Do those that shun us not love us?

by logansrun 74 Replies latest forum announcements

  • AlanF
    AlanF

    Love is as love does. No more to it than that.

    If you tell yourself you love someone, yet treat them abusively such as by shunning, then you're lying to yourself.

    You can tell yourself all you want that you love someone, but if you don't show love for that someone, you don't love them.

    If you murder someone, you don't love them.

    If you shun someone on command, you don't love them. A JW always has the choice to obey the WT organization or not. If someone in his family is DF'd, he always has the choice to speak to the person and find out the true situation. If he does, and finds out that the person did something wrong, he can make an individual decision to shun. But simply following the Society's orders is as unloving as anyone can get.

    Bradley said:

    : The use of a reductio ad absurdum is useful only to the extent that it is a correct analogy and is realistic. Your analogy (so-called protecting child molesters is the same as shunning out of misplaced love) is an incorrect analogy since any "protection" of the molesters is for the sake of the organization, whereas shunning is, ostensibly, for the benefit of the shunnee.

    You're quite wrong about this. Shunning is done only "to keep the congregation clean". If the DF'd person "repents" and returns to the cult, that's all well and good, but DF'ing is not done to punish the person. It's done to separate him from other JWs. So the analogy is correct.

    : (I don't believe that it is proper to really say the organization "protects" molesters, only that in certain instances they are more concerned about organizational reputation than any possible future act of molestation).

    The latter half of your statement is correct, but the first half isn't. The goal of the Watchtower organization isn't to protect molesters, but to protect itself. But when in the process of protecting itself it also protects molestors, then obviously the WT organization is protecting molesters. To say that the organization doesn't protect molesters when it demonstrably does borders on the criminal.

    AlanF

  • Stealth
    Stealth

    They may love you, however the bottom line is that they love the WT organization more!

  • doogie
    doogie

    jeannie:

    i'm with you 100%. excellent posts. whatever it is that motivates my family to shun me, i'll never know because they threw something away when they wrote me off. my door and my heart are closed to them (if something changes, we'll just have to see...).

    i don't feel bitter, i feel healthy.

  • tyler m
    tyler m

    I welcomed my 2 siblings back into my life with open arms but when they shunned me they were too young to know any better. My mom and dad are another story. If they apologized and were no longer emotionally abusive I would be willing to try and repair our relationship. Until then they can go to hell.

  • Sunnygal41
    Sunnygal41
    Their actions are not the product of a purely premeditated and free will to hurt us,

    Brad, as usual, you've put it beautifully. This is absolutely true. We must allow them, even at great pain to ourselves, the freedom to express their truth, just as we wish freedom to express ours. Recently, my mom called, greatly upset with my sister, and told me, among other things, that she had told my sister something I had mentioned to her a few weeks ago......that if she ever got the chance to, tell my sister that I still love her, even tho she may be labelling me as a demonized apostate. She, of course, said this in great anger at the time, which really was not how I would have wished her to tell her, but, she did it, and now it's out there, circling around like a buzzard. What a waste of precious life moments, this separation from family. I sometimes wonder what will happen once my mom dies........the last viable link between my estranged sister and myself...........it fills my heart with such sadness................

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