Manipulate through guilt

by Norm 13 Replies latest jw friends

Norm

One of the most important techniques in manipulating people is to get control of their guilt.
All totalistic movements, religious or political use this method. Few organizations are better then the Watchtower Society in mastering this. The religious cults have the advantage over the political that they can use the ultimate authority, namely “God”.
A typical example of such manipulation can be found in the January 15, 1997 issue of the Watchtower. For the umpteenth time it is the old song and dance about what “God” is requiring from us:
*** w97 1/15 18 What Does God Require of Us? ***
“MY RELIGION is good enough for me!” Is that not what people often say? Actually, though, the question should be, “Is my religion pleasing to God?” Yes, God has requirements for those who want to worship him acceptably.
All of us here on jw.com know that many Jehovah's Witnesses apologist’s subscribe fully to the, “MY RELIGION is good enough for me!” idea. And they do indeed take it much further by saying: “My religion are much better than yours!” But back to the requirements, the Watchtower goes on to tell us what they are:
*** w97 1/15 18-19 What Does God Require of Us? ***
3 How can we find out what God’s requirements are? Jehovah inspired wise King Solomon to sum up what He expects of us. After reflecting on all that he had pursued—including wealth, building projects, musical interests, and romantic love—Solomon came to this realization: “The conclusion of the matter, everything having been heard, is: Fear the true God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole obligation of man.”—Ecclesiastes 12:13.
After quoting Solomon, a guy who make Bill Clinton look like a chaste monk, we are left with the conclusion that apart from fearing God, all we basically need to do is to “keep his commandments” whatever they are. Solomon certainly knew extremely well how to disregard every one of them. Without dwelling too much about the fact that Solomon most likely referred to the Mosaic Law, the Watchtower quickly take a huge leap and state the following:
*** w97 1/15 19 What Does God Require of Us? ***
4 “Keep his commandments.” Basically, that is what God expects of us. Is that too much for him to ask? Not at all. The apostle John tells us something very reassuring about God’s commandments, or requirements. He wrote: “This is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments; and yet his commandments are not burdensome.”—1 John 5:3.
As we can see the Watchtower hurries to the conclusion that this is a very modest requirement from God. Say’s who? The example of Solomon is very telling, because he had great problems living up to this “simple” requirement. In fact neither Solomon nor David, his father, would have lasted 5 minutes in any KH or any fundy church. With their behavior they would have been DF’d before they could say theocracy.
Well, now the Watchtower has established the premise for further manipulation. To show love for “God” one must OBEY! And now they must go on to define “God’s” requirements:
*** w97 1/15 19 What Does God Require of Us? ***
6 To show our love for God, we need to know specifically what he expects of us. Let us now discuss five of God’s requirements. As we do so, keep in mind what John wrote: ‘God’s commandments are not burdensome.’
Ah ha, “God” has indeed at least 5 requirements. Let’s see what they are:
*** w97 1/15 19 What Does God Require of Us? ***
7 The first requirement is taking in knowledge of God.
Then follows some really amusing reasoning:
*** w97 1/15 19 What Does God Require of Us? ***
9 How do we take in knowledge of God? There are two books that can help us. One is the book of creation. The things Jehovah has created—both animate and inanimate—give us some insight into the kind of person he is.
But of course nature has proved to be a very unreliable source as to the existence of a “God” so it is best to move in for a more easily manipulated authority:
*** w97 1/15 20 What Does God Require of Us? ***
10 There is, however, a limit to what we can learn about Jehovah from the book of creation. To illustrate: What is God’s name? Why did he create the earth and put mankind on it? Why does God permit wickedness? What does the future hold for us? For answers to such questions, we must go to the other book that imparts knowledge of God—the Bible. In its pages, Jehovah reveals things about himself, including his name, his personality, and his purposes—information that we cannot obtain from any other source.— Exodus 34:6, 7; Psalm 83:18; Amos 3:7.
Reading this is really amusing. The Bible doesn’t really tell us what God’s name is. It doesn’t give us any clue whatsoever to why “God” permit wickedness. It tells us absolutely nothing about the future apart from some insane and utterly failed predictions of some “end”. As a source of knowledge about God, it gives us a picture of a sick, perverted, homicidal maniac god, with a horribly short temper, who enjoys ethnic cleansing, homicide, rape, murdering and pillaging. These qualities are the very ones, which seem to make him so attractive to Jehovah's Witnesses and other fundies. These were things he “required” from his “chosen” people the Israelites. At least we must be grateful that somehow God doesn’t “require” such deeds from his current “chosen ones”.
Not surprisingly the main source for this “knowledge” is the Bible. But that doesn’t help you at all really. No matter how much you read the Bible you won’t have a clue as to what this “knowledge” really is. You won’t understand a thing:
“The Path of the Righteous Does Keep Getting Brighter
But Jehovah God has also provided his visible organization, his “faithful and discreet slave,” made up of spirit-anointed ones, to help Christians in all nations to understand and apply properly the Bible in their lives. Unless we are in touch with this channel of communication that God is using, we will not progress along the road to life, no matter how much Bible reading we do.”
The Watchtower December 1. 1981, page. 27.

