Jumping from one cult to another?

by amused1 17 Replies latest jw friends

Seeker

Hi amused,
I understand where you are coming from; it is better to move on with your life and enjoy it, and that is what you are suggesting. May I kindly explain why some of us who actually have moved on with our lives spend part of that time here?
In my case, I wish to do my small part to help educate others about the realities of the WTS. As you noted, most JWs are very nice persons, and I agree with that. Yet the WTS stands condemned. How can that be? It's similar to the attitude of the person who rails against the corruption of the government but sure likes his next-door neighbor Joe who works down at the local government office. Individuals can be decent human beings, and yet part of a larger corrupt organization. In fact, it is typical of organizations to eventually reach the point where the prime goal of the organization is to perpetuate the organization above all. The WTS has reached this point, and it is resultingly corrupt -- despite all those nice individuals within it.
I just honestly don't see the "mind control" I so frequently hear about. [\quote]
That's because mind control is by its very nature subtle. Certainly JWs do not engage in the obvious brainwashing of, say, the Moonies. But consider one subtle example: JWs refer to their religion, inevitably, as "the Truth." Yet you and I know it isn't the truth, don't we? So why are JWs taught to refer to it that way? Because it conditions the mind to think of the WTS as the holders of truth.
Did you know that Acts 15 does not say "abstain from blood"? Every JW will quote it that way, for the Watchtower quotes it that way, and yet the actual quote is "keep abstaining from...blood." That "keep" and "-ing" matter, which is why the WTS conditions JWs to think it actually says "abstain" by istelf. Keeps things easier that way, and therefore they condition the mind of JWs accordingly.
Should a JW have a party with 150 guests? "Hmmm...better check the literature to see what the Society says." Where does that impulse come from? From JWs having their minds conditioned to think that every question should be answered by WTS literature.
The Bible does not condemn alternative military service. Originally, Russell didn't condemn it either, and neither did JWs. Then Rutherford condemned it, and every JW could tell you that the Bible forbade doing this. In the mind-90s, this doctrine was reversed once again, and instantly all JWs the world over could easily tell you how the Bible never condems such actions. What changed? The minds of JWs, which were conditioned in one direction and then another direction.
Can you see how, although not as blatantly obvious a form of brainwashing, what JWs experience is a subtle form of conditioning of their mind, and this is why some refer to them as suffering from mind control?
They thing that really set me off was the threads like "whats your favorite name to bash the WT". I don't see that as very constructive? If it makes you feel better and you enjoy it more power too you.
I'm with you on that one, and you'll rarely see me participate in such threads unless I'm making a joke. But I also empathize with others who are still working through their anger. As you say, maybe it helps them, and if so, more power to them. You left at age 16, which means your life wasn't nearly as impacted as it might have been had you remained a JW until you were 26, or 36, or 46, or 56. Many of these folks have made life-altering decisions as JWs that they now regret bitterly, and they have more anger in them than you might imagine. Please understand where it comes from.
[quote]Remember my main point don't let someone make up your mind for you. That goes for my post as well. I'm just an arrogant 20 year old who is very opinionated.
And when you reach 30 or 40 years old, you be able to look back at how much more of the world you understand, and especially how much more empathetic toward others you become. We're all arrogant at 20, so I don't begrudge you that!
P.S. Welcome to this site! One of the other reasons I stick around is that I've made some very good friends here, and I like to see my friends occasionally.
Seeker

