Mind Control (page 4)

Ding

Goldensky,

The Holy Spirit maybe?

What logical thoughts kicked in? Some particular doctrine? A particular Bible passage? WT flipflops or false prophesies?

Dear Ding, could it REALLY be the Holy Spirit? I wish, but I seriously doubt God's existence nowadays, or at least His interest in us humans... (Sorry if this makes you sad, since you seem to be a believer...).

I remember one of the first things that flashed through my mind one day (as I was scrubbing the kitchen floor, ha, ha!) was the absolute silliness of permitting children to be baptized at an early age. Up to that moment, I had trained my then 8 or 9 year son to devote his life to Jehovah as soon as he felt ready, but at that particular moment I realized it was at least as serious a decision as that of marrying, and would I let my child get married at 13 or 14? Then, why on earth do Witness parents like me encourage that step at such an early age? I was astounded at how illogical I had been all my life, and decided right there and then I wouldn't let him get baptized before the age of 18, and I'd even try to make him wait until he was 23 or 24. Decision made. And then I kept wondering how I could have thought differently my whole life...

Another day, I suddenly felt very angry at the Governing Body for never having apologized about the years spent in prison by many brothers when the alternative service was still not allowed. Why did I suddenly have such a "bad attitude" towards the brothers in Brooklyn if up to then I had always said Amen with gratefulness to all their directives? Next came anger at their never having recognized their mistakes in dating the end, in spite of the modifications the brothers had made in their lives due to the information issuing from them.

Then, on another occasion, as I was washing the dishes ( Spanish housewives, you know...), a bigger picture came to my mind, related to the Bible as God's inspired word: the account of Abraham came to my mind, totally out of the blue, and for the first time in my life I felt Jehovah was a psycho, testing the faith of his beloved son in such a terrible way, plus that contradicted other Bible accounts. I've never been able to think of this account in the original way. Next came Job's account along the same lines. Then the whole Old Testament itself.

Yet another day it was the ransom (if you read my intro post and a couple others there are more details): how can it be considered a proof of love and justice on the part of God for an innocent man to die on behalf of mankind (also basically innocent)?

New issues kept adding to my doubts about the Witnesses being the true religion, then the Bible being the book through which God talks to us and, finally, the existence of God Himself, who not only was not answering my prayers for faith (two years praying intensely), but, incomprehensibly, allowed terrible suffering without moving a finger...

And here I am now, still praying every day to the Great Absentee, as some poster recently called him (he made me smile, what a good description!), knowing I won't get any answers during my lifetime, but still loving Him intensely...

vivalavida

I do believe it all starts with how CURIOUS you are. At least that is what happened in my case.

Yes, I believed it all, I wanted to do everything they ask for BUT, I was highly curious about other things. Then this curiousity impelled me to listen to external sources, for example, I did go ahead and bought the Personal Power II tapes from Tony Robbins and listening to him, a lot of stuff came up that made me stop and think. He talks about having a purpose in life and how he and lots others have that purpose and it works for them and they are happy.

When I heard that, I knew for a fact that expresions like: " Our close relationship with Jehovah makes us the happiest people on earth. " are not necessarily true. There are people out there that use other methods to achieve the same that JWs achieve. I remember saying that if the bible was the user's manual for the human, Tony's ideas were like a service manual for humans. Then I thouhgt, but he's not inspired.

However, it required years before I allowed my curiosity to get the best of me and go onto 'apostate' websites. After the child abuse debacle and the article in the "Our Kingdom Ministry" from Sept. 2007 (I think) where the GB stated that they didn't condone people investigating and that one should NOT check on their translation work, a huge WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY TRYING TO HIDE thought popped up in my mind. My curiosity won overhand and in a couple of months I was DA'd myself.

So, I do believe that external influences help, but I also think that one has to have a level of curiosity that pushes one to want to know more.

Vivalavida

Mad Sweeney

Dan, your "outside contact" was Ray's book, apparently. Many who are IN have the suspicion that something is wrong but this suspicion is never confirmed or supported until they look OUTside.

