Wow, if Satan is truly in control of this world, I gotta hand it to the guy for coming up with Permaculture and the ability to convert deserts to green landscapes.
"You can solve all the world's problems in a garden." -- Geoff Lawton
All info outside WT controlled by Satan: looking for articles
by InterestedOne 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
InterestedOne
Thanks for that KM and those quotes about Satan controlling the media. In particular, the KM article is the kind of thing I was looking for. It even has the indirect, suggestive language I have been noticing in their literature. I can see how this leads to individual JW's not bothering to check outside sources. I imagine for many of you this is a given in JW culture, but being an outsider, it is alien to my thinking, and I'm trying to be clear that this is really how they teach their followers to "study." I wonder how JW's can learn anything about the world. Even if you only go by the Bible, at some point you have to read it. As soon as you try to read it, you have to have it translated into your own language. As soon as you are dealing with a translation, you are in the realm of scholarship in many fields: history, archaeology, etc. To limit all of your historical information to be filtered through one source is the ultimate in bias. Logically, this means JW's are placing the bias of the WT over an objective study of anything. To be fair, my JW "teacher" is willing to consider little word studies where we compare definitions from Greek/Hebrew dictionaries. However, he always favors the NWT rendering showing that somewhere in the definition, the NWT rendering -can- be found. Similarly, if I read out of a Bible commentary other than the Insight books, he politely listens, but I can tell he thinks it's a waste of time to consider anything other than WT-generated material.
Oh, btw Black Sheep, my female JW friend is not my wife. She is someone I have known for several years because we have some common interests. I'll check if she has the CD. I wish I could get ahold of one to search through myself.
-
Black Sheep
It can actually be good not to know too much. If you suddenly appear knowledgeable about their teachings and especially their history, it can raise suspicions and they might run away.
That said ...... http://www.watchtowerlibrary.blogspot.com/
If you know of something in their literature that you want her to read, you could try asking questions that will get her searching her CD to look it up herself.
If she quotes an outside resource to back up a WT doctrine, use it as an excuse to look up that document and check the credentials of the author, the context etc.. If you find that there is some some skullduggery going on, get her to look it up, read it to you and comment on it. If you can't find it, we might be able to help.
Try to keep steering her to tell you that the Watchtower was selected by Jesus in 1919, without putting any of those words in her mouth, then ask her to support it.
-
Watchtowers Witnesses
That article in the KM that Listener quoted is very revealing. A religion which claims to be the only “true” Christian faith is actually instructing their followers to NOT study the Bible in independent groups. Evidently they’re worried someone might think for themselves if they study scripture without the Society supplying the questions and answers. It would appear that the Society prefers to spoon feed their followers all “spiritual nourishment”. Steve Hassan writes about how cults use Information Control in his book “Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves". He explains it within the construct of the B.I.T.E. method.
I. Behavior Control
1. Regulation of individual's physical reality
a. Where, how and with whom the member lives and associates with
b. What clothes, colors, hairstyles the person wears
c. What food the person eats, drinks, adopts, and rejects
d. How much sleep the person is able to have
e. Financial dependence
f. Little or no time spent on leisure, entertainment, vacations2. Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals
3. Need to ask permission for major decisions
4. Need to report thoughts, feelings and activities to superiors
5. Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques- positive and negative).
5. Individualism discouraged; group think prevails
6. Rigid rules and regulations
7. Need for obedience and dependency
II. Information Control
1. Use of deception
a. Deliberately holding back information
2. Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
b. Distorting information to make it acceptable
c. Outright lyinga. Books, articles, newspapers, magazines, TV, radio
3. Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
b. Critical information
c. Former members
d. Keep members so busy they don't have time to thinka. Information is not freely accessible
4. Spying on other members is encouraged
b. Information varies at different levels and missions within pyramid
c. Leadership decides who "needs to know" whata. Pairing up with "buddy" system to monitor and control
5. Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
b. Reporting deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leadershipa. Newsletters, magazines, journals, audio tapes, videotapes, etc.
6. Unethical use of confession
b. Misquotations, statements taken out of context from non-cult sourcesa. Information about "sins" used to abolish identity boundaries
b. Past "sins" used to manipulate and control; no forgiveness or absolutionIII. Thought Control
1. Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"
a. Map = Reality
2. Adopt "loaded" language (characterized by "thought-terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words".
b. Black and White thinking
c. Good vs. evil
d. Us vs. them (inside vs. outside)3. Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
4. Thought-stopping techniques (to shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts); rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism.
a. Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking
b. Chanting
c. Meditating
d. Praying
e. Speaking in "tongues"
f. Singing or humming5. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate
6. No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful
IV. Emotional Control
1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings.
2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader's or the group's.
3. Excessive use of guilt
a. Identity guilt
4. Excessive use of fear1. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
b. Social guilt
2. Your family
3. Your past
4. Your affiliations
5. Your thoughts, feelings, actions
c. Historical guilta. Fear of thinking independently
5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.
b. Fear of the "outside" world
c. Fear of enemies
d. Fear of losing one's "salvation"
e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
f. Fear of disapproval6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins".
7. Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside" of the group
b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc.
c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group's perspective, people who leave are: "weak"; "undisciplined"; "unspiritual"; "worldly"; "brainwashed by family, counselors"; seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.