by sparrowdown 6 Replies latest jw friends
Are JWs victims or volunteers?
Voluntary victims perhaps?
I always assured householders who were concerned that I was being "forced"
to go"doorknocking"by the evil WT that everything I did was voluntary.
I was horrified if ever a householder viewed me as some sort of victim.
What is a victim in the context of JWs?
The average jw is a victim of mind-control and subtle brainwashing. Ask ANY JW a question and their response will be an unthinking, prefabricated phrase straight from the pages of a Watchtower magazine or from an Elder, CO, or GB member. This is true no matter what part of the world you are in. The answers are ALWAYS the same! No original 'un-filtered' thinking allowed. Any question asked in a Watchtower will be answered word for word with what is printed in the paragraph. But, the only TRUE victims are the young children brainwashed at an innocent age. As for adult JWs, I see them as WILLING victims. Most choose to stay under cult mind-control and never question anything.
" As for adult JWs, I see them as WILLING victims. Most choose to stay under cult mind-control and never question anything." Too true Navytown.
And for that reason I am ceasing to feel like I shall show the respect for the JW's as individuals that I used to.
I used to be of the mind that I would show utter contempt for the beliefs, silly as they are, but would show respect for the individual holding them. The latter point often meant in the past that I have kept quiet when I should have spoken, so as not to hurt the individual. So I could not truly do both, condemn the beliefs and yet respect the believer.
I am minded now not to even try do that. Why ? because I can no longer respect people who, as you say, choose to stay under mind control. And choose they do, as each new teaching/doctrine change comes about, even the non-thinking drones do in fact have to evaluate it at some level, which may be as low as simply saying to themselves "I don't really understand it, but the GB says it, so it must be right".
Such people have no personal integrity, no personal conscience, they do not truly believe in anything, a belief truly held has to be wrenched from you, not changed by a sentence or two in a Magazine.
Hence I can no longer offer them full respect.
Well its a velvet gun to the head sort of subtle coercion, a sly guilt trip guised as "loving ones neighbor" when JWs actually feel they are saving their OWN behind.
And those kinds of say one thing, when it means something else in reality, is all over the JW complex of delusion. Everything we as JWs may have claimed, actually had an ulterior reality, even "undeserved kindness" is "deserved kindness". GB idolatry is "respect for those taking the lead", org idolatry is "a modern ministry much like the 1st century Christians", the UN is the "scarlet wildbeast" and ok to be a UN NGO co-promoting streetwalker for in spite of the fact.
In any event there is now much "plausible deniability" and duality in the JW ministry where the victim is the "blessed". Where obedience to men is obedience to God, where bad is good, dark is light.
But I feel JWs are really victims volunteering as you say, because the real nucleus of corruption all stems from the GB coup of 1976, that solidified all the modern apostate trends right in Bethel's modern neo-papal leadership. It is so blatant as to be hidden in plain sight, and mystified with what is just vain optimism and presumption, when in reality, according to its own Bible rule book, the place would be an apostate UN worshiping idolatry worthy of a divine pyre and Almighty permitted and required global conflagration of the entire JW organizational abomination regardless of the "smooth words" (Dan11:32a) of Bethel, it would be in reality the same spiritual doomsday Israel, as the main pattern, walked into on many occasions.
Its really the same thing, only a different date.
In reality Bethel are the ones "teaching a different sort of good news" that one would shun if they saw any of the GB apostates on the street. Its surreal in its own strange way, but it is what it is: uncanny.
You are a victim until you are 18.
After that your a willing accomplice in everything the organization stands for. At the end of the day, the Watchtower cannot make you do or brainwash you into thinking a certain way. YOU alone are responsible for that. Its tough to hear and why I have great shame for things I did and things I said when I was in.
I was a victim for 18 years and a willing accomplice for 12. I have few regrets in my life but they were caused be me and my unwillingness to give up "friends" for what I knew to be true.
Life is much easier and clearer now that I am neither.
pbrow
Many JWs are "depressed" under those fake smiles, but don't attribute that depression to the stress of living
in the mental straightjacket of WT dogma.
I am amazed how much better I feel now I choose not to be a victim of "brainwashing".
A bit of both. I was lied to and deceived by this organization, plus they knowingly used mind control to keep me in darkness, but I believe I should have woken up sooner.
