Nearly everyone that posts here says mostly negative things about the Witnesses. A few will speak of certain JW's that were helpful to them while they were going through difficulties. In the situation that you find yourself in now, do you feel that you hate JW's? Do you feel bad for them, mostly? Are you angry with them? Do they not really mean much to you anymore?
How Do You Feel About Jehovah's Witnesses???
by minimus 30 Replies latest jw friends
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Matty
I love Jehovah's Witnesses no more or less than anyone else of the human race, the only thing I hate is the organization that ruins their lives.
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Nathan Natas
Tastes great, less filling.
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Robdar
JW's do have meaning for me since certain family members are still involved. I love my family and feel that it is not up to me to tell them what church to attend or how to worship God. Even though I do not understand their attraction to the WTS, If it makes them happy, they are entitled to their beliefs no matter how silly I find those beliefs to be.
I am not sad or angry that I grew up a JW. It made me strong and gave me public speaking skills. I still use those skills. Heck, I have made my living using the lessons that I was taught in the ministry school.
Robyn
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zev
with the exception of a "few" of them, i mostly had few problems with the jw's as a "whole".
there were exceptions. of those exceptions, those "few" had no doubt where they stood with me.
i had no trouble thrashing them verbally in the middle of a meeting or afterwards, i held back little where it concerned myself or
family, or even the few instances of wrong that i saw, these were instances that the "wordly authorities" themselves would balk at the "theocratic warefare" approach taken by the "men" in control and authority, the do as i say, not as i do attitude. i have no tollerance for that one bit.
i feel bad for them now, and i look for the chance to "save" even one of them if they try to come to my door now. though they have been around twice that i know of in the last year, upstairs visiting Gwen's parents, they don't know that a couple 'postates live just one level down, just waiting for a "return visit" .
there are a few i would still like to have it out with on a personal level.
of those men that run that "snare and racket" business i have no feelings at all for them. i feel they know exactly what they are doing, and deserve what they will get for doing so. though, not by my hand.
may the flea's of a 1000 camels infest their armpits.
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caligirl
I tend to beleive that everyone has the right to make a choice in how they live their life, including being witnesses. What bothers me is that the decision to become/remain a witness is not an informed decision based on thorough research because of the mind control factor. It is based on blind obedience to the dictates of men. However, my belief that everyone has the right to decide does not stop me from hoping that my parents choose to leave it!
Any anger I may have is directed towards the sick mentalities that have created the mind control program in the first place, not the individual people who are involved. I feel sorry for the individuals/families who are sucked into it. I do beleive that many who become witnesses have a sincere desire to worship god. Unfortunately, that very valid desire is abused and becomes the twisted worship of an organization, and most of them never realize it.
I don't hold any anger towards my parents for raising me the way that they did. They were only trying to do what they thought was best. But then again, they do not shun their children either. I might feel differently if my family had been destroyed by the dictates as so many have. I am just grateeful that my parents have enough of an independent mind not to follow that twisted advice. I am grateful for that because if they were not the people that they are, all of their children might not have inherited that independent mind. Fortunately, we did and we all used it to say "No thanks!" to continuing on that path.
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Hamas
Another fine question minimus.
I do not hate JW's, I hate their religion. It would be foolish to hold something against somebody that knows nothing about the real truth.
The Witness mentality is what I hate, but it is just something that their 'spiritual superiors' have introduced into their belief system without them knowing it. I hate the Watchtower , not Jehovah's Witnesses.
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minimus
Phew, Hamas, I thought you were gonna say you were gonna blow 'em up or something......... Caligirl, That was a good post!......You know, everytime I see your name, I think it says callgirl. I too, am not angry because my mother first became a JW. She made decisions based upon what she thought was "truth"......Oh well!
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neverthere
I don't hate the people, just their religion. If they keep off the religion track then they are fine, but I was brought up to think of them as a cult, to avoid going to KH etc.
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Francois
Jehovah's Witnesses, as an organization, I believe with all my heart are a dangerous, divisive religious cult. It poses a real, clear and present danger to an individual's soverignty of personality, to their mental and emotional health, and to their basic human rights and dignity.
JWs as an organization poses a like danger for families, including extended families. It threatens family unity, stability, and longevity. It is undeniable that this organization is the root cause of thousands of cases of marital discord and dissolution, causing no end of misery, lonliness, and dissappointment for the children and adults both of these dissolved marriages.
This organization is responsible directly or indirectly for the fact that, upon formal, scholarly evalutation, its membership discloses dysfunctional behavior statistically significantly higher than the general population. There are excessive cases of alcoholism, child sex, emotional, and physical abuse, spousal abuse of every kind, petty criminality, felonious criminality, drug abuse, dysfunctional mental and emotional makeup, and suicides. It perpetuates a Bronze Age regard by men of women, up to an including a man's wife - which the organization insists be regarded as little more that chattel. (Abraham was Sara's "husbandly owner")
Unfortunately, I am personally unable to indict the organization and let the individual Jehovah's Witness escape their responsibility for the above outlined sad scenario.
Individual Jehovah's Witnesses are the agents of the organization, recruiting agents. And whether these agents act to bring neophytes into the organization via the preaching work, or if they merely force their children's allegiance, it is by and through the efforts of the individual JW that new recruits are brought into the organization.
And when a new recruit is brought to the places of meeting, individual JWs band together in many, many deliberate and orchestrated sessions of pre- and post-meeting "love bombing" sessions - an undeniable common cult characteristic.
Organizations are made up of many individuals acting in concert. Take away the individuals and there is no organization. This is no less true of Jehovah's Witnesses than it is a colony of termites. Individual JWs acting on what they have been force-fed by the JW hierarchy via endless meetings and speeches and magazines and books, compose the organization, along with all other members no matter where in the hierarchy.
Individuals are the trained agents of the organization and bear the same responsibility for its social, ethical, legal, and moral foulness. Individuals are each one responsible for the unforgiveable withholding of social intercourse, welcome, and Love for those unfortunate enough to have run afoul of some JW legalistic minutia and who are disfellowshipped and subsequently shunned by one and all.
It's my personal opinion that the entire organization of Jehovah's Witnesses from bottom to top constitutes a societal freak, a socially criminal enterprise, a rotten apple in the barrel of each and every community - a stench upon the land where ever they practice their foul cult.
francois