If someone is benefitting from being in a cult, should we leave them there? (page 2)

undercover

You cannot remove somebody from a cult unless they want to leave on some level. It's the same with alcohol and drug addiction. The main motivation has to come from the addicted person. Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

I agree that the elderly who have spent a lifetime IN and have no family and no place to go should be left alone in their fantasy world.

My sentiments as well. All my parents know, at 70+ years, is being a JW. Their entire world revolves around it, right down to their social and support network.

While many here have told horror stories about how elderly JW relatives were ignored by the congregation, I have to admit that my parents have been treated well and are looked after by their friends in the hall. They are part of a group that does look after its own.

For me to try to "free" them from that would probably devastate them for their few remaining years. At this point, it's best to just let them finish life off with their beliefs in place...and their sense of friendship intact. They're happy there...why make them unhappy by trying to prove them wrong?

PSacramento

I have thought about this in great depth as of late.

My Mom and Dad and older sister are happy in the JW religion, they love the socialising, have friends and a sense of belonging.

Should I try to get them out? shoudl I through a rock in their seren pool?

I mean, the blood issue aside and the silly obbsession with converting people, it is basically just another fundamentalist religion.

Yes they are on the wrong path, yet their intentions are noble.

Yes they preach "lies", but their faith is strong.

I mean...truly, my biggest fear is the Blood issue and that they are preaching what is incorrect.

The Blood thing is huge though.

I can only imagine what I would do if one of them died because of lack of blood....

OnTheWayOut

I doubt that there is any help available from any cult that isn't available from somewhere less harmful.

Once recruited, the new cult member will be out on the streets looking for new victims.

Those are both excellent points by Black Sheep.

Also, two other points- everyone deserves the truth, the real truth. I know that is just a catchy saying and not a complete philosophy, but I truly believe it.

My other point is that these people are either in a life of treadmill-like misery or they may be in for a crash when the truth about "the truth" finally gets to them. Why let them go on wasting perhaps decades to lead to a crash when intervention now might start easing them out?

One side point, we cannot get all people out just by exposing the truth to them. In most cases, we expose and they ignore it. That goes back to my first point- everyone deserves the truth. If they really really want the lifestyle of the JW's, they will ignore it.

Scarred for life

Even with the blood issue, they would die feeling that they have been faithful to Jehovah and they will have died in peace. I really feel that way about it and I am someone that HATES JWs. But I also feel if someone is a devout JW and has no doubts about any of it and the refusal of blood is important to the practice of their faith, then that's their decision.

When it comes to children, I feel differently.

Terry

Let's face it, some people are natural-born followers just as there are leaders who emerge to take charge.

There are thinkers and there are those who are content to say "Amen" when the thinkers think out loud.

A great many people in various churches, synagogues, Kingdom Halls, mosques and meditation centers have a "duty" gene activated.

You can call it "faith", "spirituality", "belief", "piety", "reverence", "worship", call it macaroni and cheese for all I care. It amounts to putting your butt where somebody's Godlight will shine on your cheeks.

THINKERS must have content to their thoughts or they cannot stay sane. The content has to be real.

Just as we can't live on wax fruit and styrofoam; thinkers can't abide fraudulent information about god, the devil and the great hereafter for very long without throwing up.

A permanent member of a cult is really a CERTAIN TYPE OF PERSON. Whatever you think is going on (you: meaning EX-member) is not THE SAME for them as it is for you.

Those who remain behind with a plaster smile and lobotimized contentment are merely following their GENETIC DESTINY to be sheep.

Remove a follower from a great leader and they will suffer the same kind of breakdown WE DID with our own genetic predisposition toward NEEDING CONTENT for our brain.

We who have broken the chains and breathe free still fall into TWO GROUPS:

1.Those who jump right back into a "true believer" situation and praise a more traditional Jesus (without a Kingdom Hall)

2.Those who have to assert individuality and begin thinking for themselves in a re-education program which consists of testable facts.

Believers are like those Hollywood movies stars who marry over and over and over again. They are serial monogamists--but--discontent with the reality of a bad marriage.

You may get them to divorce Jehovah's Witnesses but they will just end up in Reno for a quickie remarriage to another Jesus look-alike.

Winners win. Losers lose. Believers believe. Thinkers think.

Keep em' straight in your mind or you'll lose alot of sleep for nothing.

PSacramento

To Extreme Terry, too black and white.

Sorry, can't agree.

Some believers are thinkers because that is what they have always been.

To insinuate otherwise is falling into the old JW mindset of "two classes".

BluesBrother

If some old lady or gent is only a few years from death, and their whole life and faith is bound up with decades of service to the WT.....I would not have the heart to enlighten them. Better they die in blissful ignorance.

Anybody else deserves the TRUTH..

THE GLADIATOR

Psacramento: To Extreme Terry, too black and white.

Reading your posts, I bet if you had a chess board, the squares would be light and dark grey, depending on what light you looked at them in.

PSacramento

Reading your posts, I bet if you had a chess board, the squares would be light and dark grey, depending on what light you looked at them in.

If Chess was a game of subject reality, why not?

gubberningbody

I know of many JW's who have the same level of consciousness as a clever white lab rat.

If someone is benefitting from being in a cult, should we leave them there?

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