What drove you? Love or Fear?

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This has probably been discussed here before, but I'm new so sue me.

I think the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses has been an amazing but tragic social experiment proving that the mind is most vulnerable to brainwashing when it's in an unhealthy state. It seems to attract the bipolar, schizophrenic, depressive, and the paranoid. It preys on negative emotions like sorrow and fear. In my 25 years of being a witness, I've met as many people with mental disorders as a psychiatrist does in his whole career! Have you guys noticed this? Kingdom Halls are close to being asylums!

On service, the people who actually listen at the doors and accept a study are the ones going through some hardships at the moment. How many times have you heard a JW recalling an experience of knocking on the door of a man about to commit suicide? Gun in the mouth ready to pull the trigger when the doorbell rings. Followed by "That man is now a baptized pioneer"....another man with serious issues and mental disorders becoming a witness and everyone applauding.

So many people I've met are in this religion cause of a desire to see a dead loved one, fear of the current world events, fear of death at armaggedon, fear of being shunned, a desire to rid themselves of an illness, or sometimes they're there for the juicy gossip. My father is driven by the sorrow of his dead mother, my brother has had several medical near death experiences and is driven by the fear of death, and my mother's fear of aging keeps her going.

Wasn't it the love for Jehovah that was supposed to make us serve him? It's not love, it's fear and sorrow. Manipulate the weakened minds to make them do what we want them to...kinda like a sociopath (Which is a disorder in itself). Maybe that's why this religion doesn't seem to work well on people with healthy minds and/or above average IQ's. (That's why education is of the Devil) Has anyone here noticed the same?

cult classic

Wasn't it the love for Jehovah that was supposed to make us serve him?

That's what they told us. But when I stopped long enough to actually think and feel for myself, I realized that was a lie too.

I had been scared all of my life.

PublishingCult

Wasn't it the love for Jehovah that was supposed to make us serve him? It's not love, it's fear and sorrow.

I share this view.

Some would say that fear is the opposite of courage, but I would argue that fear can be the root of courage, yet fear is the polar opposite of love. Even the Bible says that there is no fear in love. The two are highly incompatible if you really examine each concept.

Love is thought to be an emotion we feel, however, and again, even the Bible explains that love can only be demonstrated through action, and love itself is described in terms of how it behaves, not what it thinks or feels. The definition of love, IMO, is having the best interests of another at heart ahead of your own. That is surely an idea that must be manifest through deeds.

Fear, on the other hand, when not giving proper birth to courage, is otherwise paralyzing. One cannot even act in his own best interests, let alone the best interest of another when paralyzed with fear. Fear shuts down thought, reason, imagination, compassion, empathy, and of course, puts a terrible kink in the hose in which our love must flow freely. I was highly motivated by fear . . . how oxymoronic. Maybe I should say I was completely rendered immobile by fear. I owe that wonderful head start in life to the WTBTS and the ignorance of my parents.

Now, why do I refer to the Bible when talking about love and how it must be manifest? Well, it's quite logical that if God wrote the Bible, and if God defines for us what love is, then why oh why, for thousands of years has she been acting so terribly selfish and unloving? If there is really an issue of her precious sovereignty and her thuggy giggle-inducing name, jehovah, needing to be sanctified, allowing generations of righteous faithful humans to suffer terrible things and die has not really been anyone's interests except for her own. What an unloving hypocritical twat. She obviously does not love us in the way her front men try and convince us.

The Finger

I was raised as a witness. When I left home I had the opportunity to leave the Witnesses but I didn't. I felt I loved God although I didn't particularly love the organization. The field service and meetings and assemblies. I felt my service should be from the heart, what I wanted to give. If that meant 1 hour in ten years in field service that was for me to decide not the organization. They shouldn't try to pressure me into showing my love for God by performing to certain levels.

When I left I felt I couldn't serve God by going to the hall anymore and so it was my love for God that I left.

Woody22

I always knew that I served out of fear, and I knew that there was something wrong. I now belong to another religion and the feeling

is just the opposite. I love going to church.

Woody22

mythreesons

I agree with woody22! My thoughts exactly!

Used to be in fear, but now I focus on love. hmmm, go figure!

ProdigalSon

I was afraid of anything and everything...and very depressed because I figured I could never live up to Jehovah's standards. Then I found out Jehovah's a Pharisee, and all is well.

Was New Boy

I car drove me here....

Sorry just kidding actually it was my father having sex with my mentally unstable mother that got me in.

She ran the whole weird show... she believed the world was a bad place everything in it.

So when she found out that there was a religion that believed in a god who would soon kill (most) everyone she was elated!!!

White Dove

Hope drove me. I wanted the new order more than anything.

Problem was that I didn't like all the rules that didn't seem to make sense.

The explanations were never good enough.

Also, I didn't like how God killed so many innocent people and babies.

I shoved that in the back of my mind wishing that there was another way of getting into the new order.

I was a good girl while an over wound spring.

Yes, it does seem to attract the mentally ill.

For generations of my born in relatives, it was mental instability and also a desire to be somebody that kept them in.

Bungi Bill

It is extremely hard to love such a creature as "Jehovah", as portrayed by the JWs.

It is, though, very easy to fear such a being!

Bill.

What drove you? Love or Fear?

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