It's not easy to help a JW see that they are misled. I see thatsometimes you can get them to really see a matter clearly and other times they feel like you're beating them up. I had a conversation with my mom yesterday and it's funny----sometimes she'll accept it all and other times she doesn't want to deal.
Is There A Happy Balance To Deprogramming A Witness?
by minimus 19 Replies latest jw friends
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minimus
Need a question here????
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Finally-Free
I found I had to be careful, otherwise JWs thought I was attacking them personally. I knew one person who admitted that the Watchtower Society was corrupt, but felt that "Jehovah would clean it up in his own time."
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Think
There is a simple solution! Programming involve reading forward.
In Hebrew language you read from right to left.
This is how you deprogram yourself.
Take a mag and start from the last page, last sentence, and read backword. LOL
at the beginning of the mag you will be deprogrammed from the mag. Repeat with every book and mag.
Have fun !
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minimus
"Jehovah will take care of it in his due time" is such a copout. Jehovah doesn't create these messes. People do.
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Finally-Free
"Jehovah will take care of it in his due time" is such a copout.
Yeah. My answer to that was, if it's proper to wait for Jehovah to take care of it in his own time than it was improper for them to break away from mainstream religion. They were "running ahead of Jehovah." So far none of them have given me an answer to that.
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undercover
Some JWs are happy being JWs. They need that structore and organization in their life. They need someone to tell them what to do.
My parents are like that. They'd be lost without the organization telling them how to think and what to think. They like to believe that they have made these decisions but its apparent that almost everything they decide is based on what the WTS has suggested or counseled on.
When I try to drop hints or raise a doubt, they get a glazed over look in their eyes, they just don't get it. At their age, I don't know that its worth trying to deprogram them. Where would they go, who would they associate with, what support group would they have?
As long as they are happy, who am I to try to disrupt that happiness. The only unhappiness that they voice is over the fact that I am inactive. They think that I am making a huge mistake. But even that isn't enough to make them sit up and wonder why I might not be active anymore. They assume that it's spiritual weakness and nothing more. Outside of giving me magazines and talking up the CO's visit, they're happy to go on about their life without giving me too much hassle.
In short, I'm kind of a live and let live kinda guy. As long as any JW doesn't try getting uppity with me, I'm willling to let them believe as they see fit. I'm not going to picket, I'm not going to argue or debate, I'm not going to go out of my way to prove them wrong. If they come to me with sincere questions, I'll answer them. If they come to me to preach and "set me straight", then I'll defend my position.
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IP_SEC
Jehovah doesn't create these messes. People do.
Very good come back min. I will remember that one.
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Trojan
I think it is possible. But not EASY or happy. A couple of days ago, there was another thread about the question why some witnesses become inactive, even have "wordly" girlfriends/boyfriends, but still hang on to their former beliefs (blood, holidays, voting, etc.)....they have a belief structure that is partially JW beliefs and in part their new found ideas.....
I think that most JW went through a programming that was heavily pushed on them - think about the process: bible study (some guy sitting in your home, personally repeating the same ideas over and over again), than all the meetings, assemblies, literature.....
.....now, to the answer, how do you "reverse" that? It would take the same amount of effort, time. You would either need the same "machinery" working on you in the opposite direction OR you need to be a person with strong mental abilities to detect what is part of the programming and "un-programm" yourself. Most aren't in the latter position. Specially, most people that become JW aren't very strong in that (otherwise they couldn't have been deceived so easily), many had depressions (or still have) and are on the weaker side emotionally, so there you have it: trapped!
As for your mother, in order to give up her beliefs, she will need others to substitute. It's like somebody that needs to change his/her home/house, because the roof is leaking and the place is shabby, but can't move out into "the nothing"....there most be another house ready to move in, otherwise they won't do it. But if you don't have the money or energy=mental, spiritual, emotional energy to go and look for another place or even build a new one by yourself, than you're stuck to the present "home of thoughts/beliefs/faith" - and you know what? I have met people that KNOW they're in a shabby, humid, dirty place, but have become used to it and have so many memories attached to it, and are lazy to change their lives, that they prefer to just stay.
Trojan.
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minimus
One does need a strong mind to offset cult thinking. It's not easy. I'm a facts person. How do you refute facts?? With feelings?? Not me.