Can raising a child JW contribute to later psychiatric disorders?

by journey-on 62 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Gill

  Hi Steve - And yet the need to speak regularly to an imaginary friend, especially in public and enforcing it upon others is very worrying - at least to me and my family!

  My daughter goes to a Church of England School where recently praying has gone into over drive and not being uniform in behaviour during praying sessions ie head bowed, eyes closed, hands together, lip synching with leader in prayer is punished by having to sit in a room with the head and practice praying!

  This smacks on lunacy to me and I have attempted to get my daughter into another school......with no chance of acceptance still due to the other local school being over subscribed.

  I explain to her that the three times a day praying, sometimes four, at the start of lessons, at dinner time, at assembly and at the end of the days is extreme and to just pretend to go along with it and think about something else like holiday. She is old enough to understand and old enough to hate these praying sessions.

  The people who enforce these prayers, in my opinion, have some form of mental illness / delusion! I cannot put it in any other way.

  Religion, taken to this extreme and enforced in this manner is a 'mental illness' and I am trying to rescue my daughter from the 'mentally ill' teachers at least in a way that she can see through their behavious and be mentally free from the delusion they are trying to enforce upon her!
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  steve2

  Religion, taken to this extreme and enforced in this manner is a 'mental illness'

  Hi Gill, I see what you mean. It leads to the very sobering conclusion that a huge percentage of the world's population could thus be defined as 'mentally ill'. I recall an old saying (it used to be expressed in Latin - but I've since forgotten the Latin phrase): "The world loves to be deceived".
• 

  Gill

  Steve2 - Maybe the phrase should be 'The World NEEDS to be deceived!'

  Watching the horrific news on what is taking place in Kenya a present and other parts of Africa, despite the fact that I personally do not need a religion to tell me to treat other people well, I came to the conclusion that perhaps some people have to have religion enforced on them because otherwise they would not understand why they should not treat other people badly.....they need more potentially serious consequences to their bad behaviour than just the law and prison.

  So, despite the fact that I believe religion damages people and in particular a religion that controls all kinds of irrelevant behaviour in the way the WTBTS, maybe it is an 'evil' that the powers that be must encourage just to keep 'bad' people under control.

  How many people 'find God' when they go to prison? A sobering thought isn't it. They equate religion with control and not just of themselves but of others so that they can rely on 'good behaviour' from other people and therfore not be fearful.

  Since we know as a FACT that religious people are just as capable of rape, murder, stealing etc, religion and its enforcing of goodness on EVERYONE is the delusion but perhaps it is another threat that some people must have over them to make them behave or at least try to behave in any form resembling humanity.......a fear of the after life and a fear of ultimate consequences.