I thought this was a timely essay you all should read!
http://kent.steinhaug.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=427
The post-JW cult JanH
This is just a collection of random thoughts I have had on the online ex-jw community over the last months. I have at times been heavily involved in both support groups and general anti-WT work, but have become largely detached from it over the last few years. I still debate issues I am interested in online, and pay attention to the developments, but I am mostly here for social reasons.
I no longer post on JWD for a number of reasons, and I read far from all of the messages posted there, and I find it easier to see what is really going on in the role of observer.
The online xJW community is growing increasingly intolerant not only to JWs with genuine doubts, but also to anyone expressing views contrary to the "mainstream." There is a very angry crowd there, for obviously and understandable reasons, who will accept no dissent regarding their core dogma: that the WTS is responsible for all ills and problems in life.
It was a time when attacks on the WTS could be reasonably criticized on fact and logic without the critic being labeled pro-JW. That seems to no longer be the case. A part of the reason is no doubt that anyone who does not conform to the mob is harassed to the degree they realize they have to find another forum for serious discussion.
For example, I have found the criticism of the WTS Trinity brochure to be often ill-founded and unfair. Many does not seem to understand what is a misquotation and what is not. Surely, I believe the brochure is far from giving a correct picture of the development of Christology in the early Christian church, but the same can be argued about its opponents. Anyone expecting a objective treatment of this subject from the WTS is grossly unreasonable, and as an example of WTS atrocities or failings, this brochure doesn't even make the top thousand.
Also, a number of bogus arguments are repeatedly posted. Earlier, more knowledgable people rebutted or at least questioned these arguments. Even the totally bogus "russell was a freemason" argument seems to go unanswered these days.
Perhaps the most common bad argument is accusing JWs of having "conditional love". I will argue that all love is conditional. I doubt many would continue to love a person abusing them in the worst possible way. The WT problem is not that love is conditional, but that it is conditional on factors totally external to the relationship. JWs love on the condition that the other remain a member of the sect. Of course, by now the argument no longer fits into a catchy slogan, which is probably the reason the misconstrued phrase keeps being repeated.
I have also, frankly, had some mixed feelings on making the child abuse cases the primary focus of the attack on the WTS. As it is now, it will probably be the worst crisis ever hitting the WTS, and given the criminal neglect of the organization I have no tears for them. Even more important, this exposure will probably do much good in saving other children from abuse and empowering existing victims to take back their lives. Also, some of my initial fears have largely been answered by the excellent way the people in what i will call "the silentlambs network" have conducted the project. They seem to have avoided the countless pitfalls such an emotional subject brings up. The bogus or doubtful allegations that always surfaces in such cases have received a calm, critical evaluation. That this project has succeeded so far is, ironically, because it has been run as an "elite" operation (oh how they hate that expression!) largely hidden from all interested parties, including both the WTS and the 'mob'.
This is about to change as the Dateline exposure hits the airwaves (hopefully next week). It will go mainstream, and this deeply emotional subject will take all the classical characteristics of a media feeding frenzy. I have been deeply disturbed by the extreme attacks on the eminent sociologist Rodney Stark I have read on JWD. Some have openly suggested trying to smear him by arguing that any positive sentence about the WTS -- which was quotable when the compulsory brakets and ellipsis was employed -- means that he somehow supports child abuse. I don't doubt that he has already received hate mail from some mob members. If Stark or other scholars fails to see the real, ugly truth behind the window-dressing in the Watchtower, it can at least be partially blamed on the hysterical mob.
Finally, a word on "trolls". H2O in the past, and JWD now (and probably WOF in the future), is of course very vulnerable to real "trolls". The word troll originally refers to someone posting a provocative message on a public forum just to hook people into angry retorts, when they themselves do not mean what they say. This last part seems to have escaped the attention of many board members who repeatly yells "troll." It has become the catch-all insult to everyone who posts opinions they do not like. The hyper-sensitivity to "trolls" is IMO a much greater threat to free exchange of ideas than the genuine trolls.
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- Jan
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"The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing and admits of no conclusion." -- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
Last edited by JanH on 05-22-2002 at 01:02 PM
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"The only good elite are dead elite!!"-Naeblis
(Ok! He borrowed it)