by Divergent 27 Replies latest jw friends
I think their holinesses the rock star watchtower popes are doing a good enough job in putting JWs off the cult all on their own.
I get the idea of a slap on the face to wake people up. Also, there is the saying that you catch a fly with sugar not vinegar.
Mind control is very powerful. that's why so many people are stuck in cults.
If only there was a magic cure! there isn't.
I cannot imagine harsh tactics could ever help people under undue influence. I know when I was in, that would’ve never helped me. I was entirely blind. I remember when people at the doors would say harsh things to me, it hurt, but it did not help me think. They just looked like persecutors, which was what I was expecting. On the other hand, when I read Crisis of Conscience, what struck me the most was the kind and reasonable tone.
Let me add the truism: People don’t always remember what you said, but they always remember how you made them feel.
I think the "you deserve it" part is harsh but I agree with part of the OP message.
What many always leave out of their complaints about the WTS is the part that they had to play in it all and the choices they made. Sure, when we're the "victim" we want to focus on that alone but what about the many times that people were on the other side before they themselves became a victim? There are some out there who make a big big deal of what the WTS did to them but tell us less about the part they played in the what the WTS did to others. Yes, we all want to paint ourselves in the best light and it's natural to not want to accept any blame for anything bad that happened to us. It's difficult to say "man, I was dumb". This is a fact whether it's life in a religion or buying investments or bad tech gadgets.
Everyone has choices to make. Why do some of us make the choices we did and why also did it take us so long to make them?
The truth is that different approaches work for different people. Some need to be shocked to a point of realization but many don't.
What is also true is that just as in life, everyone is dealt different cards to play. I have less sympathy with the person who decides to join a cult as an adult than someone who was born in and had to evolve the realization of the reality of the outside world despite most of their information being fed through a filter.
But that is just me clinging to my "victim" status as special and an excuse for all the choices I made or didn't make whenever I finally got round to making them. I can't understand why someone would chose to sign up to the WTS as an adult - they must be stupid, right?
Well, people probably feel the same about me. Why didn't I leave earlier? Stupid ...
While we can't always understand other people's choices and why they make them or don't make the ones we think they should when they should, we should at least empathize with people's situation. We should forgive the mistakes other people made as quickly as we're eager to forgive our own mistakes and gloss them over.
I have mixed feeling about the OP. Yes, we are all responsible for the decisions we make, but the Watchtower lies about their history and practices. They use their understanding of human behavior to manipulate and control their members. Are victims responsible for being victimized? Maybe, to an extent, but the majority of the responsibility lies with the Watchtower.
I look back at my time as a JW and, probably like all of us, wonder what I could have done differently to prevent wasting thirty years in a soul sucking cult.
I was thirteen when my parents and I started a bible study, I was much influenced by my much older sister, who I adored, and who became a JW before me. I loved the idea of a paradise earth, I was naive and took many things at face value. The Watchtower seemed to have all the answers in a troubled world. I researched at the library, but little information was there (obviously pre internet) that might have helped me, and of course I was told not to listen to "bitter apostates".
From that point its just like anyone else, meetings reinforce your beliefs, you have no reason to question things, you get busy with raising a family and making a living. It was not until my forties that I started learning critical thinking skills, and also had some difficult circumstances that caused me to start to question things. Once I did, I quickly lost my faith, I walked away and didn't look back, I didn't even find JWN or other JW critical sites, I just knew that the Watchtower wasn't what they claimed.
So, did I deserve what I got? I don't know, maybe to a certain extent. But I feel the majority of the blame goes to the leaders of this religion, that lied, that hid their history, that used mind control techniques to keep people ignorant and enslaved.
