JWs Use A "Very Powerful Weapon" to Silence Ex-JWs

by AuldSoul 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  nvrgnbk

  Great post, Auld.

  We may feel like freaks as having any close link with JW. But this Weapon is still being used with way more power in islam....they still cut off body parts, whip in public, and stone and behead people!! The Catholics of long ago is another good analogy. I told my therepist and my dad that JW is the most judgemental religion on earth except for islam. But here in the USA we are one of four well known groups that do severe shunning or casting out....Amish, Hassidic Jew, Mormans and us. I saw a great documentary on Hassidics and those that left have started a kind of a jewsih halfway house for cast off kids who are almost helpless.....I wish religion was illegal....oompa....ps....my 21 year old has been df'd since 16.

  Exactly, oompa.

  As for making religion illegal, that's a slippery slope. But we can do our part to educate ourselves and those around us about the dangers inherent in religion.

  Teach me also how to speed up the de-indoctrination process....

  How to best deprogram yourself?

  Read.

  Familiarize yourself with history, modern and ancient.

  You'll find that JWs are just one of many apocalyptic groups that have taken control of the lives of their adherents while having far less impact on society in general than they would like to admit.
• 

  sweetface2233

  Teach me also how to speed up the de-indoctrination process....

  Spiritboi, I think most people here can tell you that it just comes w/ time and knowledge. For me, what I found in the encyclopedia was more disturbing than anything else I've read. One thing that also helped me was to talk about how I felt to the "older ones" who were JWs longer than I was. I hope you stick around and listen to their words and experiences.
• 

  sammielee24

  I agree with the others - get Crisis of Conscience now and read! It's a great starting point in knowledge and recovery! sammieswife
• 

  sammielee24

  Shunning often involves implicit or explicit shame for a member who commits acts seen as wrong by the group or its leadership. Such shame may not be psychologically damaging if the membership is voluntary and the rules of behaviour clear before the person joined. However, if the rules are arbitrary, the group membership seen as essential for personal security, safety, or health, or if the application of the rules are inconsistent, such shame can be highly destructive. This can be especially damaging if perceptions are attacked or controlled, or various tools of psychological pressure applied. Extremes of this cross over the line into psychological torture and can be permanently scarring.

  A key detrimental effect of some of the practices associated with shunning relate to their effect on relationships, especially family relationships. At its extremes, the practices may destroy marriages, break up families, and separate children and their parents. The effect of shunning can be very dramatic or even devastating on the shunnee, as it can damage or destroy the shunned member's closest familial, spousal, social, emotional, and economic bonds.

  Shunning contains aspects of what is known as relational aggression in psychological literature. When used by church members and member-spouse parents against excommunicant parents it contains elements of what psychologists call parental alienation. Extreme shunning may cause traumas to the shunned (and to their dependents) similar to what is studied in the psychology of torture.

  Children born into the organization or raised in it from an early age are not volunteers. They are brainwashed into believing and living a life of fear and most often that fear is directly linked to the action of shunning. If every member who is trying to fade or leave, for those who are active but do not believe, the primary reason they remain in the organization is fear. Fear of losing their family. Fear of being shunned. This is psychological torture from an early age. We recognize a war veteran suffers torture from his years of service and I believe the medical community and court systems are in fact coming around in recognizing that those who are raised in this environment also suffer PTSD. The government will act and laws will be changed when these sufferers contact more and more doctors for mental health care and the issue becomes headlined . sammieswife.
• 

  sammielee24

  ....Amish, Hassidic Jew, Mormans and us

  Mormons as far as I am aware do not practice severe shunning most of the time -

  There is no formal process of shunning in the LDS church

  The JW's do have a formal process of disfellowshipping, shunning and reinstatement, that often does not occur in other organizations. A person disfellowshipped in the WTS then must crawl on their knees back to the same body of elders to try and get reinstatement. There are people who are forced to endure shunning and humiliation for years and years just to try and get 'back in'. Many go back simply because they cannot endure the pain of being 'dead' to their families. Kids who refuse to speak with their parents - parents who have no access to their kids or grandkids, not even knowing if they live or die, if they marry or get sick - shunning is 'cruel and unusual punishment' and it's interesting that the courts are reviewing cases of murderers being put to death under lethal injection as cruel and unusual and therefore not just, but have not yet touched a religious/charitable organizations actions of applying severe punishment to a person who has committed no crime and allowed such 'cruel and unusual' punishment in order to create the living dead. Sooner or later the ACLU or some other organization may tackle the issue on the basis of human rights as divorce and child custody issues continue to rise - sammieswife.
• 

  Hellrider

  So in fact, they are actually bragging about using the same techniques as the Pharisees did against the christians...

  Go figure.
• 

  emy the infidel

  Sooner or later the ACLU or some other organization may tackle the issue on the basis of human rights as divorce and child custody issues continue to rise - sammieswife.

  Sorry to say, but the ACLU would probably side with the WTS's so called "right" to shun.

  It's a tough and heart-wrenching thing, but seems the best approach would be to be fearless, if the worst happened and your family was pressured to view you as "dead", voicing the fact that freedoms are not granted to us by any group, or elders, or JC's or gov't for that matter. Our rights are granted to us by God, and anyone who interferes with that is in violation of the US Constitution, which the borg has no respect for unless its advancing their goals. Then they pull it right out and site it endlessly. (not sure, probably pretty uniform throughout the western world)

  JW's have gotten to used to readily submitting their power and control over to the borg, so this will be foriegn and 'dangerous' (thought crimes) to them initially. But they will think it about it. If they don't think about it at that point, they never will. The issue of freedom gets me worked up.
• 

  sacrebleu

  I am not controlled by the borg.

