How Cultish are the JW's?

by xjwsrock 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Island Man

  I would give them a 7
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  jwfacts

  I'd give 8 as an average. But it varies by individual and country. Some people skirt the edges. Some Hispanic countries are more friendly and less strict on shunning.

  Being it Bethel pushes it to a 9. Living in Warwick will be even worse than Brooklyn, where the members get little exposure to real people.
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  possum

  Except for North Korea............and ISIS................A cult is a cult is a cult. Witnesses may not drink koolaid but they will die and allow their children to die rather than have a blood transfusion. They control access to information re: education, books, music. They victimize the victims who are raped by fellow members. They exercise undue influence and control on even the most intimate aspects of members lives. Where else can uneducated misogynistic men who mostly have no formal qualifications exercise such power only on the basis of being 'spirit appointed'. And they victimise those who seek to leave.......a cult is a cult is a cult...........

  JW CULT is..........

  a perversion of the gospel, based upon an unholy devotion to a person, a principle, or both.
  
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  Ruby456

  7
• 

  OrphanCrow

  xjwsrock: OrphanCrow I haven't thought of the org like that, but you're right. They really are a subtle version of the suicide cults. That's a sobering thought.

  Yes, it is.

  I have not given a score yet for "degree of cultiness" of the JWs, but after some thought I am going to give them a solid 10.

  They hit all the points of "what is a cult?" to some degree or another, but what puts it over to the far end of the scale for me is the blood refusal/suicide requirement that has been, and continues to be, demanded of WTS followers.

  The cults most easily thought of as "extreme" are the suicide cults and there is no doubt that the JWs are a suicide cult. And a cult of child sacrifice.

  It is difficult to establish the magnitude of the number of "suicides" and "child sacrifices" that have been "willingly" entered into on the part of thought reformed JWs, but the following quote gives an estimate:

  http://www.anzca.edu.au/resources/college-publications/pdfs/ANZCA%20Blue%20Book%202011%20P6.pdf
  

  It is estimated that approximately 1000 Jehovah’s Witnesses die annually worldwide and as many as 100,000 may have died by abstaining from blood transfusions since the blood ban was introduced in 1945.

  So, to put that into the context of "degree of extremity" and compare those numbers to the suicide cults that we readily label as a "10" on the 'cult index', the yearly estimated sucides by JWs are almost in line with the total number of victims of the following three cults:

  Heaven's Gate - 39 victims

  Jonestown - 918

  Solar Temple - 74

  Those three suicide cults together claimed 1,031 victims.

  The JW blood cult can boast that number all by itself in a single year. Year after year....after year. Jws have been dying following a cult doctrine for 70 years.

  Yes. The JWs are a resounding 10 the way I figure it. Just because most of their victims are invisible and silent doesn't mean that the magnitude of the harm that the WTS blood cult doctrine is responsible for should be overlooked.
• 

  Vidiot

  xjwsrock - "How Cultish are the JW's?"

  The way I see it, the leadership haven't advocated mass suicide (explicity or otherwise)...

  x

  ...yet.
• 

  cookiemaster

  Giving a rating of 10 to the suicide cults, I would also give a 10 to the JW cult. My reasons for this are simple. I had to spend 4 hours begging my mother to forget her brainwashing and choose not to die by taking a blood transfusion. Thankfully, she ultimately did, but I can't get over the fact that this cult almost killed her for nothing.
  
  Aside from that, at the age of 19, she left her Christian Orthodox family because they didn't approve of the cult. She became a pioneer in the communist regime (the first pioneer in this country), preaching and illegally transporting literature at the risk of imprisonment or death. She gave up everything for this cult: family, freedom and life. When a life and death situation came, the cult said they have no obligation to help her. On top of that, they said she disassociated.
  
  So, based on my personal experience as well as everything else I know and was taught about the cult, this cult does the following:
  - asks members to die by refusing blood
  - asks members to kill their children by refusing blood for them
  - shuns members that leave or oppose these teachings
  - limits social contact with the outside world
  - brainwashes members into irrational beliefs
  - demands the time and resources of members
  - controls every aspect of the life of members (marriage, sex, appearance, education, profession, hobbies, holidays, etc)
  - tolerates pedophiles
  
  Taking into account that in the past this cult did not allow organ transplants and even vaccines, alongside the blood transfusion issue, I think the number of victims it has made far exceeds that of any other death cult (HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VICTIMS), with the exception of Islam. With all this in mind, I strongly believe it is a 10 on the scale, being one of the most destructive types of cults in existence.
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  Giordano

  They are a ten.

  No they haven't advocated mass suicide............ but they do insist that everyone carries a suicide note (No Blood) on their person and to be prepared to accept the Societies word on this matter of blood.

  The death toll started with their ban or discouragement of Vaccines, Then Blood, then Transplants. Now we find that they have a serious pedophile problem once again aided and abetted by the Societies non reasoning........the two witness rule.
  

  By discouraging higher education they promote poverty and poor people don't live as long as those folks who live more comfortably. Then you can factor in suicides and mental health issues because of shunning and being abused as children.

  Their needless death rate alone makes them one of the worlds most dangerous religions.
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  There are a few different ways of measuring how damaging the cult is. It's definitely not as controlling as scientology from what I understand, so in that way I don't think it could be ranked a 10. Maybe a 7.5 or 8.

  As far as cost in human life, I still don't think they're quite a 10. With the heaven's gate cult it appears that essentially all the members eventually died. With People's Temple (Jonestown) they had a membership at one time from somewhere between 3-5k people but a few less than 1000 died from the cult. While JWs definitely kill more and have a much greater absolute cost in human life, they aren't as bad on the cult scale because relative to their size they don't cause as much damage.

  Now, where I a humanitarian or government entity looking at which cult to focus on in order to keep people safe - JWs would 100% be at the top of that list. Their size, absolute death toll and relatively benign public image (though that seems to be changing a little) make them the most important priority as far as shutting down dangerous cults goes.
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  Vidiot

  Guys, I ended my post with the word "YET".