[Yikes! I sure screwed up that coding. Let me try again.]
Hi amused,
I understand where you are coming from; it is better to move on with your life and enjoy it, and that is what you are suggesting. May I kindly explain why some of us who actually have moved on with our lives spend part of that time here?
In my case, I wish to do my small part to help educate others about the realities of the WTS. As you noted, most JWs are very nice persons, and I agree with that. Yet the WTS stands condemned. How can that be? It's similar to the attitude of the person who rails against the corruption of the government but sure likes his next-door neighbor Joe who works down at the local government office. Individuals can be decent human beings, and yet part of a larger corrupt organization. In fact, it is typical of organizations to eventually reach the point where the prime goal of the organization is to perpetuate the organization above all. The WTS has reached this point, and it is resultingly corrupt -- despite all those nice individuals within it.
I just honestly don't see the "mind control" I so frequently hear about.
That's because mind control is by its very nature subtle. Certainly JWs do not engage in the obvious brainwashing of, say, the Moonies. But consider one subtle example: JWs refer to their religion, inevitably, as "the Truth." Yet you and I know it isn't the truth, don't we? So why are JWs taught to refer to it that way? Because it conditions the mind to think of the WTS as the holders of truth.
Did you know that Acts 15 does not say "abstain from blood"? Every JW will quote it that way, for the Watchtower quotes it that way, and yet the actual quote is "keep abstaining from...blood." That "keep" and "-ing" matter, which is why the WTS conditions JWs to think it actually says "abstain" by istelf. Keeps things easier that way, and therefore they condition the mind of JWs accordingly.
Should a JW have a party with 150 guests? "Hmmm...better check the literature to see what the Society says." Where does that impulse come from? From JWs having their minds conditioned to think that every question should be answered by WTS literature.
The Bible does not condemn alternative military service. Originally, Russell didn't condemn it either, and neither did JWs. Then Rutherford condemned it, and every JW could tell you that the Bible forbade doing this. In the mind-90s, this doctrine was reversed once again, and instantly all JWs the world over could easily tell you how the Bible never condems such actions. What changed? The minds of JWs, which were conditioned in one direction and then another direction.
Can you see how, although not as blatantly obvious a form of brainwashing, what JWs experience is a subtle form of conditioning of their mind, and this is why some refer to them as suffering from mind control?
They thing that really set me off was the threads like "whats your favorite name to bash the WT". I don't see that as very constructive? If it makes you feel better and you enjoy it more power too you.
I'm with you on that one, and you'll rarely see me participate in such threads unless I'm making a joke. But I also empathize with others who are still working through their anger. As you say, maybe it helps them, and if so, more power to them. You left at age 16, which means your life wasn't nearly as impacted as it might have been had you remained a JW until you were 26, or 36, or 46, or 56. Many of these folks have made life-altering decisions as JWs that they now regret bitterly, and they have more anger in them than you might imagine. Please understand where it comes from.
Remember my main point don't let someone make up your mind for you. That goes for my post as well. I'm just an arrogant 20 year old who is very opinionated.
And when you reach 30 or 40 years old, you be able to look back at how much more of the world you understand, and especially how much more empathetic toward others you become. We're all arrogant at 20, so I don't begrudge you that!
P.S. Welcome to this site! One of the other reasons I stick around is that I've made some very good friends here, and I like to see my friends occasionally.
bwoga

I find it difficult to understand that you think everyone's experience should have been like your's....Amused, I became a JW at 15 and left at 27, at 16 you could have hardly seen some of the things that go on......They do emotionally blackmail you, I had given up most of my family to be a JW....."bad association spoils useful habits!" and I didn't have a lot of "worldy" friends, therefore, it was very difficult to leave but when I did I left of choice, wrote a disassociation letter and got the heck outta Dodge.... Everyone has a different experience and many are hurting.....My primary purpose in visiting the sight is to be able to help others....Mind control.....no, I won't say JW's do the mind control thing, they don't have to, all they have to do is get someone to believe it's the "Truth"....and everything else falls into place... You really should be a little more empathetic. I learned a lot as a JW, and I've learned even more as an EX-JW. This site is hardly a cult.....and you damn sure can't compare it to being in the WT.....at least here we're free to discuss anything we like....to disagree if we want to and when we don't log in....there are no shepherding calls..... Take care....
AlanF

