Do Jehovah's Witnesses represent a less legitimate form of religious expression? (page 3)

Curtains

I think that if one has accurate info and still believes then there is a certain amount of lying to oneself. If one is a witness out of ignorance then one does not have to lie to oneself. This is the corrupting mechanism I was referring to in my post above. The governing body is requiring elders etc to lie to themselves because of secretly contradiciting their own official instructions to elders. Elders are then put in a strange postion where they have to choose to allow themselves to be corrupted. this mechanism also operates on a publisher.

leavingwt

Slim,

What is your opinion of Lifton's research?

http://www.reveal.org/library/psych/lifton.html

Persons born into religions that feature Lifton's eight criteria find themselves in a very different environment than those born into other religions.

Why examine any information, accurate or not, when one is not permitted to believe anything other than what leadership says?

BurnTheShips

But others who do not choose to explore ideas outside of the Watchtower, people who live in "ignorance" as you put it, are they making a qualitatively worse choice than the one we made?

It is qualitatively worse for me.

Everyone does what is right for them in the given circumstances and with different preferences. Perhaps "ignorance" is the optimal state for some people.

Maybe. But I don't feel that way.

So on what basis do you state that a religious choice is only valid if based on "accurate" information?

I do not make that statement. I express a preference for decision-making based on more complete information. For me, my JW choice was not truly valid. I was born in, and only knew what I was taught by the Watchtower, for JWs.

How much information exactly and just what does "accurate" mean in relation to religious claims? It doesn't make sense as a criterion for dismissing Jehovah's Witness religiosity compared with other groups.

It does when the accuracy involves JW practice, which is coercive.

So the idea that some forms of religious devotion are based on appropriate knowledge and others are based on ignorance or partial knowledge strikes me as rhetorical nonsense, and simply an excuse for justifying the prejudice that says one belief system is in some sense more respectable than another.

Respectability is in the eye of the beholder. In re-evaluating JWism, "respectability" did not even enter the equation for me. What did was the fact that my freedom to think and act was externally circumscribed in ways that ended up not making sense in light of my personal "new light."

JWism is a high control group. Most mainstream religions are not. See LeavingWTs post on the subject.

BTS

slimboyfat

I agree with you BTS that the most meaningful thing we can say is whether we like something or not, whether it appeals to us personally, and perhaps give reasons. But in public discourse it matters a great deal whether a form of religion is viewed as legitimate or not. In Europe this is taken to the point where certain groups are officially recognised as legitimate religions under law while others are not. (Jehovah's Witnesses were recently accepted in Austria. Scientology is generally not recognised) Even though that legal distinction does not arise in the United States, at the level of discourse there is certainly an ongoing battle over what groups deserve to be accepted as mainstream, or legitimate forms of religious expression, the Mormons being a good example.

greendawn

Christianity as an ideology is good but the problem is with the religious institutions that claim to espouse and express that ideology. So Christianity remains for ever a concept rather than a realised state. On the other hand one should not compare an obviously cultic religion such as the JWs with more serious mainstream religions which despite their many faults have a far more reasonable behavioural pattern. Humans are as a rule corrupt financially, socially and sexually and the organisations made up of such corrupt material tend to be likewise eg authority can very quickly degenerate to authoritarianism. Perhaps the best way is to have no hierarchies, no authority structures.

The JWs are not just a less legitimate form of religion but in fact they belong to a category that is even worse, they are a business pretending to be a religion.

leavingwt

Should ALL religions be accepted as legitimate forms of religious expression? If not, why?

What criteria should be used to pronounce a specfic religion as illegitimate?

Nickolas

Now *this* is a great thread.

What may differentiate religions is when they do harm, and there is no doubt in my mind that the WTBTS has done and is doing harm to people. I take as a personal example the heartless shunning of my nephew by his family. In that regard, I really like Lily Pie's astute observation If however someone is under *undue influence*(this is a legal definition that makes contracts null and void), since in the final analysis my nephew is being shunned because he "chose" to be baptised at age 13, under the influence of his parents.

I digress. The WTBTS does great harm. It forbade the use of blood fractions up until 2000 and then allowed them, citing technological change and New Light. But the rationale behind New Light is that God does not want to blind us by giving us too much information all at once. This has the trappings of a kind, fatherly act intended to protect us but it did not protect the men, women and children who have died as a direct consequence of WT blood doctrine.

The notion that other religions differentiate themselves from the Watchtower because they to a certain extent allow their adherents to interpret the Bible is no longer relevant, but only on one remarkable issue, already alluded to. The WTBTS now says it is up to each invidual's conscience whether or not to accept blood fractions - this is obviously back peddaling hair splitting, but is still the only thing I am aware of that is left to the individual Witness to determine for himself, whereas everything else Biblical is interpreted for him and he is forbidden to question it.

slimboyfat, I very much enjoy your posts. You have a world-class brain and your command of the language is very impressive. For the most part, you and I are on the same page, but not this time.

