Forcing someone to believe something that is untrure and shunning them if they do not believe it.
My new definition of cult.
by Yomama 19 Replies latest jw friends
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Drearyweather
The problem with a cult is actually the members who agree to abide by and enforce their rules. In the JW world, it's not the Governing Body that makes the membership grow, but the die-hard deep-in members who make the local congregation flourish.
A cult has power, not because of the leaders, but the followers. Many JW's voluntarily subscribed to their shunning policy when getting baptized, without getting mentally prepared to face the shunning themselves.
In my life as a JW, I chose to become a JW (no one forced me), and I played an active part in enforcing their shunning policy for many years. I felt it was right, however, when I became the shunned one, the reality dawned on me.
Rather than blaming the WT, it's just that I am reaping the results of my choices, and facing the same behavior that I did to others. Maybe it's even now.
JW's are not a cult. Their followers have made it one.
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Vanderhoven7
My take is that the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses is a dangerous controlling cult from the top down.
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Anna Marina
Constantly changing teachings - issues that are difficult to grasp and deliberately made even more difficult to produce mental fog. That is what comes from the top. A fog to prevent understanding, a fog to prevent getting accurate knowledge.
Within the uncertainty of that fog a forceful attempt is made to get individuals to abandon their own powers of reason and defer to 'big brother' who 'knows better', owns the platform and will speak for everyone and many not be contradicted.
The Greek term for Jesus' disciples was the 'mathete' - it means one who is able to get accurate knowledge.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. His disciples were able to get accurate knowledge. They were able to get understanding.
The the prevention of an individual's understanding is what cults do.
(John 8:31-32) . . .And so Jesus went on to say to the Jews that had believed him: “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.. . .
Also they remove freedom of Christian speech.
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Anony Mous
There really is no difference between religion and cult. Roman Catholics practice shunning as well, although not to the same extent and you generally do not get punished for breaking the rules. The JWs are a high control cult, like Scientology and others. The question is when will they either mellow out or destroy themselves from within, you can’t create and maintain control over too large of a group, at some point there will be too many elements that don’t go along with you.
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Fadeaway1962
All religions are man made = cult's just some are more manipulating and controlling than others .
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Jofi_Wofo
Ok, but I think we're doing this backwards. Starting with a religion we don't like, then using that religion as a model for our definition of a cult.
WT pulls the same trick, but to its own favor. Whenever any of its publications describe how to find the true religion- gee golly gosh don't ya know- it just so happens to lead right to the doorstep of a Kingdom Hall. Who would have thunk it???
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mickbobcat
I don't believe in redefining words. The left democrats do it and the JWs do it so its not done by civilized people but by idiots.
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Magnum
Drearyweather:
I chose to become a JW (no one forced me)
If someone points a gun at you and tells you to leave a certain place. Were you forced to leave? Of course, you were. Well, nobody pointed a gun at me and told me to become a JW; JWs did worse than that. From the time I was a small child, they showed me graphic depictions of people being destroyed in violent ways in a supposed upcoming end of the world. I was taught that the death I would receive at that time due to not being a JW would be worse than death from a gunshot because it would be permanent. Where I grew up, we often had violent thunder/lightning/wind storms. My sister and I got scared and hid under tables during such because we thought Armageddon might have arrived.
When I got older, my motivation to become a JW broadened to include not only fear, but a genuine desire to see earthwide justice and an end to all suffering. I really cared about warning/helping others. I also was desperate to see an end to animal suffering.
So, I was taught (indoctrinated/brainwashed) from an early age that being a JW was the only way. I was taught that I would be killed (literally) if I didn't go that way. So, I think it's fair to say I was forced.
And another thing... I hate to hear people say, when I complain about the situation I'm in now due to having been a JW for decades, that I shouldn't complain because I chose my course in life. My own mother told me that. I was comparing my situation to a friend who was in my first grade class and that I've known ever since. He was not very smart book-wise (decent common sense, though). He went to college and got a degree with an easy major and then a master's degree in public administration at a small college (extremely easy).
