Welcome.
Please finish Crisis of Conscience and then get back to us. You haven't reached the meat of the book yet.
Introduction
by dontplaceliterature 85 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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ziddina
"I would say the thing that has kept me in the organization and will likely keep me there for sometime (if I become a full-fledged fader), is the immense amount of love these people have for one another. ..."
Really???
According to many personal experiences that I've read on this board, your experience was rather unique. The lack of REAL love is one of the major factors that drives many people out of the Watchtower Society...
Be that as it may...
I get the impression that you are a young person. I also get the impression that you tend to observe within certain "parameters". If it were possible, I would like to observe your eye movements when you are in your Kingdom Hall; observe your eye movements when a fellow JW behaves in a less-than-theocratic fashion...
I personally observed a dramatic example of the phenomenon that I woud rather expect to see, when I was 17 years old and attending the local Kingdom Hall.
My parents were both Jehovah's Witnesses. They joined when I was 5; so I was basically raised as a JW. Both parents were manic-depressive, cowardly, scapegoating, and viciously abusive.
Just to give you a bit of background here...
It was after a meeting - I don't remember which one, but I think it was the Sunday talk/Watchtower study. Many adults were still standing around in the Kingdom Hall, chatting. There were two young girls - around 12 - 13 years old - one a blonde white girl, one a lovely black girl. The blonde girl was third-generation Jehovah's Witness; her grandmother had stood on doorsteps with the grammophones with "Da Judge" Rutherford's voice booming out his sermons. Her mother had had a brief spell of rebellion; had left the religion and had married a nice young man who WASN'T a JW. After the marriage, for some reason, the mother returned to the Watchtower Society.
Even at the age of 17, I couldn't understand why she'd come back... BTW, I was baptised at 17, too - in response to the physical, emotional and psychological bullying I'd received at the hands of my parents, rathr than due to any belief that the bible was the word of any "true" 'god'...
Anyway, the mother came back to the Watchtower Society - and subsequently spent ALL of her efforts at pioneering - AND attempting to convert her poor husband, who'd married her when she was "normal" - to the Jehovah's Witness religion.
I clearly remember the mother's constant facial expression. She NEVER smiled!!! She always had a tight-mouthed, pinched expression on her lips - very much like the "Church Lady" on SNL - even worse than that!!! Really a GOOD example of Witness "happiness" and "love"... I saw her smack her kids around too - HARD!!! [She had two - the 12 - 13 year-old daughter, and a younger son...]
Anyway, with this background...
I was looking at these two girls, after the meeting, and they appeared perfectly normal, happy - then the blonde girl snapped, grabbed her little friend by the throat, and began slamming her head into one of the support pillars in the Kingdom Hall!!!
Naturally I was shocked, and rushed in to separate them. As I was comforting the little black girl, asking her if she was all right, I hear my idiot mother's voice yammering behind me - "Well, here's Ziddy, playing with the children again, as usual!!!"
Now, I want you to seriously think about this... My idiot mother was only FIFTEEN FEET AWAY from the two girls when the incident happened!!!! There is NO WAY she could have MISSED what was happening - IF SHE'D CHOSEN TO ALLOW HERSELF TO SEE IT!!!!!
Believe you me, that one incident taught me VOLUMES about peoples' ability to DENY REALITY EVEN THOUGH IT WAS HAPPENING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, of course, it provided my nasty, bullying, competitive mother with another opportunity to belittle me; imply that I was childish and inferior and therefore only good to be under HER control, in that snide comment of hers, "here's Ziddy, playing with the children again, as usual..!!!"
Yeah, I've seen all kinds of "love" within the Kingdom Halls, all right...
That "social milieu / group / mind" control that I've seen - not just among Jehovah's Witnesses, mind you, but the Watchtower Society certainly uses certain techniques that enforce those behavior patterns - makes me wonder whether you've actually developed the ability to really SEE reality...
Sorry. But that doubt - that question - that uncertainty - ALWAYS arises when some active JW or apologist tells me how much "love" they see in the Watchtower organization...
All I can see, when I hear those comments, is that deliberate blindness of the adults around me, NONE of whom lifted a FINGER to help that poor young girl!!!
Sheeeesh...
Zid
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ziddina
"So, as you can imagine, the thought of leaving behind “The Truth” for whatever else is out there scares me to death. ..."
See??? Now that comment - right there - reveals that the emotion of FEAR is DEEPLY integrated into whatever reasons for your presence in the Watchtower Society...
I want to apologize for speaking out so forcefully, but due to the behavior I observed within my parents' family system, I am drastically opposed to self-delusion...
One of my favorite expressions is: "All liars start out by lying TO THEMSELVES FIRST...!"
In other words, a liar has to delude him/herself into thinking that he'll/she'll get away with their lies - or worse yet, that their lies are actually the "truth" - in order to lay a psychological foundation for TELLING the lie, especially for telling the lie in a believeable fashion - to increase the likelihood that others will believe their lie...
