by Fernando 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Is it essentially unscriptural fear of death and fear of the big A that keeps WBTS/GB followers captive, passive, unthinking, unquestioning and blind?
Is it the unscriptural promises of organisational salvation and baptismal salvation and works salvation that keeps WBTS/GB followers on a treadmill to nowhere?
A lot of it probably boils down to those two points. I think some of us (such as myself) are prone to be self-flogging individuals and for us, it's the second point, because we don't feel good enough to be saved otherwise. For some (such as one of my JW relatives), the fear of dying is bigger; these people tend to have issues with paranoia or survival anxiety in general. It's definitely a good idea to try to "diagnose" a JW loved one according to these types, in order to figure out what their prison walls are made of.
I am learning to meet others where they are at, and not stray too far, whilst asking simple questions that may lead them to the next stepping stone - hopefully one they were contemplating anyway.
In other words you think it's the threats...the threat of everlasting death, the threat of being cut off from one's family and friends, of incurring Jehovah's wrath and its consequences. Perhaps. Perhaps, too, some wives don't want to lose their husbands or vice versa, or their kids. And their dogs and cats.
It's true that all the above keeps some members active, but there are also people who use the Society to gain friends and prestige. Some like to live secure in the notion that they're of the anointed class, or that they're elders, or overseers, or even that they're known for their staunch defense of Jehovah-God and his earthly kingdom, and that everyone looks up to them for their encyclopedic knowledge of the Society and its doctrines. Perhaps they have every single publication ever to roll off the Brooklyn presses and they know people stand in awe of brother Knowital.
And others...just because they have nowhere else to go. Maybe they lean on the local congregation and its leaders for financial support, or that they are secure in the knowledge that people will always be there to visit them in their old age.
And finally, some people actually believe in it. They have looked at every doctrine and asked themselves, what other church has all the correct doctrines? Perhaps no angel from heaven has come down to call their leaders and give them authority from above...that doesn't matter. Using the process of elimination, they've determined that the Society is the only organization on Earth that teaches "the truth that leads to eternal life." They have a ticket to either Heaven or a glorified Earth and unless someone snatches it from them (i.e., disfellowships them), they will be left standing while fire falls from the sky and consumes EBT (everyone but them). Far be it from them to stumble this close to...well, you know. (It's just around the corner.)
There are, unfortunately, some "Christians" who believe that if people remain JWs, that they will lose any chance of everlasting life and be thrust down to an eternal Hell. I'm a Mormon and have been damned and denounced more times than I can count, and before that I was a non-denominational Christian. But I never believed that the Christian God would condemn anyone to an eternal Hell for their heartfelt beliefs. Nor for anything else, no matter how heinous. A person can go to Hell for any one of a number of reasons, but I believe that it's remedial in nature and does not last forever. The WTBTS condemns all non-JWs to eternal destruction, and thus use fear as a tool to keep people in line. So other secular Christians also use fear, just in other ways. Any sane person would be terrified at the thought of burning forever in a furnace of everlasting fire, ever burning but never consumed.
So yes, fear works!
Cold Steel, thats the Cold Truth of the WTS.. they use FEAR!..why? ..MONEY!!!POWER- EGO MANIACS! FREAKS!...solution?..Do not fear THEM!!!
insot4
I don't think it was just fear for myself I think it was being ignorant and naive, not knowing anything about the world. I think my relatives lack education and just general knowledge about the world. It makes a person insular and paranoid. This was how my mother grew up and then she compounded the problem by joining a cult! So how I could help my siblings when they have such a distrust of knowledge, I don't know. See how easy it is for a cult to take people like this and keep them away from the information they need to break free.
"See how easy it is for a cult to take people like this and keep them away from the information they need to break free."
And that is why it is so so hard, impossible in most cases, to "spring" them.
You cannot usually get the information they need in front of them, either in written or spoken form, and even if you get it right in front of them, the mental Cult-shield they have erected will bounce it off before it penetrates to the brain.
You cannot spring a prisoner who is not ready to go over the wall.
That is why Fernando's metaphor of the "stepping-stones" is so good, if we can gently lead them from one to the next, they will come to the wall, see the rope, and smell the freedom on the other side. They will realise too that the Wall is an illusion, they don't have to climb a rope, all they have to do is burst a bubble and step in to the real world.
Matthew 24:38-39
For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, men marrying and women being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark; 39 and they took no note until the flood came and swept them all away, so the presence of the Son of man will be.
In order for them to; "take no note' someone first has to make an attempt to explain it to them.
abe
The covenant with death kept us captive:
If you believe the world is going from bad to worse you will be more likely to cling to a promise of better times.
The objective facts show that the world has never been more safe and prosperous.
Even most ex-JWs have not grapsed that yet so they are not in a good position to help.
Ablebodiedman typifes this sort of "out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire" way of thinking.
