by hamsterbait 45 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Actually I did choose. It was my choice to give up my scholarships, not invest in a home, not get a retirement plan, not to further my career, etc. I chose that because IF I didn't I would be destroyed at Armageddon, displease God, displease the elders, the congregation, my parents, etc.
Fear and mind control make for awesome choice making. Yes - complete freedom of choice.
Ignorance is bliss. Then you wake up.
Hadit
When JWs go from door to door canvassing, they are sales people. They are selling a life policy or an ideal. To buy into this policy will cost the buyer his or her life's resources.
If the policy is genuine and what it promises to be then they have bought wisely. If the sales people have lied, whether unwittingly or not, the buyer has been duped. If a sales person sells a bogus insurance policy, the customer has been duped. They chose to believe in something that was presented as genuine. They willingly bought what they were assured was a genuine life policy.
The deception is the fault of those who lied to the sales people who also bought into the policy, and in turn passed on the lie. If the policy is not genuine the fault cannot be placed on the victim. The buck stops at the top.
It is difficult for a born-in who has no external frame of reference & is often (certainly in my case) told in no uncertain terms that they will shame the family if they don't get baptised and will be kicked out of the family home.
Having said that - I do accept that when a young adult (and suspecting that it wasn't "the truth") I should have investigated further. In that respect , maybe we all share a sense of responsibilty & accountability.
No one asked me to believe in God or put faith in him that was my choice, but I didn't ask for my faith and conscience to be hijacked and continually blackmailed with any decision I would make, for ex. the watchtower has often stated over the years concerning college or higher education. " Of course a person can go into higher education but a MATURE CHRISTIAN [Black mail] would put kingdom interests first".
What mindset brainwashed witnessed would want to be seen as an "immature Christian". It's not your arm being twisted but your mind. Your conscience is being black mailed.
A child is forced to believe whatever their parents believe -- until they start growing up and learning that crap is crap no matter who is shovelling it at you.
This was one of my very sad realizations as a teenager. I was lucky in as much as my parents weren't zealous back then, my Father really wasn't into it. But each time we studied my vision of a fork in the road ahead became clearer and clearer as I got older. The one going to the right was where my parents were headed and the one to the left was where I was going. Our lives diverged once I realized the WTS was not aligned with my ideals and that I had to put my own plan together for life and go for it. I figured my parents would probably not be much a part of that life in the coming years. It made me sad but I knew then that this was MY life to design, create, and execute and not anyone elses'.
I learned that to wrap my happiness up in someone else's behaviours, actions, ideals and plans was not a wise idea if they did not align with my own. It would only ultimately fail and make me unhappy.
I definitely chose, but the indoctrination started at 8 years old and by the time I was 12, in 1973, I had to get baptized because Armageddon was coming in two years. It was a no-brainer at the time.... pun intended....
It was all downhill from there....teenage bedlam in the mid-70's. Instead of Armageddon, we got Frampton Live.
~PS
Nice Dream: I wonder what trolls would say about born-ins? Born-ins really didn't have a choice.
Yes, you have all been bullied, pressured, and threatened. Threatened with the loss of love from your families through shunning if you do not cooperate and obey their dictates. Did you ever have a choice? You have a conscience. And if you listen to it, you know what is right and what is wrong. You were coerced to put aside your conscience and do as told. None of us have ever needed man made religions. We were born with a conscience and that's all we have ever needed.
The real problem with choice is that it is costly. The story of Jesus shows you that telling the Truth cost him his life. When you go against the pressures put on you by a cult, you will certainly loose something...family, friends, security. But the longer you stay in the more you will really loose because you will loose your soul and become a zombie. Somewhere along the line, the resistence to the conflict between conscience and blind obedience becomes so difficult on a subsconscience level that one turns off their conscience in order to continue on. It seems to be that at that point they completely turn over their minds to the plays that are being used on them.
