No, teejay, I'm not discounting "faith". On the contrary, I'm very much taking it into account. When I use a term like "braindead", I'm not necessarily referring to a poorly functioning mind, but to one that deliberately refuses to think. This is the Orwellian style mind, the one that, despite knowing what is right, refuses to acknowledge it (and perhaps even forgets the refusal) because its possessor does not want to take the consequences of acting on the truth. This is the mind that has "faith" despite the facts. I consider such minds dead.
You Know is a good example of what I mean. He has impressive intellectual powers, but because he has faith that he's been especially "anointed" and is going to heaven, he can dismiss all manner of truth. While not physically braindead, he's intellectually and spiritually braindead, because he deliberately chooses the pretty lie over the truth. Such people are dangerous because they're clever enough that they draw others after them. For people inclined to be drawn after such clever charlatans, often the only way to get them to think is by throwing an unpleasant "label" in front of them.
J. R. Brown and other WTS leaders are other fine examples of what I call "braindead" people. They know a good deal of truth about "The Truth", but because they buy into the pretty WTS lie, they do not hesitate to throw their claimed spiritual values in the garbage in order to do the bidding of the holy organization. It's not that these guys are unable to think, or that they are "not thinking", but that they are using their thinking ability to deceive others, and often themselves. When guys like Brown bend and break the truth in order to protect the JW organization, are they not prostituting their minds willingly?
I understand what you're saying about labeling individuals or groups as "evil", and I certainly would not label most individuals or groups as evil. However, to me the notion of "evil" generally involves intent. If someone who knows better intends to cause harm to others, either by deliberate commission or omission, then I will unhesitatingly label him "evil". Of course, we can often not determine whether someone "knows better", so I'm talking about principle. In principle, someone who knows better is not sick. Conversely, someone who is mentally deficient enough not to know better, I would label "sick". Most criminals are not sick, but evil, because they know better. They simply do not care if they hurt someone. Of course, one can claim that such uncaring people are "sick", but that's a useless concept to me because it means that all criminals are sick and so cannot be held responsible for their behavior. I categorically reject this notion.
Pedophiles fall into the categories I've described above. Some are mentally deficient and have little idea what they're doing. They should be put away to protect children, but not treated like criminals. Others know exactly what they're doing, but because they enjoy the physical feeling, or the power, or whatever they get their jollies from, more than they dislike the hurt they cause to the child, they choose to cause harm. Since they know that they're causing harm, and they do it anyway, they're evil in my book. Again, one can label such people "sick", but I think it's useless.
Now consider a JW official who is given a problem: he's presented with the choice between allowing a gross wrong to be done to an individual JW and stopping a minor problem for the Society on the one hand, and on the other hand stopping the wrong against the individual and allowing the minor problem for the Society to continue. Whose interest is more important here? Does not the Bible -- the source of all JW morals, supposedly -- say that a good Christian would leave the 99 and go in search of the 1 that strayed? Doesn't this notion suggest which is the proper thing for the JW official to do? Of course. It suggests that sacrificing individuals on the altar of organizational interests is wrong. So by their own standards, committing a deliberate wrong like this is evil. And I would think that most would consider such sacrificing evil by any reasonable standard.
I think that any organization in which this willingness to sacrifice individuals for the sake of the goals of the leaders is evil. I think that people who initiate such policies, and those who knowingly go along with them, are evil. If not them, then who is "evil"? Do we throw out the concept of "evil human"? If so, on what basis?
I think that the question "whose reality?" is misguided. Reality is reality, period. It may be "my reality" that I can fly, but I still can't fly to Chicago. It might be someone else's "reality" that an admitted and convicted child molester is a very nice man who is just misunderstood, but that won't protect future victims.
A more useful notion might be "perception of reality". Jehovah's Witnesses may well perceive that their beliefs are reality, but that's not going to get them into Paradise. Nor is it going to protect children from child molesters in their midst. What you call "their reality" is fairy tale and should not be graced by a phrase that suggests even a measure of "reality", because it suggests that totally bogus ideas have a measure of validity. Falsehoods are invalid, period.
AlanF
