by jst2laws 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I think the difference is that the rank and file are innocent followers. We thought we were serving God and so while we might have practiced evil, as in shunning, we did it because we truly thought we were serving Jehovah by doing so.
The GB on the other hands is not acting out of innocence and so their evil is something we do not have to share. Their actions are made fully conscious of the fact that some of the things JW's are required to do are not bible based.
Farkel,
Nice to hear from you. You know a year ago I would not even address your responses to my threads because you intimidated me. Now I view you as a friend with no fear. So forgive me for differing with you.
Yes. The GB knew for years that alternative military service could not be supported in scripture, yet they allowed countless thousands of young men to be imprisoned because they were afraid of repurcussions.I agree. They allowed this to happen for years of needless harm. Yes, they were afraid. But of what? The men I knew in the 60’s and 70’s were afraid of changing things they did not understand. They believed in Fredie’s inspiration and just followed. They were in a position to change things in the last 20 years but being followers they, like most of us, dared not change the “truth”.
The same is true today of the blood issue. They know their stance is wrong. Why do you think they've slowly kept softening their position over the years? And people still die because they knowingly harm others for "something they can get out of it": being protected from lawsuits, and not having to admit they were wrong.I suspect you are right, “they know their stance is wrong”. This is one of their biggest pickles that probably plaques the GB. But remember these boys did not formulate this policy, they inherited it. And remember they are probably afraid to change anything they do not understand. So now you have a GB composed mostly of men who can no long tie their own shoes or feed themselves who follow the lead of the legal dept. The legal dept I suspect believes they are rectifying divine teachings with imminent litigation, seeking ‘theocratic strategy’ that will ‘vindicate Jehovah’s name’. It is BS and a tragedy. But is it truly of evil intent? I know many if not most of these guys really believe they are doing what is right. Sad, isn’t it!
They are a bunch of self-worshiping, self-glorifing, self-promoting evil men.If your right, Farkel, that would make them “evil”. It is hard to be liberal here, but I’m trying not to be judgmental. I’m inclined to believe most of the individual members of the GB are not smart enough to be so cunning. Jst my opinion.
If not that, they are murderous assholes. Let's not mince definitions. Judas is considered one of the most evil men in the Bible, yet he merely succombed to a weak moment and sold Jesus out for a few bucks. The GB collectively have sold out millions and killed thousands over the decades and yet they themselves live like and are treated like kings, and only change when they have no other choice.“assholes”? Not sure but understand the emotion behind the comment. The part we agree on 100% is they “only change when they have no other choice”.
Let's not mince definitions here, jst2laws. I see you're still in your own "Crisis of Conscience" process. That's fine. You're just where you need to be. I wish you the best in sorting it all out for yourself.
I have only raised the issue of motivation. Can we judge these without judging ourselves at least to some degree. Having known a generation of these old men I have stated my perspective. The question remains in my mind, are they evil or high level followers?
Jst2laws
Welcome ChiChi and lastcall,
Good to hear from new ones.
ChiChi,
Ray Franz doesn't condem them because he would still be one of them if things didn't happen as they did.I sensed a sadness and longing in his books over the loss of position and his buddies on the GB.You may have overlooked that the scandal that took place in Bethel that ultimately resulted in Ray Franz’s dismissal from the GB and Bethel started while he and his wife were on a three month leave of absence. They were looking for a place to go as Ray had already decided to resign the GB and leave Bethel. I personally did not detect a sense of “loss of position” but did sense an intense loss of friends and forsaking the fantasy that we have all given up (most of us anyway)
Lastcall,
The sad truth is people suffer and even die for their religion. That is not unique to JW's. But if we are pissed off at the lives that we lived in the past, we really only have one place to look. The Mirror. If we were a minor child when we had a miserable JW life, then look in the mirror, then look at Mom and Dad.Interesting.
Jst2laws
jst2laws,
Can we let them continue to be wicked, while we continue to do Good?
