More on the Bryant Tragedy

by Farkel 18 Replies latest jw friends

  • Scully
    Scully

    Amazing:

    Just to add to your thoughts

    So, this sad tragedy does bear the marks of something that might have been avoided if the JW religion had been loving, not controlling, and did not have a policy of shunning.
    It also could have been avoided had the JWs not had such a blatantly negative and demonized view toward the mental health profession:

    http://quotes.jehovahswitnesses.com/psychiatry.htm

    *** Awake! Mar 8, 1960 p27 ***
    As a rule, for a Christian to go to a worldly psychiatrist is an admission of defeat, it amounts to 'going down to Egypt for help.' -Isaiah 31:1.

    Often when a Witness of Jehovah goes to a psychiatrist, the psychiatrist will try to persuade him that his troubles are caused by his religion, entirely overlooking the fact that the Christian witnesses of Jehovah are the best-oriented, happiest and most contented group of people on the face of the earth.

    They have the least need for psychiatrists. Also, more and more psychiatrists are resorting to hypnosis, which is a demonic form of worldly wisdom. [Emphasis added][underline by Scully]

    AWAKE! 1954
    Without doubt psychologists ... have a lot to learn and they think they know more than they actually do, or they would not have let two chimpanzees make such monkeys out of them.

    *** Watchtower Jan 15 1963 p37-8 ***
    The second reason for our critical times is modern man's rejection of God's Word the Bible. Enemies such as Wellhausen and his prejudiced school of higher critics, Darwin and his evolutionists, Freud and his theories, Marx and his atheistic revolutionists - all these have played a sinister role in destroying the guiding influence of the Bible for many; especially since so many of the clergy have adopted such worldly wisdom. According to Freud, one of psychiatry's chief authorities, religion is a great illusion that man will get rid of someday. Psychiatry stresses, 'Know thyself,' as if an enlightened self-love is sufficient for successful living. More than ignoring God, analysts often contradict God by advising those with guilty consciences that fornication, adultery and sodomy are not wrong in themselves. The charge rightly has been made that such counsel tends to exterminate the conscience. [Emphasis added] [underline by Scully]

    *** Awake! Aug 22 1975 p25 ***
    Is the turning of people from the clergy to the psychiatrists a healthy phenomenon? No, for it really is a case of jumping from the frying pan into the fire. They are worse off than they were before. That [psychologists and psychiatrists] are not the ones to go to for help when one is depressed and beset with all manner of problems is to be seen from the fact that suicides among them are twice as frequent as among the population in general .. what is needed at such times is not worldly psychiatrists who may wholly ignore the change that the truth and God's holy spirit have made in one's life and who know nothing of their power to help one put on a new Christian personality. Rather, what is needed at such times is a mature Christian in whom one has confidence and who is vitally interested in one's welfare and who will not shrink back from administering needed reproof or counsel so that one may get healed. [Emphasis added][underline by Scully]This kind of quackery by the WTS, claiming better knowledge than trained professionals, is at the very least utterly appalling. Yet, when someone follows their advice and DIES as a result of it, they deny ever having said such things. How convenient. Thank goodness they have their accounting with someone other than ME.

    Farkel:
    Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on these proceedings. You're the best!

    Love, Scully
    UADNA-C (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America-Canada)

  • ashitaka
    ashitaka

    Very sad, but a good concise article on it. Thanks, Fark.

    ashi

  • Amazing
    Amazing

    Thanks Skully: I recall the 1975 article ... and even though the Society started to change its view some toward the mental health profession ... the fear of JWs, the Elders, etc. of the professionals caused problems for my wife and I, especially with her depression ... and the counsel we got to clean our house of possible 'demonized' objects ... this event was among many that contributed to my awakening.

    I have two articles by a JW psychologist ... he wrote them while still a JW, but I heard he eventually left the religion ... I received these articles over the objections of the Circuit Overseer ... and many JWs appreciated what he said, because it was something more than what the Watchtower gave them.

    Maybe I should pulls some good excerpts from his material and post it here ... it may prove interesting. The articles are from the 1970s. Thanks again for the quotes from Watchtower articles ... a strong reminder of the serious damage they cause.

  • ashitaka
    ashitaka

    My parents were infuriated by this...they said it's just another reason for them to leave....

  • anewperson
    anewperson

    There are a lot of secretive policies:

    1) letting pedophiles preach at doors
    2) refining/disciplining/harassing those who bankrupt
    3) refining or sifting out independent thinkers
    4) expelling adults doing "secret sins" of oral sex and masturbation

    All denied as the also secretive Theocratic Warfare policy allows. Hypocrisy, stress.......... sometimes suicide.

    False statements:

    1) JWs are the happiest people on earth
    2) this is a spiritual paradise

    Sad

  • ashitaka
    ashitaka

    anew...agree with those false statements....

  • Farkel
    Farkel

    Perry,

    Your comments pulled up something from my own memory banks that until I read your post, had completely forgotten about. Not ONE of my childhood pictures, except those that were taken by professional photographers showed me smiling, and most of them showed me frowning.

    My mother and father often asked me why I scowled when they took my picture. I didn't know why I did that, and couldn't give them a reason. I don't do that anymore and I haven't done that for thirty years.

    How many years do you think I've been out of Watchtowerism?

    Farkel

  • Perry
    Perry

    Farkel,

    Interesting isn't it? A lot of counselors ask people to do this. Looking back at all those old photos really made me put where I've come from into perspective.

    UADNA-TX
    Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America

  • Sam Beli
    Sam Beli

    Farkel, until reading your post I had forgotten that in primary school my teachers often told me not to scowl. I didn’t know I was doing it. Now I know why (I too was raised in the Borg).

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