proplog2;
You talk about loaded language and USE loaded language. You refuse to define a word, but instead count the number of letters and go on about what other people mean by it. I find you disingenuous and evasive.
To prevent further fruitless posts where I ask you to define a word and you evade it, I will ask a simpler question you hopefully will answer in a straight-forward fashion.
Are you saying it is bad to oppose high-control belief groups?
By high-control group, I mean a group where there is strong conformiity to a list of identifiying characteristics; you are obviously familiar with this form of classification.
When I go over such a list and examine a belief group, I do not simply regard it as a check-list, I actually do recognise there is a spectrum of conformity to each characteristic. I honestly thought that most people did this, along the lines of 'Q1, yup, they do that ALL the time, Q2, well, that's about half right, Q3, no, that's not often the case.'
As such I would say that your use of the 'tool' provided in such a list is incorrect. You are the one imposing a dichotomous typology on a list that can provide a graded response for each characteristic in different hands.
I cannot help but notice you choose to mention 'OBEDIENCE TO SINGLE LEADER'. I wonder if this is due to some apologistic tendancy on your part. It might show a tendancy towards black and white thinking (another high-vontrol group tendancy), as does your use of the list of high-control group characteristics discussed above.
A high-control group does not in ANY way have to be dependant upon a single (charasmatic or otherwise) leader.
As for your proposed study accross various religious and secular organizations, I think you are hiding from reason behind a cloak of scientifc enquiry, as you seem to have done from the start of this thread.
You are refusing to even discuss the damage high-control groups do, waiting until the multitude of organisations that are obviously not 'high-control' are subjected to scrutiny that common sense indicates is unwarranted. You claim that until then it is a matter of opinion.
Is it neccesary to scruntinise an entire town for characteristics of a murderer when someone is found standing over a corpse, holding a gun, with firing residue on their hands, a bullet from that gun in the corpse, and a stack of death threats written in the hand-writing of the person holding the gun to the dead person on the desk of the deceased?
There are signs of a high control group that only someone with an agenda would wish to ignore. Or someone still influenced by or active in a high-control group.
This is further indicated by your unfounded claim "the vast majority of the six million members are happy with their "religion"".
You have the temerity to assert this after asking for a careful scientific analysis of whether the Boy Scouts of America et. al. are high-control groups? Where is your PROOF? Most of the people here were VERY unhappy as JW's, and know of others still there who are unhappy but haven't broken away. And the happiness of a member of a high-control group subject to quite stringent milleu control is a strange creature; be happy when you're meant to! It's a BLESSING, be happy! Smile at the brothers and sisters! Don't look at what the rest of the world is thinking or saying, you're right so be HAPPY!
Given the above, I think that it is you who is talking "non-sense" (sic.), out of a mis-guided attempt at apologism for a high control group you probably have or have had ties to.
Don't worry. Most of us have been through the stage you are going through now, the apologetic 'JW's are just another religion, they're very nice people' stage.
If you conform to the experience of the majority here you will be playing a different tune in a few years time.
All the best
Abaddon
Keep on rocking in the free world...
