While I believe that the ban is an extreme reaction, Russian did take some smart steps. It is good they held public hearings. They also chose their two witnesses very wisely, the woman who was shunned for leaving an abusive husband and the man who was denied an education due to wt policy. Publicizing the proof of wt extremism and making sure the Russian cult members were informed would have been more productive than an outright ban. If I could advise the Russian government I would suggest that they not enforce the ban too harshly and that they should use the proceeds of any real estate sales to aid the victims of wt abuses. The site that is being used for music education would help the fictional Sergei from the 2016 convention who was discouraged from developing his violin talent and the use of the Branch auditorium for science presentations are both wise uses of the former cult assets.
Russia is Smart
by Kohanic 29 Replies latest social current
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OrphanCrow
Diogenesister: Lloyd Evans picked up on that and showed the head of the legal department actually describing what linguistics study entails. He actually said that they will look at a book etc and if the language used is such that someone will be "mind controlled" by the end of it, then that is extremist literature and *that* is how they determined whether an organization is extremist; essentially whether their literature brainwashed people.
Guess what? Yup, Watchtower literature passed the mind controll test with flying colours!!! I couldn't believe it! That he actually told his jw audience this is why Russia shut Watchtower down. That was the reason. He said this type of linguistic study is unknown over here but roll on, bring it on I say if this is the result!I watched the video
I think some things were a bit misrepresented. Rumley (sp?) introduced the Russians' linguistic analysis of the WT texts as "a new tactic" when it isn't. Not really. Not if you consider that Russian linguistic specialists submitted a report to the Moscow court back in 1999 (19 years ago)
There were several more points that the Russian experts considered in addition to whether "someone will be "mind controlled""
I have a translated copy of that 1999 report (hard to read because academic language doesn't seem to translate very well) and I can post it or make it available for anyone who is interested in knowing the gist of what the linguistic analysis entailed at that time
Here is an excerpt from that report:
Analysis of the texts of Jehovah's Witnesses identify them the following common properties. Subjects texts systematically carried out a sustained theme: humanity and every individual threatens the powerful enemy of good - Satan. It intrigues, engages people in sin, leading mankind to the death and torture, in the near future the day will come the final battle - Armageddon.
Mankind will suffer "great tribulation" - famine, pestilence, war, natural disasters, the only salvation for the people - turning to God, namely, the deity of Jehovah, who will destroy Satan and his minions, all the servants of evil, all non-members of the community, "Witnesses" and after the Armageddon survivors waiting happiness in the kingdom of Jehovah, inhabitants of the earth will be subject to equitable heavenly government;
Thus dominated by themes of the destruction of the infidels will of the people and the forces of Jehovah's Witnesses and salvation only those who 'adherence to the "Witnesses" avoid shocks, tortures and deaths. This injection creates the mood of fear, ominous tones which aggravated multiple descriptions of the human disasters in general - past, present and future.
Psychological and ideological consciousness of this motif directs the receiver to close a hypnotic stupor in front of a fatal course of events. At the same time it prepares the mind perceiving the motive to the activities in the mode of catastrophically-war, siege, destsiplinarno-organized resistance and offensive.
Emotionally dominant semantic analysis of texts proposed to form a saturated vocabulary "sad" and "dark" mood. Auto shortchanging with export psycholinguistic computer program "Baal" shows the following. 22 %. "Light" lexicon (God, faith, apostle, soul, humanity, the universe, the confidence, the true value, equity) is in the texts of the Jehovah's Witnesses to 22%. "Sad" and "dark" vocabulary (violence, corruption, destruction, suffering, persecution, dying, slavery, hunger, cold, intrigues, lies, slander) is also up to 22%, which is a critical value, builds the context of all printed materials " witnesses "as depressing, inspiring vision of the world as anti-humane system of things, forcing anxiety, fear, suspicion and bitterness.
Readability of Jehovah's Witnesses as a whole ensures the formation of their audiences: a) a sense of impotence, passively waiting for life-saving instructions, and b) willingness to nervous-inflated identification parade in the world and the people of his notorious enemies with a disposition to aggressive and embittered opposition to them.
II). The foregoing disposition differs significantly from the key embedded in the common Christian category of "fear of God." Standing out against the backdrop of these other religions, the texts of the Jehovah's Witnesses particularly exploit the motive of terror before the coming end. Fanning fear a persistent recurrence of the eschatological views (end of the world, etc.) accompanied by traditional and canonical biblical emphasis. The total abundance in the texts of quotations from authoritative sources (precedent) is giving the publications of Jehovah's Witnesses and the greatest weight at the same time removes the need for additional treatment to the primary sources.. In this regard, the distortion of the original meaning of the quoted is particularly significant. Separation quotes from their context and their significant reduction of distorting disorient the receiver to understand and religious tradition and modern reality.
