To love Jehovah more than friends and family.

schnell

When I was a believer, I endorsed this idea too. I commented with things like "love Jehovah more than your mate" or "love Jehovah more than your friends".

It didn't occur to me as I was saying it that Jehovah is an idea. This god concept is an idea that should really pass scrutiny if you're supposed to love it more than anything else.

At best, this means that Jehovah is real and you have to love Jehovah more than the people in your life, no matter the despicable things he is said to have done, condoned and endorsed in his holy writ. You have to love that more than your spouse.

At worst, this means you love a completely made up fallacy more than your supposed best friend.

And in all cases, it's an obvious cult control tactic that isn't so obvious when you're in the fog. Let me tell you, it's a great thing to say that you love your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend more than anyone else in the entire world.

Ruby456

schnell

you have to kill spontaneous emotions, stop and think about what the text of the bible says via what your patrons say is lawful - this we got from the Romans - and not from the Jewish ways and writings. It is an awkward fit and i think we all chafe against it as somewhere within us as we want to try being patrons too and then after that just ourselves.

but you know it is hard to differentiate between what the Romans gave us secularly and religiously. so we find patronage being offered on the internet too nowadays together with imperializing tendencies within secular movements as well as religious ones. it works very well but it is important to stop and think about your own independence too.

snugglebunny

Assuming that there is a Universal Power, let's call him "Jehovah", then I'm sure that he'd agree that he's a big fella who can take care of himself and as such has no problem that you love your wife / kids / mum & dad more than him.

cha ching

if we were created with such strong emotions and desires, it would go contrary to the "creators" designs to ignore them. Right?

Another cognitive dissonance moment, courtesy of the WT.

snare&racket

The irony is....it was a lie.

I do love my partner more than anyone in the world. I miss her when I can't be with her. Yet when I was a JW I would say I loved Jehovah and I would have defended that statement to the death. But I didn't ever really FEEL love for 'Jehovah'...... he was an invisible, confusing combination of emotions and contradictory actions that was hard to pin down into a tangible personality. It is simply not possible to LOVE such a concept. It is irrational to expect someone to.

Its like when the people of N.Korea all say they love their leader. We all know you can't really love even a real being, you have never met and don't personally know. But it's expected and comes with risks if you don't say it, likewise as in the JW's.... and it very easily becomes 'normality'.

Sad...... confusing love with fear.

scratchme1010

"love Jehovah more than your mate" or "love Jehovah more than your friends".

schnell, that goes to the core of the most damage that the JW faith caused in my family. My abusive, violent, dry alcoholic father used that as an excuse to continue beating us and treating us like crap, simply because he was "putting Jehovah first". And he wasn't the only one in the congregation where I grew up acting that way.

Granted, not everyone interprets that nonsense the way my messed up father did, but I'm still waiting for the WT to clarify and set specifics about what that's supposed to mean. That's how I know that they can't care less about the well being of their people, or anyone for that matter.

Interestingly enough, that's what I use as an argument with my messed up JW family when they want to know why I shunned them. Apparently that principle is good when they use it to shun me, but they have a hard time understanding that I agree with it and, therefore, don't want them in my life. Do you notice that they love using that nonsense to be the ones having the last word in every conversation? They love, love love using that nonsense to reject others, but hate, hate hate when people agree with it because they want nothing to do with them.

Somehow they claim to be victims when outsiders actually agree and act according to their own principle.

naja

Here a snippet of the District Convention Program 2014:

What must be kept in SECOND PLACE – especially the 5th point in the Symposium – Family Ties

evilApostate

The idea that your family puts you second to a cult is very heartbreaking. My mom used to say that she "loves" me but as soon as I left "the truth" everything changed and all that "love" vanished into thin air. What kind of "love" is that? Whatever it is, I would rather to not be loved at all than to have fake love.

DesirousOfChange

Just reading that part of the Assm Program makes me a little nauseous.. I recall so vividly when I really believed all of that BS. I wish when I read it I could laugh at it, but instead I'm saddened. Saddened over all the years I wasted. Saddened that other sincere people are repeating the same mistake. . . . Doc

Slidin Fast

Love? Love an amorphous, narcissistic mass murderer? Love an entity that thinks the only way to save the world is to kill its entire population bar a few stragglers.

Love? LOVE? Wait 'till you see hate!

To love Jehovah more than friends and family.

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