For those that can i would say to take as many teaching books as possible,i dont talk to the trolley people just chitchat but ive had over 100 teaching books in just one week from the trolleys and if it is true what they say about being short of money that will help to speed things up, a death of a 1000 cuts you could say
Why trying to reason a JW out of the cult is a lost cause (and what the solution might be).
by OneEyedJoe 51 Replies latest members private
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C0ntr013r
It also has to do with what kind of person it is . Unfortunately, most people function the way you describe. They have emotional reasons but use logic and reason to rationalize their beliefs and opinions.
And I think it is easier to leave for a person who is not basing their views on emotional arguments, therefore the people who need the most help getting out are the "emotional thinkers". Unfortunately the people who are trying to help these people might not be, they might have left because of a more rational reason. Therefor the argument they present might have worked for them but it will not have any impact on emotional thinkers.
This might lead to great conflict and the people discussing will totally miss understand each other because they don't understand that they reason and think differently.
There are of course many other factors at play here, confirmation bias and the fact that their entire life is invested into the cult; friends, family, work, money, time, etc. So they can't afford for it to be wrong...
The more you invest into something, the harder it is for you to leave. We can't stand the thought of it all being fake or for nothing, therefore that is not a option...
Also, everyone has the ability to use rational and emotional argument. It is just harder for a "emotional thinker" to be swayed by a rational arguments and vice versa, hence the miscommunication.
The best way imo, to help someone is to understand how they think and understand their reasoning. If they are emotional thinkers, understand how that process works and how their decision cycle works.
Example:
Rational argument:
1. If you drink and drive your perceptive functions and reflexes are really bad.
2. You have a higher risk of being in a car accident.
Emotional argument:
1. Most people don't drink and drive.
2. Most people find it irresponsible.
3. What would your family think/say if they knew/found out?
Hope this helps someone :)
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C0ntr013r
And readers of the posts are not afraid of accepting the fact that their belief system might be wrong. So besides emotion, logic, and intelligence,--- courage is an absolute must. It takes courage to accept you were wrong and change your paradigm.
Another interesting factor is that "emotional thinkers" attach in a more emotional way to their views and beliefs. This will cause them to get offended if you argue against their beliefs.
"Rational thinkers" usually don't attach to ideas in the same way which makes it easier for them to change their views. And keep their emotions and views separated.
Of course they are still not "immune" to it.
It is not just about courage, some people have the advantage when it comes to changing their minds. But I do agree, it takes much courage and curiosity to leave a cult.
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done4good
Very well written post. I agree with the general concepts, although I would disagree on some finer points. I will qualify what I mean by that.
What you refer to as emotion, is not necessarily so in all cases. It is more intuition, than anything else. Often times, these traits do go with each other, however not always. Intuitive thinking is a rare trait, but does come easier for some than for others. Certain personality types, (NTs), will often "know" something is not right, however may lack the ability to articulate precisely what is wrong. This was me when I left.
I agree that this drove me to do extensive research to attempt to support my decision to leave, we can call that rationalization, (to a certain degree it is), however I would call it more of a need to understand the decision on rational terms. I would also agree that those things I learned by that research, had nothing to do with the reason I left. They certainly did serve to reinforce my decision, but in no way were those things the true motivation. It may take someone many years to be able to articulate why they left. It took me about 8 years, and I did so in a letter I just happened to address to an old JW friend. It just occurred to me one afternoon, and I decided to write about it, and yes it was all about my core values being violated.
I also agree that it is difficult, if not impossible to know just what core values a person holds to in such a way that we would know how to effectively communicate to them TTATT. I tried that and failed, and learned the hard way. I would say this needs to be more of an experience a person needs to have personally for them to have the right optic on it. Simply telling one's "story" often does not resonate with people that lack common experience. Forget about doctrine, that will never get someone by itself, unless they automatically intuitively recognize falsehoods as dishonesty, which there must be 1000+ ways to rationalize around.