He got a job as a state probation officer and then a year or two later, as a federal probation officer. He made really good money, had great government benefits, and retired at 54 with what he called "a great retirement". He never lifted a finger to help anybody and was very tight with money. His wife also has a great retirement; she was a specialist RN. They now live lives of leisure. My wife and I suffered and sacrificed for decades as JWs and will never be able to retire. We both work fulltime now and have low paying jobs with no retirement opportunities.
When I referred to this friend in complaining to my mother, she said "Well, he chose his life and you chose yours." That is LUDICROUS!!!. I DID NOT CHOOSE THE LIFE I HAVE NOW. I CHOSE THE LIFE THAT JWS PROMISED ME I WOULD HAVE BY NOW (actually that I should have been enjoying for at least 27 years now, considering that 1994 was the limit of the "generation" doctrine of the time).
It is stupid to say that I chose the life I have now as if when I was younger I sat around and thought "OK, let's see, when I get older, I want to have to work a low-paying, menial job; I don't want to be retired. I don't want to have any money. I don't want to be like my crazy friends who can wake up when they want and drink coffee and travel and never worry about finances or health insurance. Who would want that?"
Here's an illustration for illustration-loving JWs: You go to your doctor. He tells you that something is wrong with your right arm and that if you don't have it cut off, you will die soon. So you decide to have your arm cut off based on what you were told the future holds if you don't. After your arm is cut off, you find out that the doctor was wrong and that there was nothing wrong with your arm. You go to him and address the issue. He says "Hey, don't complain. You made the choice to have your arm cut off; I didn't force you."
Hopefully, the point is clear. Of course, you made the choice, but it wasn't just some easy, frivolous choice. It was a serious choice BASED ON WHAT HE (THE DOCTOR) TOLD YOU! You were given two options: Keep your arm and die soon or cut off your arm and live to old age. You weren't given the option to keep your arm and live to old age.
I was brainwashed and indoctrinated as a JW to choose between two options: Be a JW and live forever in paradise by, at the latest, 1994, or not be a JW and have a little while longer to live (maybe a few years or even a few months).
I did not choose the life I have now. I hate it and it slaps me in the face every damned day. I chose the life JWs promised me from infancy. JWs were wrong. I cut my damned arm off for nothing.
Rather than blaming the WT, it's just that I am reaping the results of my choices
I blame the shit out of JWdom, and I hate it. It took the prime of my life and has destroyed what would be my "golden years". I wish the worst for it, and if I find a way, I will contribute to its exposure and demise. I would like to literally open a can of whip-ass on the GB members, and I honestly believe that even at my age (60ish), I could take on all eight at one time.
I'm reaping the results of their falsehoods, their lies and deception, their evil, their lunacy.
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LoveUniHateExams
Here's the Oxford dictionary definition of the word cult …
noun
1 A system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.
‘the cult of St Olaf’ More example sentences- ‘The pre-Christian religion of the Fijians was both animistic and polytheistic, and included a cult of chiefly ancestors.’
- ‘The cult of the ancestors is practiced among many of the ethnic groups.’
- ‘As he notes, cults of holy images have been the subject of a long debate in Christianity.’
- ‘The support for Mary, a universal saint, may sometimes have been at the expense of local cults, making Marian devotions a central element in the progress of ultramontanism.’
- ‘At least one underground temple catacomb has been associated with the cult of a Mother Goddess.’
- ‘The cult image of Artemis was brought out from the inner sanctum and, gilded and white, shone brilliantly in the morning sun.’
- ‘Monks promoted the cult of their own saints and could write disparagingly of others.’
- ‘The cult of saints and their relics explains the popularity of pilgrimage.’
- 1.1 A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or as imposing excessive control over members.‘a network of Satan-worshipping cults’ More example sentences
- ‘The loss of life was terrible, but it was no more than one in a series of occasional tragedies caused by the misguided beliefs of cults and their members.’
