"SixofNine (what a great name!), if there is anything I wrestle with in my relationship with God is my constant wondering if I am serving Him by not belonging to a Church or a group.
May I look inside your heads for a moment?
by SwampThing 32 Replies latest jw friends
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SixofNine
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Steve Lowry
I was raised a JW (from the age of about seven), so I guess I?m disqualified from answering. At that risk, I must say that even after being raised a JW and fully understanding the mind control and all the baggage that only a JW can understand, I still cannot imagine myself as an adult volunteering to be a JW. I left the group when I became a man (about 23 I think it was), because even though I didn?t completely realize it at the time, I could no longer allow that kind of control over my life by another (or group). It is a completely foreign concept to me now to allow such a thing to happen to me. Maybe, BECAUSE of the experience itself, I can?t imagine becoming one as an adult. I dunno. I know my JW mother likes to fantasize that I was never really a JW in the first place. Maybe she?s got something there.
Anyway, I?m always reminded of this analogy when this point comes up. (How do people hand over their lives to someone or some group?):
If you put a frog into boiling water, he?ll quickly jump out. But if you place him into cool water and then slowly turn up the heat, he?ll sit there and let himself cook to death.
It?s kinda like that. It sounds so nice at first (cool water) but by the time the truth of it sets in (boiling), its too late for the JW (frog).
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talesin
ST, your question makes sense to me. As a born-and-raised, early escapee (18), it was hard for me to understand, but I now realize that I have allowed myself to be seduced into certain ways of warped thinking at times. Not speaking of religion here, just life in general.
Longing for the freedom to be me kept me an unfulfilled JW, even as a child.
Early escape from the confines of the Tower and religious thought in general was necessary for my survival. As for Dog, well, he has always been rather a nonentity to me. Spirituality? Yes. A supreme being? No.
Living, feeling, experiencing, is the key. I'm sure that good old Ralph W. had something profound to say on this subject, along the lines of appreciating nature, ah yes. "Keep seeing the world through the eyes of a child" [sic], was his advice.
~ Peace
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AlanF
You've raised an interesting question, Swamp Thing. The answers you've seen so far should tell you that there's no single answer. Typically, a number of factors combine uniquely for each individual that result in their giving their minds over to a cult that bills itself as "Jehovah's Organization". Perhaps someone is at an unusually emotionally vulnerable spot in life, and some nice JW comes along with a wonderful message of hope. Perhaps the vulnerability lowers the person's guard, and thinking ability, just enough and for just long enough, to let the cult mindset take hold. This is not necessarily a sign that the person stupid or unusually gullible, because some very bright people have been taken in at just the wrong time in their lives. Another combination of circumstances, and they'd reject the cult for what it is.
Converts to the JWs don't just up and say, after a period of study, "Hey, now I'm going to hand my decision-making ability over to the Watchtower Society." Indeed, converts would never, ever admit that they'd done exactly that, even though they have. The JWs are experts at convincing people to believe nonsense, including the fiction that they've done enough background research to be making a good decision to join. Once a person reaches a certain level of acceptance of the nonsense, they're a good deal more likely to accept a lot of it. That's the way cult conversion usually works.
People like you, who rebelled against parental authority early, have developed a great deal of sales resistance that a lot of others haven't. But you also had enough freedom to exercise that rebellion without extreme consequences. By extreme, I mean the severe beatings and/or mental torture that cults like the JWs expect their followers to inflict on rebellious children. Adolf Hitler was right when he claimed that his henchmen could convert any child under 12 years of age to the Nazi cause, given the right incentives. It works the same with cults. I know how this coercion works, because I was raised as a JW and experience the full range of coercion from birth.
Once a person has accepted the JW belief that the Watchtower organization is "God's channel of communication", and that its leaders comprise a "faithful and discreet slave" appointed by Jesus himself to lead God's earthly organization, and that membership in this organization is the only means by which a person can gain God's approval, handing over decision-making responsibility to "God's organization" is a no-brainer. Indeed, you'd be disobeying God himself if you didn't do it.
But of course, no practicing JW and no recent convert is ever going to admit to this. They've been trained to think that they arrived at these conclusions entirely on their own.