Rev 22:11
Regards,
Hoo of Malaysia
Jst2laws, your comments are entirely reasonable and to a large extent I agree. But I think that you're giving the Governing Body, and by extension, the men who follow their commands and therefore give them power, too much slack.
If being evil involves being morally wrong or bad, wicked, harmful or injurious, then the Governing Body and its agents certainly fit the bill. Your recollection may be that M. Scott Peck may have defined an evil person as "one who will harm others knowingly for what he can gain out of it", but if so, that's only part of the definition, in my view. I think that most people would define an evil person as someone who would harm others knowingly, period. It doesn't matter if someone has something to gain from harming others, either personally or in a larger sense -- harming others knowingly is still evil.
You're perfectly right that all of us will sometimes fit the definition of evil, But the question of really being "evil" boils down to how often and how intensely someone commits acts of evil. Someone who knows the truth about something that hurts people but lets it slide for awhile has betrayed right principles of conduct and has shown himself to accept the commission of evil by others, even if he does not directly act in an evil way. This is a sin of omission, because the person could have acted to correct matters and do the right thing. If that involves personal loss of position or prestige or whatever, that's the breaks. A person who ignores his conscience in this way is certainly an evil person, because he had it in his power to stop the commission of evil, or to separate himself from it, but did not -- for selfish reasons.
Ray Franz made some great observations in his books, but as regards responsibility among GB and other top Society leaders, I think his comments have become outdated in the nearly two decades since he first wrote. His ouster from the GB marked a turning point in Society history. After that, WTS leaders became much more hardheaded and unforgiving. They were jealous of their positions and power, and they did everything they could to preserve their authority even at the cost of stomping on the rights and heads of individual JWs. Ray didn't know it at the time he first wrote, but other GB members actually conspired against him to get him out, and over the next year and a half they conspired to find a way to "legally" disfellowship him. These are the acts of evil men, and those who passively went along with it are equally evil.
Nathan Knorr may well have been a victim of a victim, but there comes a point in a responsible person's life when "the buck stops here". Do you not agree? Knorr was instrumental in setting the grossly hypocritical and self-serving policies in Mexico and Malawi that Ray Franz so nicely describes. He had to know that these policies were hypocritical because they were applying two sets of standards. Knorr was under no coercion during his administration to act hypocritically. He may have been influenced to be that way by his Bethel experience under Rutherford, but he also retained a measure of personal responsibility, especially in view of the written objections that various people raised to the contradictory policies in Mexico and Malawi.
There are probably hardly any JWs, whether rank & file members or top leaders, who have not wondered at some point if they were doing the right thing by giving allegiance to the JW organization. Because we ex-JWs know very clearly that somewhere along the line we had to suppress our natural inclinations and defile our consciences in order to become JWs at all, or at least, to continue being JWs after learning of any number of atrocities, we also know that it takes a certain amount of mental effort to consider the matter and to decide one way or another, even if the process of deciding is not explicitly put into words. In other words, somewhere in our careers as JWs, whether during the initial process of "studying" or during childhood or reinstatement or whatever, we made a conscious or semi-conscious decision to put aside our misgivings and go with the Watchtower. That making of a decision means that we specifically committed ourselves to a course of upholding Watchtower dogma at virtually any cost.
You finally touched on the responsibility of those who claim to speak for God. In my view this is far and away the most condemnatory of Watchtower lunacies. I'll leave further comments for another time because I'm beat from a long day at work.
AlanF
Personally I find it hard to believe that people who have been in the organisation for many years , and worked there way up through the various ranks and eventually arrived at the position of Governing body member , do not know what they are doing.
I and many people here are not Einstein's , we do not perform brain surgery, yet we could see that the beliefs and polices of Jehovah's witnesses were flawed and wrong .Even after being indoctrinated from birth.
But does this make them evil? I don’t know if such a thing as Evil exists .
Are child murderers Evil ? was Hitler Evil?
Or is there something wrong , with these people. Do imbalances in the Brain , cause people to do such things?In fact is that what Evil is?
Or are some people more "evolutionarily" advanced than others, leaving some to act more like animals , where such behaviour is almost normal.
