Conditional Love

by Saethydd 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Saethydd

  I've noticed several posts recently claiming that JW friends and family members give out conditional love. Well, I'm not so sure that is entirely accurate, in fact, I would say they tend to be very steadfast in their love. The issue is this, they have been taught a poor form of love. They have been taught that by shunning us they are showing us love, as twisted as that may seem. They consider it loving to press everyone into a certain mold that will ensure their survival.

  This is all perfectly understandable when you remember that their highest example of love, is the God of the Bible. A God who claims to love mankind but at the same time will quickly deal out punishment for any tiny transgression, and sometimes even going so far as to take it out on people who are completely innocent. (The people of Isreal dying for David's census taking.) Their God doesn't show the sort of love that allows him to accept us for our failures, rather he has to make us all "perfect," or kill us. He offers no middle ground. So is it really any surprise that they try to do the same thing by any means necessary? So no, it's not that their love is conditional, they just don't know how to really love and accept someone, they haven't been taught to.
  
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  schnell

  I get what you're saying (they still DO love but they're conflicted and malformed by cult regulations), but in the end, that still sounds like conditional love.
• 

  just fine

  Their love is conditioned upon being a member of their religious organization and is therefore conditional.
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  redvip2000

  @OP,

  You are going around in a semantic circle.

  You are saying that they are steadfast in their love, but that the love they have been taught is poor. Ok, why is it poor? because it establishes conditions. This means that on a final analysis, they show conditional love.
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  Onager

  What you are describing that thing they have, and that god has, is not love! It's practically the opposite of love... it's evol.

  "Love is not love
  Which alters when it alteration finds,
  Or bends with the remover to remove:
  O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
  That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;"

  That's Shakespeare that is!
  
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  Barrold Bonds

  Their love is proportionate to how often you're at the meetings and out in field service. I don't do any of that anymore and I never hear from anyone except some elder who would literally call and text me at midnight for some reason. He hasn't done that in a very long time because I just straight up ignored him.

  Every once in a while I get dragged to the KH and I'm immediately hit with "Oh I've missed you. How you been? I've been thinking about you"

  All I can think is that if they really did miss me, they could easily call or something. They all have my number. I know personally if I am thinking of a friend or relative it takes about two seconds to reach out and say hi. If these people really were friends and a worldwide brotherhood they'd do the same.
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  dubstepped

  So what you're saying is that they were taught conditional love and exhibit its traits, but it's not conditional love, though that's exactly what it is.
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  sparky1

  I think love should be reclassified primarily as a verb rather than a noun.. If our former JW friends and family really 'loved' us, they would be showing it by their actions. When they say that they still 'love' us, what they are really expressing is their own sentimental reaction to pleasant memories of our former relationship. The so called 'love' in the Jehovah's Witness brotherhood is predicated on conformity not on individuality.
  
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  OUTLAW

  I've noticed several posts recently claiming that JW friends and family members give out conditional love. Well, I'm not so sure that is entirely accurate,

  The issue is this, they have been taught a poor form of love..

  WE LOVE YOU!..
  

  
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  Saethydd

  I don't think I expressed myself as well as I meant to, I wasn't meaning to make an argument of semantics, but rather show the difference in points of view. For example:

  Let's a say you have a set of parents that never let their child play outside, now at first glance that might seem cruel. What if a doctor told them that if their child plays outside he will very likely die? Then they have a good reason, or at least they think they do. But what if that doctor turns out to be a quack, and their child will actually be no worse off if he goes outside? Then the parents aren't cruel they just failed to get a second opinion. (Which I would call lazy, but that does not equate to cruel.)

  And you also have to keep in mind that this "doctor" is an old friend of the family who has been taking care of their medical needs for decades, meaning that they are going to automatically try to ignore anything negative about him, and may even fear that getting a second opinion would offend him.
  

  From their point of view they are expressing love, but as is often the case they lack the full picture, and if the child did go outside despite their rules, they may even punish him, but that doesn't mean they don't love the child. Just that have been tricked into this situation in which they administer a punishment that doesn't actually help anyone.