This should answer your question about how people get caught up in a cult
I want to say...
by robhic 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Forscher
I was a teenager at a low point in my life. My parents had just divorced. Mom moved us a long way from what I thought of as home. Dad wasn't ponying up the child support, so we were living in poverty. That was the situation when the JWs came into my life.
By the way, some of the posters here ARE college profs. And others do have advanced degrees.
Forscher -
Big Tex
Some of us allowed idealism to overcome logic and reason and paid a heavy price for it.
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robhic
I would like to thank all who shared their stories. It is a tribute to you that you were able to finally leave the "snare& racket" that is the WTS. Good for you and continued success. Most people seem to have been born-in, brought in by family at an early age and / or recruited during a hard or down time in you life. It makes sense, especially after reading the article that Lady Lee posted.
My real question is how those here who exhibit such a high level of scholarship and knowledge could ever be sucked in. Maybe my perception is colored (obviously) by my own pragmatism, pessimism, logic, irritability with stupid, cynicism and sarcasm. I could not see myself ever being taken in by these doorstep "paradise peddlers." The aricle Lady Lee posted is informative and people who are searching for something or down on their luck, etc. certainly seem to be good targets for recruitment. But I was thinking more of the real "brain trust" around here.
Again using Leolaia and Narkissos as examples, can you see the average door knocking JW getting into a discussion with someone possessing the knowledge they possess? Can you see "Joe JW" making one of their sweeping scriptural statements and Leo rebutting him with some vast, in-depth and possibly obscure -- and not so obscure -- biblical knowledge and quotes that would have the door knocker's head swimming? He'd need an aspirin and an ice bag for his head!
I just can't fathom the situation where Narkissos opened the door and someone started in telling him the "JW Good-News for the day" and handing him a publication. After a quick glance and a reply inclusive of the etimology of the Greek words and syntax, references to other scriptural and historical things he'd have the JW reeling, also. How does the "average Joe or Jane-JW" reel in a person who has more biblical, scriptural and language-related knowledge than probably the whole JW congregation collectively?
It boggles my mind!
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TallTexan
I want to second what you said. I am constantly blown away by the knowledge, the cohesive and well thought out posts, and the thoughtful replies by a number of members. Blondie either has a photographic memory or the best database search tool for the quotes she comes up with. Great stuff.
In response to your thought about how intelligent people could come in the 'truth....
In some cases JW-ism appeal to intelligence because of it's emphasis on 'Bible' study. Even though it's primarily the publications, sometimes intelligent people get so caught up in memorizing dates and absorbing all the Society's deep (but bogus) thinking and convoluted reasonings that they miss the point of it being implausible. You get caught up in the "We know something no one else knows" and so it appeals to the egos that sometimes accompany intelligence. People in general revel in knowing a 'secret'. You generally blow off those that disagree with you as "uninformed" and "lacking an ability to understand the deeper things".This fuels many intellectuals, even in the academic world. Some of them have really dumb ideas, but they strongly believe in them and ignore criticism as the 'disbelief of the ignorant'.
One interesting thing I've noticed. Many times people I know who have 'fallen away' are those who studied the most, who understood things on a very deep level. It's typically those people who, after a time, begin to put two and two together and come up with five, then realize that a lot of it doesn't make sense. Yet the comment made is "I can't believe so and so is inactive/apostate/da'd because they knew SO much about the truth." The people making those comments don't realize that is why that person is inactive/apostate - because they DO know so much about the truth.
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jwfacts
I eventually came to realise that if I was not born a JW there is no way a person selling books on my door step would ever have convinced me they had the only way of truth. It made me aware that to say only a JW will be saved is unrealistic.
I have not known many intelligent people that were converted, most of the intelligent ones were raised as Witnesses. That is why I can not understand how my parents, who are both sincere and intelligent were hoodwinked. I am not aware of any emotional trauma that they were going through, except maybe the birth of me. The Lawyer in the Bethel Legal Department is also intelligent and was converted as an adult, I can not fathom that either.
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Abaddon
robhic
thanks
How? I was born in.
However, I didn't get out as a teen as many do.
Why?
I LOVED nature programs as a kid, could spend days looking under rocks in parks or snorkeling in the sea, read 'adult' mass market science books from the age of 7 or so...
I knew all about strange South American birds with a thumb on their wings that can grip, occasional whales with rudimentary hind legs, species of snakes with tiny rear legs. I knew all about the formation of U-shaped valleys and the Ice Age.
I was aware there was a big difference between what I was taught by the library, by TV, by school, and at home.
