Witnesses NOT a Cult.

by integ 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  integ

  It has been mentioned on this board many times that the Jehovahs' Witnesses are a cult.

  This connotation may not ring true with Witnesses. I have mentioned to certain ones that

  the Witnesses fit the "definition" of a cult. He are the "defenses":

  1) A cult is most often recognized by the fact it worship's a single person.

  2) Unlike a cult ( ala Jim Jones) There are NO armed guards at the kingdom halls or assemblies to keep people IN. In fact you have to be really good to even be ALLOWED TO STAY.

  COMMENTS: It doesn't make any difference what you CALL the witnesses:...cult, sect, etc.

  most will deny they are a cult, because of what their PERCEPTION of what a cult is. While it

  is true that the Witnesses will not physically restrain you, like other cults, if you try to leave,

  the disfellowshipping "arrangement" ensures that they can take a nice parting shot at you

  while you're walking out the door. Jim Jones style cult? NO....Cult according to Miriam

  Webster? Yes.

  Any Thoughts ?

  Integ.
• 

  rocketman

  I guess a lot of folks perfer to call them a High Control Group
• 

  Yizuman

  The differences between Jim Jones and the WTS is dead bodies.

  Here you have over 900 bodies all bunched up together in one spot whereas the dead bodies from the WTS are all spread out all over the country.

  Only difference is the media pays attention to the number of bodies bunched together in one place versus the bodies being spread out that leaves very little media attention.

  In fact, I have come to discover that my Aunt's son may have been a victim of the Jones cult. Robert Townsend ran away from home in Florida many years ago and was never heard or seen again since. A list of the victims isn't all complete and still isn't, so I am frustrated that there's a lack of information as to who all died there at Jonestown.

  Also it's possible that he had his name changed, leaving what may be very little paper trail to follow. *shrug!*

  If anyone can help, it would be much appreciated.

  Yiz
• 

  Joyzabel

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/42473/1.ashx
• 

  Buster

  I think it would be interesting to get responses from cult members. Admittedly, the Jim Jones folks may be tough to interview. Sure, most outsiders would identify a cult by their adherance to an individual or small group. I suspect that each would see themselves differently from how we see them and think they are not in a cult.

  But I'ld bet that the Jim Jones folks felt that Jimmy boy was simply passing along God's inspirations. They would say that they are following the word of God, as revealed through his Faithful and Discreet Slave. You know the rest.
• 

  AlanF

  A cult by any other name is still a cult. JWs are indeed a "high control group". They are also a cult.

  The JWs dislike being called by any name with negative connotations, so they often make up their own definitions and publish them in their literature so as to fool the JW community. A classic case is when they redefined "Christendom" in the early 1950s and then claimed that they're not part of it. Another instance is where an early 1980s Watchtower article tried to argue that JWs are not even a "sect".

  As for the "defenses" given by JWs, they come straight from bad arguments given by the Society:

  : 1) A cult is most often recognized by the fact it worship's a single person.

  A strawman defense. While some cults worship a single person, other cults give undue credence to an ideal or to a group. JWs do both, by putting the Watchtower Society and the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses in the place of God for all practical purposes, and by setting the ideals of these bodies above those of the Bible.

  : 2) Unlike a cult ( ala Jim Jones) There are NO armed guards at the kingdom halls or assemblies to keep people IN. In fact you have to be really good to even be ALLOWED TO STAY.

  Rarely do any cults resort to armed guards to keep people in a building, so this point is stupid. But this is another strawman defense, because the point is not about using physical force to keep people inside a fenced area, but about using psychological tactics to keep people inside mental and emotional fences. Deception certainly does that; so does the threat of shunning, whether that be by formal or informal means.

  The very way in which these JW defenders fail to reason on this, and blindly accept nonsensical WTS defenses, proves they're part of a cult.

  AlanF
• 

  Dogpatch

  There are several good files that help to identify the Witnesses as a destructive cult:

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/beel.htm

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/mindcont.htm

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/lifton.htm

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/propfail.htm

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/phobias.htm

  Recommended reading on cult issues also:

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/recommended.htm

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/fatherimages.htm

  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/club.htm

  Of course, I am not qualified by some, as I have had my OWN CULT in the past:

  http://www.freeminds.org/video/culthumor.html

  Seriously, though, I have worked as an exit-counselor with Witnesses as well as the International Churches of Christ members, and the tactics are the same. In summary:

  1. Religions are simply extended families, with new "parents" and peers. They can be healthy parents or abusive parents, whether it is one leader or several.

  2. If the parental figures are abusive and controliing in the name of God, it is a cult. There are other definitions for the word cult, and I usually prefer "high control group," but the word is commonly used in society to mean exactly what the above files describe. Control is the key.

  I don't say this just because I am an ex-JW. I am also a former pastor who travelled a lot and have had a lot of experience with high-contol pastors and other odd groups. There is always a big ego in charge somewhere, who is unethical when it comes to maintaining their fan base.

  http://www.freeminds.org/mystory.htm

  Randy Watters

  Net Soup!

  http://www.freeminds.org
• 

  Francois

  Yes. I've got a LOT of thoughts, but I've gotta go for right now. I have just enough time to say that the JW who came up with those remarks is as lame as any other JW I've ever spoken with. In fact, a stroll through the sea of that JWs intellect wouldn't get the soles of my feet damp.

  Soon's I can get back to it, I will jump in the middle of this inanity.

  (Someone else will probably have beat me to it already, however)
• 

  Ravyn

  hey Yiz!

  you want dead bodies?

  http://www.ajwrb.org/victims/index.shtml

  I submitted three myself.

  Ravyn
• 

  gumby

  hey Yiz!

  you want dead bodies?

  Let us not also forget about the Malawi attrocities as far as deaths go.

  A religion or cult being resposible for deaths is bad yes. How about all the lonliness, broken marriages, and broken hearts this organisation has caused because of it's cultish ways. How about all the suicides because of these things?

  Gumby