Why did you chose to join a cult?

by Gill 39 Replies latest jw friends

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  jaffacake

  Someone I know was absolutely desperate and prayed for the first time in years. Several days later an ex-neighbour rang her doorbell peddling the lies, which she bought as a sign from God. She worked on her husband who was out of work and on medication for depression.

  Desperation, coupled with a tendency to trust (honest trustworthy people are the easiest victims because they believe others are trustworthy too) and a lack of knowledge of scriptures or Christianity are a recipe for potential conversion. Anyone with a solid grounding in Scriptures, especially the New Testament could not fall for this.
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  AK - Jeff

  I was pretty much raised in the witness faith - but I have a theorum to postulate!

  There is in the world massive religious hypocricy and confusion. Many with a spiritual bent are looking, but only see an unsortable fray. Then one day here comes someone who seems to have all the answers. No need to sort thru religion - it is all evil. No need to determine what side to take in political matters - it is all evil. No need to decide on education, careers, retirements - all vanity and a striving after wind.

  All the answers are in one place - one religion - one group that can answer [or answer-away] any question, concern, need, or issue that you can raise. And get you into that ark - everlasting life. It might seem to good to be true - but the mind tells us we want it that way.

  The hook is set - the bait is swallowed - and the fish is landed.

  Jeff
• 

  greendawn

  For me it was the double attraction of an apparently spiritual brotherhood and the opportunity to belong somewhere. The lures of a soon to be paradise and eternal life somehow always seemed to me as unreal and too good to be true. Of course I failed to realise they were a sect until a year after joining, and then I turned inactive and faded away.
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  JeffT

  I've been asking myself this question since 1988, and not sure I have a complete answer or ever will. I started studying with a friend in the fall of 1972. We were both in our senior year of college. He'd been baptized the previous spring and decided to finish, since he only had a year to go. (I don't know if the got counseled about that or not). At the time I'd been through a very bad period in my life, basically I'd had a nervous breakdown. The Vietnam war was raging, the watergate scandal was brewing, and things looked bad all over. I was stumbing through life and all of a sudden I'm hooked up with these people that have all the answers.

  As Blondie noted, they hid their true nature very well. And for some reason I didn't question what I was being taught. I was on a college campus with a two million volume library and it never once occured to me to go look them up.

  Oh well, when I was in the middle of exit and I was stewing over this stuff a friend said to me "Jeff everybody gets to where they are by the route they took. Don't worry about it, just go forward with your life."
• 

  M.J.

  I can't remember what the group is called now, but they are the ones with The Plain Truth magazine.

  Worldwide Church of God and you were probably watching Herbert W. Armstrong. Very similar cult to the JWs, down to the doctrines.
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  love2Bworldly

  I wasn't born into it and my parents were not, but I followed my older sister into it when I was 12 years old. I was young, naive, and had been physically and emotionally neglected by my parents. I think I was looking for the 'family' that I didn't have, and since I had no Bible knowledge--I swallowed everything they spewed out about them having the true religion. Left before I turned 22, so I count myself lucky.
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  luna2

  Aaaah, that's it M.J. Thanks. LOL My memory seems to have blanked out on religious stuff over the last couple of years. Sometimes I have a hard time remembering even JW doctrine that was pounded into my head for almost two decades until I am reminded by reading various posts and things here.
• 

  Es

  It also attracts lonely people...my old congo had so many weirdo's but in the real world they were lonely and had no friends but in the "truth" at least they had people talking to them.I was brought up in the "truth" . es
• 

  DanTheMan

  I think AK-Jeff pretty much nailed it.

  I loved the "rebel" aspect of JWism, also the last days stuff. Religion, Politics, and Business are all evil and under Satan's control? Tell me more. I can become part of a chosen group that will survive the Apocalypse? Hell yes! Where do I sign up?

  They seemed like really nice people too. And some are.
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  LouBelle

  Gill: Yeah born & breed into it. Though I always had more questions than answers. It is only now that I have the courage to leave.

  GetBusyLiving: I reckon that the witnesses make it sound like a really good deal and people out there are desperately trying to find that missing "thing".