by LDH 22 Replies latest jw friends
A DUCK!!!!
The WBTS acts like a cult. It looks and operates like a cult. But many don't believe it is a cult, or they are not ready to admit it.
Do you believe the WT is a cult? If so, what makes you say do?
If you are an ex-JW (like me, raised in it) do you tell people you were raised in a cult? Why or why not?
Lisa
Ex-Duck Class
I now actually feel embarassed telling people I believed it!! Because it all sounds so stupid. But yes I do tell them the cult mentality and also how we were taught never to question, never to speak to people who had different thoughts etc.
Poppy
Do you believe the WT is a cult? If so, what makes you say do?
Yes. It truly is it's own society. I mean this in the sickest way possible.
I wasn't raised in it, yet I still don't tell people I ever had any affiliation with jw's out of embarrassment. I should have known better.
Yes, I do tell people that I think JW's are a cult and/or brainwashed. Just the fact that my parents do not speak with me tells me they are being "controlled" by the WTS. I am happy to tell people that I have broken free from that way of life.
Purza
From dictionary.com:
cult (k
n.
They get a hit on several of these, but so do most religions. But by your "duck" test, yeah, I think they're a cult.
Dave
Yes, it's a cult; and I do tell people that it's a cult. I got shunned today by a sister that I used to be close friends with. It was weird. She tried to make sure that I knew that she was shunning me. She went through this big charade of ducking her head down as I passed by. Hell, I was in Walmart, and it was packed to the gills! Even it she did want to say something, I wouldn't have had the time to say anything, nor would I have wanted to.
Me and my first time Christmas shopping, all of the big gigantic Christmas bags were gone. I ended up getting celebration type bags. Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?
Cult because of the very unstable doctrine, the totalitarian way of government they apply on the R&F, the ease with which they excommunicate members, the way they talk to, threaten, and cajole their followers as if they have a rock bottom IQ of 40, control of information.
Eg if you have an objection to what they believe or to the way they run this org they do not Biblically answer that objection, they just throw you out.
If the subject comes up, I mention that fell for the cult but I am so glad to be out of it now.
One of the signs of a cult is the members are taught to have an "US against them" attitude.
By really believing this, they become social outcasts. The JW refusal to participate in the least offensive activites like Thanksgiving, extra curricular school activities, etc. reinforces this view in their minds. This is an unhealthy way of looking at other people because there are good and bad people in their own congregation, and there are good and bad people in the world. Believing that everyone who isn't a JW "bad or condemned and under Satanic influece" is unhealthy, not to mention a ridiculous distortion of reality.
YC
The reason I feel it is a cult is in the way field service is carried out. It is obvious that they do not want lots of people coming to their meetings all at once. Each new member must be hand selected, trained and groomed before they even become part of the group. If they really wanted to spread the word they could, but its all about mind control.
I am happy to discuss my former affiliation with the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society and its religious group known as the "Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses". Just this morning I admitted to an old friend that I was once a minister of Jehovah's Witnesses. He asked me if I had ever belonged to the Jehovah's Witness cult because he recently heard that I had been involved with them. When the average person on the street mentions cults and the Jehovah's Witnesses in the same sentence you can be assured their reputation is widespread.