Thus, life-affirming Psalm 148 appears in the publication of "The Place of the youth in God's order is" equipped "depressive-dark" insert:
We are now living under the oppression of an evil system
, one that will soon turn to dust and ashes,
All the force necessary to deal with it to us. -
Pete Zahut
It's a sad commentary that no one in an audience made up of high level Bible Students and self proclaimed Bible Authorities, knew that Jesus was the second most frequently found name written in the Bible.
I also found it strange that although the speaker admitted that the decrease in the number of JW's in Russia was due to JW's fleeing persecution, there was no mention of how doing so, demonstrated how disloyal to the "brotherhood" and how lacking in faith in Jehovah and his "Mountain" these ones were. Weren't we always told that we needed to be prepared to band together and even die for our brothers during persecution against the organization ? These Russian JW's turned tail and ran, leaving their fellow JW's in the lurch.
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Drearyweather
So are you saying watchtower isn't a mind control cult??
I don't apologize for feeling that way even if Kohanic was kind enough to.Diogenesister, This is a superb example of what happens when you try to read what I have not written.
I have clearly mentioned in my response that the JW religion is harmful. However, criminalizing individual JW's or harming them in any way is not the way to tackle the problem. Did you agree with Hitler when he wanted the JW's banned? Did you agree with the way he implemented it?
We shame the JW's that they believe that all the non-jw's would be killed in Armageddon. However, by supporting the Russian ban and wishing ill on individual adherents, we are proving that we are not different from them.
Target the GB, but don't harm individual believers. Arrest the GB, but help the individual JW's. That's what I was trying to say.
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OrphanCrow
Pete: It's a sad commentary that no one in an audience made up of high level Bible Students and self proclaimed Bible Authorities, knew that Jesus was the second most frequently found name written in the Bible.
I had that reaction as well.
A sad commentary indeed when they claim to be "Christ"ians
Another observation that Cedars made and that I found was an ironic use of language (not sure if "ironic" is the right description)
I found it strange that Rumley was lamenting about the linguistic analysis not conforming to what the WTS/org considers "correct" and making remarks about how their literature wasn't extremist or violent, and yet he started off by using a violent image to talk about the situation. First, it was the image of a poor little ant getting run over by a big train - squished flat and obliterated. Poor little ant so violently killed. And then, he wasn't finished with making sure that his audience had a violent image firmly planted in their minds: this time it was the image of that big Russian train hurtling towards a mountain - "and we all know what happens when the train hits the mountain"
Everyone listening to Rumley's speech will leave with pictures of violence in their brains
And "they" still don't get it. Or maybe they do and they are just being assholes
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sparrowdown
That excerpt is really interesting OC. Thanks.
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OrphanCrow
Pete: These Russian JW's turned tail and ran, leaving their fellow JW's in the lurch.
The ones who left were the ones with the money to do so
And they went to warm places. From listening to the chatter on the eu forum, some of them are suntanning on a nice beach somewhere. Never mind the ones who are dreamin' California style
*you're welcome Sparrow
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OrphanCrow
Here is another excerpt from the Russian report:
Psycholinguistic analysis showed that in the texts Witnesses Iegogy "implemented targeted contextually-related changes in the semantic structure of words. Thus, by a shift in the concept of "society", aimed at narrowing the world picture and links to them only within and through the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. The concept of "family" is superseded in favor of the concept of "community" within the meaning of "members of our organization." The concept of "happiness" is changed to the concept of "service" (goals of our organization).. All this creates a special language with a particular emotional-semantic content, aspiring to the psychological impact on the consciousness of the perceiver, to change his language and non-linguistic world image, the inspiration needed to humble submission discipline narrow community and its hierarchy.
*note: Iegogy, I believe, is "Jehovah" (bad google translate)
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sparrowdown
I found his mixing of metaphors idiotic to say the least.
Look! Is it a train, is it an ant? No it's a mountain!
Neither did it add up logically. If the Russian Government really did view JWborg and it's literature as small and insigificant as an ant I doubt they would have bothered with them. Also the thing about the planting of JW's own literature in their KH was laughable. Like saying the cops planted the stolen goods that I stole at my house - the bastards!
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Drearyweather
The only thing that I can see in this entire Russia vs JW scene:
Russia being Russia. JW's being JWs.