Thinking about thinking and upbringing

ballistic

I was thinking about being "brought up in the truth" as opposed to joining.

As a child's brain develops, it builds connections based on what it is taught. These connections are inseparable from the person in that our thoughts and memories actually become part of our personality (who we are).

A very simple example, might be being taught *not to do something* because it "displeases Jehovah". The understanding of right and wrong is then set in the child's mind and built upon.

There are several points of thought I have about this fact. Firstly, the rights and wrongs of bringing up a child in a cult or strict faith. It can't be right can it?

Secondly, the emotional or incredible period of change (or even break down in some cases) people go through when they leave the truth dramatically.

When I was in the USA, I was standing by an abandoned Hot Dog Stall, and a kid went to take some money from the stall and the mother said, "Don't take that ! You have money". And I thought, the whole of that kid's brain is wired so that it's ok to take things, but only if you need them. And then I thought, how was my brain originally wired? How have I changed it? What about the period after I was df, how did I survive? Does it explain why some people "go off the rails" ?

A few points to ponder?

sparrowdown

I have also given this some thought. I came into the truth, so I do have a point of reference as to what I was before, during and after the truth. I don't know how born-ins answer the question of "who am I ?" How is it possible to know what your natural personality is - minus the childhood indoctrination.? Stuff in life has habit of "regressing to the mean" as in - the average. So there would be an average you there somewhere underneath all the layers of cult-think.

It can take some time and patience for it to emerge but I am confident it is possible to find a new normal.

Simon

Yeah, I've had situations where I *know* and believe one thing but still have a different gut reaction because of the conditioning over many years growing up. You just can't help it and it's very difficult to shake that early programming.

Finkelstein

Long term mental indoctration takes a long time to weaken itself away completely.

Being brought up a JWS from birth does that to you and would probably to anyone for that matter.

Where some people go off the rails so to speak is those things that were once held back by being a JWS allures some to try out those repressed things, to only find out they weren't really that good after all .

TTATTelder

We take in a lot of info growing up and afterward. Some of it is contradictory and we usually default to the explanation that came from trusted authority figures. Once we determine that the authority figure was our drunk uncle Rutherford, we allow the other observations to float up to the surface. They were always there, but dismissed and unsorted. It's a long process, but one I believe is doable with enough patience.

-TE

millie210

Fortunately, my parents didnt restrict my reading material and I learned a lot about the "outside" world through a voracious reading habit.

Looking back, growing up in the truth was a lot of contrast/compare in my mind while keeping it all to myself.

ballistic

Lots of interesting ideas there. I like the idea from TTATT that things float to the surface which does away with the notion that the brain is hard-wired.

I once read that the brain could operate on quantum principles, and although the article didn't elaborate on how that would work, in my mind it works like this: the brain has a load of potential, or probable states, and only when we focus the mind on one "state" does that become fixed. (drop out of the cloud of probability), making our consciousness directors of our mental state by focus alone. If I'm right, then you read it here first.

Village Idiot

I believe that our characters are part genetically rooted and part upbringing/culture. I remember being very moralistic as a child before becoming a JW at age 13. I remained moralistic through my 8 years of being a JW and after my sudden exit I was still moralistic. Fortunately it's not the same 'morality' as theirs.

freemindfade

Morality should only be rooted in what harms others, religion (the three biggies from the Mideast) and the bible have made morals into something they were never intended to be. They call oxytocin many things, the love chemical etc, but one thing it is is the morality chemical. morality is a social thing that has dare i say evolved in us to make a stronger society by basically making us feel empathy for our community. This basic idea tells you not to steal or murder. All the other nonsense was man made to control and separate people. We may think of things like homosexuality or what have you as moral issues, but so was eating shellfish or pork when slavery was ok. The bible doesn't teach morals, it merely conditions follower on the backs of some good natural morals we have such as love your neighbor, don't murder and so on. There are prairie dogs of two different species, one has a brain partitioned differently than the other species. One has this community hormone going on and one doesn't. The one group they prairie dogs happen to be monogamous, why does one have it and not the other? who knows. But as humans with the bonding empathy hormone we are capable of great morality without a single rule from any book. There is a great TedTalk on oxytocin. "I had shown in the early 2000s that countries with a higher proportion of trustworthy people are more prosperous. So in these countries, more economic transactions occur and more wealth is created, alleviating poverty. So poor countries are by and large low trust countries. So if I understood the chemistry of trustworthiness, I might help alleviate poverty"...

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_zak_trust_morality_and_oxytocin?language=en

eyeuse2badub

ballistic

no jw is brought up in the truth. they are raised as a jw but not in the truth.

just saying!

Thinking about thinking and upbringing

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