Jehovah's Witnesses and Love (page 2)

zeb

We faced eviction as the time the house was available had run out. With little ones we were desperate for some where to live. Fellow jw had caravans (trailers) and none would lend us until our house being built was liveable(also by jw who did the dirty on us). No one would lend us or hire to us their caravan as they their usual holiday planned.

We survived no thanks to any jw but big thanks to 'worldly' people and organisations. This was one of the very worst times of my life. One brother stepped up to the mark; I wish I had never stepped foot into a kh. Love?

venus

If you apply the word love to them, then you will have to ask: “Do words no longer need meaning?”

pale.emperor

I was explaining to someone yesterday about JW love. I used my mother as an example. She, and the rest of my entire family (uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews) are all shunning me. I dont hold any hatred for them because i know that they're under a bad influence. My siblings and i were raised with a distorted idea of what love is.

My mother was raised in foster homes, her parents didn't look after her at all. Her parents were selfish and uncaring. At 15 my mum found "the truth" and it became her family. She had never experienced real love in the first place from her own family. Then she's introduced to the witnesses and they tell show her their version of love. Love for Jehovah and his organization is the absolute pinnacle of love. Anything else, family, friends, children come after it. Love for family is disposable. It can be taken and re-applied like a sticker for good behavior.

You only have to listen to what GB member Stephen Lett said in the March 2017 Broadcast "The Governing Body love you... non witness friends dont really love you". This kind of crap sums it all up. The Governing Body, who've never met me nor anyone i know, apparently love me more than my actual friends that i've known for years and hung out with and gotten to know. The indoctrinated JW doesn't know what real love is. And when they're shown it by non JW's they dont trust it. Thinking it must be some sort of trick or fake.

tor1500

Hi,

I think Dubstep said it best....the religion attracts a certain type of person....oh well, I guess I have to re-evaluate myself...

The reason I am on this site is because I'm a witness and have noticed so many things that just ain't right...Witnesses don't know what love is...some do...I can say I do...I was raised in a nice home...nice childhood, happy, sure it may have had it's problems but what household doesn't.....so because of this upbringing has made me notice many witnesses were not raised like this....I talk to many and their home lives seem a little off...many were raised in the truth, but lets face it most come to the truth when they are on their last leg....no where else to go...so what kind of household is that to raise a child...

Many JW's have no love in them....it's like shaking a pocket book and thinking love will drop out...a purse can't love you and if you didn't put any love in the purse if you shake it how could love come out if you didn't put it in there...same as a person, if love isn't put into them how can they show it...most of them the best they can do is love Jehovah...that's all the love they can muster up....

We have some folks in the hall that when you greet them some you can hug and kiss and some shy away from it..some it's because of some illness...some may not be in the mood that day, some got issues with touching...me thinks something happened in their childhood that makes them that way....that's another topic.

Love has to be felt not taught....oh sure many need therapy to get in touch with their feelings. JW's don't know what love is...they never experienced it...if they did, they wouldn't act the way they do. Even if you were born into the religion, if you experienced real unconditional love, you would know you were in the wrong place and what they were saying about love isn't true, because if you had real love at home you would recognize the difference....so if you never experienced unconditional love at home, what do you have to compare with so when the society tells you what love is....what do you know ?

Tor

Phizzy

I have an unusual experience of life in the JW's it would seem from many of the preceding comments.

I was born in in 1950, and only moved Congregations when I married some two decades later. My first Congregation was not overly loving I guess, but far from starkly unloving.

The one we moved in to was small, just a few families, was tolerant and liberal, and was peopled by those who showed true Christian love, not just amongst themselves, but caring for members of the community too !

As the decades rolled by it grew and grew, and of course it lost that intimacy, and some of the new intake were not so good at reaching out to non JW's, but they took on the ethos of loyalty and love for Congregation members.

My family have been the beneficiaries of some exceptional acts of love from these fine people.

Yes, they are Cult members, their minds are twisted by the GB and their hateful instructions, so they do shun the DF'd ones etc.

But love is not actually lacking within them.

Bungi Bill

But love is not actually lacking within them.

Based on my own experiences, I beg to differ with you on that one!

For decades, I did try to believe that only the JWs met the requirements of Jesus Christ's "by this, you know that they are my true followers, that they have love amongst themselves". However, after many a hostile snub at a District Convention, I had to reluctantly conclude that the Witnesses displayed love amongst themselves no more and no less than anybody else.

To a degree, this seemed to mirror the local community. My first congregation was a small one, in a thinly populated part of the world. People in general were open, friendly and helpful towards one another. It should have been no surprise that the congregation, too, was much the same. Nonetheless, it did deceive me into swallowing the WTS's propaganda that all JW congregations were like this. It took a long time to wake up to that myth!

NewYork44M

I don't think I ever felt "love." They tolerated me but did not love me.

Which is just fine, I am not very loveable. On the flip side, I did not show a lot of love to my fellow r&f at the kingdom hall. I hope I was nice to everyone, but I never got the whole "love" thing.

tepidpoultry

In my 6 decades in

I noticed that generally

There was a sliding scale of the showing of love,

The more prominent folks were,

The more love and attention given,

:0)

Cold Steel

Love manifests itself by service to others. If someone is hurt and they need their driveways shoveled, someone shovels it. Or they mow their lawns, get them groceries. One person said he, his wife and kids keep jars in which they put their spare change over the year. Then during the holidays they leave the jars on the doorsteps of those in need. Do Jehovah's Witnesses do things like that? And this isn't a rhetorical question -- I really don't know. If so, does it extend to non-JWs?

That's what I mean by love.

rebel8

Their so-called love is based on merit only. If you do what they like, they’ll put up with you. If not, they’ll drop you without hesitation

It's beyond that. You can have merit based on faithful acts, but if things happen to you that are outside your control* that make you unpopular, your social standing can be withheld or removed in a second.

*Examples:

-Being born female lowers your potential social standing and how much basic human respect you receive from fellow dubs

-I was born with a bleeding disorder and thus referred to as a demonic vampire

-I've seen people have a rumor/lie told about them and they are socially blocked without notice--they don't want the stank of unpopularity to rub off on them

Jehovah's Witnesses and Love

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