Major flub in Slavery Watchtower Study Article (page 2)

PelicanBeach

This should be used as a warning to all those interested in becoming a JW:

If you become a Witness and later decide to leave your Master, the Watchtower, they will attempt to KEEP YOUR SPOUSE AND CHILDREN forcing to you to choose!

Pelican

leaving_quietly

A lovely sister brought this out at our meeting, and I completely missed the implication! Ugh.

BU2B

Wow great catch! That is such a parallel as to how the WTS holds awakened ones hostage with their family as the collateral.

I agree,.. great catch. I like the application as to how the WTBTS enslaves our family mentally in the same way. On the getting a slave married right away so that he will have children to keep him attached to the master when the 7 years were up, kinda rings of the "Don't marry out side the Lord" and also no sex outside marriage, no self pleasuring etc kinda forces you into wanting to get married asap.

NJY

Oubliette

scotoma: The "faithful slave" apparently learned from the master that you can get your freedom from the organization anytime you want but you will have to forfeit your precious family ties.

Excellent explanation about how the WTBTS applies the scriptures. The WT leadership are masters at manipulation and control. This is just one example of how they do it: They hold your family hostage. It's a form of emotional blackmail.

The only thing I disagree with, Scotoma, is your calling this a "flub" on the part of the WT writers. This is an example of clear and deliberate manipulation.

DS211

marked

adamah

Yeah, great catch, Scotoma.

It's amazing that the WT has figured out how to create a fully-voluntary system of slavery in 2013, and the best you can hope for is to be owned by a "loving master" (which rings more to Stolkholm Syndrome to me).

The chains are mental nowadays, but slavery has always relied on both mental AND physical restraits, and the mental 'chains' are often even harder to break and more debilitating...

Oubliette said- They hold your family hostage. It's a form of emotional blackmail.

Well close, since 'blackmail' is when someone threatens to use someone else's secrets against them by disclosing them in public if the victim doesn't buy their silence.

Blackmail IS actually a specific sub-category of 'extortion', a broader term which implies using a threat of violence, or coercion by alienation from family, etc, in order to force someone to do something against their will.

So the WT situation is actually, "emotional (religious) extortion", NOT "emotional blackmail", since the coercion is used to encourage members to stay IN the JWs to avoid shunning.

Adam

Quarterback

Interesting application.

scotoma

Adamah:

I used the term blackmail loosely because ordinary (non legalistic) person's understand that it is obtaining something from another person without using physical force. And ordinary people understand that it is bad. Poetic licence if you will.

Actually in a legal sense it is neither extortion or blackmail. The slave knew the rules when he took a wife from his master's household. So, the Master wasn't doing anything wrong legally. Now if the Master gave a woman in his household to the slave and certified it in writing and then decided to change his mind he would have a problem with the men in the gates. The Watchtower also makes the claim that when you got baptized in recognition of the "spirit led organization" that you knew what you were getting into. That's how they can deny any wrongdoing by disfellowshipping someone who leaves.

Even if the Master is nice he isn't noble and endearing. And to be sure this loop hole was exploited. It was a legal way to retain slaves past the date of release and calls into question the whole system of slavery.

And what would you expect of a Master (Jehovah) who is so unforgiving that he had his only begotten son die from torture?

DATA-DOG

The WT is trapped in the OT. They are obsessed with The Law. It's one of their biggest faults IMO. Were it not for their obsession with Judaism, they would never have written such an ignorant magazine. Still, it's all they have left. If they allow the R&F to be under the law of the Christ, then they can wave bye-bye to all the $$$ and to the Hierarchy. That's why they have to write a never-ending flow of WT articles based on the Law and the Temple arrangement. If they stopped then all the WT slaves would free themselves.

DD.

Major flub in Slavery Watchtower Study Article