- ‘Will witches, cults, and strange religions soon get taxpayers' dollars?’
- ‘Society suffers from dangerous sects and cults, militia movements, media control, and misrepresentations of psychiatric treatment and mental disorders.’
- ‘This definition actually denotes what we call denominations and sects and would make all religious movements a cult.’
- ‘His characters have run for president, hacked the New York Stock Exchange and joined the occasional religious cult.’
- ‘There were moments when I thought he would try to get me to join a bizarre gullibility cult.’
- ‘I heard that it had something to do with some kind of satanic cult.’
- ‘Maybe our whole culture is a destructive suicide cult.’
- ‘The street urchins lived in fear of some strange murderous cult.’
- ‘And their world view became embodied in a pagan cult.’
- ‘He even started a Sufi cult under his name that became also a place for mystics from different faiths too.’
- ‘A culture of peace, life and beauty became a suicide cult.’
- ‘The mystery cults usually enforced certain dietary rules and also required participation in various rites.’
- ‘In all of the cults, the killing of pigs was a major part of the cult activities.’
- ‘He also quotes a writer in 1939, who read a scene of nude figures carved upon a bowl as representing worshippers in a mystery cult.’
- ‘The belief system of many modern cults and spiritual groups is a hodgepodge conglomeration of ideas from religion, philosophy, psychology, the occult, and science.’
- ‘The promotion of the generative powers of earth, water, and human, animal, and fish populations is a common concern of major religions and small-scale cults the world over.’
- ‘Certain cults and religious specialists gain popularity beyond the local level because people feel that they can offer effective help for certain problems.’
- ‘These people include evangelical lay preachers, religious leaders associated with New Age religions, and leaders of religious movements designated as cults.’
- ‘He was not a common madman who thought he was God and established a cult dedicated to the veneration of himself.’
- 1.2 A misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular thing.‘the cult of the pursuit of money as an end in itself’ More example sentences
- ‘The fellow with the Village People mustache, who wears a white dress shirt and tie, is being marketed as a cult of personality.’
- ‘Does it bother you that there's a cult of personality built up around him?’
- ‘Or perhaps they center too much on the cult of personality from the opposing side.’
- ‘However, as this was primarily based on a cult of personality, it was inevitably short lived.’
- ‘The industry is feeding the cult of personality to these architect winemakers.’
- ‘He brooked no rivals, anointed no successors and developed a cult of personality that was indivisible from his people's hopes.’
- ‘Every President colludes with the American people to create his own cult of personality.’
- ‘Media-orchestrated cults of personality and shameless historical revisionism, they already know about.’
- ‘With the cult of the personality now stronger than at any time in sport, sports companies have tried to associate themselves with successes that are viewed worldwide.’
- ‘It is a very short step from institutionalised demonstrations of national loyalty to a mindless cult of ‘my country right or wrong’.’
- ‘Still others have cautioned against the spate of monuments that they see as celebrating the cult of the personality.’
- ‘He liked the comparison, and believes firmly in the cult of the personality as a valuable element in business development.’
- ‘However, the cult of the business personality was, in part, designed to serve as a distraction.’
- ‘The latter resonates with equal amounts of wry self-reflexivity and acknowledgement of issues concerning representation and cults of personality.’
- ‘During and after the war, a highly developed personality cult evolved.’
- ‘In stark contrast to so many other dictators, he never encouraged a cult of personality.’
- ‘Racial and sexual politics as well as the cult of celebrity get the treatment.’
- ‘The modern cult of the television celebrity… tends to handicap a living candidate.’
- ‘The nineteenth century cult of domesticity located its origin in this revolutionary development.’
- ‘Accordingly some aspects of domestic rectitude predated the cult of domesticity.’
2 A person or thing that is popular or fashionable among a particular group or section of society.