if we don't all unite, we may win a few battles but Watchtower will win the WAR.

by excaliber 116 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  sd-7

  Watchtower is but a drop in the ocean of problems. Defeat them entirely, and three more cults will rise to take their place. Or thirty-three. Because they are but a symptom of a larger problem--the unwillingness of the ordinary person to think, question, and reject the irrational. This is how any widespread deception is possible.

  Either way, the day Watchtower is able to successfully train its members to counter things like facts, history, logic, and science, well, I know I'll impressed. There is no amount of training WT can provide that would matter, so long as they doggedly stick to their belief system.

  War with a billion-dollar corporation with 7,000,000+ members is pointless. It will be in the small, quiet moments that their foundation will be whittled away, not in a large-scale battle fought by a united 'army' of sorts. For it is those small moments--the despair of an abused spouse, the frustration of a young adult trying to find his or her way, the despair of an older one who has spent decades serving and is cast aside for some arbitrary reason--those are the moments that are defeating the Watchtower. Because those moments are the ones that give people the sense that 'something is wrong' more than any amount of facts that they may encounter sooner or later.

  Our strength lies in our individuality, in our strengths as individuals. It's our different approaches and worldviews and minds that make us so much stronger. I trust in that and value that the most. It's what we earned. The reality is that many of us will only be able to save ourselves. And we were lucky to do that. Only thing we can do is spread what knowledge we have as much as we can, inform people about the dangers of cults and destructive influence. To the extent that we do that, we will be doing what we can.

  --sd-7
• 

  ekruks

  Whatever truth there is on this forum (there are also allegations without fact), it won't help people unless they know it's there. People like to think that by posting here they have helped bring down the organisation, and that helps with depression. No one wants that bubble burst - we want to pretend we are winning, but we are not being realistic! Something like 99.99999999% of the people in the world have never seen this site, but they likely have seen a JW tract or magazine!

  I respect people want to be anonymous - that makes sense, because the WT would love to sue anyone who criticises, but it's not reason to only be able to do stuff as a forum.
  
  No one is demanding an organisation that gives absolute power to anyone. I have the impression I am younger than many on here, and now we face the same issue in the JW organisation, where the older ones running the show have their heads stuck in the past, and don't realise how the Internet works and what can be done with it. A forum is just the tip of the iceberg. You don't see that a forum is actually an organisation; it does have leaders - the moderators.... there are many other types of modern organisation that run this way.
  
  Any criticism should not be of the victims in the organisation, but of the way it's run.
• 

  sd-7

  I do think you have a point there, though, ekruks. Certainly the good, verifiable, true information posted on a forum like this needs a wider audience. Especially now, with the JWs having their big displays out in public advertising their website and so on. I see those displays twice a day now, every morning. So clearly, there is a need for a more public response to the JWs. Not by way of attacking them so much as by way of informing the public of how cults work so that they can avoid being victimized by them.

  --sd-7
• 

  OUTLAW

  .

  Lets Start an Organization,to Stop an Organization..

  ................

  .................................................................... ...OUTLAW
• 

  braincleaned

  I agree with Cofty and outlaw above. I don't want to join a group with just another Christ bullshit mind. And Atheists are NOT a group...

  I refuse to join anything anymore. I work with AAWA as an individual. It's the closest I've seen to organized help, neutral in it's spirit.

  But the idea of an army fighting back the WTS is lubricous to me, as it levels us to precisely what we are fighting against.
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  Stand for Pure Worship

  Lol Outlaw. Basically, that. Like jumping from the frying pan into the skillet.
• 

  ekruks

  Let's remove he word 'attack' then...... many people are likely reluctant to do brave acts such as risk imprisonment to graffiti a Kingdom Hall, though an organised such act across halls worldwide one night would get mass media attention, BUT yes, drop the word 'attack'.....
  
  Let's not even go for an "organisation" as such, i.e. not the Watchtower kind, because, yes, we all feel awkward with that, hurt by authority, strugling to trust others, we all have massive issues there...... but let's work with the organisation type we see with the forum, but extend that structure beyond a forum.... happier now?
  
  I really dread the idea of my life coming under control by some despot drunk on power - I go to work and ignorant managers mess things up, and often they achieve nothing for all the work I put in, it's all a waste of time except I get paid. I wouldn't want to put hours into some co-ordinate apostate effort to inform the world, only to find I was wasting hours to please some power-hungry person who needs to find a better way to handle their lack of self-esteem. High on power, high on drugs, all the same.
  
  I have an idea of how people can do a lot more without loosing anonymity and without need for a governing body, more a loose structure like this. People would be individuals working for a common set of goals/ideas (freedom from the cult), in whatever way they think best.

  It's not enough just to have a chat (this is good therapy), but we need publicity. Yes, those boards about, literature carts, etc. are just the point. We are hurt, stressed by our experience, and it's understanding we may not all want to walk up the road with an apostate literatre cart, as if shouting "I'm the idiot that joined this cult and was destroyed by it", but there are other more discrete ways we can get attention. The Watchtower is actually, for all it's hype about world leader in tech with Photo Drama, is far far behind the times with adopting the Internet for marketing, missing opportunities we will triumph them on.
• 

  rebel8

  It's great that you want to do something to stop others from suffering, and to each, his own.

  My belief is there are only 2 tactics needed (not "war"):

  1. Continue to discuss wts on the Internet--that information will reach dubs who are getting ready to open their minds. (Stops the suffering of a small group of people already greatly harmed.)

  2. Achieve negative growth of the cult by proven prevention techniques. (Prevents the suffering of a large group of people not yet harmed at all.)
• 

  adamah

  ekruks said-

  Whatever truth there is on this forum (there are also allegations without fact), it won't help people unless they know it's there. People like to think that by posting here they have helped bring down the organisation, and that helps with depression. No one wants that bubble burst - we want to pretend we are winning, but we are not being realistic! Something like 99.99999999% of the people in the world have never seen this site, but they likely have seen a JW tract or magazine!

  Who are you trying to help protect?

  If the active JWs, there's a good REASON they're told by the GB NOT to get information off the internet: it fits into the BITE model of control cults use.

  If the World population, MOST people possess the common sense NOT to join the JWs, since they couldn't give a rat's pattootie about JWs: that's what all those people who slammed the door on your face were actually saying, but they likely were too polite to say they thought you were a member of a cult.

  People have to figure it out for themselves, stand on their own two feet, etc. As the old saying goes, you can lead horses to water, but you cannot force them to drink (without placing them in restraints and inserting IV solution into their veins). If you try, are you really doing them any favors? As others have said, if they fail to take control of their own decision-making faculties, they often only jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
• 

  Stand for Pure Worship

  Adamah