(Lady Lee) You might hate this response, but you bought it and bought into the product before you researched it enough. You trusted people who were only trying to sell you, not help you and in the end ... you are responsible for not doing better research before the purchase. When you start trusting everyone for their word and thinking no one lies to you. You end up in cults.
"When I was a child, I thought as a child. Now I am a adult, I think as an adult." The difference between the child and the adult, is the experience I have gained to ask more questions and accept less answers.
The only other religion I know of that shuns its members with the vehemence of the JWs is the Amish. I think it is safe to say that 90% or more of members of religions in western civilization do not live in fear of being cut off from family members and friends. What JWs experience is a form of bondage.
Sorry, you lack balanced information. The Witnesses are a small religion that shunned a percentage of those who leave. Many do not get shunned and many carry on normal lives as former Witnesses, as they did as Witnesses with their friends and family. I know several, including myself. So I can not agree with your statement. You are making a blanket statement, and excluding the exception. There is a also the fact that you are more informed about the Witnesses and thus your statement can not leave out biased prejudice.
As a general rule in business. Employee walks up and says, "We must really be screwing up as a company, I am getting a dozen calls a day from people who are upset." Manager sets employee down and says, "We have 7,000,000 million customers, and you get complaints from a dozen a day. Come to me when you get 6,999,988 calls a days." The people who scream the loudest, are not always the best measuring stick to gauge a problem. Just the loudest and most seen! 20,000 Witnesses leave each year. I have not even meet 500 former Witnesses in my life. I would not persume to think the small known percentage is speaking or representing the large unknown.
The WTBTS legal department would be thrilled to see you post this. They count on the legal accountability of individual members rather than as a corporation. This is why elders on judicial committees are told to inform erring members brought before a committee that the decisions are theirs, not that of the Society. This is a tactic commonly referred to as "plausible deniability."
I don't blame them, in a sue happy world, all corporations do this. I see it as survival of the most legally sharp and not something that is a source to push blame on.
As an additional thought. A man drinks beer to quench his thirst and gets drunk, and he drinks and drinks and drinks more. He gets behind the wheel and drives down the road and kills people. Is he not at fault, because the beer was not something he created and he drank it with the intent of quenching thirst and not harming people? Or, is he at fault, because he actually drank something that he should have known better about and not taken it to an extreme. As an adult (stressing adult), you better wise up and realize that Lenin was right. Religion is the opium of the people! Yet, you took the opium and you should have known better as an adult.
Question, what in the hell is up with all the references in this thread to rape and abuse? This is a discussion about religion and what you did as a Witnesses and not blaming the Watchtower for all your actions. Is there some central theme with modern former Witnesses to get stuck on the rape or abuse issue in all thoughts? If I brought it up in the original post, I would see the reason for it. I didn't though, but the follow-ups sure seem to. It reminds me of the whole meeting at work scene, where you are trying to discuss a new policy and some employee raises their hand and states, "yes, but what if it is a odd day of the week, raining and with a full moon and I am facing left and their is a dog in the building with one leg missing. What do we do then?" ... (Sudden Silence) ... you stand up and say, "exactly how did that come up in this discussion," and the person response, "well it could happen?" Basically, when I want to discuss rape and abuse and what is accountable and when with the Society, I will bring it up. Otherwise, can we leave it out of a discussion about, "what you did as a Witnesses and not blaming the Watchtower for all your actions." The practice is called "shock deflection", which is when you bring something up so touchy and so taboo, that people immediately back down for fear that they will say the wrong thing. Ultimately, nothing gets solved and people learn to use it at anytime they want the discussion to end. I am sure there is some exception, somewhere to everything, but not the average rule. Sorry, it's the manager in me talking.
