Cult?
by kurtbethel 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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LouBelle
I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say you're talking about the JWs.
Unfotunately I can't download at work - do you perhaps or could you perhaps give a brief transcript of the clip - would be much appreciated.
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kurtbethel
Yes. It is two men doing a study. When it was pointed out to them that people at the door who reject them might not be rejecting God, but they might be rejecting the organization, they both chime in, "Same thing!"
Has to be heard, totally incredible.
Cult. Definitely.
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LouBelle
oh yes - to a JW - if you reject even a publisher at the door you are rejecting the almighty his very self.
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kurtbethel
Oh, I am relieved. I never reject them at all. I talk to them. A lot. And record it.
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LouBelle
ah lucky for you. You can always playback to Jehoobah or yahoo if he gives you lip about rejecting his servants
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Cold Steel
You know, as oddball as the beliefs are, and as unlikely the claims of the organization to represent God, they're really no different from many other churches. It all goes back to the saying, "You pays your money and you takes your choices." Witnesses have a problem bridging logic from God to them, but that doesn't make them a cult. It seems that everyone who finds anyone else to be narrow minded or opinionated a cult.
Well, in reality, Christianity was a cult. The educated Romans and Jews saw it as little more, though the Jews really saw ancient Christianity as sort of a far out part of Judaism. In the same sense Bahá'í is an offshoot of Islam, Christianity was considered an offshoot of Judaism. Everything (or almost everything) comes out of something else. People aren't forced to stay, they're not isolated from the world, they can go to the library and read whatever they want, even if their parents or overseers don't want them to. Judging from the number of people jumping ship, I'd say that Jehovah's Witnesses are in danger of being overtaken.
In my view, they waste their votes (votes that could help make the world better) and they become guilty what many evangelicals become guilty of -- of giving up and saying it's all over. They may be even a bit odd in some respects; but they're not any more or less culty than many other religions or philosophies in the world today. If one visits their website, one will quickly notice there is nothing...nothing at all...outlining the JW belief of its own legitimacy. There's no church history. No...how we came to be stories.
The only time the JWs ever irritated me was when my grandmother was very old. They'd come in and tell her that when she died, she was just going to slip into slumber and decay until Jehovah-God called her forth from the grave. They made her worry that my late grandfather might not be saved at all and that, in fact, most wouldn't make it. She had nightmares of dying and was worried about losing her family and seeing them destroyed. Of course the Witnesses explained that we must be willing to suffer our all for Jehovah, even our families and loved ones. While other religions teach that people will one day be reunited with their families and friends through the mercy and atonement of Jesus Christ, being a JW is about choosing between them and Jehovah; and if you choose them, you're not worthy. Again, although this is weird and it's a cruel theology, it doesn't make it a cult in the Jim Jones sense of the word. Just sayin....
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MissingLink
Cold Steel - I don't think you realize what "cult" means. It's not a group with strange views. It's about the control they have over their members.
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Black Sheep
....doesn't make it a cult in the Jim Jones sense of the word
Hi Cold Steel,
More JWs have died over the blood issue than died at Jonestown. Does that bother you?
They let their children die for beliefs and a God that, as adults, they may not have believed in if they had survived. Does that bother you?
Cheers
Chris
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Cold Steel
Yeah, it bothers me that JWs let themselves and their children die over a gross misinterpretations of scripture. Virtually every other religion on Earth knows that receiving blood transfusions are entirely different than eating blood, just as having statues and worshiping graven images are entirely different. Eating blood does no one any good, but it's been shown that receiving blood transfusions have saved many.
It's a tragic, stupid, pedestrian interpretation, but some churches don't allow for any medical intervention. This makes it a backwards religion, but hardly a cult. This religion requires a certain mindset, a certain psychology, but like the Shakers and other weird little groups, it eventually will catch up with itself.