Really bizarre part on the meeting last night (page 4)

westiebilly11

..if you can fake sincerity you've got it made.......

Vanderhoven7

Honesty is the basis of all relationship

And if you can fake that, you've got it made.

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Edit: Oops, soory Billy. Didn't read your post before sending mine.

This warrants another addage. "Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ".

Here's another thought. If a person says a lie often enough, they start to believe it. So the WTS pattern of "faking" belief in front of strangers helps the brain come up with reasons why they might believe. The put-on belief system is reinforced. Not for the sake of the poor househlder, but for the poor fuller brush salesman.

stillin

Joe134 mentioned that the WTS ought to take better care of ones who are already in more so than looking to fool new people into joining up. I agree wholeheartedly with that. If true happiness were to be found among the witnesses, the world would beat a path to their door. But their meetings are mush, their "service" to God is policed and measured and a social climbing apparatus. What thinking person wants to build their life on that?

done4good

The meeting that always caused the most cognitive dissonance for me was the Service Meeting. Nothing more than sales instruction.

Integ - I agree. Fake to the core. But as jgnat has mentioned, they actually start to rationalize faking their belief, so they don't even know they are faking it, eventually. I think this is the biggest reason why as jws get older, they either become more hardcore, or they leave either physically, or mentally through apathy.

d4g

Apognophos

jgnat: Yes, exactly. If forcing oneself to smile or laugh can have the effect of actually improving one's mood, then there's a valid point in getting JWs to fake sincerity, in the hopes that they will fool themselves into true sincerity. As a born-in, I learned to be frighteningly good at consciously deciding to become sincere about something, whether or not I actually believed it. It actually scares me a little that I can do this, and I try not to use this power for evil. I find it mostly useful these days for deceiving JWs into thinking I am still a believer, as I plan my fade.

ed60

jgnat: If a person says a lie often enough, they start to believe it. So the WTS pattern of "faking" belief in front of strangers helps the brain come up with reasons why they might believe. The put-on belief system is reinforced. Not for the sake of the poor househlder, but for the poor fuller brush salesman.

Autosuggestion and hypnotism are used a lot in JW life in a negative way. It's ironic that the governing body counsel against seeing a hypnotist and yet many of their meeting arrangements use elements of NLP and hypnotism with autosuggestion for homework.

Perhaps if Witnesses understood a bit more about these topics they would see how the meetings actively use the same techniques and see the hypocrisy of the governing body in stating that Witnesses should not use them - they do this by mystifying and demonising a natural psychological phenomenon.

I do not believe that autosuggestion or hypnotism are necessarily always bad (e.g. the placebo effect), indeed I am grateful that I learned about and became aware of these techniques as I have also employed them (along with other therapies) to deprogram myself from the cult's way of thinking. Safe to say I am very much a believer in a 'plastic' changeable brain - it sure beats the alternative!

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

Coué still believed in the effects of medication, but he also believed that our mental state was able to affect and even amplify the action of these medications. He observed that his patients who used his mantra-like conscious suggestion, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better", (French: Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux), replacing their "thought of illness" with a new "thought of cure," could augment their medication plan. According to Coué, repeating words or images enough times causes the "subconscious" to absorb them.

WhoYourDaddy

jw's are like.

i don't care who i destroy (or what i have to do) to get what i want.

jw creed

kurtbethel

Many psychopaths are adept at mimicing feelings.

Really bizarre part on the meeting last night

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