Anewme, I just know that the experience you describe with the elders, and the whole process that you've gone through with the actions and reactions of those at the kingdom hall is, in my experience and from almost all that I have talked to, most definitely the exception to the rule.
I think it's great that that is the way it's happening for you, I really do. But my personal experience was about as opposite as its possible for it to have been. My elders did ask me horribly embarassing questions, and took almost three months to respond to my many attempts to meet with them, letters unacknowledged, empty promises to talk to the others on the JC to set up a meeting.
On the topic of tough love as used by families with members with substance abuse problems, I've got experience with that. And it's night and day from the DF'ing policy. When a family member is using and you have to make the decision to cut off contact, for the sake of the safety of the other family members, you don't just show them the door and tell them to write you a letter in about nine months to a year asking if they can be a member of the family again. You still check up on that person, and do everything within reason to make sure they are ok. It didn't mean that I wouldn't say hello to my family member in public, or have lunch in public, or help move, or any of those things. It was a private safeguard that was absolutely necessary. And all in the family were completely aware of WHY it was necessary.
Shunning is used to incite shame, tough love is not.
CD
Cognitive_Dissident
JoinedPosts by Cognitive_Dissident
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73
D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
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D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
Not to mention your own topic on quoting scriptures from different parts of the Bible. I still say, whats wrong with that. Jesus did it.
According to Matthew 4:6, Satan was the one who was good at lifting scriptures out of context.
Granted, in those verses, the story goes that Jesus also quoted scripture, as rebuttal, but why assume that when a scripture is quoted at a Kingdom Hall it's automatically on the side of truth and right? Does it mean then that if it can be proved that the Society does pull scriptures out of context, in order to motivate people to do things the original scriptures don't imply, that they're taking a page out of Satan's playbook? -
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Why do so many people NEED to believe in a greater purpose?
by gringojj ini am an atheist.
i believe that this is the only life we have, there is nothing more.
i have no greater purpose.
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Cognitive_Dissident
You are not a dog. You are a god. - auldsoul
that reminds of the one about the dislexic agnostic insomniac who laid awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.
Why do so many NEED to believe in a higher purpose? I think people use the idea of some higher purpose to motivate themselves to do things that they don't otherwise want to do. Create an equation whose answer makes you feel better about your own situation. I think a lot of people simply aspire to some higher purpose because they're plagued with the question of "What if?" What if there is something more? What if this life isn't all there is? Will I get supremely f**ked if I don't try to live my life "better" than I am? That question used to bug me as Witness, only it was, "What if I'm striving to live life by this extremely rigid set of guidelines, and it turns out to be the wrong guidelines?"
My philosophy for the time being is that there is no summum bonum(there's a joke waiting to be made there). The concept of God is a construct developed by humans to try to create order out of the chaos.
My dog is happy when I get down on all fours and try to wrestle his toy squirrel from him. Maybe my dog is actually playing with me because his God has told him that selfless love is the highest canine aspiration. What better way for a dog to get to heaven than do what he knows will make me smile. Maybe dogs are the ones that really have it all figured out.
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D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
edited: accidentally posted it twice.
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73
D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
I think that's exactly why. If someone said to me - "All right, here are the major things that we believe, and oh, by the way, after you're baptized, if you screw up and do something you're not supposed to and subsequently don't think it's as big a deal as we think you ought to, you're going to get kicked out and none of your new friends who were so elated that you got baptized in the first place will talk to you." - I'd probably run away, too.
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D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
If you voluntarily join any organization, be it a golf club, a political party, or a religion and you flagrantly flout ITS rules, then you would expect some discipline, even being expelled, disfellowshipped.
That is true, but how does that statement apply to those of us who were raised in it, and never had any real choice?
How much choice does a child have when, by the time he's old enough to start really analyzing the world around him, his entire world - family, friends, meetings three times a week, studying, etc. - is defined by the religion he was born in to? By the time someone who is raised as a Witness is old enough to voluntarily decide for himself whether or not he wants to be a part of that group, the negative consequences that await him if he decides to leave are absolutely devastating. It means walking away from family, friends, and everything you've ever really known.
