JWs Are Like Others: They Take The Good With The Bad

by minimus 21 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  minimus

  The more I dwell on people, in general, the more I realize that JWs act pretty much the same as others.

  If someone is in a marriage, they accept the good and the bad and simply accept the differences.

  Some people have jobs that they don't love but it's the lesser of 2 evils to be employed, so they stay at the same place for decades.

  In politics, you might not be crazy over the person in the party that you prefer but you stick with the candidate for better or worse.

  Many JWs have certain things they don't like about their religion but stay in their congregations because "where else would they go?"

  Perhaps Jehovah's Witnesses are no different than the average person.....What do you say?
• 

  Quirky1

  Perhaps Jehovah's Witnesses are no different than the average person.....What do you say?

  I will agree to some of the things you mentioned above but I tend to disagree that they are the "average person".

  I've seen in marriages that one or the other always gets the BOE involved with all their problems no matter how large or trivial they are. This is largely due to the WBTS mindset they employ to turn your family in when they do something wrong "Be Faithful to Jehobuh" syndrome.

  The BOE have gotten so involved that it has caused even worse marital problems and in one case I know of, divorce.
• 

  feenx

  I would agree with that statement. JW's surely are no different than many people on this planet who simply are part of the "herd." They are afraid or choose not to think for themselves and hence blindly follow the best source they have happened to find and stick with it.
  
  I think perhaps the difference between JW's and the rest of the world, especially as we feel having once been deeply associated with them, is they in addition to blindly following they also isolate. Other people who don't think for themselves at least have the opportunity to see new doors open in their lives. Unfortunately all a JW sees is a door slammed in his face. :/
  
  feenx
  Indigo Insight
• 

  Alwayshere

  Many JWs have certain things they don't like about their religion but stay in their congregations because "where else would they go?"

  Most will not go anywhere because of the price they have to pay. They will be labled an "Apostate" and that scares the rest of their family and so called friends, so they will view you like you do not exist. Most do not realize it is a cult untill they raise their kids in it. If there ever was a law against a religion, it should be that one. If the Bible and the WTS disagree on the same subject, you have to believe the WTS.
• 

  minimus

  Feenx, Well said! They have a herd mentality.

  Quirky, when you put elders in the mix, it becomes variant.
• 

  milligal

  Actually I think JW's are made up largely of mentally abnormal people-at least the ones I knew! It just seemed that people who could not find acceptance anywhere else, or people who had been abused and mistreated, LOVE the attention and acceptance they initially feel at the meetings.

  I don't think JW's are average. I think many of them enter the religion for personal reasons (socially needy or emotionally empty) and then the religion cuts them off further from normalcy as we know it. If they were made up of average people, I think there would be more than 4+million worldwide, when there are 300 million people in America alone. More average people would flock to the religion if it were attractive to average people.
• 

  minimus

  Hmmmm, what IS average?
• 

  milligal

  The definition of average -as far as I learned in social science is: what at least 60% of the people in a given society are doing.

  So, based on that, JW's are not average (in my opinion )

  Interestingly, my social science book also taught that religions like JW are on the bottom rung of the social ladder in American society-as they contribute little or nothing to the growth of the community.
• 

  Quirky1

  I do agree that there are some very emotional mentally unstable individuals in their bunch.
• 

  james_woods

  The "bad with the good" thing is a mantra with these people...they accept many horrible things that an ordinary person would never swallow - always hoping that some big change is just around the corner. For example - throwing away your chances at an education or a decent career. Wasting literally hundreds of hours every year just going through the motions of meetings and service. In times past, seeing your sons sent to Federal Prison over the draft issue - while this was purely conscious matters in other countries. The occasional death due to the blood transfusion issue. They usually rationalize it all by:

  "but where will we go away to?"

  "the light is getting brighter and brighter - the Society changes things in all due time"

  One particularly revealing fact was how someone posted that no less than one of the Governing Body (who stayed in, not one of the apostates) always privately held that the 144,000 could not possibly be literal because there had to be more early day Christians than that. Think about that - this guy was supposedly one of the anointed - and was one of the inner leaders of the cult. For some reason, he seemed to be willing to expound a belief that he personally found completely unbelievable. So, is it any surprise that many of the rank & file just accept it all - both good and bad, and suffer in silence?

  Cognitave Dissonance, I believe they call this.