I used to write and produce a little radio essay show in Colorado called Belief Systems & Other BS, and one of the shorts I recorded was called Weird Beliefs, and was based on my experiences attaining, maintaining, defending, questioning, and ultimately denouncing all the strange ideas I had to keep in mind in order to be, then stop being, a JW. Here's an excerpt:
"That may be the point; one purpose of weird beliefs is to serve as barriers to entry. That is, if a group maintains a weird belief, the difficulty of accepting that idea prevents others from joining lightly— it filters out the non-serious. And once accepted, the weird belief serves as a barrier to exit. Once an applicant has gone to the trouble of reordering her psyche to accept a weird belief, she is unlikely to abandon it lightly. Weird beliefs are a one-way door.
I am not one to throw stones when it comes to weird beliefs; during my sojourn as a Christian fundamentalist, I firmly believed that the creator of all things was opposed to celebrating holidays, hated blood transfusions, had firm opinions about the wearing of ties, etc., etc., ad nauseam. In retrospect it seems foolish, but at the time my passion for these ideas was so fervent that I spent as many as a hundred hours a month promoting them. Ultimately, when I was trying to quit the church, I found that I couldn’t simply give up the weird beliefs, I had to denounce them, to proclaim myself a heretic. If weird beliefs are a one-way door, the only way out is through."
Anyway, Weird Beliefs, much to my surprise has turned out to be a top Google hit for the phrase 'weird beliefs'—right now it's on the first page at number six! So, thought I'd post it here in case anyone is interested.
cheers,
Angus
"Change your beliefs, change your world."