PSacramento

What criteria should be used to pronounce a specfic religion as illegitimate?

Well, THERE'S a question and a half !!!

LMAO !!!

I am not sure if any is qualified to make that call outside of the people that are choosing to join/remain in that religion.

BUT, that said, one can argue that any religion that advocates the opposite of the teachings of who created it, is in theory an "ilegite" representation of it.

zarco

It seems that religions should be judged by their contribution to society. Some religions, while flawed like the Witness religion, do some amazing things to better society. Building hospitals, feeding the hungry, charitable works, sponsoring institutions of higher learning are a few examples of good things that many religions do.

Religions should also be judged by their contribution to its individual members. Are individuals encouraged to educate themselves, care for the community, be involved in environmental and social matters and to build lasting relationships. Many religions do exactly that for their members.

Conversely, the Witness religion does none of those things. It cloisters its members from society, it looks at the community as either an enemy to be destroyed or as a population to convert. It takes a "god will fix it soon" approach to everything causing its members to live life with a short-term perspective which typically harms the economic, health and educational prospects of its members.

So by these general standards its seem that Witnesses are less legitimate than most other religions.

zarco

slimboyfat

LWT I would say early Christianity is a better match for Lifton's criteria than Jehovah's Witnesses, therefore it would be ironic for other Christian groups to use that as a basis for labelling Jehovah's Witnesses as outside the mainstream. Just to go through some of them:

The most basic feature is the control of human communication within an environment

2 Cor 6: 14 Do not become unevenly yoked with unbelievers. For what fellowship do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what sharing does light have with darkness?

Mark 10: 29 Jesus said: “Truly I say to YOU men, No one has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news 30 who will not get a hundredfold now in this period of time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, with persecutions, and in the coming system of things everlasting life.

If the control is extremely intense, it becomes internalized control -- an attempt to manage an individual's inner communication

Romans 12: 2 And quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making YOUR mind over, that YOU may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Control over all a person sees, hears, reads, writes (information control) creates conflicts in respect to individual autonomy
1 Cor 1: 19 For it is written: “I will make the wisdom of the wise [men] perish, and the intelligence of the intellectual [men] I will shove aside.” 20 Where is the wise man? Where the scribe? Where the debater of this system of things? Did not God make the wisdom of the world foolish?

Groups express this in several ways: Group process, isolation from other people, psychological pressure, geographical distance or unavailable transportation, sometimes physical pressure

1 Cor 15: 33 Do not be misled. Bad associations spoil useful habits. 34 Wake up to soberness in a righteous way and do not practice sin, for some are without knowledge of God. I am speaking to move YOU to shame.

Luke 5: 8 Seeing this, Simon Peter fell down at the knees of Jesus, saying: “Depart from me, because I am a sinful man, Lord.” 9 For at the catch of fish which they took up astonishment overwhelmed him and all those with him, 10 and likewise both James and John, Zeb´e·dee’s sons, who were sharers with Simon. But Jesus said to Simon: “Stop being afraid. From now on you will be catching men alive.” 11 So they brought the boats back to land, and abandoned everything and followed him.

Matt 12: 30 He that is not on my side is against me, and he that does not gather with me scatters.

Often a sequence of events, such as seminars, lectures, group encounters, which become increasingly intense and increasingly isolated, making it extremely difficult--both physically and psychologically--for one to leave

Heb 10: 23 Let us hold fast the public declaration of our hope without wavering, for he is faithful that promised. 24 And let us consider one another to incite to love and fine works, 25 not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together, as some have the custom, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as YOU behold the day drawing near.

2 Cor 6: 16 And what agreement does God’s temple have with idols? For we are a temple of a living God; just as God said: “I shall reside among them and walk among [them], and I shall be their God, and they will be my people.” 17 “‘Therefore get out from among them, and separate yourselves,’ says Jehovah, ‘and quit touching the unclean thing’”; “‘and I will take YOU in.’”

Sets up a sense of antagonism with the outside world; it's "us against them"

1 John 4: 4 Y OU originate with God, little children, and YOU have conquered those [persons], because he that is in union with YOU is greater than he that is in union with the world. 5 They originate with the world; that is why they speak [what proceeds] from the world and the world listens to them. 6 We originate with God. He that gains the knowledge of God listens to us;he that does not originate with God does not listen to us . This is how we take note of the inspired expression of truth and the inspired expression of error.. This is how we take note of the inspired expression of truth and the inspired expression of error.

Closely connected to the process of individual change (of personality)

Eph 4: 20 But YOU did not learn the Christ to be so, 21 provided, indeed, that YOU heard him and were taught by means of him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that YOU should put away the old personality which conforms to YOUR former course of conduct and which is being corrupted according to his deceptive desires; 23 but that YOU should be made new in the force actuating YOUR mind, 24 and should put on the new personality which was created according to God’s will in true righteousness and loyalty.