The other thing is that there is an inherent dishonesty in trying to get people to become Witnesses, because the full picture is not presented to people who are studying. How many Witnesses give all the details of the disfellowshipping arrangement to newly interested ones? -
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D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
I-CH-TH-U-S,
I can see where on the surface the disfellowhsipping policy may seem necessary from the standpoint of "keeping the congregation clean," following the logic of "a little leaven ferments the whole lump."
But the analogy does not hold. The logic employed to justify disfellowshipping is inherently flawed.
If the analogy of one or two drops of red dye turning an entire aquarium red were to validly apply to a congregation it would mean that ANY outside influence would have the same effect.
By removing someone from the congregation and prohibiting contact with that one under threat of punishment, the policy is saying in effect that those in the congregation are not spiritually mature enough to decide for themselves whom they should or should not associate with.
If "the Truth" as the Watchtower, Bible and Tract Society presents it, is as powerful and life-changing as they claim it to be, shouldn't it be able to instruct its individual followers well enough so that it's obvious who is and is not a "spiritual danger"?
And apart from that, does just listening to someone's ideas automatically guarantee that you will be "tainted" by them, and result in the complete rejection of everything that you currently "know to be the Truth"?
If the truth will actually set a person free, it should be able to stand up to different viewpoints and criticism. If an idea, or system of ideas, is threatened by even the most modest questions and criticisms, does it mean that the answer is simply to stop asking questions?
And what does it say about an organization which has implemented a policy which does exactly that - removes any person whose voice or actions raise a question concerning an established idea?
The scripture that is often quoted in disfellowshipping and disciplinary matters is Proverbs 27:11, which in the New World Translation reads: "Be wise, my son, and make my heart rejoice, that I may make a reply to him that is taunting me." The interpretation that is given to it by the Witnesses is that Witnesses need to act appropriately(do what the Society says), so that Jehovah can make a reply to Satan regarding the question of his sovereignty and right to rule, by saying to Satan, "Look, these people aren't forced, and they still haven't chosen to follow me." If any who disagree in action or thought are simply kicked out, what kind of basis for a reply is that?
If you threaten to punch someone in the face unless he tells you that you're right, and then ask him whether or not you're right, of what value is it when he tells you that you are?
I don't mean to beat this in to the ground, but I've been on all sides of this question, and none of them are rational or loving.
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D'Fing and Love
by I-CH-TH-U-S ini once talked to a jw about disfellowshipping and was curious to how can this be showing a christly love when you all out turn your back on them.
he gave me an answer about rightousness and unrightrousness having no fellowship (which is biblical) but it didnt make sense to me.
didnt seem applicable in many ways.
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Cognitive_Dissident
Disfellowshipping is a horrible, unloving policy. There is absolutely no love to be found in it, anywhere. It employs fear and isolation to inflict punitive emotional damage on those who don't live up to an impossibly high standard. Those sitting in judgment of disfellowshipped ones, the men on the Judicial Committees, are presented to the congregation as "loving shepherds" who will work with a person to try to help them "in a loving spirit". But in reality they are a harsh disciplinary committee. Disfellowshipping is NOT loving, and any attempt to justify it as being so is most likely motivated out of indoctrination and fear.
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JWD Milestone coming close
by Lady Lee ini have been watching the page counts for the last 2 months.. jwd is close to have 5000 pages of posts.
as of this post we are still 11 pages away from the 5000 mark (4989).
i bet simon never expected this to grow the way it has or become the wonderful resource and gathering place of so many who need the support and understanding of those who need it.. from active jws to ex-jws to doubting jws to ubms of jws and even the curious as well as the odd student wanting to write a paper jwd has been a great place to learn, get and give support and connect with others.
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Cognitive_Dissident
How about a competition ... predict the date that we'll hit the 2 millionth post (should be in about 6 months)
We actually already hit it back in '75, but it happened invisibly. -
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Why Christianity is all about judgement!
by free2beme inthis joke was written by the comedian emo phillips.
what makes it funny is that it captures christianity to the exact point we all should know.
enjoy .... voted the funniest religious joke of all time.
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Cognitive_Dissident
yeah, he's consistently the one that I listen to most on a regular basis