Anyway, I think I've done enough damage for tonight. I am glad to see you on-board, Don't Place Literature; I wish you well in your all-niter, and I've got to get some sleep, myself...
G'nite...
Zid - the board's She-Devil...
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dontplaceliterature
Zid
I've seen some crazy things too. But they are the exception, not the rule. There is a teenage boy locally that I have taken an interest in, his mother and father are separated. His father is bi-polar and insanely abusive to both of them (the boy and his mother). He is no longer attending meetings, but the Elders in his congregation continue to visit him and encourage him. But his just manipulates them to feel pity for him. The mother over the last several years has moved in an out of the house. Returning to him each time he begs her to come home, dragging her poor son with her. I have sat an cried my eyes out over this poor kid. The elders in the congregation they came from, were the "stand-by-your-man" type. They brow beated the wife, and ridiculed her for remaining separated from her husband, though she had scriptural grounds to do so (according to JW doctrine, anyway). She doesn't know any better, but her son will never forgive them and was on his way to never forgiving her. Fortunately, the elders in their new congregation took a different approach, and have encouraged the mother to protect herself and her son, and things have took and upswing for them. There new congregation has been a HUGE support for them.
No doubt about it, there are some real crazies in the organization. But, for the most part, this is not the case. I've been in 5 congregations, and 3 circuits in my life. I'm sure I could draw up some real nasty stuff that's happened over the years, but they have never dominated my experience as a Witness. Not even close.
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Broken Promises
It's easy to have a rosy view of the Society when everything is rosy. I certainly did - until things beyond my control started to happen and I got to see what their version of Christian love is all about.
"Christian love" (JW love) is conditional. You want to see how conditional it is? Stop attending meetings, stop going in service. See how much the "brothers" want to associate with you. You might not be doing anything "unscriptural". But you will be judged, no doubt about it.
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Broken Promises
BTW, how much have you studied of other religions?
Do you think you would still be a JW if you'd been born in India, Vietnam, Soviet Russia?
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dontplaceliterature
@ Broken Promises...
I wouldn't be a JW if I were born in the USA as anything else but a JW. But, here I am...
I don't doubt what you say, about conditional love. But what love isn't? Except maybe from a dog?
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ziddina
Crap...
And I wanted to toddle off to bed...
I understand your comments, Don't Place Literature... But I wasn't just referring to an isolated incident. The point I was making, is that people can often delude themselves into thinking everything is fine - all right - when there's clear evidence right in front of their eyes that things aren't all right...
After I left the Watchtower organization, I developed a mild form of "psychic" ability - though to be more accurate, I think that my survival instincts became heightened because they were no longer being discouraged or handicapped by antique superstitions...
I found that, when I am 'denying' some reality - especially a threatening one - the base of my skull starts to tingle... Fittingly, this happens right in the area of the medulla oblongota.. [spelling?]
I've also learned that when I deny realities - ignore that tingling - I always regret it. It appears to be my subconscious mind's method of alerting me to danger - or even self-delusional behavior - glossing over a danger or hazard that the deeper mind, concerned with survival, considers a valid threat.
I feel that the Watchtower Society tends to dampen, deaden, or reduce one's ability to see things clearly...
And again I've said something that you might take in a bad way...
This time I'd better REALLY say g'nite...
Zid
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Broken Promises
I wouldn't be a JW if I were born in the USA as anything else but a JW.
And why is that? Do you doubt that if a witness knocked on your door, you wouldn't accept "the truth"? Ineffectiveness of the preaching work aside... say a really proficient teacher of JW doctrine came to your door, is there something you couldn't accept about the JW doctrines?
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Aussie Oz
Welcome to the forum
yes it has its hot heads, its clowns and it serious thinkers. So does every forum on every subject imaginable mate.
expect it, overlook it, it's people.
Some have had a real rough trot with the Org, some like me, did not. allow them their rage.
Rank and file? I use it, i dont see it as idicating idiots at all. Its a discription applied to many types of orgainazions with large numbers of 'workers', who for the most part are ignorant by organiational design, not their own IQ level.
I was an apologist for 11 years after they D/F me.
I researched every single 'apostate' acusation i could find because i would not believe anything i read when i joined here. True, not everything i read was true and some were long stretches at best. Some peoples attitudes may put some off, but those who think will be able to see past the bluff and bluster. Some apostates don't do the world of good by extreme antics granted, but most work quietly and are very well educated and reasonable people. That is what shines through to me.
What really shone bright though was the overwhelming proofs that there is no way that 'God' could or would be using a religious organization that is based on lies, mistruths, misquotes and bullying to achieve its objectives.
Once you take the god out of 'God's Organization' it all gets real clear, real fast!
oz