Think of Solomon Asch's Conformity experiment. (I'll post a couple youtubes at the end)

You asked the question of how JWs can call Ray's book and Captives of a Concept "lies." It is because they haven't read them. VERY FEW people can bring themselves to read such works and yet remain captive to the Borg. The GB knows this and warns the JWs with guilt and fear tactics on a regular basis.

So although you may think you got out on your own, you actually had SOMEone to reinforce your discomfort with the cult.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIh4MkcfJA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNIuFrso8I

Also google Stanford Prison Experiment and Stanley Milgram's Authority Experiment

It is great to see you walking the path, Dan.

goldensky

Mad Sweeney, I've found your second video very interesting! How true!Thanks for posting it.

vivalavida

Great video, very clarifying!

Ding

Dear Goldensky,

I have sent you a private message through this website regarding what you said in your latest post on this topic, the one in which you responded to my post.

Ding

alice.in.wonderland

I've made mention of this before, but in this country (my country - USA), we do enjoy religious freedom. Reflecting on a historical era in western culture when we didn't enjoy freedom of thought to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without the threat of capital punishment for person's sincere beliefs; mind control was a reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_Reformation

The Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to reform the Catholic Church, effected by Western European Catholics who opposed what they perceived as false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice — especially the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and simony, the selling and buying of clerical offices — that the reformers saw as evidence of the systemic corruption of the church’s hierarchy, which included the Pope.

This is what happened to some of the sincere reformers that attempted to initiate a reformed “Christian church.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJuuG-8PKno

The pioneers of this movement had to endure capital punishment in its most heinous form, but Protestants eventually succeeded in ascending from the Roman Catholic Church and established a theocracy separate from Catholicism.

In our modern age, religious [mind control] does exist in 3rd world countries and their hordes of terrorists represent a physical threat to contemporary society.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/sep2001/terr-s12.shtml

The political roots of the terror attack on New York and Washington

These acts of homicidal terrorism manifest a toxic combination of demoralized pessimism, religious and ultra-nationalist obscurantism, and, it must be added, political opportunism of the vilest character. Terrorist organizations—notwithstanding their anti-American rhetoric—base their tactics on the illusion that random acts of horrific violence will compel the US ruling class to shift its policies. Thus, in the final analysis, they hope to make a deal with Washington.

Disambiguation:

"These acts of homicidal terrorism manifest a toxic combination of demoralized pessimism,”

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pessimism

the tendency to see, anticipate, or emphasize only bad or undesirable outcomes, results, conditions, problems, etc.: His pessimism about the future of our country depresses me.

"religious and ultra-nationalist obscurantism,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism

Obscurantism (French: obscurantisme, from the Latin obscurans, “darkening”) is the practice of deliberately preventing the facts or the full details of some matter from becoming known. There are two, common, historical and intellectual, denotations: 1) restricting knowledge—opposition to the spread of knowledge, a policy of withholding knowledge from the public, and, 2) deliberate obscurity—an abstruse style (as in literature and art) characterized by deliberate vagueness.

...and, it must be added, political opportunism of the vilest character. Terrorist organizations—notwithstanding their anti-American rhetoric—base their tactics on the illusion that random acts of horrific violence will compel the US ruling class to shift its policies. Thus, in the final analysis, they hope to make a deal with Washington.

The voluntary submission to the religious powers that be in some Arab regions and the associated religious totalitarianism is limited. Not everyone is a robot, but corrupt regimes do exact a negative influence through Islamic fundamentalism.

Arabs in the United States and other developed nations have access to education, prosperity and constitutional rights. That's why they are civilized, productive and law abiding. Accusations of “mind control” in the United States is described in some science fiction novels, but fiction is fiction. In developed nations, scientific evidence for “mind control” can be acquired. The fact of the matter is there is none.

DaCheech

what alice doesn't tell you, is:

if jehovahs witness had the power in their hand (as did henry, or elizabeth), they would do the same.

Found Sheep

I was at a cross road in my life and decided to not go to a meeting for two weeks. I noticed almost imediatly how much happier I was not going and thinking for myself, that I never went back. I still had some mind control untill I read CoC and Stevens books. It took about 1 1/2 years to feel emotionaly free. After I knew it could not be the truth I had no desire to go back. When I had time to think I realized how Jesus is about Love, Forgivness, happiness, peace - a far cry from the JW life.

Mind Control

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