What control exactly do we have over our actions? Does free will really exist?
All these things have to be considered.
Even today it is debated in court whether a person is mentally ill or not. It is not always easy to tell, as we have no easy way of defining what is normal behaviour.
Regarding the Governing Body,if they had complete control over their actions I can not see how they were able to believe they had been chosen by God to rule over his people on earth , and to make decisions that could effect whether people would live or die. But it is hard to know what goes on in someone else's head.
The effects were certainly harmful. But I would argue that of all the governments in the world today and amongst all the religions , they all in some way enforce laws that some people see as harmful or in error.
The way things stand with the human race is that some human will have authority over others, whether we choose it or not. There are some excepted standards of morality amongst most people , but no absolute rule that is set in stone.
I believe many injustices by men in authority can not be avoided , due to the difficulty in setting all embracing rules over a humanity made of many different individuals.
No one has succeeded in satisfying everyone. Maybe one day that will happen.
But by and large I feel that certain men in authority such as the Governing Body have acted differently to how I would. I wouldn’t have chosen to do what they have done and I carnt understand why they did things that way. From my standpoint they are wrong, even evil .Especially if descisions were made for selfish reasons.
Alan and Farkel comments have it dead on right:
Alan: jst2laws, Ray Franz feelings toward HIS Governing Body are irrelevant, since HIS was 1983 and YOUR comment is directed at today's. My comments were directed at today, 2002 governing body as well. So I think is most everyone's in this thread.
Farkel: jst2laws, you made your feelings clear in an earlier post concerning elder culpability--that elders were no more culpable than any other JW. That's what you basically said. I assume that's what you basically feel.
Why on earth would YOU think the GB is any more culpable than the elders? Why on earth would I think the GB is any less culpable than the elders? Duuuhhhhh...
If JW elders and ex-elders and overseers and ex-overseers want and need expiation for their crimes against humanity, they aren't going to get it from this board. Certainly no more so than the rest of us. Perhaps you should consider support groups for ex-elders/ministerials/overseers if you think they have such special needs.
I feel the urge for another 'elders and culpability' thread coming on....
UADNA-US (Unseen Apostate Directorate of North America-United States)
Edited for form, spelling, content, punctuation, spelling, relevance, grammar and language...
J2L, you remind me very much of elder friends that are in your position as they seek to free themselves of this religion. Over and over they ask the same questions, "Is there not some good in it?" and "are they really evil or just misguided victims?".
As they struggle with these questions and the endless difficulties of trying to make Christianity fit, I think you and my friends really know the answers to your own questions and you know where you are heading.
As you try to come up with a brand of Christianity that you feel comfortable with, which is really a vague mix of JW teachings you liked and mainstream Christian beliefs don't find objectionable, you are really afraid of becoming godless. The more you think and reason objectively, you get closer to becoming an agnostic every day.
I have followed your posts with interest since the beginning and people who have served in the capacities you have do not leave easily. If you have not already found the answer to your "are they evil" question, it is likely you will before long.
If you have not already seen it, you will see close friends and family that you had close relationships with, turn against you. They will change very suddenly, and what once was love turns to hate and disgust. Elders will change from trying to "help" you, to trying to "get rid of you".
Gossip and slander, basically doing whatever they can to trash your name and all the good you did over the years, will be innitiated by elders and will spread like wildfire in the community that once was your friends.
It is when I see this machine working so well to destroy the character of those who might have even cared the most about it, those are the times I see the evil in it. And when the Society refuses to come clean on the blood issue and make it a conscience matter, and instead actively persecutes people (such as in calgary) who understand these uncertainties of doctrine, I think some have to be evil.
It is the belief that this is "God's Organization" that is at the root of all of these problems. Everyone is expendible to protect it, and nothing is too evil in the end if it is considered for the greater good of the Organization.
Path
jst2laws:
You make reference to M. Scott Peck's book The People of the Lie in your assessment of the Governing Body as NOT being evil.
However, Peck defines evil individuals and groups as having several distinct characteristics.