  I ran into a JW at the store right after I was thrown out for disagreeing with their supremacy.

  I said hi to the lady and she looked insulted and said, "You are not allowed to speak to me."

  I told her, "I am free in Christ. I can speak to anyone I want."

  She literally RAN from me. WOW.

  sacrebleu
• 

  Mary

  Insight on the Scriptures Volume 1,p.787Expelling

  One who was cast out as wicked, cut off entirely, would be considered worthy of death, though the Jews might not have the authority to execute such a one. Nevertheless, the form of cutting off they did employ was a very powerful weapon in the Jewish community. Jesus foretold that his followers would be expelled from the synagogues. (Joh 16:2) Fear of being expelled, or "unchurched," kept some of the Jews, even the rulers, from confessing Jesus. (Joh 9:22, ftn; 12:42) An example of such action by the synagogue was the case of the healed blind man who spoke favorably of Jesus.—Joh 9:34.

  I've posted this before but it's worth re-printing. In a nutshell, the GB/Writing Committee don't know either Jewish or Christian history very well (there's a huge surprise):

  Here it is important to learn the customs of association for worship practiced by first-century Jews and Christians, bearing in mind that Jesus and the apostles were Jews. They lived according to the Jewish lifestyle and customs of their day. Jesus taught in the synogogues; hence, he was called "Rabbi." Matt.26:25; 26:49; Mark 9:5; 11:21; 14:25; John 1:38, 49; 3:2, 26; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8

  There were two kinds of association for religious worship:
  1) public meetings, such as at the temple and in synogogues, which anyone was allowed to attend; and
  2) private gatherings of the different sects.
  Christians and Jews participated in both. Christians, met in private homes, usually over a special meal with prayer. A presiding minister hosted the meal using either fellowship funds or personal funds. (Acts 20:20; see the footnote in older editions of the NWT)

  Christians were instructed to "greet" one another with a kiss. (Rom.16:16; 1.Cor.16:20; 2Cor.13:12; Ti.3:15; 1Pet.5:14) When Paul sent his "greetings" in a letter to the Christians in Thessalonica, he requested that the "brothers" be greeted by a "holy kiss" on his behalf. (1Thess.5:26)
  It was by this sign that Judas betrayed Jesus. (Luke 22:47,48)

  Clearly, Paul did instruct Christians to expel from the congregation's fellowship any person who was purposely practicing willful sin. The disassociation would quite naturally exclude them from being greeted by the identifying "holy kiss," as well as not being allowed to share in meetings and the meals for Christian worship and prayer. However, Paul's instruction did not prohibit normal conversation or witnessing to former members. Nor were they barred from attending worship in the temple or the synagogues. Jesus, the apostles and Paul, along with the rest of the Jews, worshipped God both publicly in the temple and synagogues, and privately with small groups in various homes. (Acts 5:42) It was from the private Christian fellowship for worship that sinners were excluded.

  Moreover, if your brother commits a sin, go lay bare his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take along with you one or two more, in order that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter may be established. If he does not listen to them, speak to the congregation. If he does not listen even to the congregation, let him be to you just as a man of the nations ['Gentile' in some translations] and as a tax collector.--Matt.18:15-17 (NWT)

  • The instruction was to bring up the matter of sin first between the two individuals alone. Then, if the sinner would repent, there was no need to carry the matter further. If the sinner was not repentant, then one or two others should be sought for witnesses. If the sinner remained unrepentant, only then, as a last resort, should it be brought before the entire congregation (not privately with the "elders").
  • If, after all that, the person was still would not listen, he should then be treated the same as Gentiles and tax collectors. In other words, Christians were to treat former members just like anyone else who was not a member of the congregation. To be treated like a "man of the nations" (which is to say, a Gentile or foreigner) was far from being shunned. Jewish people worked with, associated with, transacted business with, and preached to Gentiles. As for "tax collectors," Jesus ate and associated with them. Matthew was a tax collector. Tax collectors were not popular, but they were not shunned.

    Next, while passing along from there, Jesus caught sight of a man named Matthew seated at the tax office, and he said to him: "Be my follower." Thereupon he did rise up and follow him. Later, while he was reclining at the table in the house, look! many tax collectors and sinners came and began reclining with Jesus and his disciples. But on seeing this the Pharisees began to say to his disciples: "Why is it that your teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners?" Hearing [them], he said: "Persons in health do not need a physician, but the ailing do. Go, then, and learn what this means, 'I want mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came to call, not righteous people, but sinners."--Matt.9:9-13 NWT

    There is no scripture basis for mandating that Christians must totally shun former members (that is, have no communication or conversation with them). The instruction is to expel them from the congregation and treat them like anyone else who is not a member. Especially, there is no scripture to support shunning of one's own relatives--parents, children and siblings.

    If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."--1 Tim.5:8 (NIV)

    Even for the rest, Paul counseled against abandoning those separated from the congregation:

    For your part, brothers, do not give up in doing right. But if anyone is not obedient to our word through this letter, keep this one marked, stop associating with him, that he may become ashamed. And yet do not be considering him as an enemy, but continue admonishing him as a brother.
    --2Thes.3:13-15 NWT
• 

  Sunnygal41

  You could read the book Crisis of Conscience written by Ray franz.

  Vitty beat me to it. As soon as I read your post, I knew "C of C" was right for you. Once you read it, the blinders will be off for good.

  I have friends who have been out for about 2 years now, and that is what did it for them. Once they read that book, the scales fell from their eyes and they saw how they and all of us had been duped and manipulated by this cult.