“Praise Jehovah with His People
4 Consider, too, the fact that Jehovah’s organization alone, in all the earth, is directed by God’s holy spirit or active force. (Zech. 4:6) Only this organization functions for Jehovah’s purpose and to his praise. To it alone God’s Sacred Word, the Bible, is not a sealed book. Many persons of the world are very intelligent, capable of understanding complex matters. They can read the Holy Scriptures, but they cannot understand their deep meaning.” The Watchtower. July 1. 1973, page 402.
Of course every Jehovah's Witness know this. They “know” that they can’t find any “knowledge” outside the Watchtower organization. So what does this give the people who control the Watchtower organization? Almost absolute power as to what “knowledge” the average Jehovah's Witness gets. So then we have the situation that all of mankind have to turn to the Watchtower Society in order to find out what God want with us all.
Although the Watchtower Society is quite aggressive in their proselytizing and is present in many countries, they are probably one of the least effective tools to spread information about God, if that is what he wanted, but still Jehovah's Witnesses claim to be his only “representatives” on earth today. All this in spite of a staggering amount of evidence to the contrary.
Still the most important quality anyone who want to “approach God” has to possess is extreme gullibility. Fortunately for those who are in the business of selling superstition and fairytales this kind of people seem to available in staggering numbers.
Anyway, the real masterpiece by the Watchtower Society is the fact they that they have had a tremendous success with hammering into the R&F Jehovah's Witness that the only sure fire way to achieve the favour of God, is to push Watchtower literature. This is the single most important act a “true Christian” can perform and supersede everything else in the Watchtower Society organization. One wonders in vain how the distribution of the third rate sheer drivel and bilge which make up the Watchtower literature can in any way make the Watchtower Society “pleasing” to God? If God exist his most likely reaction would be great embarrassment for having been connected with such a hopeless organization.
Norm.
TheApostleAK

"Anyway, the real masterpiece by the Watchtower Society is the fact they that they have had a tremendous success with hammering into the R&F Jehovah's Witness that the only sure fire way to achieve the favour of God, is to push Watchtower literature. This is the single most important act a “true Christian” can perform and supersede everything else in the Watchtower Society organization."
Oh please! What happens if I only use the bible in my field ministry?
slipnslidemaster

the only sure fire way to achieve the favour of God, is to push Watchtower literature

Remember, they are just a Publishing House with a free sales force.
Anyway, Norm keep posting this stuff. I find your comments fascinating!
Thank you.
. o O (slipnslidemaster)
openminded

