Why Do Intelligent People Still Believe In The Jehovah’s Witness Religion?

by minimus 47 Replies latest jw friends

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  Carmichael

  Another way to look at this...

  We are not automatically intelligent or brighter thinkers because we woke up and left the Jehovah's Witnesses behind.

  Leaving a cult behind does not automatically make one intelligent. I've seen some people act illogical after leaving the cult of the Watchtower--and I don't mean by joining another religion (they became atheists). Intelligence is not necessarily measured by what religious or non-religious views a person might subscribe to. If you were an idiot as a Jehovah's Witness, leaving the group won't guarantee any raise in IQ.

  If we are talking about common sense and smarts, people shouldn't listen to any of us when it comes to religion if we freely joined a cult and later left. I mean, we may have the left the cult, but we joined it, to begin with. I wouldn't recommend people who chose cults as experts on religion to anyone--myself included.

  Flipping the argument back to the way it was originally written--there isn't IQ involved. Religion is mostly emotional. A lot of people don't want to believe that. Some who leave cults want to believe that leaving a cult made them intelligent or is proof that they are more intelligent somehow than others that are left in the cult. That's not true.

  Like those in cults, you won't convince people who now believe that intelligence is the earmark of Watchtower exiting. But the phenomenon of "waking up" is multi-faceted and is not limited to logic or intelligence.
• 

  Overrated

  Carmichael- I do believe you are on to something.
• 

  LongHairGal

  CARMICHAEL:

  The problem is that people did not think they were joining a cult when they got involved with the JWs.

  I certainly didn’t know and in fact I didn’t think it was a real religion per se. There was no internet back in those days and no way to really research anything. They said a lot of things which turned out to be not-so-factual: they told me ‘everybody was equal’ and ‘they had no clergy class’.. Meanwhile, they have what I consider a plainclothes clergy - and just about as many titles as the churches they knock.

  I was young and made a wrong detour. I didn’t fit in because (thankfully in retrospect) I would not make the stupid concession that I quit a decent job to pioneer..I lingered a little longer than I should have but at least I got the hell Out.
• 

  LV101

  Humans will do anything/everything to avoid facing reality -- very difficult to walk away from our fantasies. JWs are hell bent there will be justice and a perfect world.
• 

  Anna Marina

  One elder explained to me the reason he stays in is because he believes the 1914 maths. Sadly he is being conned but in an extremely clever way. It is the numbers that are being fiddled with. WT provides convincing answers to some of the anomalies. Academics do the same thing but come up with a different date - but it's a similar trick whether within a secular/academic frame or a WT frame.

  Why do intelligent people make wrong decisions about work, housing, investments, child rearing, whatever? Everyone makes mistakes. Some are more serious than others. Does everyone correct or do they double down on their mistakes?
  

  People have powers of reason. In relation to the Watchtower, when wrong information is broadcast/published, why do people who can reason it out go along with a falsehood? Sometimes it is a coping mechanism because they are in a very difficult situation and they don't know the Bible very well.

  Yes, they hold on to a set of superstitious beliefs. But so do a lot of other people in all walks of life.They should all know better but it's not like that. Crafty lies are powerful things.
  
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  smiddy3

  I would also contend that many reasonably intelligent people remain JW`s is simply because of pride .With the time and effort ,money invested in the religion over many years it can be hard to admit you have been fooled into believing something that is not true. So you cling onto it as long as you can until many like us here can no longer do so.With others they will never admit they have been fooled .
• 

  Anna Marina

  Yes I agree Smiddy - pride is involved. And some of those elders have been very cruel to others in the past. Treating them as less than human and less than an animal. Disgusting. But forgivable cause let's face it if someone treats you badly, you want that person to change and become your friend again, not go on and on being nasty.

  But if you've not been forgiving towards others, then, when your own wrongdoing/mistakes comes to light, pride comes in. So being merciful to others is wise.
  

  (2 Corinthians 2:6-8) . . .This rebuke given by the majority is sufficient for such a man, 7 so that, on the contrary now, you should kindly forgive and comfort [him], that somehow such a man may not be swallowed up by his being overly sad. 8 Therefore I exhort you to confirm your love for him.
  

  I know one ex-elder who is extremely sorry for all he did as an elder. Struggles to make sense of it all and why he went along with it. He is deeply, deeply sorry.
  
• 

  minimus

  Excellent thread!👍👍
• 

  Jofi_Wofo

  I think Carmichael has this thread on lock, so I'll just add some commentary to what he has already laid out.

  If we were to list the top 100 reasons why human beings come to have beliefs, whether religious or otherwise, missing from the list would be that the belief is true. It's simply not relevant to our survival whether or not what we believe is actually true, but whether or not our general responses to that belief are conducive to our well-being- most especially our collective survival.

  The reason why religious beliefs persist despite evidence to the contrary is because, until very recently in history, it was next to impossible to survive without having unwavering loyalty to your tribe and deep suspicion of outsiders.

  To understand just how well this works, take note of something that I only recently came to realize, despite having it thrown in my face for nearly 2 decades of being physically in with various levels of being mentally in-and-out. Watchtower constantly conflates the factuality of belief with the morality of belief. That is to say, they claim that their faith is objectively based on evidence, but also claim that whether you agree or disagree depends, not on your efforts to examine the facts, but on whether or not you are a good person. It's not even a subtle trick that they pull, but it's still easy to overlook because we are psychology primed to make that connection.

  Disagreeing with one's religious beliefs has, again, until very recently had a near perfect correlation with being either a rebel or an outsider of one's tribe, indicating that the person should be looked at with suspicion. Watchtower capitalizes on this fact better than most religions in the developed world by rather cleverly intertwining their religious activities with every single possible aspect of the life of an adherent. The farther you stray from absolute conformity with belief in Watchtower creed, the closer you get to losing your membership to the tribe.

  It may not be anywhere near as dangerous as it used to to be cast out of your tribe, but our unconscious brains don't know that, since they were evolved to live under much different conditions than what we currently experience. Thus, our cognitive faculties work desperately to prevent us from changing our minds.
• 

  mickbobcat

  There are different kinds of intelligence. Educated people even scientists can be fooled easily many times. James Randi had several scientists come to him saying they had someone who could prove psychic powers by moving a match box with their mind. Also James Hydrick said he could move pages of a phone book with his mind. He used small focused exhales you can not detect by watching. James put foam light pieces around the phone book to show what he was doing and suddenly he was not able to do the magic. Uri Geller and his spoon bending has been shown to be a fraudulent endeavor yet many rich and famous and educated people refuse to believe the facts. You can be highly educated and be very very ignorant in common sense. I have a sibling that fits this area. They can read something and then recite it back to you a month later verbatim. They fly through classes with top grades with no effort what so ever. But when it comes to common sense they are as dumb as a post. This is why I don't fully buy Global Warming. Or that its the end of the world as some say it is. Just look at the group think following BLM a terrorist group that is by its very nature a racist anti white group. They are afraid to buck the group so follow along. Science is like this many do not want to buck what the group think is. So they just go along.