Conditional Love

by Saethydd 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  AllTimeJeff

  JW's as people are generally nice. I have always tried to make a distinction between the leadership and the sheeples.

  So if you're saying that JW's do NOT practice wholesale "conditional love", then I agree.

  However, what the leadership enforces is conditional love, especially through the JC's and disfellowshippings. Many JW families still sneak familial interactions out of sight from the elders. We know this. However, by and large, JW's institutionally advocate and teach conditional love, even if the sheeples don't always follow it.

  I would also add that for all of the broken hearts that are left behind by judicial rulings, the Borg also break the hearts of many "faithful" JW families who choose to stay in. They start to die inside trying to stay loyal to judicial decisions against family members, especially ones involving their own kids. For sure they should be held accountable for their part in supporting this crap, but let's not kid ourselves. They are devastated. And yet, not devastated enough to do the right thing. That's the power of cults for you.
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  Saethydd

  This may sound weird at first but even true love causes you to act differently under different conditions, but that doesn't make the love itself conditional.

  Another simpler example came to me, you wouldn't normally shove your friend with all your might, but you would if a car was about to hit them. Why? Because it would spare them a worse fate. It's just that in the case of JWs they have been convinced that by taking the actions they do they may spare us a worse fate.
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  Xanthippe

  But what about those of us who've been out thirty or forty years? Our families know wild horses won't drag us back to that cult. Still they shun us. You can't tell me it's still about love. For some of our relatives it's about fear that we may shake their faith, for others it's about revenge for the pain we caused them. Love to help save our lives by bringing us back? No not after all this time.
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  stuckinarut2

  Even the bible spoke about people with "No natural affection".

  How appropriate that is for Witnesses! The culture of condemning and pushing away those who don't agree with the ideas of a group of men in the USA is the very definition of "No natural affection"!

  For FAMILY bonds to be severed on the say-so of men who don't even know your family, is indeed a "lack of natural affection"
  
• 

  tepidpoultry

  Recently I made friends with a stranger

  Within a matter of months, when I had the flu he called DAILY to check

  up on me,

  Never happened before with 60 years in

  Huh!

  :(
• 

  Saethydd

  Everybody has a different situation, and perhaps I would view things differently had I been shunned for decades, but I would rather not get so wrapped up in my own pain that I start assuming motives that paint the people around me as cruel and vindictive. After all is that not what the WTBTS says about apostates? That they are wicked people who just want to drag you down with them.

  I don't want to make that same mistake about the people I'll most probably have to leave behind. Where possible I like to believe the best about people until proven wrong, and all I'm trying to do here is offer another point of view.
  
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  Xanthippe

  but I would rather not get so wrapped up in my own pain that I start assuming motives that paint the people around me as cruel and vindictive.....Where possible I like to believe the best about people until proven wrong, and all I'm trying to do here is offer another point of view.

  l appreciate that and many here have had good results from patiently waiting for their loved ones to leave. I agree we shouldn't assume people are doing things for bad motives but I think you have to realise that some people have been badly warped by staying in that cult for many years. Possibly even staying when they know in their hearts that it is not true.

  Sadly I sometimes think that a big problem for people like my relatives is they actually may refuse to see the reality about that cult because it would mean admitting their exJW relative was right and having to apologise for their treatment of them. Some stubborn personality types actually cut off their noses to spite their faces.
  
  
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  scratchme1010

  Everybody has a different situation, and perhaps I would view things differently had I been shunned for decades, but I would rather not get so wrapped up in my own pain that I start assuming motives that paint the people around me as cruel and vindictive. After all is that not what the WTBTS says about apostates? That they are wicked people who just want to drag you down with them.
  

  In my humble opinion, wise words. You may want to consider the difference between feelings and intentions. They in fact inflict pain in people, but what they believe is that they are in fact trying to "save" you. Also, please note that looking at people in a labeling manner as "good" or "bad" goes more with the black and white mentality that they WT teaches.

  You are right, when I think of my family they do love/loved me. That didn't do me any good in all the crap the threw at me. You can love and still remain detached.
  
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  anointed1

  All varieties of religion sell God and salvation as commercial products, thus making conditional love as their very basis. Hence question of them teaching the unconditional love does not arise.
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  Rainbow_Troll

  I suppose that if a JW sincerely believes that:

  1. Apostates will be killed in Armegeddon and
  2. Shunning an apostate will motivate them to return to the fold

  Then shunning could be a (misguided) display of love or a form of "tough love". However, I often got the impression as a JW that it was really more about protecting one's own reputation by not consorting with unclean people like apostates and nonbelievers. Apostasy is analogous to a disease and so the wisest thing to do is to enforce a quarantine until the diseased person is cured.