Your questions reveal your ignorance on the subject. Ignorance is a curable condition however so there is hope for you to gain an understanding!
This is merely a meeting of people with a common expierence with the JW faith. Usually of abuse in thier lives, sanctioned if not orchestraited by the Church. Where there is abuse, there is a healing process, a time of questioning. "Is it my fault?""Should I feel guilty?" There is sorrow, regrets. There is the "what if" stage. There is denial.There is the rage and hate stage, much venting. And hopfully there is recovery. All the same symptoms of abuse survivors.
I did not have a choice to become a JW, it was programmed into my mind from my childhood, along with some very real and graphic fears of my horrible death if I was to ever leave this Organization. I was systematically traumatized from childhood to believe that my life was not my own, to choose anything freely was never an option! The Organization places itself cleverly into the position of my God on earth, never to be questioned, always to be feared. For God sake you figure out the rest on your own. This is Spiritual abuse from childhood and on up. My parents love for me was very conditional, think about that for a minute. If I strayed from the "Truth" the love was cutoff even from my own parents, untill which time I would submitt to the Organization once again to become acceptable to be loved. Guess what I have spent the rest of my life trying to find in a female partner.....unconditional love....that I should have gotten from my parents. Now I grant you, many of these things happen to other non-JW's but the one difference here is this, it was orchestrated by the Org. I have these same issues in common with most all these other EX-JW's because they all got the same treatment that I did.
This Organization pretending to be a Church, is in fact a very controlling, mind control cult. It's penalties of DFing people have caused many children and young people to committ suicide. The mental health of both JW's and EX-JW's is many times worse then other religions, I believe you may be able to find actual numbers on this. The suicide rate is far higher also. Now you can't possible tell me that it's all just in my disgrunteled head, I have seen too much abuse right up close and personal. The inside "behind closed doors" judicial system used to punish members gives the circle of elders complete annonomous control over all members, with absolutly no accountability for thier rullings. All proceedings all offenses and all proof of guilt is kept hidden. You can be DFed for any reason that any 3 elders agree on, they do not have to grant you an appeal and usually do not.
The penalty for leaving the Church is Spiritual death, emotional death, and the death of any support you can ever expect to get from your family still in the Org. Because this does not end after you leave the Church, it goes on and on and on this shunning never ends. Many of us live with it the rest of our lives. Fathers that will not talk to thier own sons when they are in trouble are turned away with statements like "you will get what you deserve, I told you so". This is not the love of a father for a child. You can say that this happens in all religions and to an extent you would be correct, but in this religion it ALLWAYS happens, and this is the difference. The families do not have a choice. It is being imposed on everyone to protect the cult from exposure for all it's decietfull teachings. The prophecies and teachings of the JW faith have been so absolutely ridiculous over the last 100 years, that no one in thier right mind would consider getting involved with the group if they would simply read the history of what has been taught, and then changed and hidden.
It should be easy even for you an outsider to see from this that many who do research the history begin to realize that the leaders of this Church are not so sincere as they would have you believe that they are. Even in the elders manual, a reference the elders use to judge and guide the flock, thier is practices that contridict the basic doctrine. Any elder who has trained using this manual should be able to recognise that it contridicts the basic doctrine taught to the flock!
How can I not hold the leaders of this church responsible for the damage thier false teachings have caused? Especially when such teachings are so obviously in error, and are frequently changed. The "no blood transfusions issue" alone has claimed the death of untold numbers of people.
I would have to say sir you have not done your homework if you cannot understand what is truly happening here. If you do some research of the JW leaders and doctrines, you will no longer be able to give them the benifite of the doubt. They have created a Religion that combines old testament law, fear of God, and Judgment, with a conditional Love of Jesus Christ. They are not Christian, by anyones definition except thier own. To survive they must earn thier way by thier own works, this is totally unchristian doctrine. However it explaines why they will cut off close family members totally for exiting the Church.
Edited by - libra_spirit on 6 August 2002 6:2:27
