by insearchoftruth 23 Replies latest jw friends
It is likely that you don't now fully appreciate the extent to which this can disrupt your life and all you have worked for.
I really want to stress this point I made as well. Clear your calender. Don't plan on taking on any major projects until you got this guy nipped in the bud. This should be your absolute, number one priority right now. Everything else is secondary.
Unless it is something more important than your marriage of course.
CYP
You had best show your wife this site before she gets too involved and is brainwashed into believing the internet is bad.
Welcome to the forum.
Another one that popped into my head; Don't underestimate the power of mind control!!!
You just can't beleive it until you see it for your own eyes. This person who you thought was so smart and remarkeable will look you dead in the eye and tell you the sky is green and the grass is blue... with an attitude!!!
If you read those books above, you will have a better understanding of mind control. It sounds real sexy or spooky but it is really not that complicated. There are just subtle mind games that compliance professionals like the jw use... BECAUSE THEY WORK REALLY WELL!!!
Mind control is simply an altered perspective. For instance if I control the information you see by getting you to buy into the idea that I am representing the one true religion, think what I have done. I have gotten you to look ONLY at the facts or arguments that support my view, and to AVOID any facts or arguments that refute my view (they are from SATAN!!!) I have just limited your sense of reality.
Now let's say I surround you with all sorts of people that agree with the above perspective (hours in meetings, reading magazines, hanging out with other dubs). And to really juice it up, how about I try to limit the amount of time you have with people who don't agree. (holidays forbidden, to busy going to all the meetings to see anyone else, tell you worldly people are BAD!!!) How often are you going to be exposed with different thinking?
Now you have to go around knocking on peoples doors telling them all this stuff!!! If you go to all that trouble, and let all these people see you doing something so difficult, how likely are you to just say "it was all for nothing, I don't beleive it!" No, if you are going to do all that, you would never want to admit you were wrong and made a fool out of yourself.
Those are just a few. But these are some of the elements of control used by the jw. So if your wife starts going through the whole indoctrination process, don't be surprised when she tells you the sky is green and the grass is blue.
Moral of the story: You aren't going to simply be able to reason with her, and have her see it isn't true.
CYP
Be very careful, you are playing with fire. The are very deceitful, and it is very easy fall pray in the love/end of the world/truth trap. They appear to be sincere in their beliefs and they are very persistent. You are againt powerful OCCULT, let me repeat: OCCULT, they are the MASTERs of deceit, and have the backing of the Satan. Make no mistake, you are not dealing with humans, or human organization, you are dealing with Evil Spirits, pretending to be the Angel of Light, you are dealing with Satan organization.
Ain't that the truth, C_Y_P. I think you just wrote the introduction to my coming book. If you don't mind.
Ain't that the truth, C_Y_P. I think you just wrote the introduction to my coming book. If you don't mind
Mi casa es su casa,
Mis palabras son sus palabras
Of course I don't mind! Anything for JGnat.
One more piece of advice. Listen to JGnat. I have dubbed her (much to her chagrin) the faithful and discreet slave of the ubm (unbelieving mate). She is also chairman of the ubm welcoming comittee.
CYP
As for books to read ? Don't forget to read "What Does The Bible Really Teach?", You must be prepared to learn what she is learning, so as to be able to point out the shortcomings in their teachings - gently of course in a reasoning and sincere way. You might even feign interest, join the study and be able to point out these things to the Teacher ??
Don't forget that as somebody said, the witnesses are well used to skeptical husbands and have a good record in strengthening the student to resist the counter argument and even having the husband join them later on..
One tactic is found in chapter 1 of "Bible teach", page 17
"Imagine - you can become a friend of the Creator of the Universe!.....As you learn more from the Bible you may find that some well meaning people will urge you to stop such studies. They may worry that you will change your beliefs . But do not let anyone stop you from forming the best friendship you can ever have"
The student has to respond to a specific question "what may some well meaning people urge you do, but what should you do?"
Btw . I found some enlightening stuff on the net under "fallacious reasoning" from the "Skeptics" websites and others. It showed up the common types of false reasoning as used by the JW's and others..
Hello and thanks for all the great advice so far, have already run across a few of you with some questions and I do appreciate the willingness and enthusiasm of your help.
A couple of questions to pose to you all-
I think one of the issues is my wife needs things to be very black and white for her, and the dubs are very controlling and very much present things as 'you shall do this, and this and this', but what amazes me is even with all that they can't say 'you will then get this'.
Right now she has been scheduling her 'bible studies' (bs) for Friday afternoons when I am at work and I have not shown any real interest in them, nor has she had any desire to tell me about them. Any ideas of an approach that would not look too suspicious, I have told her a few times before that I do not agree with much if not all of the jw doctrine, would it sound too strange to let her know I would just like to learn? I guess one of the things to stress would be doing things together, wouldn't it??
She did vent a bit to me yesterday about a call from a sibling where she was warned, almost admonished, to get back to the truth because the end is near. In her conversation with me she stated that one thing she does not like about the jdubs is there fixation on the end times, but then she stated that 'the watchtower has never predicted armageddon, its just that the people misinterpret what they have to say", I could not believe she said that. Her sibling also stated that the end is near because all people are being preached to, and my wife refuted this as well.
Are there any questions that I can raise that will at least get her thinking. She seems to still be pretty open minded, but any question she asks me about my faith seem to be the ones that dubs are programmed to ask because they have the canned answers to the questions.
I need to be able to practice patience and tolerance, there are so many times I have already had to bite my tongue because I so wanted to ask "how the hell can you be decieved by that?", but I have controlled myself, up til now.
Is it the organization I am trying to get her to question at first prior to even entering the area of doctrine? She has mentioned the doctrine of only 144000 going to heaven and when I have had her read the scripture she immediately states that the number is literal but the part of the jewish virgins and the tribes of Isreal are figurative. Even though she has never been baptized, she still seems to have been brainwashed enough to be able to 'give the company line' on many of the questions.
If I were to study with her and the 'sister', I am not sound enough in my knowledge of scripture to be able to defend my beliefs, and I know that the dub will be loaded with the answers and questions to make me look unknowledgeable in front of my wife and I am concerned that this will maybe lead her to possibly think that the dubs are the true religion.
Well enough for now, I shall work on getting the questions from CYP answered. Not really all that sure how to best handle, may take some time cause if I hit her with a bunch of them, will probably raise the flag, which I am sure would be discussed with the sister who would provide the canned 'satan trying to get in the way of the truth' type of an answer.
Thanks again for all the help.
Insearchoftruth
Have her explore this web site (Quotes) copied before the WT closed it down:
http://www.reexamine.org/quotes/
Also take a look and print articles from www.freeminds.org
Any ideas of an approach that would not look too suspicious, I have told her a few times before that I do not agree with much if not all of the jw doctrine, would it sound too strange to let her know I would just like to learn?
Sit her down and tell her, "I want to understand your beliefs better, honey, so that I can support you."
Pick up the book and say, "Learned anything interesting this week? Tell me about it."
Ask your questions when the two of you are relaxed and being yourselves. Over dishes, other chores, going for a walk, window shopping, or mall walking. Ask a question out of the blue. If she starts responding with a programmed answer, say "nevermind we can talk about it later" and change the subject. The object is to plant seeds.
