind a few times.

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