Very good thread that raises a number of moral/ethical dilemmas.
My thoughtful but humble responses in red font:
If there was a pill you could give to your JW family members that would awaken their eyes to the truth about the cult, would you give it to them?
Most would probably say yes. I would say Yes, I agree that YES is the best long-term answer for the benefit of the majority, but in the minority case, the answer is NO for some individuals particular needs. The reason is this organisation has very harmful, death-dealing policies and creeds (blood transfusion policy is WICKED, very flawed child abuse policy, and heinous shunning policy) which in the main it is more important to wake JW's up to and undermine the Watchtower's wicked leadership for the long-term benefit of it's own membership, whether they realise it or not.
But what about those who are completely institutionalized, the elderly, the super zealous, the geeky kids who have no friends, the misfits? As above, i must answer YES, for the benefit of the majority of JWs for the long-term. The short-term suffering of a few elderly or misfit JW's is not as important as the greater, long-term moral good gained from snapping JW's and the Watchtower Society out of it's moral and ethical BLINDNESS in disgustingly believing that 'Jehovah' essentially approves of child-sacrifice for fanatical adherence to erroneous interpretations of ancient scriptural passages on blood and a strict and totally unrealistic requirement for 'two witnesses' to child rape before ousting a paedophile from the congregation, for example. Our moral duty as Christians is to mitigate the worst forms of suffering as much as possible and build up from there. The Watchtower Society is BLOODGUILTY for the deaths of babies, children and adults because of blindly fanatical and legalistic, and erroneous immoral interpretations of ancient and entirely debateable scriptures.
Some people need "boundaries", they need someone to lead and give them directions, they need a sense of belonging, even in an organization that has no social programs. Some are hooked on the idea that they are Jehovah's name people and there is nowhere else to go. Others could not function without the "brotherhood" and have limited or no social skills to survive outside the organization. Too bad. It doesn't matter. These people just need to be educated to trust in their own conscience to guide them in life, not self-appointed religious authoritarianism. After realising that the organisation is fraudulent and erroneous in many respects, they will find the courage and liberty to branch out and find new friends amongst normal human society and local community. After all, JW's say that ultimately it is one's own 'Bible-based conscience' that is what we should guide us, right?
Sometimes, the wolf is not necessary - the sheep are happy to build their own pen. A very false and dangerous spoof generalisation to say that.
Freedom comes with a price and not all can handle it.
