Watchtower explains why it's NOT a Cult

by JWOP 13 years ago 49 Replies latest 13 years ago watchtower bible

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  Finkelstein 13 years ago

  Jehovah's Witnesses may not follow a single human leader, but they do follow seven leaders - namely, the members of the Governing Body.

  Good point Cedars

  The WTS. made itself into a theocratic cult by its own marketing agenda of cultivating power and control over people,

  which resulted in people putting themselves in a state psychological subservience to the WTS. leaders.

  Many religious claim they are the true divine connection to god and his all encompassing will and purpose,

  the WTS. accomplished this by their own published works and by people who they mentally enslaved to distribute their published goods.

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  Ding 13 years ago

  The GB are just humble, imperfect men...

  ... who alone in all the earth are the channel of communication of Jehovah God...

  ... and whose teachings must be believed and followed without question even when they are wrong....

  Sure makes me grateful it's not a cult...

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  Sulla 13 years ago

  I take your points, cedars and jgnat. They are definitely a high control group who certainly flirt (at the least) with the c-word. The more I think of it, the more it seems to me that the difference in my head has to do with the questions about personal responsibility/volition and self-destructive behavior.

  I tend to see the things we would all agree are cults as extremely self-destructive: suicides and mass murders (People's Temple, Branch Davidians, what have you) in ways the JW are not. Denying yourself education or career and the practice of shunning are certainly self-limiting and harmful, but these activities inhabit a different zone on the anti-social scale altogether. Moreover, I tend to think that joining the JWs is a rational choice, not the product of mind control or manipulation. I tend to suppose that joining a real cult has substantially less volition in the formula.

  I think I could summarize thus:

  1. We want to use the term "cult" because it is a slur. What we mean when we say the JWs are a cult is that they suck. Indeed, they do, but I think the term is not really helpful except in conveying hatred or them.

  2. We use the term to reduce the responsibility of ourselves or of those we love who are in the JW movement. Let's face it: learning that your family does not love you is hard to understand (and I count the JW conditional love as no love at all). We would prefer to have our family be victims of others who are controlling their thoughts rather than admit they have made a rational choice against the love of their family. I understand the motivation -- believe me -- but that doesn't make it real.

  3. Overall, I think JWs are properly placed squarely within the New American Religions movement of the 19th century. This places them within the mainstream of an admittedly very unorthodox bunch of actors: LDS, SDA, Millerites, Christian Scientists, whomever else. Collectively, these groups have dozens of millions of adherents and we aould be better off attempting to understand the JW experience by placing it in this context than attempting to understand it as a cult. When it comes down to it, they are much more like Christian Scientists than they are like Branch Davidians.

  Regards,

  S.

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  QueenWitch 13 years ago

  WTBS has cultish behavior. Of course, they themselves will not admit it. And I defending them until I left. That's the thing about cults, you don't know you are in one until if you leave, if you can leave.

  Sure, one can become a JW freely. But what of born-ins? We are basically forced to be baptized and eat, think, sleep JW doctrine all the time. And if anyone decides to leave, you are shunned like a leper. There is no "hey, JW didn't work out for you? Ok, no prob. We still love you. Come back when you're ready". It's more like a boot to your arse. And if you want to come back, you have to be in limbo for some indeterminate amount of time. You have to get rid of any "wordly friends" you may have made but you still can't talk to your JW friends.

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  Finkelstein 13 years ago

  When it comes down to it, they are much more like Christian Scientists.

  I would have to disagree, the CS are not as high controlling, there is no disfellowshipping.

  CS are also not apocalyptic fear mongering as the JWS are.

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  Finkelstein 13 years ago

  I tend to think that joining the JWs is a rational choice, not the product of mind control or manipulation.

  So proclaiming the world is going to end soon is not manipulative or coercive when they post pictures of calamitous

  destruction on the front covers of their magazines ?

  The WTS. markets and exploits fear, causing people to make irrational choices for themselves.

  Do the Christain Scientists do this ?

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  QueenWitch 13 years ago

  I tend to think that joining the JWs is a rational choice, not the product of mind control or manipulation.

  Oh? How much rational choice does a 9 yr old have? Or even a teen? How many teens you know make rational decisions all the time?

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  Zico 13 years ago

  I find debating with JWs whether or not they are a cult tends to devolve into a pointless argument on semantics that lets the JW distract from what should be the main point i.e. that the Society try to exercise far too much control over individual JWs lives.

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  OUTLAW 13 years ago

  Funny video..

  JW`s are Definitely a Cult..

  They follow a small group of men who do their thinking for them..

  The smallest JW Decision should be WBT$ Approved..

  Jesus sits in a WBT$ Garbage Can,next to Sparlock..

  You Rock Sparlock!.. Thank-You Jesus!

  

  Shut the F**k Up!..

  Your both Pissing me Off!!

  

  ............................ OUTLAW

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  Sulla 13 years ago

  I would have to disagree, the CS are not as high controlling, there is no disfellowshipping.

  CS are also not apocalyptic fear mongering as the JWS are.

  Well, Finkelstein, what I mean is that these are all branches of the American religious experiment that begins in the 19th century and includes all these different groups that are only very loosely related to Christianity. The JWs tend to be more highly controlling than most of these others, but they are all rooted in the same American approach.

  So proclaiming the world is going to end soon is not manipulative or coercive when they post pictures of calamitous

  destruction on the front covers of their magazines ?

  Well, no. Not more so than images of successful people attempting to sell credit cards are manipulative. I mean, in some sense it is an attempt to manipulate you, but ultimately your decision of which credit card to get is a rational one. Same thing here: the JWs are making their case and everybody is free to accept or reject it. But this gets us back to the whole question of volition I mentioned earlier.

  Zico, I'd suggest that the Society exercises more control over people's lives than you think is appropriate (and more than I think is appropriate for me, too). But that is an opinion and not at all an objective fact. And, again, they are not exercising control over anyone's life who hasn't agreed to cede to them. If being a JW is a rational choice, made after considering the pros and cons, then we can't really make statements like you did. I agree that this is a semantic argument, but it is not merely a semantic argument.

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