How many eight year olds worry about the impossibility of a creative day being only seven thousand years long (as was dubbie doctrine at the time) because they know this is just silly and totally unsupported by the evidence?
At about 14 I was at a crossroads, but two things combined. One was the revision of doctrine on the length of creative days, which could suddenly be eons long. This in itself would not have been enough to keep me in another decade or so, but I received very little encouragement academically, and didn't have the internal drive to push myself.
Thus my academic knowledge kind of stalled, and I stopped learning of new areas where a Creationistic view is sheer nonsense as my level of knowledge about biology stopped expanding.
And I stopped thinking about the problems I knew existed. Not on a conscious level, but unconsciously. I recall a school friends asking me how all the light from stars millions of light years away got to Earth if it was only so old. I couldn't answer it. I forgot about it. It's how I was trained.
It's called cognitive dissonance, the ability to hold two mutually incompatible ideas in your head at the same time. Thus 'strict creation of kinds' was able to sit alongside 'masses of evidence for evolution'. It's part of the cult trick. Add in the disapproval of higher education, the milieu control (another cult hallmark) whereby you're meant to trust only the information in the dubbie publications, and the fear of rejection by the only family and friends you have really know, and you can keep very clever people chained to silliness.
Hell, I nearly got thrown out of the family home at 17 for playing Dungeons and Dragons... doubting creation would have been far worse! And, yes, I could have made it on my own at that point, but growing up in an environment where you are conditioned to be accepting and unquestioning, dependent upon others, I didn't have 'the guts' to try. Rather than saying to yourself 'I'm living a lie' each day, you lie to yourself that you're right (even when you know you can't be).
The lack of critical thinking ability cultivated by dubbies and other cults also helped cloud my thinking.
Only by moving hundreds of miles away from my family and having a horrible marriage, did the 'gravity' keeping me in get overcome by the 'pressure' forcing me out.
That took until 27 years old. I left because I couldn;t cope, not because I had all the errors figured out.
I went to college straight away, and found I had academic ability - I was surprised at how easy it was, but then I had motivation for the first time, freedom for the first time. And I learned and read entire shelves from the library 'this week it's sexual biology' LOL... 'next week Hinduism'...
I was determined to find out what was right, what god wanted, for myself.
I found out that evolution make so much sense its impossible NOT to believe it. I realized not one religion can make a claim to being right and prove it, and this is a logically absurd situation unless god wants nothing from us, or is a bastard, or doesn't exist. This freed me from worrying about religion, as if god wants nothing from us, is a bastard, or doesn't exist, then there are far more interesting things to think about.
This process took a year or so, probably a bit less.
I then thought dubbies were 'just another religion'... this delusion was destroyed when I learned what a cult was after having been out for three years, and realized I was Ghillie the cult boy. I learned to think critically, to read something deeply, to study... ha!, dubbies have NO IDEA what 'study' is.
But, yeah, I've wondered why it took so long. A normal teenager? A normal twenty-something? Developing relationships with the other sex naturally? As it was I hit University at 27 like a horny 17 year-old and went through my real adolescence in my late twenties and early thirties. I would not change who I am or how I got here (same things really) one dot as I like who I am, but in the words of the song '... it makes me wonder'.
Part of it is how a cult works. Part of it was me being 'lucky' enough to come from a comparatively sane, intelligent, kind, liberal family, and the two Congregations I grew up in being similarly 'nice' environments. If I'd seen or been through some of the shut one hears described here, I'd of probably had the impetus to get out earlier. Part of it was not having the guts as a teenager to essentially turn around and say '€uck you and your silly religion, I'm going to University to study Physics and you can kiss my hairy ass.'
As to how they get 'smart' people in when they are adult... being 'smart' is no protection from the superficial comfort a religion can give you. Skyman make it all better, ah....
... even with 'average' people, either their background makes them susceptible or some crisis or inner turmoil seems to be answered by what the dubbies sell. I think very few people with the level of knowledge about evolution, or of the Bible that some forum members demonstrate get sucked in when they have that knowledge. I think they develop that knowledge once out or on the way out.
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tetrapod.sapien
robhic,
Plus, Leo looks hot!
yes, i know.
