by God_Delusion 18 Replies latest watchtower bible
Howdy guys and gals!
Do the Jehovah's Witnesses belong to a Doomsday Cult? I wrote this article which asks the question. Please take a look at it guys and let us know what you think.
With the recent September 2012 Awake! magazine release, I think the question has sort of been answered...
http://www.jehovahswitnessblog.com/cult/are-jehovahs-witnesses-a-doomsday-cult/
Regards,
Jaymes
Yes they are, but the Bible does speak of a judgment day and Armageddon, so most Christians have some sort of doomsday belief I think. Many think the earth will be burned up, and the non-religious also fear a doomsday event as a real possibility, eg, massive global nuclear war. Scientists invented a 'doomsday clock' to indicate how close we are to a nuclear WW3.
The real thing that pisses me off with the organisation is their constant emphasis on the end of this system and the way they use the fear of doomsday to keep all their members trapped in bondage to their cult. The dominant force in the organisation is fear, fear of Armageddon/doomsday, not love.
The only reason many of them stay in the organisation is because they are convinced doomsday is near and being a member of the only religion that 'bears Jehovah's name" is your magic talisman for survival. Its a kind of Pascals wager.
ummmmm.........yeah
i think what makes the society specifically a doomsday cult is their adherence to the idea that judgement day is right around the corner. they push every doctrine and policy with the idea that the end is so near you cant waste time thinking about it because jehovah will judge you before you make a decision. every aspect is death. they attend the memorial for the death of christ but refuse to celebrate his birthday or resurrection. they wont celebrate birthdays but will have funerals. and they use the death and the funeral to push their doomsday message to capitalize on the grieving.
they celebrate the death of babies. they practically orgasm over the idea of 7 billion people being murdered by their version of god. they labeled jesus as the angel of death. they get off on the death of everything.
catholics push the message that the end is coming but we dont know when. like scripture says. apostolics and pentacostals push that the end is coming but we dont know when. like scripture says. baptists for the most part do the same thing.
there are thousands of doomsday cults and the watchtower is one of the largest. but
i think what makes the society specifically a doomsday cult is their adherence to the idea that judgement day is right around the corner. they push every doctrine and policy with the idea that the end is so near you cant waste time thinking about it because jehovah will judge you before you make a decision. every aspect is death. they attend the memorial for the death of christ but refuse to celebrate his birthday or resurrection. they wont celebrate birthdays but will have funerals. and they use the death and the funeral to push their doomsday message to capitalize on the grieving.
they celebrate the death of babies. they practically orgasm over the idea of 7 billion people being murdered by their version of god. they labeled jesus as the angel of death. they get off on the death of everything.
catholics push the message that the end is coming but we dont know when. like scripture says. apostolics and pentacostals push that the end is coming but we dont know when. like scripture says. baptists for the most part do the same thing.
there are thousands of doomsday cults and the watchtower is one of the largest. but
I am contractually requird to say that, while they are all about Doomsday, they are not a cult.
I would, in seriousness, disagree with yadda yadda 2's characterization of the JWs as being about fear and not love. They are certainly not about love, but I suggest that what they are about is pride. I think they are not so much afraid of Doomsday as they are proud of having figured out how to avoid it.
Does this distinction matter? Maybe not. But I think there is a difference between being on the Titanic and looking into the water with fear, and being on the Titanic and thinking you are the smartest guy around because you've figured out how to sneak on to the last lifeboat.
The world stubbornly refuses to end. What an affront to Jehovah!
1. Are they a cult?
I would say “yes,” according to both of the strictest definition of the word. All types of religious systems and their associated rituals are cults (thus Roman Catholics often speak of their own “cult of worship”) and to a religious group that is generally regarded as unorthodox (and this is true of the Jehovah’s Witnesses).
Etymologically speaking, the English word “cult” comes from the theological use of the word “culture.” The “culture of worship” or “culture of religion” refers to the practices and beliefs of any type of religion. It became shortened to “cult,” and possibly due to Puritan views of Catholicism and Anglicism (and for that matter just about everyone else who was religious but not a Puritan) became applied to those who had “rituals” in their worship. The belief that all religious “rituals” were “paganism” stayed while the Puritan religion did not, and the word “cult” may have floated down to the vernacular to be applied to any group thought to have ‘strange rituals,’ like the generally unaccepted religious organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
2. Are they a "doomsday" cult
I think they are more than that and, in fact, it would be incorrect to limit them to just that one label.
I believe the religion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has nothing to do with doctrine. I believe it is an enabling system for persons with ambiguity intolerance. Most fundamentalist religions, Eastern and Western, and even a few atheist or secular groups fall under such a paradigm.
While religion and secular/atheist views differ on much, they actually agree on one thing essential to both: life is filled with mystery. The facts are we don’t and won’t know everything. Both ideologies embrace mystery, but in different ways. The secular/atheist view uses science to do this, clearing away superstitions and irrational fears and views to deal with the facts of reality. Religions like Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in their most fundamental forms teach that God is Reality, and that while this Reality can be known, humans are not capable to grasp fully all there is about this Reality (we can know and even learn about God, according to this system’s views, humans just cannot fully conceive or grasp the mystery that is God).
