Why Apostate?

wantstoleave

This may have been discussed elsewhere on this board but is something I've become increasingly aware of, and that's the Apostasy issue. Growing up, I don't think anyone ever explained what it meant, nor did I ask - I just knew it was 'bad' and punishable by disfellowshipping. Therefore it is fairly embarrassing to say that until a few minutes ago and looking it up in a dictionary, I did not know what the meaning was. It was just a part of being a JW that I accepted.

Imagine my surprise when I found Apostate to mean: 'A person who forsakes his religion, cause, party etc'.

Not some ungodly person out to destroy other peoples lives. Or someone who sets out to indoctrinate members of their previous faith with new thoughts. Merely someone who leaves the religion.

So why then the negative connotation? I don't understand why the organisation feels the need to make such a deal of an apostate. Am I missing something? Or are others in agreeance and just as confused as me?

AllTimeJeff

It seems most exiting JW's come by and visit this subject. I had the same realization when I was leaving.....

First of all, I think its instructive to realize that Jehovah's Witnesses central activity, the "Preaching" work, is a work dedicated to make apostates out of everyone they talk to. (excluding agnostic/atheists I would assume...)

Whether Catholic or Protestant faiths, Hindu, Muslim, it doesn't matter. JW's want to get people to reject their former faith, even their former associates to join them.

Jehovah's Witnesses, by and large, are a religion that was filled with apostates from other religions.

So from that point of view, they love apostates.

It's just that when the tables are turned on them, and they have to deal with their own smelly history and dogma the way they insist that Catholics and other religions do, they throw a hissy fit that would rival a 3 year old who just lost their puppy.

Jehovah's Witnesses experience their greatest success by defining their own terms and calling it the "pure language." They have only one way to present the trinity (there are many) They insist that apostates are only ones that leave JW's... (c'mon)

The whole idea is to demonize words and people for control. It's a tactic, a strategy for control.

Did I mention control?

If you make apostates seem worse then swine flue and the ebola virus, you will stay away from them. The GB fears apostates, because they know and expose the leadership for what they are. Their best hope against them is to get your mind inoculated against them.

wobble

You have simply read the Dictionary definition of Apostate, and that is fine as far as it goes,but you know as well as me that it means much more than that within the W.T.B.$

They have added the mind -control sub-labels of "bitter" "opposing" and even "lying" to the word. They have demonised Apostates so successfuly

that to the average Dub anything that has the label with the big A is to be avoided like swine-flu,Aids and the Black Death all rolled into one !

It is all in an effort to suppress information, and before the good old internet they were very successful, hardly one Witness in a1,000 ever looked at any contrary material. Most Dubs thought that the most gentle of Apostates still spat acid.

I remember in my youth that Gypsies were all labelled as thieves and vagabonds,having met and grown to be strong friends with many of the Romany people, and similar people from the Traveller community I realise what a foul calumny those lies were.

JW's who leave and find people like the lovely Guys and Gals on JWN,who are Apostates according to the WT, come to realise how their minds have been twisted, by the vile cult that is Jehovah's Witnesses.

Love

Wobble

p.s I hadn't read Jeffs post when I posted, good thoughts, great minds think alike (?)

wantstoleave

ATJ - Yes exactly! I was thinking the same thing the other day...how Jw's go out converting others and asking them to abandon their religions, yet when one leaves their organisation, all hell breaks loose. Thanks too for your thoughts Wobble :)

Olin Moyles Ghost

Good points, Jeff. I've had discussions about this very subject with Witnesses. When one brought up the "A" word to me, I said that I'm the only one here who isn't an "Apostate." You (the believing JW) left the religion of your parents and sent a disassociation letter to your old church. Thus, you're an apostate Presbyterian. How would you feel if your parent treated you the way Witness parents treat a son/daughter who sends a letter of disassociation to the Kingdom Hall?

Trevor Scott

"Some people insult those who disagree with them by questioning character or motives instead of focusing on the facts. Name-calling slaps a negative, easy-to-remember label onto a person, a group, or an idea. The name-caller hopes that the label will stick. If people reject the person or the idea on the basis of the negative label instead of weighing the evidence for themselves, the name-caller's strategy has worked."

–Awake!, June 22, 2000 page 6.

wantstoleave

Ghost, you bring up a valid point. One I could use with my father, who resigned from his church when he became a Jw. His parents didn't abandon him or stop talking to him.

wantstoleave

Trevor, do you mean that by the witnesses calling ones Apostate, they're name calling and labelling? If so, I agree.

Trevor Scott

: do you mean that by the witnesses calling ones Apostate, they're name calling and labelling?

Yes. "Name-calling" is number one on the list of the "seven common propaganda devices" as defined by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. It's a time-tested propaganda tactic whereby the arguments or ideas of a group of people may be completely ignored, because they're just "commies" or "queers" or "apostates"....

"Name calling is both a logical fallacy and cognitive bias, and a technique to promote propaganda. Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears and arouse prejudices with the intent that invoked fear based on fearmongering tactics will encourage those that read, see or hear propaganda to construct a negative opinion about a person, group, or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist would wish the recipients to denounce. The method is intended to provoke conclusions and actions about a matter apart from an impartial examinations of the facts of the matter. When employed, name-calling is thus a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief, based upon its own merits." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name-calling)

wantstoleave

Spot on!

Why Apostate?

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