witness vs. cathlics

aoxo

i attended an ex witness group for the first time a couple of weeks ago and a comment made was that jw's are just like any other religion (cathlics, lutherans) in that when someone breaks away from it the same reactions are made from the persons family and ex members such as not talking to them, claiming that the new religion is wrong, dismissal from the congregation because of wrongdoing (fornication) and other cultish stuff that the jw's inflict on us ex's. is anyone else from another religion that can verify this? i dont think this is true. i think that jw's are more cultish than any of the other mainstream religions.

AlmostAtheist

I've only ever been a no-religion, a JW, and an ex-JW, so I don't have personal experience. But from the experiences of others, it seems that rare individual families can get very cultish, but the actual churches are not by and large. The Mormons have a shunning policy, but it doesn't seem to be quite as all-encompassing as the JW one. Amish have a pretty serious shunning policy, I believe, similar to JW's.

But your average church goer that wakes up one day and decides to go to church B instead of church A would be shocked out of his socks to find that anyone cared at all, not to even go into whether someone cared enough to shun him over it.

Gina (my wife) went to a church with a neighbor after we left JW's. She was even "saved". She has since stopped going, and started following a pagan spiritual path. She and the neighbor are still friends.

Dave

DannyBloem

No witnesses are pretty extreme in my view on this.

Lot of churches use to be the same extreme as the JW's, but that is long gone.
Some more fundamental protestants do the same.

For mainstream muslims it is pretty much the same, shunning of family members if you become something else.

others I have not heard of

peacebaby

I think it depends on the people, not the religion. Some people find it easier to hate than to love... some don't want to hate, but do because their religion tells them to.... and others can't seem to muster the hate, no matter who or what or when or where.

I first heard of 'ex-communication' , same as 'disfellowshipping', from a Catholic...

Check out these links - first is a Rick Ross page - a news item about ex-Mormons with references to JW's and others - and the Beliefnet main page. These db's for other religions really opened my eyes - I had no idea they struggle with the same things - like screwed-up, un-Biblical doctrinal teachings of their respective churches that it is demanded they obey whether they believe it or not. WTBTS is only one of MANY... scary.

[url]http://www.rickross.com/reference/mormon109.html[/url]

[url]http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/boards_main.AllCategories.asp?Category=129[/url]

~PEACE~

peacebaby

Did somethin' wrong and my links don't work - sorry.

Can anyone fix that for me as I can't seem to find 'edit'?

rebel8

I have some cult information on my web. It takes the elements of cults and gives examples of how the JWs meet the definition. Most religions do not meet the definition. www.jwinfo.50megs.com

Sad emo

peacebaby - I agree, I think it does depend on the person rather than the religion.

I was raised in a strongly RC family. When I finally left, many of them were (probably understandably) confused about my decision but they respected it. One of my sisters however refused to speak to me for two years. Although she does speak now, she is still very hostile about me leaving.

Re the links - if you put your pointer on the topic heading of the post you want to edit, you should get a drop down menu. Maybe the link doesn't work because you put 'url' in front?

(sorry if there's already a solution - I'm very slow at typing!!)

integ

NO! I was raised a Catholic and my Mother was a strong Catholic, and then switched over to the Wts. Her Catholic family accepts all of us and for the most part respected my Moms choice to change JWism. They didn't like it and tried to change our minds, but they NEVER came even remotely close to shunning us. Had the situation been reversed and JW family members become Catholic they would have been shunned. BIG difference.

-Integ.

Legolas

Well from personal experience I have to say that is false.

I was a Catholic and was never shunned and have never ever heard of them shunning anyone.

Finally-Free

I was raised as a Catholic and converted to JWism in my mid twenties. My Catholic family members expressed their disapointment at my choice, but I was never shunned or otherwise mistreated by them. They're all glad that I left the JWs now, but none of them have said a single reproachful word to me, even though I treated them all like shit during the 20 years I was a JW.

W

witness vs. cathlics

Share this