Narcissism - the belief that everything that happens is for their particular benefit or use, a kind of egocentric belief that the universe revolves around them. Does the GB/WTS/JWs do this? Yes, they do. Just look at how they fit world events into their history and say that because they were persecuted during WWII in Nazi concentration camps, etc., that this PROVES they are "God's chosen people". Look at how current events are viewed breathlessly as being part of the "composite sign" of the "last days" by JWs in general. They have self-identified as being the only ones "smart enough" and "spiritual enough" and "blessed" and "special" to be the ones "God chooses out of the nations" to be His own. If that's not narcissism, I don't know what is.
Along with narcissism comes the belief that because we are God's chosen people, we are above reproach. This is the same kind of attitude that was fostered during the Middle Ages by the notion of the "Divine Right" of monarchs. It is this mentality that puts the GB/WTS/JWs in a position of being able to treat people the way they do. It allows them to look with disdain on "the goats" they call on in the door-to-door work. It allows them to shun disfellowshipped people and treat them as though they were dead. It allows them to insinuate themselves into private, personal matters such as whether or not it is proper for married persons to explore their sexuality together to their hearts' content.
At the same time, the narcissistic attitude makes it necessary to "demonize" everyone on the outside of their select group. Look at how loudly they cry in outrage at the Catholic Church's pedophile priests, yet completely ignore the same problem within their own circle, and in fact, force victims to keep silent while the offenders remain in good standing, without being punished for their crimes.
The Governing Body makes all the rules. They may not write all the books, but they allow the books to reach every JW, so it's a safe bet that the material in the books have their implicit approval, if not their explicit approval. They are the ones whose attitudes filter down to the rank and file.
The Nuremburg trials did not absolve high ranking Nazis from responsibility and accountability for the actions of lower ranking Nazis who actually carried out the atrocities during WWII. Why should the GB be absolved of accountability for the evil things that are done by their underlings? They are, after all, following orders.
Love, Scully
Alan,
Thank you for you kind response. I believe you have brought us back to the heart of the problem, how do we define evil.
I think that most people would define an evil person as someone who would harm others knowingly, period. It doesn't matter if someone has something to gain from harming others, either personally or in a larger sense -- harming others knowingly is still evil.That seems to be the definition most dictionaries prefer. If we accept this, however we have to accept the reality that follows:
You're perfectly right that all of us will sometimes fit the definition of evil, But the question of really being "evil" boils down to how often and how intensely someone commits acts of evil ……A person who ignores his conscience in this way is certainly an evil person, because he had it in his power to stop the commission of evil, or to separate himself from it, but did not -- for selfish reasons.Completely agree. As I have said above I believe there are evil individuals in the org who are evil by any definition.
The point you make that impresses me was that the men composing the GB Franz knew has changed. Since the 1970’s the GB as a whole I believe has conspired to harm.
His (Ray’s) ouster from the GB marked a turning point in Society history. After that, WTS leaders became much more hardheaded and unforgiving. They were jealous of their positions and power, and they did everything they could to preserve their authority even at the cost of stomping on the rights and heads of individual JWs.I think you are right here. They have changed. When you and I were in NY those of the GB I knew were pretty much normal guys in there positions because they had been there a long time and Knorr trusted them to co-operate. They just went along. When they started to assert themselves in the mid 70’s to the point of bucking Pappy’s authority they seem to have interred a new phase that gradually lead in later years to ruthless self preservation. If this is the case I concede most of the members of the GB, if not all, are truly evil.
However, I’m not sure we should include the issue of conscience. Is it not possible that some of these men “conspired” and “caused harm” fully believing they were protecting “God’s Name”? If that is true then some may actually have acted in good conscience. Yet, this does not relieve them of responsibility.
You finally touched on the responsibility of those who claim to speak for God. In my view this is far and away the most condemnatory of Watchtower lunacies. I'll leave further comments for another time because I'm beat from a long day at work.Again, completely agree. Thanks for your thoughts, Alan
Jst2laws
