I dopn't know if the problem can be summed up by some false analogy. That's the way JWs think they win arguments, by presenting some analogy and creating a false dicotomy and then nailing you down by saying, for example, "So what is more important, obeying God's command to abstain from blood, or saving your physical body which God can restore? Huh? Which is it? Obey God, or save your physical life?" Real life is not an analogy. And no two things are exactly alike, so no situation in life can be summed up with an analogy.
But this is the great debate among ex-JWs isn't it? How to fade. How to escape. how to get our family out after we have invested a lifetime indoctrinating them with lies.
People who stay in and keep going to nmeetings often cite "peace in the family" as their primary value. My sister Patti, who is gay, still goes to meetings and pretends to be a JW when our parents are visiting often cites her great ability to keep the peace.
But what is more important to you, truth or peace? everyone has to make a stand for one or the other in a JW situation. Maintaining peace requires many many lies. Everytime you go to a meeting thinking in your head what total crap the whole thing is you are lying to everyone. When your kid asks you where we go when we die you lie to them. When your kid asks you if they should get baptised you lie to them. when your wife asks you how you liked the meeting you lie to her. But you keep the peace that way.
I think it's sort of the same case as when, to use an analogy, a man cheats on his wife. As long as she doesn't know there is peace. once she finds out the marriage would be over. Or if your wife cheats on you, do you want to know? Maybe your kid isn't really your kid. As long as you don't know everything goes on as usual and there is peace. But when you find out you may tell her it was selfish of her to tell you about it. Maybe you would rather not know.
But some people feel a fire within them that will not let them have peace in their minds until they tell their mate they have cheated. So they tell to purge themselves of the sin and they hope for forgiveness. But that often ends the marriage no matter what.
But if truth is more important than peace, you will stand up and shout the truth from the mountain tops and you won't care whop you hurt. There is a certain amount of respect a person who lives life forthrightly can feel for themsleves. but often the people around such a person are resentful because he smashed all their dreams. they were happy sleeping and dreaming and he came in thrashing about the place. then everybody hates everybody.
But I have found that in coming out against the Jws in the brash, harsh way I did, I lost everyone who was a JW. But now I have other frioends that are made of different stuff. I can tell them just about anything: I look at porn - oh yeah? so what? I was arrested once. Oh yeah" Who cares? Or whatever. Those are just two examples I came up with not an admission of doing those things. But my point is, my friends now are COOL! They are just straight up COOL. They are the COOL crowd, and I can talk with them about anything and they are very non-judgmental. Most of them are religious in various ways, some are non religious. One thing I can say about my current circle of friends is that I met most of them in college so they are all educated formally. I think that tends to make people more liberal. It also makes them more interesting to talk to. I'd sell my family members down the river before I'd give up my present friends. My friends ARE my family. And I found out that my family members are not nice people. They are all hateful and pious and proud. They are not loving. They are not smart. Thgey do things like: the one group of people they are non-judgmental about are child molesters, child molestation and incest being rampant in my immediate family - none of the sex criminals were ever brought to justice properly. They stand on corners pushing magazines, they don't celebrate holidays, they have an air of superiority, they look down on the whole world of non JWs, they'd let their children suffer horrible pain to avoid a simple blood transfusion, they are boring people, they don't do ANYTHING but go to meetings, read WT stuff and go out in service... that's their whole life, they can't think for themselves, they are not well read, not critical thinkers... Just YUK all the way arpound. Not people I would choose to hang out with basically. So as the years go by and I get over the grief of losing my mother who I loved dearly and my brothers and sisters and father, well, I see it now as no great loss. I consider them the dregs of society and I am glad to be rid of them. My life is so much better now. I've cried it all out and now I can finally say I have no regrets, well a few regrets, but on the whole, they just aren't worthy of my love. thye proved that. And they don't love Jesus like I do.
I call it a win win to have left that religion. And they'll never forget it either. I left and turned over tables and knocked down doors and wrecjed the place as I went out - figuratively speaking. I burned it all down. They'll never change. They'll never leave unless a few more members go out the way I did. The family now is so fractured anyway. Even all the JWs aren't talking to one another. Everybody hates everybody else. The non JWs, myself and my brother are the only ones talking to one another.
