by Lee Elder 28 Replies latest jw friends
Here is a simple test for idolatry. Tell a JW, particularly an elder, that you don't know if you believe in God anymore. A typical reaction would be for them to try an encourage you. Tell them you don't know if you believe in the Watchtower anymore. A typical reaction would be for them to bring you before a judicial committee.
Pretty clear who their God really is.
Lee
Lee Elder,
How true, I wonder what perspective the passing grade/answer should be set from?
HCM
WOW,
What you said is dead on!
Freeman
That was one test I OBVIOUSLY failed.
Lisa
Hi Lee,
Wow, that's scary! I was just about to post a similar observation.... tell them your faith in God, Jesus or the Bible is faltering and they'll offer to ``work with you; build you up,'' whatever. Express the slightest misgivings about the Faithful and Discreet Slave and you're history.
The reason for this is very simple: Deep down, JWs don't doubt the existence of God, so they're not bothered personally when someone expresses doubts about it. However, deep down, nearly all of them have doubts that JW leaders really speak for God, and so when they come face to face with someone who can potentially upset their internal mechanisms for suppressing this doubt by explaining exactly why they don't believe it, they get very scared. Fear often produces anger, and the fearful/angry JW will take steps to remove the source of it.
This is much like a couple of kids arguing with one another. One says, "Your mother is a whore!" If the other kid's mother is not a whore, he'll probably get a little irritated, but realize that the other kid is a dork. But if he knows that his mother really is a whore and tries to pretend different, his reaction to the charge will almost certainly be extreme anger.
A fundamental truth about humans is that they hate to be faced with unpleasant truths about themselves and will go to great lengths to deny them.
AlanF
AlanF writes:
This is much like a couple of kids arguing with one another. One says, "Your mother is a whore!" If the other kid's mother is not a whore, he'll probably get a little irritated, but realize that the other kid is a dork. But if he knows that his mother really is a whore and tries to pretend different, his reaction to the charge will almost certainly be extreme anger.
Interesting that you mention this analogy, Alan. Considering the recent exposure of the WTS-UN alliance, it's pretty clear whose "Mom" is a "whore"....
Love, Scully
It is not persecution for an informed person to expose a certain religion as being false. - WT 11/15/63
Lee, Alan, Scully, LDH, et al,
Alan's comment about JWs being subconsciously fearful of their own doubts is an apt one. Since I've dropped off their radar screen, the local elders, of which I was one until about ten years ago, continue to give me a wide berth.
I'd like to believe that it's because some of them retain some measure of fondness/good will toward me (several were fairly close friends) and are loathe to be put in a position of having to take action against me because of something I might say in the presence of several of them.
Or is it because they fear in their heart of hearts that I might well open a door they would rather not peer into, one which hides the proof that will confirm their greatest misgivings?
Maybe it's a bit of both.
lol @ Alan's analogy.
I think it's a bit of both, Room215.
I've personally seen how palpable the fear is. Back around 1992, when I first started looking at JW-critical religious material, I learned about the Society's early teachings about 1874, and that these teachings were not completely abandoned until 1943. I tried to tell my wife at the time about this teaching. She denied that this was ever taught, so I went and got the old God's Kingdom of a Thousand Years book with her name written on it, and said that she had already studied this in bookstudy in the early 1970s. I opened the book to the page that described this, and tried to show her, but she refused to look, so I left the book on the table. Months later I learned that she had looked at the pages, but she never said a word to me about it. After that, she was deathly afraid to talk to me about anything related to the JWs. This reaction is stereotypical of when a cult member is confronted with proof that they're in a cult -- stick the fingers in the ears and holler lalalalalalalala!!!
AlanF