To Amused1:
Yes, you have displayed arrogance, and no, you don't know nearly as much about Jehovah's Witnesses as you think you do.
Pay attention to what Seeker said; he's dead nuts on.
While you make a number of good points, your overall presentation shows that you're not reasoning clearly. You say that you don't want to generalize, but then you proceed to do exactly that. You say that "you jumped straight from being a Jehovah's Witness to being a Jehovah's Witness hater." That's a ridiculous generalization, and illogical to boot. It's illogical because JWs constitute an organization, while the people who frequent this board are about as far from an organization as one can get. It's ridiculous because the majority of posters on this board certainly don't hate JWs, or even the Mother Organization. Indeed, most people find the JWs very sad and take pity on them. While you do see bashing, that's only to be expected from people who have had to seal up their mouths for years and who now have the freedom to express themselves. A lot of the result is just venting.
You never saw "mind control" in the JWs? Well, I never did either when I was your age, and frankly, it took a long time for me to understand just how great the subtle mind control really is. That's the pity of it. JWs are so good at it that they don't even know that the leaders and followers are all victims of a subtle community mind control that is so subtle that even good outside researchers have difficulty seeing it. Yet, a careful study of how JWs react to criticism, and of how they react to internal dissent, proves that it is very real. That subtley is what makes it so dangerous.
You still don't believe this? Well consider this: Suppose today a religious leader told his followers that having a kidney transplant was identical to murdering a fellow human and cooking up his kidneys in a stew and enjoying them with a nice Chianti. Would you consider the leader a nut? You'd better! And would you consider the people who followed him to be religious fanatics or even lunatics? I have no doubt that you would. And that is just about what the Watchtower Society did with its followers in 1967: it convinced them that all organ transplants were exactly the same as chewing and swallowing another person's organs! How did it do this? By the same mind control techniques that it used for decades and still uses today: pretending that everything that comes from JW leaders originates with God. You don't argue with God, and so you don't dispute what comes from JW leaders. That is the essence of the mind control.
I have no doubt that if JW leaders issued a carefully worded sequence of "reasoning" and instructions, they could convince a large fraction of JW to go out and kill dissidents. Would you like to see an example of such instructions?
Another big mistake you make is to generalize that everyone who posts on this board is reveling in having been a fool and now being smart enough to have gotten out. That may be true of some, but in my experience most of those are simply on an extended journey of healing, and it takes a lot of venting and discussing to heal. Not everyone is as bright as you, in seeing through "the Truth" at a young age. Many were caught up in it well into adulthood and so were hooked far deeper than you ever were. The deeper you were hooked the longer it generally takes to dig the hooks out. Your notion of "if I can do it, so can anyone else" is simply naive.
Many posters are quite settled with their past JW experience, but have enough concern for new people coming out, and for the many JWs still stuck in the organization, to provide a forum for discussion. Others are involved in activities that go far beyond just talking up a storm on a discussion forum.
For example, some are involved in exposing the Society's massive dereliction of duty with respect to child molesters in the JW organization. A major TV presentation on NBC's Dateline program is in the making. Others are involved in pressuring the Society to drop its disgusting policy on blood transfusions. Others are involved in research that exposes the Watchtower's dishonesty in just about everything it touches.
You point out that JWs are among the nicest people around. Well I have news for you: that's true of everyone else, too. Furthermore, those nice JWs will turn around and rip you open if you give a hint of criticizing the JW organization, and they will shun their closest friends and relatives. Do try to understand that an organization that can make a mother turn against daughter, son against father, brother against sister, merely because of insignificant differences of religious opinion, is a cult -- bigtime. You might not have experience that for any number of reasons, but others have.
Do you realize that today, THE litmus test for whether JWs will have anything to do with people who leave is their attitude towards "the faithful and discreet slave"? JWs in general will barely tolerate someone who waffles about it; they will actively shun or even act against someone who explicitly criticizes the doctrine. Again, this shunning is a direct mark of a cult mentality.
Your arrogance is partly in assuming that you, by observing a few comments in a few threads for a few days on just one discussion board, can generalize to the extent that you have. This particular board is just a drop in the bucket.
Your arrogance is also displayed when you "laugh" at posters. Your naivete in this is stunning, and shows the impetuousness and callowness of youth. Your reference to this discussion board as a "new cult" is too stupid for words and shows that, if you want to produce a decent research paper, you have a long way to go.
It's admirable that you posted a sort of apology, but for it to hold water, you'll have to remove that incredibly stupid signature.
Now, if you'd like to see some proof that JWs are a true cult, I can refer you to several books and essays. You might even find some fodder for your research paper.
AlanF
amused1

