I think I didn't express myself clearly. I wasn't talking about social association but about religious association. I associate socially with my JW parents, for example, but not religiously. They, in fact, are afraid to bring up religious topics with me. We have no problem socially as long as religion is kept out of it.
Hi again, Alan
Social or religious, what’s the difference? We associate with people because we have some sort of common ground or values, whether that be religious or social. I do talk religious issues with my JW parents, and we do not always agree either, but on many aspects we do agree—common ground. Same thing with my JW friends.
You've expressed yourself on the blood policy and have made no bones about it being source of great sorrow and even anger for you. No doubt you've avoided making a public declaration of your views. By the Society's own standards, and probably by the standards of most people, associating religiously with some group is tantamount to giving it support -- unless one makes it publicly clear that one does not support a particular set of teachings or policies. In most religious groups this is not a great problem, but the necessity of rooting out such public dissent is a fundamental JW teaching. Thus, you cannot remain a JW and express public dissent. They will kick you out and brand you a wicked, vile apostate if you do.
Exactly what you deem a public declaration I don’t know. I do know my feelings about the blood issue are no secret to my JW family, local elders or the WTS. What would you have me do, take out a full page add in the New York Times? Because I do not shove my views down the throats of people that don’t want to hear them, does that make my expressions somehow less than public? I don’t think so. I might not have created a local war over the issue, but my views have been expressed.
Your caveat that associating religiously with some group is tantamount to giving it support unless one makes it publicly clear that one does not support a particular set of teachings or policies is not the universal tenet you assert. An individual’s support of specific teachings or policies can only be know by asking the individual. Otherwise it is an assumption, and one that not all persons would make. I think reasonable people would assert as have I before they would make negative assumptions about support of a specific policy or policies.
My point is: why would anyone want to associate with such a group religiously and thereby give tacit support to all of their teachings? Such support of all teachings is tacit because public disagreement with any teachings will result in expulsion and shunning (cf.W86 4/1 pp. 30-31).
Tacit support of ALL teachings could be imputed to a person that accepts authority in a religion, but not of a person who merely associates with it. For whatever reason, some persons can and do feel they fit in best with one religious group over others, even though they may not fully understand the ins and outs of its theology. We can only know what specifically such ones like about a religion and what they do not like—if anything—by asking them. Most churchgoing people would agree that they do not hold to every single detail of what their church teaches. They have no reason to conclude otherwise about other churchgoers. Why would they? As for JWs, my history is rich in that religion. Though I respect your own history with JWs I cannot and will not substitute your experience for my own. My experience is that all JWs do not completely agree or support ALL WTS policies. In fact, I hear a lot of them complaining about some of these policies. I am a living example of just such a person.