Asch, S. E., Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgements. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, Leadership, and Men, 1951.
This is a summary of the famous Asch experiment where subjects were placed with a group of confederates who gave different measurements of a line than was reality. Asch measured whether the subject would modify their interpretation based on the majority opinion.
The test objective was to study "the social and personal conditions that induce individuals to resit or to yield to group pressures when the latter are perceived to be contrary to fact.
A group of eight individuals (one subject and seven confederates) sat in a room and verbally stated which of three unequal lines matched a given line. The subject was seated so that he made his verbal judgement last. In most cases the confederates and subject agreed, but in certain cases the confederates all agreed on a wrong answer.
The "majority effect" was measured as the % of responses that erroneously conformed to the majority. They also tried to ascertain whether the subject was aware of the majority effect on him and why they acceded to group opinion. They also watched the reaction of the subject when the experiment was revealed. All subjects and confederates were male college students.
Initial Results
About one third of the responses conformed to the erroneous majority (compared to almost no errors in the control group). Some subjects always defied the group, some always went along with them. 25% were completely independent, 33% were more than half with the erroneous majority. Some were completely confident throughout, some were disoriented and confused.
The independent subjects were categorized as 1) confident in their differences 2)withdrawn and 3)considerable tension and doubt, but adhere to their views
The yielding subjects could be categorized as 1)distorted perception who believed the majority estimates as correct 2)distortionof judgement -- they believe their own perceptions are inaccurate (they have primary doubt and lack of confidence). 3)Distortion of action -- they believe the group is wrong but conform to avoid being different.
Experimental Variations
The effect of "ununanimous" majorities
In one variation, they added one more subject at position 4. This reduced the % of errors from 32% to 10%. In another variation, having one confederate give right answers throughout reduced it to 5.5%.
This shows that even a minimal amount of dissenting support is enough to give people confidence in their opinions against the majority. The researchers found that even a unanimous majority of only three is better than 8 with one dissenter.
The effect of withdrawal of a "true partner"
Surprisingly, if a confederate who was answering correctly "defects" back to the majority halfway through, the % of with-the-majority responses returns from 5.5 to 28.5%.
The effect of late arrival of a "true partner".
If a confederate answering with the majority changes to answering truly, the rate of majority response drops down to 8.5%.
The effect of a "compromise partner" (who answered with majority sometimes, correctly sometimes).
This reduced the rate of majority response but not significantly.
The effect of majority size.
They varied the number of confederates from 1,2,3,4,8, and 10-15 persons. There was no majority effect with only one other person. There was a small change with two people, and nearly the full amount with three confederates. There was little change above three confederates.
Interestingly, in one condition they put 16 naive persons in a room and had two confedrates give wrong answers. The group responded with amusement at their errors.
They also found that the degree of independence increases with the deviation of the majority from the truth. However, even big differenes didn't create complete independence. They also concur with other researchers that the effect of majority opinion increases with decreased clarity in a situation.
MacHislopp

Hello everybody,
I'm back after a "busy spell"!
I'm also catching up with the latest posts, ...so many and MOST
of them very interesting. Once I'll finish browsing ...
I'll start again posting.
Btw NORM , I do find this post about "manipulation" very,
very interesting. I'll prepare something on this ..and I'll
be back.
Agape to you all, J.C.MacHislopp
P.S. some new names but also some from ...H2O!!!
Camay

I dont understand how anyone can believe in the JW dotrine. I wonder
if its mainly for weak people.
Flip

[quote]I dont understand how anyone can believe in the JW dotrine. I wonder if its mainly for weak people.[quote]
It’s more likely persons are either “forced” i.e. familial obligations or misled into “buying” into JW doctrine through selective informational conditioning. However, if a truly informed Jehovah's Witness acts like you should “believe” as they do…they’re not weak, just disingenuous.
Flip
larc

openminded,
You are apparently fascinated with Social Psych. Another author you might appreciate is Irving Janis. His discussion of Groupthink and its symptoms is very interesting. His research was with secular groups. When you apply the symptoms to religious groups like the WT - GB or a group of local elders, the Groupthink phenomena is even more pronounced and dangerous.
I have a discription of how it affects the Witnesses which I wrote. If I can find it easily, I will post it soon.
JAVA

larc,
You're starting early in the morning--must be the coffee!
Norm,
How many of these topics do you have filed away? They're all great; I don't know which one I like most. Have you thought about putting them all together into a booklet or book? That's a serious question.
--JAVA
...counting time at the Coffee Shop
Norm

Hi Java,
You said:
How many of these topics do you have filed away? They're all great; I don't know which one I like most. Have you thought about putting them all together into a booklet or book? That's a serious question.
No, I haven't considered doing anything like that. Maybe it is time to do something about it. I have a lot of finished and half finished material on my hard drive. Some of it was written 7-8 years ago but is still valid.
Norm.

Manipulate through guilt

--JAVA

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