Did we get RTD's ("Religiously Transmitted Diseases") from the Watchtower?

by Fernando 12 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Fernando

  Having just started to read the book "Pharisectomy" I decided to Google the book's concept of "Religiously Transmitted Diseases".

  There were more than 44,000 hits for this phrase.

  Looking back I can see several spiritual and psychological illnesses, or RTD's, that I contracted from the Watchtower organisation.

  Having rejected this organisation mid-2009 as just another "snare and a racket", I have found considerable healing.

  I feel I have become much, much less judgmental, bigoted, supremacist, elitist, dogmatic, territorial, ignorant, legalistic, moralistic, ethnocentric, materialistic and closed-minded.

  I feel I am more liberal, compassionate and connected with others regardless of differences.

  I am not troubled if we do not share the same beliefs, nationality, race, social status or sexual orientation.

  The only people I really struggle with, are the very, very small handful I know of who are genuinely and rabidly Pharisaical, evil, toxic, destructive or combative.

  What are your views and experience?
• 

  Island Man

  " I feel I am more liberal, compassionate and connected with others regardless of differences."

  I feel similarly. The Watchtower's exclusivist, 'we have the truth and everyone else is in false religion' brand of religion promotes division, haughtiness and bigotry. It mirrors the religion of the Pharisees. JWs won't admit it but they think of themselves as being better than 'worldly' people. The very term 'worldly' is analogous to the Pharisees perjoratively referring to the common people as am ha arets.
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  Fernando

  @ Island Man. I loved the way you powerfully explained and brought to light this "hidden" fact:

  "The very term 'worldly' is analogous to the Pharisees perjoratively referring to the common people as am ha arets."

  Too true.
• 

  Phizzy

  Doesn't Am Ha'arets mean "son of the soil", if so I am one, a right native sod !

  I feel the same as you Fernando, all those negative RTD's that we had as JW's have simply washed away.

  Now I feel clean. And a much, much better person.

  And, much, much happier, with who I am, and with life !
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  Julia Orwell

  Same as you Fernando, more human. It's a good feeling.
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  Frazzled UBM

  Lack of humanity and intolerance are core WBTS values so it is not surprising that humanity and tolerance reassert themselves after waking up...congratulations to all of you who have made the break
• 

  wasblind

  Fernando

  I knew I caught somethin' bad

  when I had the " Itch " to be free of it
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  Vidiot

  Fernando - "I feel I have become much, much less judgmental, bigoted, supremacist, elitist, dogmatic, territorial, ignorant, legalistic, moralistic, ethnocentric, materialistic and closed-minded. I feel I am more liberal, compassionate and connected with others regardless of differences. I am not troubled if we do not share the same beliefs, nationality, race, social status or sexual orientation."

  Ditto.

  It staggers me when we occasionally run into an XJW here on JWN who is still uptight and conservative (in my observation, they don't stay long).

  For me, fading from the WT was the most liberalizing experience I ever had (although the process arguably started before the fade and ultimately contributed to it).
• 

  Vidiot

  Island Man - "The very term 'worldly' is analogous to the Pharisees perjoratively referring to the common people as am ha arets."

  Damn; I never even thought of that.

  On the nose, though.
• 

  steve2

  This level of acceptance of one's own self and fellow humans without judgement is also very good for emotional and mental health. I think even as a JW I was never comfortable having to constantly keep barriers between me and "worldly" people -it was very isolating and meant often having to come across as aloof and unappreciative of normal, everyday niceties of living. Of course, this became more difficult to do, the more troubled the congregations we belonged to were. It is mad-making to have to spurn pleasant overtures from non-Witnesses but suffer in silence in unhappy local congregations because of the internal judgementalism many Witnesses display to their own "spiritual" brothers and sisters. Talk about wilful blindness to all that one experiences and feels.