OK Somebody has to stop and address these issues or someone will wander in and think he is correct.
For your information, not all cults are destructive as may be generally assumed. As a therapist, I will list the following points as reasons why some cults may be healthy, especially the JW organisation.
OK I will admit that some people may benefit from the kinds of control that a benign cult might have over them. Some may have never learned how to negotiate a healthy lifestyle on their own. They need someone to tell them what to do. It makes life simple for them because they don't have to develop a real conscience. They prefer to have someone else dictate the rules.
1) Their stand on material prosperity shields their members from unnecessary worries of life. Their constant emphasis on simple life prevents you from entering into debt-imposed problems safeguarding you from the possibilities of sleepless night, financial stress and the rest .
Mature people, emotionally mature people do not need someone to shield them from the real world. They have developed the skills they need to negotiate the worries of life. That doesn't mean things won't overwhelm them sometimes. But they have developed the resilience they need to overcome those worries - not be shielded from them.
2) Their behavioural control mechanism helps to constantly keep your lives in checks and balance by injecting sanity into your conscious being.
People who have developed a strong sense of themselves, have a positive view of themselves and a clear sense of right and wrong and ethics and morality don't need an organization to tell them how to behave. Their conscience does that for them. They don't need an external system of checks and balances to guide them. They have internalized it and can behave in moral and ethical ways regardless of the situations that might confront them.
3) Reporting you deviant thoughts, feelings, and actions to leaders helps to coordinate your life and brings it in conformity to impeccable manners(the desire of every sane human mammal).
Well if you have developed a good sense of ethics and morality you don't do things that need to be reported to a group of men who are not trained to deal with medical, social and psychological problems that people face. Elders should limit themselves to dealing with the spiritual matters of Witnesses and stay out of the rest of their lives.
4) Their e xtensive use of cult generated information and propaganda constantly triggers your consciousness for the need to do things right (a positive reinforcement).
An emotionally mature person does not need constant reminders to prod them to do the right thing. People are not as weak as cult leaders want us to believe.
5) Their Ethical use of confession makes you see that the universe cares for you and you are not alone in the grand scheme of things.
Confession does one thing. It gives men the information they need to use against you. Since elders are also subject to the need for constant controls from the leaders they too have not developed the skills they need to behave in a moral and ethical manner towards other. They are just men who, like every other JW and does not have those internalized skills. They are not judges but they are expected to be. Recipe for God-complex.
6) Their Loaded languages offers you feelings of belonging, which we all aspire in a secluded and socially quarantined world.
That is sad that people need to be secluded. All the years of repetitive talks and books and magazines doesn't result in emotionally mature people who are capable of functioning in the real world.
All of that is truly sad. They remain like little children always looking towards someone else to tell them what to think, what to feel, how to behave and what to believe. These are not emotionally mature people.
A strong spiritual presence in a person's life should help them be strong in all aspects of their lives, It most certainly should not keeping them like dependent children.
I received scores of Private messages from lurkers yesterday requesting for reasons to hold on to their dedicatin vow and I hope this thread will make you think.
I hope they read this and give your words a second thought.