A good example can be found in the way the 1995 JW book Knowledge that Leads to Everlasting Life handles convincing new converts that JW leaders are God's spokesmen to mankind. The book starts off by discussing JW "basics", i.e., the JW view of the Bible that other posters have nicely elucidated earlier in this thread. At once point, the book makes the point that God himself has provided this wonderful information to the convert. If he or she accepts this idea, the battle for conversion is mostly over. Later, the book more directly says that the people who are bringing you this wonderful information must indeed be God's special appointees. If the person accepts this, the battle for conversion is over, and the person has now accepted direction from "God's spirit-directed organization".
I trust you can see the subtle way in which cults like the JWs can gain converts. Perhaps the best way for you to understand is to "accept a Bible study" from your local JWs, and observe for yourself how the process works. Play along with them and pretend to accept most of their ideas. But pose some questions along the way that you know they can't answer, and observe how they react. Usually they'll tell you that they'll research the question, but they'll find that they can't find an answer, and will then hope that you'll forget about it. They simply won't bring it up. In some cases you can let it slide, but in other cases, persist in demanding an answer. Usually you'll find that they'll stall and stall, and likely even ask you to put aside your question until you've completed your study. They're hoping that by then, you'll have accepted the rest of the nonsense and then will have enough sense (as my JW mother once told me) not to ask the hard questions any more. The point here, once again, is that people who get to this point of blind acceptance, and who forget or deliberately put off asking the hard questions, have lost the battle with the cult.
I hope I've given you a few more insights into the way JWs operate.
AlanF -
bem
AlanF:
Thank you for your response to SwampThing's Thread it really was well put and I for one appreciate that you answered in such a way as to not make us feel bad for making such life altering decisions! as so many of us made. I beat myself up so much all on my own! It really has made us who we are.
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Mac
May I look inside your heads for a moment?
Only if you intend to dilate it....I'm very old and urination has become a month long project! mac -
AlanF
bem, you can't ever beat yourself up over this! You made the best decision you knew how, given the information you had, and given your mindset at the time. So did I, during my decades-long exit process. The fault lies primarily with the liars in Brooklyn who have always known better, but for selfish reasons have promulgated the lie that JW leaders in Brooklyn are uniquely God's spokesmen. It also lies with the majority of JWs who prefer to give their minds over to the Watchtower Society, primarily out of trained and enforced intellectual laziness.
AlanF -
Englishman
Once a person has accepted the JW belief that the Watchtower organization is "God's channel of communication", and that its leaders comprise a "faithful and discreet slave" appointed by Jesus himself to lead God's earthly organization, and that membership in this organization is the only means by which a person can gain God's approval, handing over decision-making responsibility to "God's organization" is a no-brainer. Indeed, you'd be disobeying God himself if you didn't do it.
I wonder though, if this is what happens to those who are brought into the JW's by their parents?
My experience is that "born into it's" are much less likely to remain in the org than those that have been converted directly.
"Born into it's" seem to work on 2 levels, ie the head knowledge that they get from their parents versus the fact that they haven't accepted this as truth in their heart for themselves.
Englishman.
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freein89
Englishman,
I think that is true, but there are also born into's who accept and believe, but later in life leave. I think this is because their anger is greater when they find out they have been hoodwinked and lost everything they ever knew once the doubts take hold.
The ones who join as adults are making a decision for themselves, yes. Maybe it is easier to stay with that, but I think the sense of betrayal is bigger for the born into's.
My mother bought in as an adult, I often wonder what she was thinking.
Deb
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talesin
English, for me it was an innate sense of its 'wrongness'. There was no logic to the interpretations of Bible prophecy (eg. the Ezekiel book). It also felt wrong. The lack of love within the bOrg was so obvious that I knew they did not follow the teachings of Christ.
These two things, my logic and their lack of love, made me an unbeliever in spite of the indoctrination of which AlanF speaks.
AlanF, that is so true, the beatings, the mind control, it all flooded back when I read your words. It is a wonder to me that my spirit survived such a childhood intact.
We truly are the lucky ones, no matter we left sooner, or later. : )