Any commonality with dubs who join as adults?

Check_Your_Premises

I know many women who joined as adults who were victims of physical abuse or some sort of sexual assault. I know many men who join because their wives do.

I think generally to join the dubs as an adult, you have to be looking for some sort of security. The world probably hasn't been very nice to you. You crave a certainty that you are protected by God, and worshipping Him the right way, that you are in with the "inside scoop". You don't have to trust your own conscience anymore because so much of that work is done for you. You don't have to figure out complex theological issues, because those are explained to you. The entire universe is tied up in a nice neat bow, and all of your activities are planned for you. You are given order, ritual, and a sense of purpose.

Any other things that make it appealing?

What sort of experiences do people have that make them more likely to join as an adult?

Molested as a child? Abused physically as a child? A chaotic home life? Has anyone with a healthy upbringing ever joined as an adult?

FlyingHighNow

I agree. I also know men who join because their parents abused them. People who join to help them kick drug habits. I knew a sister and brother who were former prostitute and pimp that studied and married. My brother in law started the JW plague in our family. He was the child of severe alcoholic parents. He now is opening his eyes, but is afraid to let go of the hope the society offers.

People join because the WTBTS offers an instant cure to their suffering and problems, much of the time. Then that new system becomes like a drug, like heroin, it's intoxicating and addictive.

kls

Has anyone with a healthy upbringing ever joined as an adult?

That would be my husband and yes i think you got it right ,at least in my husbands case . All the answers in life were tied into a neat little package,thinking , learning ,how to live and knowing how you think you will never die . I suppose it is so much easier to live your life controled then to control your own life and you never have to worry about destiny because that is all planned out for you by the wt.

Ellie

they perhaps have stupidity in common

kls

People join because the WTBTS offers an instant cure to their suffering and problems, much of the time. Then that new system becomes like a drug, like heroin, it's intoxicating and addictive.

Excellent thought FHN

Balsam

I joined because I liked what they said on the surface. My then husband had no use for religion but was fasinated with a man name Garner Ted Armstrong on the radio, and talked with a JW on his job. Eventually he brought some of the publications come like the Truth Book.

At the time we were 20 & 24. We had been married just under a year and had some serious martial problems and was headed for divorce.

I had a wonderful childhood with a keep interest in the bible. My husband came from family where their Dad was a serious drunk all the time and he had seen his Dad hit is mother and neglect the children. So he was deeply attracted to the JW's. I basically found it interesting enough I went along with it and then just more of less blindly followed it. After all the thinking was all done for me. Our marriage improved and was pretty good for about 7 years. By then the marriage was terrible but the faith we had in the witnesses is what kept us married to each other for a total of 30 years. I finally left after the death of one of our sons that had to do with the blood issues.

I suppose I could say I just followed through with it because of trying to save a bad marriage, and the religion and living by the bible principles as JW saw them was a cure all for everything.

Balsam

FlyingHighNow

People join because the WTBTS offers an instant cure to their suffering and problems, much of the time. Then that new system becomes like a drug, like heroin, it's intoxicating and addictive.
Excellent thought FHN

I want to clarify, the cure isn't instant as in, as soon as you get baptized. The spiritual paradise, I guess, is that euphoria of dreaming that any day, J-God will instantly slaughter 99.9% of the earth's population and then you can go pick out whichever house that you want, etc and grow young and good looking again, etc.

Check_Your_Premises

Has anyone with a healthy upbringing ever joined as an adult?
That would be my husband and yes i think you got it right ,at least in my husbands case . All the answers in life were tied into a neat little package,thinking , learning ,how to live and knowing how you think you will never die . I suppose it is so much easier to live your life controled then to control your own life and you never have to worry about destiny because that is all planned out for you by the wt.

Ok K, I am not sure those aren't contradictory ideas. To want to have the world tied up in a neat bow for you does not seem to me like a person who has a very well defined sense of self. Or maybe they were never allowed. What were his folks like?

I just think they all must be seeking shelter from something.

CYP

luna2

Hrm...I went from high control parents (not bad people at all, just very sure that they were right about everything and as long as you lived under their roof, you'd do things their way), to a high control husband (who thought he was a god, and if he wasn't a god, then he should be made one), to a high control religion.

My parents, my ex, my religion were all so stinking sure that they were right, that I believed them...at least for a time...because all I was sure of was that I didn't have the answers.

It's not that I enjoyed all of this manipulation and control, but it's pretty much all I knew. I liked the idea that with JW's, at least, it was God doing the controlling and not humans. I also liked that He (well, so I thought) set out everything he expected from you up front and didn't leave you to guess. It sure was a nice, neat story anyhow. I just didn't realize that it was fiction.

I guess if you want to call that stupidity you can. I do feel pretty dumb for having bought into it.

greendawn

When people feel depressed and lonely they will feel greatly flattered and uplifted by the fact that someone bothers to visit and talk with them. The dubs seem to enjoy demonic direction in finding depressed persons.

Any commonality with dubs who join as adults?

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