..... that, and what abbadon said. a lot of it. damn.
and thank *you* for posting here man.
ts
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cognizant dissident
I've often asked myself this same question. My father was in the navy as a low level sailor when he became a witness the year I was born. He was tested and found to have the highest IQ in his company and was marked for officer training. He gave that up to become a JW. I also personally knew two surgeons who became witnesses later in life after successful careers in medicine. One testified regularly for the witnesses in blood transfusion cases. The other had an almost all witness practice. Trust me, you don't get through medical school without any smarts. Myself, I won numerous scientific achievement awards and scholarships in high school. Logical thinking was my strongpoint. Yet college wasn't even on my radar. I secretly wanted to go but I had been so thoroughly indoctrinated that a degree was like garbage compared to the "truth" and only greedy, selfish and materialistic people pursued them when they could be out saving their neighbours lives from Armageddon that it was something I never pursued or even voiced to my parents or anyone. I knew there would have been no support. I was so uneducated about the world that I didn't even know how to apply to a college or that there were such things as student loans. It took me 20 years to be able to slowly, piece by piece, breakdown that destructive, dream squashing mindset and figure out that I was broke, bankrupt and had no skills and I needed to get an education and a job, not go pioneering and wait for Jehovah to save me. I may have been academically "smart" but as far as knowing how the world works and understanding that other people, including my parents and the society, didn't know what was best for me, I was as dumb as the come! I also loved my family so much that I was willing to sacrifice my own happiness not to go against them. Self sacrifice is second nature to JW's. Many of us were weaned on it. Also, the more passive the temperament of a person is the more difficult it will be for them to stand up to the thought police and bullies in the organization. Some people can learn to live with a lot more cognitive dissonance than others of a more rebellious, outspoken nature are able to. So that offers an explanation for many people who were raised as witnesses. The intelligence was always there but it was not until they were exposed to the tools (education and knowledge of other paradigms) that they were able to "understand" how circular and illogical the type of reasoning produced by the Watchtower society really is. As you know, the society takes great pains to make sure that as few witnesses as possible are ever exposed to an alternative view of the world.
However, what attracts doctors and lawyers and engineers and other brilliant people into the the "truth". After much observation, I have come to believe there are 3 or 4 basic personality "types" who are attracted to the organization as adults. One "type" I frequently see tends to be very gullible and somewhat naive. They have a history of believing everything they hear or read. They can often be found following the latest pyramid scheme, the latest fad diet, the latest quack cure or quoting from the latest Awake magazine or Enquirer as if they were credible educational journals. I would place my mother and my stepmother in those categories.
My father, I believe, is "Type #2" (probably also Knathan Knorr). He is intelligent, disciplined and he loves to deal in moral absolutes. Everything is either black or white, right or wrong. He despises moral weakness or physical weakness of any kind. He is very attracted to the rules and regimentation of the witness lifestyle. If he wasn't a witness he would still be in the military. His type can often be found reading the organized to accomplish our ministry book with the zeal of a general going into battle or berating the rest of the more undisciplined soldiers for missing the meeting because of their latest illness. (see type 1 above) They love to whip the rest of us slackers into shape. Some of the lawyers may fall into this type as well. Their very legalistic in their thinking. The females of this type can be found pioneering, giving great talks at assemblies and often looking down their nose at those spiritually weaker themselves. They are all willing to suspend logic for the payoff of feeling righteous and superior to everyone else around them. In Bible times, they were known as Pharicees (did I spell that right?)
Type # 3 are basically nice, honest hearted, loving people who are somewhat altruistic and idealistic in nature. They remarkably resemble true Christians. You can often find them visiting the ill, writing encouraging letters to brothers in prison and anonymously buying groceries for the poor. They may be as intelligent and as brilliant as the next person. What keeps them in the organization is their desire for world peace, everlasting life and utopia. They want that wonderful reward for themselves, their family and their neighbours so badly that they are willing to suspend credulity and logic for the comfort of a never fulfilled hope. You might find some witness doctors in this catergory. I like to put myself here because it seems like the best category but others may have a different opinion of where I should be put!
This list is by no means complete and there may be various subtypes in each category. I'm still working on a profile for Type 4. It's going to be composed of those misfits and rebels who don't fit into the other 3 types. They can often be found posting their radical views on JWD and other internet forums. Please feel free to add suggestions to my list if you noticed any other types I might be missing
Cog
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Sunnygal41
Some of us allowed idealism to overcome logic and reason and paid a heavy price for it.
I hear that, Big Tex..........I was one of those too..........totally idealistic........loving animals and nature as I do, it didn't take long once they dangled that beautiful fantasy of Paradise Returned To Earth in front of me.........and I did indeed pay a heavy price for not following my own gut feelings........of course, being a young teenager at the time, I realize there is only so much that I could have done, and I also wanted to make my mom happy too. She wanted us girls to have a solid bible education, and thinks the Witnesses are the ones to give it. The funniest thing about it all is that she was the last one of the three of us to get baptized.