Most X-JW's are smart thinking people. I've often wondered what the intelligence & mindset of the average KH was nowdays, after losing so many bright people over the years.
Think About It
Observation -- Posters Don't Seem Clueless
by Band on the Run 26 Replies latest jw friends
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Farkel
Brain cells start to grow back once you leave the dubs.
Farkel
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LostGeneration
The smart ones leave!
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Mad Sweeney
I agree that most who leave are smart but it is also true that not all who are smart leave. It is more than just figuring out you made a mistake by getting baptized. Just as being recruited to join a cult is not a decision of intellect, neither is leaving.
Steve Hassan's video website has a discussion with him and a former Scientologist. At about the 7 minute mark they start to make the point that being intelligent doesn't protect people from cults, knowing how cults work and limit your freedom does.
And there is the advantage "smart" JWs have. Smart people tend to want to keep learning, to keep their brain energized. The BorgLit isn't enough for that for many people. When you learn about how the world really works (which is nothing like what the WT says) and you stumble upon articles and videos about how cults work (which is exactly the way the Borg functions) THEN you are equipped to see the religion you are in with the mask ripped off and the curtain drawn aside.
If you don't understand cult mind control, you don't know half the story of what the Watchtower is doing to you. Someone took offense at this point yesterday but I stand by it.
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thetrueone
I think the light gets brighter for people once they come to realize that the WTS. is
a American made publishing company disguising itself as a religion of spiritual truth and wisdom.
A probable reason that the WTS. has only 7 million followers world wide after a century of door to door preaching work,
has something to do with the fact the general public has assumed this as well.
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Band on the Run
Seven million people is a lot of people. Of course, not relatively. Wow, in my time, a few thousand impressed me. I don't know about my mind control and I want to know for personal reasons. My brother received a generous scholarship to Univ. of Chicago only a couple of years after we left. He was only there a few weeks when a group of Maoists, notorious in the left, recruited him. Our father was abusive. We were beat and worse. My father was a Bethelite at one point. He came within a thread of being fired for clobbering Roman Catholics with witness stuff. My brother-in-law does it me b/c I am Anglican and not Roman Catholic. I'm close! Furthermore, I was raised a JW. It is not a pleasant experience to have your faith attacked. I don't see how anyone wins convents by thuggery. Of course, credit collection agencies evidently get results with thuggery. It has not much to do with religion and world view and much to do with abuse of power.
My brother was totally brain-washed. He kept strange hours. The secretivness was creepy. We actually had a family discussion about what to do if we heard any hint of violence. We decided to call the FBI stat. The parallel between my father's fantacism and my brother's similar fantacism is not lost on me. I want to cry so hard about it. My brother never saw a parallel. I'm a civil libertarian but I can perfectly understand deprogramming. He was no longer the same person.
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JimmyPage
BOTR, I can't stress enough the need to read Steven Hassan's books. At the very least, read Steve's own experience with the Moonies and google the B-I-T-E method of mind control. Check out the website freedomofmind.org. Oh, and I love your screen name! One of my favorite albums.