What Draws People To The Witnesses? What Keeps Some Far Away??

by minimus 24 Replies latest jw friends

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  No Room For George

  2 Timothy 3

  1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

  6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9 But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
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  minimus

  Yes, gullibility is a plus!
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  Magwitch

  What Keeps Some Far Away??

  As my best friend says to my father everytime he starts preaching....

  "I'm a grown assed man. You do not need to tell me how to think"
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  blond-moment

  I agree, "weak" is not the right word, I agree with vulnerable. It has been proven that even extremely intelligent and those who would seem to be last person in the world to fall for it, can fall under mind control, especially if it's slick. The WT is slick.

  But they do tend to target those down on their luck.
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  wha happened?

  I was religious minded and it seemed to make sense. It also was so appealing, so utopian. I bought it because I wanted it to be true.
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  LongHairGal

  Minimus:

  It can vary. Some are drawn to the JWs because they may have encountered a pleasant couple, nice conversation. They were drawn by the surface impression of happiness, clean-cut appearance, wholesomeness, etc. That is just the physical part though. People can be drawn because they are led to believe their life will be simpler. (They will soon learn otherwise because that "light yoke' is a ton of bricks!)

  People also can be drawn to the religion by an interest in end-time prophecy like I was. This was my whole reason for becoming involved with the JWs. Nothing else. Unfortunately, I had no knowledge of the religion's hidden history and changed teachings or else I would not have joined.

  Now, for why people stay far away: When I was a JW and in my 'believing' phase, I could not understand why people didn't want it. Little did I know that perhaps people had knowledge of the religion and its history. Maybe they just cannot stand religion and don't believe in door to door preaching and find it intrusive.

  Maybe people didn't like the saccharine smiles and the robotic appearance some JWs have. They may also have had first hand knowledge of what it was like to have a relative in the religion. Maybe they saw somebody give up a decent career and pursue poverty or become extreme and weird and they could hardly stand to have the person around. Perhaps they got tired of being condemned because of the holidays and being made to feel guilty for taking pleasure in anything. Fast forward two decades: I came to see all these things and more and this is what keeps ME away.
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  sammielee24

  I know of at least 4 people who studied with the Witnesses but eventually walked away. I know one that studied and became one.

  The reason all 4 who walked away gave, was that they were spiritually adrift and looking at different religions when they gave the Society a chance. They studied, questioned but in the end, could not bite into the whole apple and walked away - a lot more knowledgeable but unscathed. The last person had a nervous breakdown and was emotionally fragile when a nice couple came to the door, speaking softly and asking her how far she would go to make sure her children lived forever. It was her life line. sammies
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  Halo

  By making asumptions and using terms such as "weak" and "gullible' you have almost hijacked your own thread. The reasons are complex and cannot be explained simplicly. Each person has a life that has affected them before becoming a jw. They too have been subjected to ways of thinking from their own upbringing that affect the way they respond. For myself I have analysed the answer to this question many times as I was a convert. I will not even bigin to elaborate here as it is obvious that many have ideas that are frequently porported and tend to classify converts in ways that are at times demeaning.

  For a variety of reasons people make decisions that are not good for them. Yes I am angry at myself for having fallen for it, but even I have trouble completely understanding it. Those of you who were born in will never truly understand, just as those outside of the organisation will never truly understand the what it is like to live in the jw world. I have lived through many difficult times, the most intense being exiting the wt, which I am well on the way to achieving. Humans are complex creatures and there is no really easy set of simple answers to this and trying to label the reasons fails to recognise the fact that we all, whether born in or convert, have been affected and harmed in some way by our association with the organisation and that is our commonality.
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  snare&racket

  What draws them in?

  From the number of partakers, it has to be the free food and wine! Ahh the joys of a financial meltdown!
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  bats in the belfry

  If there ever was a time the dispensational prophecies of the JWS made any sense it must have been around 1990/1991. With bated breath we looked at TV when the communistic bloc was dissolving rapidly, German unification was happening, and China had its democratic uprising - what would be next?