3 questions i hit my jw mum with:.
first question: do you believe that god is love?
third question: do you think a god of love would choose to destroy me for not doing something i cannot do (be a jw) because i am not convinced rather than convince me beyond doubt?
That's a great way of putting things under perspective. I hope it keeps helping you.
However, as right as you might be, I'd suggest to be sensitive and don't constantly bombard your mom with your doubts. You may hurt her. Reinforce your love for her, just to be on the safe side.
in the story in the gospel of mark, mark writes that jesus is hungry and comes across a fig tree.
mark explains that it not in season yet jesus upon finding the fig tree has produced no fruit kills the tree.. this story makes no sense if literal so do the gun teach that it literally happened?.
The Bible makes no sense, imagine that!
witnesses always claim to have a "bible trained conscience" yet they are really just watchtower robots who cant piss without checking with an elder or watchtower.
an elder who cuts hair was scared when i asked for a bald buzz cut since my hair was receding and grey.
he actually rang a bethel elder to see if this was okay watchtower wise!
And that's why it's considered a cult.
with recent events pointing at watchtower growth, i felt compelled to say a few words.. if the figures turn out to be true, then we should not be discouraged.
after 9/11 there was a surge in, not only the watchtower, but other demonisation of organised religion.
whenever there is a a paradigm shifting event that puts fear into others, this tends to have a life changing affect on an individual.. now let us zoom to the present.
I completely agree. What I see, however, is absolutely nothing new in the horizon. Never, not once, religion, especially Christian religions, have had anything good to say about the current state of affairs.
The number one thing that I see in organizations that want to manipulate people, is that catastrophic view of the world. I don't see anything new.
so sunday afternoon tea with my "anionted" mum and her old witness holy friends.
they start talking trump how he "is gonna do somthing to start armegedon.
" no sad faces about this apocalipse.
So Sunday afternoon tea with my "anionted" mum and her old Witness holy friends. They start talking Trump how he "is gonna do somthing to start armegedon." No sad faces about this apocalipse. NO, they were all smiles...nodding their heads together, smiling like stepford wives. I was totally CREEPED OUT! I can imagine in 1939 Witnesses doing the same with Adolf Hitler.
And they said the same thing when Obama got elected and made same sex marriage legal, and when Bush got elected and started the war in Iraq, and when Clinton was elected because of the "false sense of peace', and when the other Bush got elected for who-knows-why.
Same nonsense, different name.
i often come across jw's using the "worldwide brotherhood" as one of the reasons to justify that jw's have "the truth.
" such a brotherhood, they claim, would not exist outside the organisation because there is no way that people of different religions, nationalities, races, cultures, backgrounds, languages etc.
can be united and associate together freely without "the truth!".
I find interesting that many JWs use their faulty reasoning to stay in their "truth" without daring to look inside themselves about how they feel. If you noticed, Divergent, in your post (at least what I got), not only you uncovered a way in which JWs manipulate people to not look around for better ways of uniting with other people, but also you find that there's a way to have a sense of community in a diverse group of people without any of them believing or behaving in the exact same way.
pale.emperor made an interesting observation in another thread:.
the "blocking an expression of gods love" crap is a sneaky tactic to make the shunner not feel like they're doing something evil.
cults do that.
What I'm really getting at is this: The idea of a god -- any god -- creates an opportunity for power over a group of people. So, belief in a god tends to become organized, and then it's all quite political and manipulative from there.
Not only that, but I can easily add that it's not limited to a diety at all. There are cults that use the same tactics and what they are based is on recovery from drugs and alcohol. There are other ways of using the same tactics, using political causes or self-help, for example, that can harm as much as using a god or diety.
one of my best friends was disfellowshipped several years ago, and word quickly got around that it was because he's gay.
we lost touch after that because of the disfellowshipping, but since i'm out now, i just found him online and got back in touch with him.
it was a great conversation, but he said he returned to jehovah.
I guess that any single person who's a member of the JW's is expected to remain celibate, hetero or gay.
True, however, gay people are not accounted for anything else. What i mean is that all the rules are made to make it easier for heterosexual men remain celibate (men preach with men, women preach with women, etc). In that respect there is a lot of lack of acknowledgment about gay people's existence, or maybe it's done on purpose. Who knows?
Either way, sexual orientation has nothing to do with why people want to return to being a JW as they are not the only ones who do. It's about people not seeing the negative influence the WT has on them even after they leave.
one of my best friends was disfellowshipped several years ago, and word quickly got around that it was because he's gay.
we lost touch after that because of the disfellowshipping, but since i'm out now, i just found him online and got back in touch with him.
it was a great conversation, but he said he returned to jehovah.
Something that may explain that is that many of us tend to forget an important thing. The WT and other cults teach many things about what/how people must live their lives. But that's only one part of what they do.
In order for these controlling groups to maintain control over their people, they also give messages about how horrible their lives will be if they leave, and how horrible life is outside of their place. The brainwashing is not only about what they should do and be when they are in, but also about how terrible and empty their lives are supposed to become out there in "the world".
Look at how many ridiculous things they say about the world outside, and how everything that happens in the world is supposed to be bad, not worthy or deserving of destruction.
When a person leaves, that's what they fear they will be facing, and if they don't know how to deal with being made believe that the world out there is horrible, the very moment when something challenging happens to them, they may feel that the nonsense they were taught was right.
Some people don't have the emotional strength to deal with life challenges. That's why some join the JWs in the first place. So the moment they have a bad experience, I can see how the WT will look attractive to them.
That goes beyond people's sexual orientation.
during my time in the jws there was a friend i had known since i was a small child.
he was an elder's son and around my age.
he would often instigate the game of "tag" after the meetings.
The eye opener for me was realizing that those people have no knowledge and no interest in anything that has to do with mental health.
That organization has no policies, no training, no knowledge, and no interest in dealing with problems that people have, other than the ones that may hinder their making money. They can't care less about how people feel. Growing up I saw so many people who had all kinds of mental health issues, the most common being eating disorders. Food is the only pleasurable thing that is allowed and not regulated by them.
I'm not surprised that people commit suicide and still their loved ones keep going to them for comfort. if that's not a sign of brainwashing, I don't know what is.