Jehovah’s Witnesses, like most fundamentalist groups, don’t believe in such ambiguity. To them God cannot be a mystery because, as they claim, the human mind cannot grasp such a concept as “mystery” or “having no definite answer “ as being reasonable. In other words they don’t allow their concept of God to be what they themselves cannot personally deal with, namely the ambiguous.
Their religion is not about knowing doctrines correctly or even being loyal to any creed. In fact their beliefs change drastically and often. Most (not all) people who are attracted to this religion want to make the world fit definitions that allow for their own understanding and sense of personal identity. Those with ambiguous intolerance see the world in black and white, compartmentalize everything into either “good” or “bad,” right or wrong. They feel a need to be so compartmentalized as well, a desire to have the “correct view” on everything, to be “right” about the choices they make (or why make a choice at all?). This means they need to be in the “right” religion, in effect turning religion into nothing more but a proof-text exercise instead of a worship of a divine person based on their love for that person. As they themselves proudly put it in their books and magazines: Why belong to a religion if you don’t think it’s the right one?
Being a religion is about self for this type of personality. It’s about being right about personal choice, not being right with God.
Their doomsday shouts can be replaced with anything tomorrow. The needs of the person with ambiguity intolerance is like that of an addict—they are often found with an enabler. For the person attracted to the “easy-answers-to-everything” system of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Governing Body is the enabler. They ambiguous intolerant will swallow whatever “Kool-Aid” the Governing Body feeds them because it comes with pat on the back they are looking for, the voice telling them that they’ve made the right choice in religion, that they themselves can step into the “good” compartment they have set up for their own personal view on the world.
We No Longer Serve "Live-Forever Book" and "Reasoning Book" Flavored Kool-Aid--But Drink our New Flavor!
Not convinced? Consider this. Let’s say I left the Witnesses of my own accord in 1985 because I didn’t agree with their doctrines regarding the 1914 generation, the closing of the heavenly calling in 1935, and their strict view of no blood at all in any form with regard to blood transfusions. Let’s also say that today I take that all back and now agree with what the Jehovah’s Witnesses were trying to teach me back in 1985. Let’s say that I even make it known publicly, all around the world, that these teachings are correct, are to be obeyed since they come from God, and that anything else is heresy—exactly what they wanted me to do back then in 1985. Would this qualify me as a Jehovah’s Witness today?
No. If a present-day Jehovah’s Witnesses adopted the beliefs of this religion that it had some 27 years ago, and the same Witness claimed that such was the Truth from God, they would be disfellowshipped. The religion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses no longer teaches what it did about these and many other subjects what it taught in 1985. If I agreed to “take it all back” and now believe all they used to teach in 1985 that wouldn’t be repentance in their eyes. It would if I were Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, or Muslim. Their basic doctrines haven’t changed since 1985. But we’re not talking about loyalty to any actual doctrine or creed here, are we?
No, what we are talking about it loyalty to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. For me to get back in after leaving in 1985 I have to agree to the present beliefs of whatever the Governing Body says today. That is the only doctrine that never changes in the Witness system.
Even today, with the blatant release of the new brochure about the Governing Body, it is clear that this is the only unchangeable “truth” there is. That is all anyone there is really concerned about. And the so-called rank-and-file will defend this because most of them are intolerant of ambiguity. They need that voice telling them they are right beyond all doubt, regardless of what that voice tells them they have to believe. They don’t believe they deserve any better—or that anything better even exists (otherwise they would leave). Like the abused wife who does not leave her abusive husband, the people stay and take whatever the leadership tells them they have to. And any addict will do the same, taking whatever they must from their enabler, as long as the enabler gives them what they need, which in this case is that voice telling them that they are right and everyone else who doesn’t do the same is wrong.
One might even argue that the Governing Body might be slowly weaning its people off of “doomsday” preaching in exchange for something new. Perhaps they will suddenly claim the end is also “invisible” and that they are in the “New World” because they now have their new world in following the leadership of the Governing Body. Who knows what Kool-Aid they have in store?
They might be a “doomsday” cult today, but if tomorrow the Governing Body says that crying “the end is nigh” is “so yesterday,” then it won’t be a doomsday cult.
But they will still be a cult.
There are various afterlife beliefs--inclusive, exclusive, Heaven, Earth. A
doomsday cult holds followers to specific predictions and may cause harm. The JWs
leaders' require shunning for defectors, including family members who live separ-
ately, who show persistent disagreement with any of the GB specialties, which have
typically included specific predictions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult
I predict, without setting a date, that if people keep f'ing up the planet a
third of the earth will burn up, a third of the trees will burn up, the green
grass will burn up, a third of the living creatures in the sea will die, a third
of the waters will turn bitter, and many people will die from the waters that be-
come bitter. (Rev.8) Or something like that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Is the Watchtower Society a Doomsday Cult?..
YES!!..
........................... 
...OUTLAW
