Cult Status Covered Over By Blood & Why Ex's Seek To Infiltrate

by Englishman 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  Englishman

  Just wondering how it is that ordinary folk tend not think of JW's as a cult like, say, The Moonies.

  Consider what it is that makes ex's so virulently opposed to the Watchtower society that Joe Public doesn't even know about. I'm talking about disfellowshipping and disassociation here, the way in which families are split, loved one's abandoned and friends made into enemies. This is, I believe, the main reason that ex's become so angry and seek to infiltrate JW web sites. They want to get others to see the harsh injustice that is meted out by Brooklyn in the name of the Creator. They don't want to remain gagged.

  Yet, if you ask an ordinary non-believer what they know about Jehovah's witnesses, what will they answer?

  They'll mention maybe something about them not having blood transfusions and not celebrating birthdays and Christmas. Oh yes, they knock on people's doors sometimes. They know virtually nothing of what really happens in the JW religion! Least of all do they know that the head honcho's are considered God's organisation on Earth.

  See, I think that the blood thing is a cover-all that craftily disguises all the other things that are bad within the JW organisation. It's nutty enough to get people to shake their heads in bewilderment at such incredible faith that people are prepared to die rather than take a blood transfusion. It also has a wonderfully useful martyr status for those who actually refuse and die. It possesses a persecution framework for those who allow their loved one's to die, and this becomes headline news if the dying one is a child.

  Yet, if we consider how many people actually die through lack of blood compared with the numbers of folk whose families are split at the whim of JC's, it's obvious that far more people are affected by Df'ing and Da'ing than by the blood issue. The blood issue, whilst diabolical for those affected, still only directly concerns a small proportion of JW's.

  So then, is the blood issue actually a very useful tool for Brooklyn in that it divert attention away from other issues that would pour disgust upon the JW religion?

  Englishman.
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  Will Power
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  gumby

  So then, is the blood issue actually a very useful tool for Brooklyn in that it divert attention away from other issues that would pour disgust upon the JW religion?

  I think the blood issue is NOT simply a cover-up issue that the society uses to cover over other issues.........but rather simply another doctrine that was at the time of it's inception......was a doctrine they truely believed had gods backing. In other words....I don't believe it was "fabricated" solely as a means to divert attention of members and the public, from it's peculiar teachings.

  The blood issue is just ANOTHER doctrine fabricated by one man who convinced others of it's truths.

  Gumby
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  NeonMadman

  So then, is the blood issue actually a very useful tool for Brooklyn in that it divert attention away from other issues that would pour disgust upon the JW religion?

  Yes, in practical terms it may well work that way, but I doubt that they deliberately set it up for that purpose. The blood doctrine was around even before disfellowshipping and shunning, the former having started in 1945, and the latter in 1952. Nor do I believe that they are perpetuating the blood doctrine as a cover-up for their other evils; from every indication, the GB is deeply split about blood, and they would probably abandon the whole teaching if they could find a way to do so without losing a massive amount of credibility and getting sued into oblivion.
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  Mystery

  You are absolutely correct in my experience with asking others what they know about JW's. I just received a very lengthy email from a very dear friend, whose only association with JW's was a friend he went to school with and with me (we met in college). He has been reading a lot on Social Psychology and was analyzing me regarding my "obsession" with being a JW and not being able to completely let it go. (Tell my mom & family - I will never go back).

  We have been friends for many years; this is the first time he didn't give the same redudant answers to my raves, typical non-JW answers of someone that is "trying to understand". It is like a light bulb clicked on in his mind about what I have been talking to him about for so long. This was the first time he referred to it as a cult, comparing it to remarkable control Jim Jones had over the belivers that were part of the Jonestown massacre.

  A portion of his email to me:

  ...one of the biggest struggles you will ever have, putting that crap behind you, is removing the hook that was set to the bone by your parents. You brain associates that religion and its belief with your parents. The same folks that gave you like and raised you and loved you for all that time. In the deepest parts of your brain, you associate disowning that religion with disowning them......

  What father or mother would put ANYTHING over the love for their children? What father or mother would ever allow a single hair to be harmed on their child?s head?

