How can it be called love when it is contingent on religious fervor?
As far as non-JW people go the absolute truth is they will only act nice to you if they think there is a hope you will come into the Org. If it is determined after a period of time that you are not JW material they will consider you dead meat. I remember about 10 or so years ago when a new JW mandate came out and it was being put into operation in the state where I was living and wonder if others remember this too?. It was when the United in Worship book was to be studied with the householder. We were informed then that if a person did not make progress and start to come to meetings within a certain period of time, or if they did not progress to baptizm after 6 months we were to drop them as a study and move onto the next door, because they were only wasting our time that could be spent seeking out more right-hearted ones. Pioneers were encouraged to weed out their old long time studies and stop wasting so much time with them. The zealous pioneers in our congo took this to heart and some even informed their bible studies of this pressuring them to move ahead a bit quicker. I used to accompany one pioneer on a bible study with a woman who was very depressed. She was working full time at a very difficult job, had difficult children, a difficult husband and was exhasted all the time. She claimed she looked forward to our uplifting bible study each week and seemed very hurt when she was told unless she straightened up and started to serve Jah more fully (meetings, etc.) she would be dropped as a bible study. I felt terrible about this pioneer telling her this, because this woman was obviously in need of help and too exhasted to keep up with the JW routine at present, but the pioneer sister just blazed on claiming that she was following the direction of the faithful and discreet slave. We were also told that in parts of South America there were so many who wanted to have a bible study, and not enough witnesses to study with them, so they had to meet a certain criteria before they could study, a main one being meeting attendance. If you did not attend the meetings regular you would be dropped as a study. Even in the past couple of years it was brought out again not to be wasting so much time making return visits on those who are not progressing. Strange, that those hard hitting policies of 10 or so years ago seemed to be covered up a bit afterwards and I didn't hear of it the way we originally heard of it for that period of time. Maybe they realized this was not an effective tecnique afterall. Yes, there are some JWs who act nice and seem to care, but I have personally experienced that much of this is an act. When I was abused by the Org and when I broke under their abuse and became inactive I was dropped by all my friends and some family for being weak, though I had commited no WT sin--I had been a JW for some 20 years and of all the friends I ever made in there I have 1 friend who will still speak to me on any kind of personal level--the others just say the same old programmed responses "WE miss you at meetings" etc, etc They don't call me nor do they really seem to care...On the other hand I have been shown unconditional love by friends and family who are not JWs. So what's up with JWs only loving each other? They belong to an organization that demands their total devotion, time and attension ahead of anything and anybody else in life AND if anything gets in the way of serving that organization even if it means showing love and kindness towards fellow human beings you are not to do it. You are to harden your heart, avoid all questionings and to obey whatever it is the leaders are commanding you to do. I don't think that most JWs know the true meaning of love and if they do they are trained to harden themselves to having fellow feelings. I feel that some of the young ones raised in there really have a warped view of what love is being that they have been constantly fed with the WT version of love, which is emphasized by the scripture "For this is what the love of God means--that we obey his commandments" 1 John 5:3. Of course being that the WT claims to be God's spokeman--this translates: For this is what the love of god means that we obey the WT. One of my final contacts with the Org was talking to a CO. I was still trying to make sense of with some of the things the elders had done to me and others in my congo. He was defending the elders and what they had told me about my relationship with my non-JW husband and daughter. He told me what he had to do was emotionally separate himself from his "worldy family" so he wouldn't feel so bad when they died at Armegedon (obviously advising me to do the same). He also told me that if my daughter ever had children being that she was not a witness he and the elders had a fear that I may become emotionally attached to them and this could divide my heart. Later an elder told me " I love my worldly family too, but I consider my real family to be Jehovah's Witnesses!" (He said this in a way that it made it sound like he was chewing me out) So what were these men trying to tell me to do??? So, I confess I have practiced unconditional love in my life and I now realize this is the WT sin that I am gulity of. Interesting how this question brought up some things I had forgotten about, but had really bothered me in the past. This site is a good place to purge these things out at times. Thank you all for being there and listening. Unconditional LOVE, Cybs