What is the worst experience of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE in JW's you have had?

by BonaFide 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  BonaFide

  Here's one. Last year, I listened to a talk on CD from a member of the Governing Body, brother Losch. He says the dead bodies will be all over the place and we will have to bury them. It has been mentioned on this forum many times.

  So I knew that my family had not heard the talk, or else they would definitely have talked about it.

  I brought up the subject while we were out eating dinner. I said, "So, in the New System, do you think we will be cleaning up bodies?"

  My family said, NO WAY. One of my family members is a nurse, and she said, 'Come on, you know that corpses become toxic and dangerous. Plus the smell. Millions of bodies with that stench, plus making people sick.'

  Then a couple of weeks later, they heard Losch's talk. What happened?

  THEY BLAMED ME FOR SETTING THEM UP.

  They said I was speaking against the Governing Body, and that if that's what Jehovah wants, for us to bury the bodies, he will make it safe for us. We should not be 'sentimental' about those that Jehovah destroys.

  They were angry at me.

  So, what was one of the worst cognitive dissonance examples you have had?

  BF
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  BonaFide

  I guess I should emphasize that this was last year when I thought I could convince my family. I posted about it briefly before also. I thought at that time that my family would 'wake up' as I did. Obviously they didn't.

  But I am curious to hear what others have experienced in their congregations and with their families or friends.

  BF
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  Ri

  I thought the birds of heaven was going to clean up the dead bodies!

  The standard answer is always, "If Jehovah wants that way then he will make right"
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  JWdaughter

  My mom brought up how the end is near-look how very few of the generation of 1914 there still are! Well, I pointed out that the teaching had changed. She called me a liar, then said I just LOVED to twist the society's teachings to make them look bad.

  So, I sent a copy of the article proving I wasn't lying about the WT teaching. She never acknowledged it.

  Then she shunned me after telling me that talking 'against Jehovah' would keep us apart.

  She shunned me for about 6 mos after that, then just called one day like nothing was wrong.

  Cognitive dissonance for sure. Freaky, too.

  She 'showed' me, didn't she.

  I recently found out she has a bad health condition which is ok now, but she anticipates blindness. I think her ending the shunning may have something to do with that.
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  Mary

  I'd have to say the worst case I've seen is an active thread about 607 BCE - 587 BCE where the die hard Dub known as "scholar" completely ignores and twists everything we've put to him showing that the whole thing is a farce. When he tried claiming that Charles Russell was "sincere" in his attempt at bible chronology, I showed him from the Society's own publications that sincerity alone doesn't mean anything to Jehovah. He got quite irate and only response he could come up with was: "...Trawling through previous Watchtower publications in order to deconstruct our position or in order to prove an apostate agenda is futile and foolishness."

  Check it out: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/175650/1/70-years-3d-607
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  villabolo

  I was at the home of a JW couple who owned a copy of The Finished Mystery book and were proudly showing it off. As soon as I held it in my hands my curiosity caused me to open the book and actually read the page it was open to. As soon as I did that they both started yelling and waving their arms saying: "No!, no! It's different!". So I gave the book back after barely glimpsing something about locomotives.

  I couldn't get over the fact that they were proud to show the outside of that book but terrified to show the inside.

  villabolo
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  besty

  I'll post one on behalf of Sweetpea :-)

  As we were in the process of leaving the WTS, SP went round to her best friends house to let her know we weren't going back to the meetings and a few of the reasons why. One of the reasons was the child abuse cover up and the fact that elders children enjoy a different level of protection than rank n file children.

  The friend said <and this is verbatim> "I couldn't care less if there were 10,000 pedophiles in our congregation" and stormed out of her own house, leaving SP standing there somewhat bemused at the dissonance and also at the fact she had been left alone in her friends house.
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  Rocky_Girl

  I asked my mom if the org would ever get rid of the Book Study "so close to the end" She went on and on about how the BS would be the last thing to go because it would be the only way to meet during the great tribulation. I mentioned how it would save gas and lift a burden from people. She said metings were not a burden and that the gas money was well spent. She said it was impossible for it to happen and that it shows that she is one of God's people and called me lazy in worship bcause I do one hour on Sunday and 2 on Wednesday for a private bible discussion group.

  Two weeks later she was fuming as my Dad, who didn't know about the earlier discussion, told me how the org was responding to the burden of high gas prices by cancelling the BS. What a blessing! Hahahaha. Priceless. She said I set her up by misrepresenting the situation. BTW thanks for the heads up from this board that made that possible.

  Angie
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  cognac

  Mine was a dual and probably one of the biggest things that caused me to see the BORG for what it was...

  I was with a bunch of my family members and we were all talking about things JW related. Well, I told everyone that I had a question I couldn't figure out. I said that in Mark at the end of the first chapter Jesus brought out hat the sabbath was created for man, and not man for the sabbath. In other words, God created these laws for our benefit. He didn't created us for the benefit of the laws.

  It would seem to me that's it's ok to break a law if we are obeying a much higher principle of life. Even David as Jesus brought out a few verses earlier broke a law because he was hungry.

  So, it's like if somebody ran a red light in order to save somebodys life. They would be disobeying the laws of the land but obeying a much higher principle.

  Given this, wouldn't it be ok to break the law of not taking in blood if we are obeying the much higher principle of saving a life?

  Well, when I said this.... Boy, did they all flip out!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You should have seen the looks on all of there faces! I hadn't given it a huge amount of thought, just figured I'd eventually find the answer. However, when they flipped out the way they did and didn't even answer the question, that raised about a million red flags for me! I just thought to myself, "something is VERY, VERY wrong here..."
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  WTWizard

  I can remember often they would tell, from the platform, that the a$$emblies were a foretaste of the New Dark Ages (though they obviously did not refer to it as such). They would set me up for rejection from all the "sisters" at these a$$emblies, so I could go through their Value Destroyer Training School and set them up to seize control of the world.

  Upon which I would tell them that this is supposed to be the sample of the New Dark Ages, as they advertised from the platform repeatedly. At which point, they would tell me that I cannot use the a$$emblies as being representative of what life would be in the New Dark Ages. At which point I realized that Jehovah wanted me celibate, even if it meant destruction for the whole world, and He was not going to bend a bit on that rule.

  Eventually, I realized that my whole purpose of being in that cancer at all was to set them up to seize control of the whole world and plunge everyone on the planet into the Second Dark Ages, and they are going to eventually do that even if it kills them. After which I was going to be of no account whatsoever to Jehovah, as long as I do not become sexually involved ever with the opposite sex--whatever positive feelings I had for either Jehovah or the Washtowel Babble and Crap Slaveholdery are forever ruined by this.