Yes, you do have a choice and have had a choice all along. But the choice will cost you dearly. Some people only realize they had a choice in hindsight. Those of you who have been fortunate enough to escape, now know the cost of that choice. But you have used self determination and you have let you conscience lead the way.
This should be a strong wake-up call to anyone who is still in and who has ever had doubts. Fact is, WT is crumbling and it is going to be a rude awakening to many people who have chosen to go against their conscience and better judgement. Because on that last day, WT will laugh in their faces and those who followed them will be the ones to look around and suddenly realize what they have lost and how they caused others to suffer so much because they did not do what was truly right and truthful to themselves.
More so than other children, the child born into a JW family finds that his or her main security comes from winning the approval of their parents. They find that to win this approval they must do whatever the Society and their parents tell them will win Jehovah God’s approval.
I was told, by my own parents that if I ever left the religion they would never talk to me again. If I were to ever marry outside the religion the same penalty would apply. Although these threats are not always carried out, the Witness child grows up believing that the continuation of their whole world depends upon gaining their parents approval.
In addition to this pressure to conform, is the threat that God himself will kill the child, if he or she should go against their parent’s wishes. The child is also puzzled by the parent’s willingness to lose them in this way and often concludes that the parents do not love him or her. How can they threaten a child they love in this way, or say that the God they love may kill their child?
To say a child treated like this has a choice, shows a lack of understanding regarding a child's dependence. Once the child becomes an adult he or she may choose to break free, but sometimes the cost by then is too high.
Before the internt I think most people were truly stuck in it. Especially born-ins. Even if your conscience told you something was "not right" you had no one you could really talk to about. You were kept confined from associating with anyone who was not a member, so there was no one on the outside who could see things objectively that you could discuss your troubles with. You couldn't talk to JW parents or friends because you knew they would "turn you in" or you would become suspect of "going against Jehovah" for even questioning the doctrine or the dictates.
And even if you wanted to get out....no one really knew how. There was no procedure except to do something you knew they would kick you out for. I wonder how many may have deliberately gone that route? You would be on you own, out in the cold, and made to feel guilty for "turning your back on God" when that was not even the case at all. There was no support system for anyone who wanted to leave and the burden of guilt unjustly put on you, well, you would probably believe whatever they said about you was probably true. Why? Because one major tactic of all religions is using guilt to coerce people back into line. Thus the "tough love" shunning. Which I think is actually a faulty psychology that backfires.
Even when this website started and people began to realize that they could ask questions without stigma because for the first time because they could be anonomous, it wasn't until certain evidence of WT transgressions appeared that people finally felt they had a "legitimate" excuse to pull out.
Part of the reason you "had no choice" before was no proof of their mind bending and lies. You knew it intuitively, but still, there needed to be some concrete "proof" that you could cite in order to feel justified among your loved ones and also to deflect the guilt that would be put on you as a "traitor". You needed back-up; documentation. Some kind of evidence that was real so you couldn't be told it was your imagination, your fault, your erroneous perspective of things.
Sometimes it appears we have no choice because we don't know the procedures required to extract ourselves. There are no guidelines to exit. It is something you have to invent for yourself. All of you have "done good" to get out of it.
While I was a born-in, I still put most of the blame for being a life long JW on myself. Yes, there was pressure to get baptized but I actually believed so I can't say that it was the pressure that caused me to do it. I should have investigated as a teen but I didn't. I could have walked away as a young adult or at least investigated nagging doubts but I didn't. I had chances but instead chose to go deeper into the religion.
Now, I will say that I always regretted not going to college right after high school, even as a true believer. I often tell people when they ask me why I didn't go straight out of high scholl is that I got bad advice from well meaning but short sighted individuals and I took it. However, I did something about that and am now a college graduate.
I continue to chose to attend not because I believe, which I don't. But because the price is too high to walk away. This choice isn't without cost either but it's what I feel I have to do.
But, I don't think anyone forced me to believe. They may force me to not speak out or force me to pretend and fly under the radar but not to believe. I just trusted the wrong folks. I'll tell you what, I won't ever do that again.
