JWs blur the lines.....what is the difference in brainwashing and "inculcating"?

by journey-on 3 Replies latest jw friends

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  journey-on

  I have been thinking about No Room For George and his returning to the vomit Kingdom Hall. (Miz, do what you need to do to get mentally healthy.)

  I am particularly thinking about someone close to me, as well, and her severe fanatical attachment to The Organization. She lives in such a state of conditioning that she can't even go on a vacation out of the country without first finding out where the local Kingdom Hall is (even if she doesn't speak the language) and making arrangements to attend it.

  It is my personal belief (no offense to anybody) that Jehovah's Witnesses are intentionally programmed by The Organization....there is a bona fide method to their madness. Now, if you were raised in it like I was, you have years to look back upon and actually see how this statement is true. Their teaching methods go beyond the norm and become more like a methodical brainwashing or perhaps even a form of classical conditioning complete with trigger words and phrases. I believe it is intentional simply because of the cookie-cutter-never-veer-from-the-lesson-plan induction technique to which they adhere.

  Fear of detachment and other personality disorders and behavioral patterns result. They become too emotionally bound to the religion. If they found out the truth about the org tomorrow, it wouldn't matter to most of them. They are just too far gone and too emotionally attached to the cultish-like control. They are dependent in a very unhealthy way, yet are cognitively blind to it.

  However, if you get into a discussion regarding the above, they come back with the OT scripture where God commands the Israelites in regard to his words to "inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up. And you must tie them as a sign upon your hand, and they must serve as a frontlet band between your eyes; and you must write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates.".....Deut. 6: 4-9

  How do you explain the absurdity of applying THAT scripture to their methodology of indoctrination?
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  ShirleyW

  I was raised in it too and agree to what you above.

  When I used to tell my mother she was brainwashed she would say "thank you"!

  So, go figure, it's sometimes seems amazing how so many broke away, but then again it's not, they just started thinking for themselves.
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  journey-on

  it's sometimes seems amazing how so many broke away

  That it does!

  I wish I had a good way to explain how Deut 6: 4-9 is not applicable to the WTS' methods. Or, is it the same thing? I see the scripture as a message to teach your children right principles and how to apply them in one's daily life.

  I see the WTS methods as harsh and controlling, one that uses REAL psychological manipulation tools to brainwash, condition, and program their followers to be drones for a publishing, real estate, and investment corp. without asking too many questions or demanding a more nourishing spiritual feast.
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  The Quiet One

  Its very simple. Those words of God were, funnily enough, words of God, according to the Bible anyway. Jesus denounced the Pharisees for 'teaching the commands of men as doctrines', which we can see the GB do. The problem is that most jw's are reliant on the Watchtower to tell them what the Bible means, because to them the Faithful Slave, or GB really, are the only ones fit to be used by Jehovah to interpret it at this time. So the words in the Watchtower are meant to be viewed as the words of God. Any jw who disagrees with this can easily be proven wrong from the literature. So, as long as a jw blindly believes that the GB is directed by Jehovah, you can't argue with their interpretation of any scripture, at least not successfully..