Sorry for the rambling...a bit sleep deprived.
d4g
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SecretSlaveClass
Excellent well thought out post. My mother is a prime example.
She matriculated when she was sixteen, scored in the top five percentile for her nursing exams and was about to enter university with the hope of becoming a doctor until that fateful day the JWs came knocking.
Her dad returned from WW2 a changed man with severe PTSD which broke his marriage and family appart so she grew up with a deep hatred for war. When the JWs offered her hope of all wars coming to an end (she hated the idea of living in heaven but loved the idea of living on a peaceful Earth), her brilliance was overridden by her emotional need to hear what she always wanted to hear and she lept at the offer.
Emotions in my opinion are the most powerfully influential part of a human being. History and human behavior have that demonstrated in concrete. People murder and fight because of them and make decisions based on them. Even in the blinding light of the most basic common sense, they more than often let their emotions dictate their decisions instead. I believe people climg to religion not because of facts, but because of an emotional commitment. People who are quick to take offense are almost always the most hazardous of emotional types.
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OneEyedJoe
What you refer to as emotion, is not necessarily so in all cases. It is more intuition, than anything else. Often times, these traits do go with each other, however not always. Intuitive thinking is a rare trait, but does come easier for some than for others. Certain personality types, (NTs), will often "know" something is not right, however may lack the ability to articulate precisely what is wrong. This was me when I left.
I would assert that you still had an emotional reason for actually taking action. It didn't "feel right" to you (I'm an NT myself and I completely understand what you mean - it never felt right to me either) but why does that mean that you need to leave? Why not continue on in the cult in spite of it not feeling right? Your heart is treacherous, after all. One could argue that the rational thing would be to stay in the cult - your entire social structure is built around it, you have no support outside it, why not just make pascal's wager and stay? Why does it have to be "true" for you to stay in? If you drive at it like that long enough, you will get to an emotional reason for leaving.
It is entirely possible to make any decision a rational one, it just depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to keep your JW family, then staying in the cult (in spite of it not feeling right) is the absolute most rational decision. If your emotional core is more attached to your family than it is things feeling right to you, then you'll absolutely stay.
It takes courage to leave, and especially with the way this cult systematically removes any self-confidence, it takes strong motivation to get to the point where you trust yourself enough to actually take the huge risk of leaving. That motivation has to come from our emotional core.
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warehouse
Seeing as how logic and emotions are the discussion at hand, I would love to respond. But I think we all need to come to an agreement on the definition of the following words:
Logic
Emotion
Rational
Irrational
So before we debate for real, how are we going to define these as relates to the human psyche? For obvious reasons lets just strike any mathematical applications/definitions.
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Vidiot
warehouse - "...how are we going to define these as relates to the human psyche?"
All evolutionary traits that developed for our species' survival?
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Phizzy
I still wonder if logic and reason might not win out in the end with some. Despite their emotional attachment.
For example, would this work with some ?
"If you were in the LDS Church (Mormons) and I could prove to you that it was not a religion teaching the truth, would you listen and act on what I said, even though all your friends and family are Mormons ?"
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OneEyedJoe
Logic/rationality/reason is the derivation of a conclusion that must be true (or in practical use, is most likely to be) given a set of initial assumptions/premises.
Irrationality is the opposite - reaching conclusions that do not follow from the given premises/assumptions.
Emotion can typically be boiled down to one of the basic human emotions (depending on how you categorize them the list is usually somewhere between 4 and 7 items) of joy, saddness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise and contempt.
Going back to the original example, it wasn't until the emotion of disgust was triggered in me with regard to the falsehoods of the organization that I was motivated to actually leave the cult. By that point I knew 607 was probably false and I knew what that meant for 1914. I knew about 1975, and I knew about other cults making doomsday predictions and then changing things later to keep going. Logically it was pretty easy to get from what I knew to the conclusion that I was in a cult. But it wasn't until proof of a lie (one that I had staked my belief in god on in some ways) triggered a feeling of disgust at the organization for knowingly making false statements while claiming to be "truth" that I was actually motivated to action.