There is way too many good points for me to have the time to try and argue with right now. As much fun as it is.. I really love this. It gets my mind working and challenges me. My point was harsh and blunt as thats my personality. If I hurt anyones feelings I really do apologize. I was so angered that people can be so easily duped into believing something they themselves haven't fully checked out. That I posted angrily and did the exact thing I was bitching about ;o). By the same token I still feel the same. If your not careful you can end up just as wrapped up fighting the thing you so admantly tried to be free of, that your no longer free.
I think they truly believe that they are right. I think they truly believed they were trying to help me and save my life. I don't resent them for caring. I suppose I was blessed with a questioning mind. I don't take anything for face value and everyday I appreciate that fact more and more. But just as I made the mistake in generalizing the populous of this board with my statements, don't generalize because I was only 16 that I did not see some of the contradiction and misguided information. Why else would I have left?
Like I said I am running short on time. But I really do appreciate the opposing views and the analytical disection of my statements. I would very gladly accept a few links to articles I can use in my paper if you so desire.
And just for you I removed the sig. But I still think it was rather humorous and creative. ;o)
Best Wishes
JT

Amused says:
"I am a jerk."
#####
at least you are honest and we both agree
best wishes
James
Abaddon

Amused; I do hope you stick around.
This made me see something about you;
I don't agree with all the ideals of the religion or think that its the "truth". Yet I can say that they were some of the nicest and most loving people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. And all the mud slinging, elder trashing, Bible thumping won't change that.
First of all, you did great walking away at 16.
I was 27... and had Aux's and been a MS and got married and had kids.
There's a good number of 'xJW's' who never were JW's other than by attendance as a child. Those that I have met have all reacted to me bringing up the subject with the same enthusiasm as a nun would display when asked about necrophilia.
Basically they don't think it matters, or that it really affects them, or want to 'go there'.
Funnily enough friends who were bought up Roman Catholics or Jewish are normally happy to discuss how their religious background affected them.
What does this mean? Well, people who were bought up JW's but didn't become JW's are less enthusiastic about talking about it than other people who were bought up in other religions they in turn didn't become practising members of.
Why the difference between JW's and Jews or Roman Catholics?
I'm not going to go into WHAT the differences in upbringing are, but it's something for you to think about.
Second thing is; for about two years after I left my line was "JW's are very nice people but I dion't want to live my life that way."
Your viewpoint sounds similar.
My viewpoint changed after I found materials on the Internet that got me thinking, studying, realising that the JW's are not 'just another religion'.
Now you might disagree AFTER you've made the same study, but until then, as others have pointed out, you aren't that well informed.
And if you are worried we are all still obsessing about and not getting on with their lives, I've been to Uni, got promoted twice in six months in my first job out of University, three times in nine months, then worked for myself for a year to get ready to change countries, then changed countries to be with my girlfriend, got a job, and again been promoted rapidly.
The fact I and others like me like to hang around and have dumb ass conversations, refreshing arguments and maybe specific 'support' oriontated conversation with people who have had contact with Witnesses doesn't mean we haven't let go. It means we have shit in common and can help people on the same road.
Besides, I've now been promoted to the point where I find other people are doing most of my work, and I have the time.
Hang around and see if you are right about JW's. If you are not right then you will realise at somepoint that those in your family you left in the JW's are in a mind-control cult, not as obvious as the Moonies maybe, but all the more dangerous for its subtlety.
All the best
Again, many people are here for the same reasons. They like it. They have the time.
AlanF

To Amused1:
I'm glad you removed the dumb signature, because it was neither funny nor creative. It was actually something that a goodly number of braindead trolls have posted for years.
Now, since I don't know what your research paper is all about, I can't provide you an appropriate link. Given that you don't seem to have figured this out on your own, I think you're liable to have trouble completing whatever research you're trying to do.
AlanF

Jumping from one cult to another?

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