by Eiben Scrood 22 Replies latest jw friends
Interesting timing, this is from last Sunday's meeting:
THE WATCHTOWER SEPTEMBER 15, 2010 page 14, paragraph 9.
"...The Christian congregation was founded, not to function as a social club, but to honor Jehovah and to get a job done—the work of preaching the good news, making disciples, and building up the congregation..."
I agree w what undercover said.
"when I finally started reaching out, exerting myself to do what I thought was necessary to be faithful, that's when it started to unravel. It was when I actually took it serious and tried to separate myself from the pretenders that I saw through it. It didn't stand up to the test."
It was along the same lines for me. From my twenties on, i really tried. It didn't work and i thought that it was my fault. I went on like that for yrs, before the veil started to wear thin. That's when someone introduced me to ray franz book and i saw instantly what it was.
The social aspect helped to cushion the dissonance. Most of the time, i had a great social life, did a lot of stuff w friends. That must have slowed down my realisation of the truth about the 'truth'.
S
I like your thread and opening post. For me, I was miserable with my family and avoided them after moving out on my own. But I was miserable without my family, too. When some rough things happened to me, the JW's that called on me were like the family that I always wished I had. The family and social feelings I got from the JW's held me prisoner until the doctrine told me something was wrong.
Now my wife is a very social JW. She will blow off her own meetings and make it up at a foreign-language meeting to "learn the language." It's also that she's bored with the sessions she understands and is treated like the poor "spiritual widow" without her husband at the home congregation, but she loves hanging out with the "sisters" at some cong. that doesn't know her husband. She also loves weddings and gatherings and visiting KH's on vacations. But the truth of "the truth" is not something she cares to learn about. IT's FULLY BECOME HER WORLD.
Good topic... I agree with Elben and Undercover and have said much the same thing for decades. The social aspect is the only thing that holds the whole thing together. The doctrines are just a minor inconveniences.
Most are clueless about the real history of the organization, just how completely whacky some of the beliefs are. It's Jehovah this and Jehovah that. Revelation?
Daniel? 1914-1919, 1922, 1926, 1938, 1944 - all identified as prophetic years? Most have no clue let alone being able to show something from the Bible proving
these dates
So true....yet when it comes to shunning someone who left the game.....they're all over it ....only too happy to comply ! Nothing gives you a feeling of superiority and camaraderie like a good shunning.
A brother told me a CO once said to him, "If if this weren't the truth, can you think of a better way to live?"
He said, "I thought, `What a strange thing to say! If it's not the truth, I can think of a lot of ways I'd rather live.'"
Eventually, he and his family came out.
Good topic...
My wife was just telling about this yesterday as she sees herself as once again 'straddling the fence.' She said she's prayed to God about it and told Him that she knows she wants to be a witness but feels like to be one, she has to BE the religion. I guess the holiday season is upon us and with my not following her in her 'theocratic footsteps' last year and taking a different course, she feels torn. Since she went so zealously to become a baptized witness this year, she now feels trapped.
She told me that she feels like she is more a SOCIAL witness than a true one. She feels like it is more the social aspects that she enjoys rather than the 'spiritual' aspects. She is falling back into 'living a double life' again as she says that she has her 'Kingdom Hall' friends and her friends on the outside that she also likes to associate with. She also says that she has to HIDE some of her outside activities from her Kingdom Hall friends.
It appears to come full circle but I don't think she is quite at that point where she feels like she can stop believing in it. It's her whole life to her and a part of me actually feels bad for telling her the truth about the 'truth.' How will she break free when she has so much of herself tied in it?
On another note, a lot of Christian churches fall under the same camp. People don't really seem to care for doctrine. They care more about living life to the fullest and being a part of something bigger than themselves. I think the people who try very hard to conform to all teachings of many churches as well as the hall are the ones who tend to be most disillusioned. Like what Undercover said, you see yourself trying hard while many others just coast along flirting with the world and what-not. I saw this a lot in that old Independent Fundamental Baptist church I use to attend and I use to wonder why God was blessing them and not me.
I'm starting to think that fitting in socially is one of the prime human imperitives, genetically based, probably. Cults like the wt corp just ramp it up a few notches. It's like there's group w a level of social conormist requirements for everybody. Those that absolutely refuse to fit in somewhere end up living on the streets or running a movie company in hollywood (or something like that).
S
It really is. There are cliques who do a lot socially together, and then there people on the fringe. Fortunately I was on the fringe, and saw through the fakeness and lack of love. Now I have real friends who aren't JWs, and I've never been happier!
"I'm starting to think that fitting in socially is one of the prime human imperitives, genetically based, probably. ..."
Exactly, Satanus...
Think "small tribal groups" and sabre-tooth cats... or dire wolves... or cave bears...
Or, in more modern times, think lions, cougars, leopards, tigers... or timber wolves; packs of them... or grizzles, or polar bears, or kodiak bears, or even a vicious mamma black bear...
And then there was all the inter-tribal warfare, after many of the large predators were pushed into more remote areas...
Travelling in groups - packs - herds - comes as natural to humanity as walking upright... And using opposable thumbs... (Which makes the old "Marlboro Man" image laughable in the extreme... A fantasy that really never existed...)
And in the past, expulsion from the 'herd' was often a death sentence.
That's why shunning is so effective - so vicious, so cruel... It goes against all human instinct. Shunning is basically a form of solitary confinement - or at least, it's supposed to FEEL like 'solitary confinement', if JWs are doing it the way "Mother" wants them to...
Zid
ziddina....good points. Are you saying shunning is....(what's the word I'm looking for?).....oh yeah. ANIMALISTIC.