  I'm not suggesting that they don't love you, but they are putting that cult ahead of their love for you and that is F...ED UP! period! no way other than that to look at it.

  What makes it so painful is that you probably do what I and every other person on the face of the planet does. No matter how good or bad or down right evil a persons parents may be, we, as kids, will spend the rest of our lives seeking their approval.

  An opinion of an outsider looking in at JW's. Once they get past the holiday and bood issues.
• 

  DevonMcBride

  They'll mention maybe something about them not having blood transfusions and not celebrating birthdays and Christmas. Oh yes, they knock on people's doors sometimes. They know virtually nothing of what really happens in the JW religion! Least of all do they know that the head honcho's are considered God's organisation on Earth.

  Your are right E-man. This is the only information I knew of the JW's before my friend got involved with them. It wasn't until I started researching the internet that I learned anything more.

  The public doesn't understand what a cult is or isn't and that could be why they don't associate JW's as being one. In the publics mind, they think cult members dress funny, shave their heads bald or have bizarre beliefs. The Moonies got a lot of bad publicity over the years and they believe Rev. Moon is a prophet and that Koreans are God's chosen people. The Raelians believe man came from aliens on another planet. The JW doctrine doesn't sound that strange when compared to some of the other cults out there.

  Devon
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  Sargon

  The blood issue as a red herring!! What in interesting theory.

  Neon said:

  The blood doctrine was around even before disfellowshipping and shunning, the former having started in 1945, and the latter in 1952

  I wasn't aware of this. Did they have any other means of discipline prior to these dates?
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  xjw_b12

  The blood issue is something they are stuck with, for now.

  The blood issue is what will bring the WTBTS down.

  Not now, not the way it is, but when they retract it. The retraction has already begun, via their convolutions, and they are about half way there.
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  Odrade

  The blood issue is what will bring the WTBTS down

  I believe that, a couple of years ago (before I woke up to the rest of the control) I told a sister who works in the hospital system with the bloodless program that it was impossible to understand the blood doctrine as it is now. And if they ever did away with the blood doctrine entirely I didn't know what that would mean for my faith.

  Most people within the WT organization won't listen long enough to realize how other issues (like Malawi) have taken lives, and how the df'ing and da'ing splits families. But if the Society ever reversed on the blood doctrine, even the most loyal dubs would realize the implications of the "light growing brighter," that their blind faith in WTS policy as doctrine cost many lives unnecessarily. Imagine the impact if that JW personally knows someone who died as a result of rejecting blood. I knew two JWs who died from blood loss and refusing transfusion. I know of a couple of children who are developmentally disabled because of Rh factor. I know a man who died of cancer because he couldn't do the treatment for fear of needing red blood cells at sometime during treatment.

  But I think E-man hit the nail square on the head about xjws being so angry. We know that families are split and lives ruined, but most people just thing the JW religion is just strange, not destructive. They tell us to "move on," but our families are still held hostage,and we can't help them because they are not allowed to speak to us.

  The blood doctrine is a distraction, though I don't believe deliberately so. It is a convenient scapegoat though.

  O
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  NeonMadman

  I wasn't aware of this. Did they have any other means of discipline prior to these dates?

  If you go back to the writings of Russell, you'll see evidence of a system of church discipline similar to what exists in many Protestant churches: if a person's actions become blatantly deviant from the rules of the group, he can be brought before the whole church, and excommunicated, i.e., have his membership revoked. Such a person is no longer regarded as a member, and should be admonished by the remaining members to repent and return to God and the flock. When Rutherford was in charge, he used disfellowshipping to silence dissidents, such as Olin Moyle, who later successfully sued the WTS over the announcement of his disfellowshipping in the Watchtower.

  The elaborate system of discipline that exists today among the JW's appears to be a product of the twisted mind of Fred Franz; things like the judicial committee arrangement and the extreme shunning that are practiced today have no foundation in scripture, and were introduced in the 1952 Watchtower. So, yes, there was technically disfellowshipping before 1952, but not in the current form and, as far as I know, not very widely practiced. It does not appear that disfellowshipping was held over the heads of the Witnesses back then as it is today, requiring that they conform "or else".