by dugout 70 Replies latest jw friends
I would expand that to include all religion (being an athiest I pretty much see all religion as cultish)
Many times relgion gives a person a moral guide line - yes some people do need to be told. Relgion can give someone piece of mind, help them to pull themselves together or gives them hope. Nothing wrong with that. It's when it comes too, I'm right and you're wrong that things go pear shaped and 9 times out 10 it goes pear shaped.
oh and I've got nothing against pears.
Awatcher:
freedom of choice: I CHOOSE to serve Jehovah with Jehovah's Witnesses. That's my CHOICE.
full of fear: of what? I don't fear anything except displeasing Jehovah.
fear of displeasing men: I have a PERSONAL relationship with Jehovah that SUPERSEDES any relationship I have with humans, and if any humans don't like it they can blow it out their ear.
never reaching the standard set: I set my own standards.
...wait for billions to die: we wish everyone would serve Jehovah and live, but most people don't want to serve Jehovah, and so He will take away the life that He gave them.
Point 1, an oxymoron there. What makes you convinced that JWs are serving the Almighty named Jehovah. Additionally by doing so you have many choices in your life taken away from you, they want to control your emotions and behaviour.
Point 2, how would you end up displeasing him? Who's rules and regulations are telling you what he requires. You know you can displease him by playing with a Sparlock toy, or not handing in a genuine report at the end of every month, or drinking the Kool-Aid.
Point 3, ah now I get it, you are serving the god that enjoys cruelty to humans
Point 4, no you do not wish everyone would serve him and live, that would be against the prophecies you believe in, JWs say there will be no mass conversion. What allegedly happened at the time of the flood, or at Sodom and Gomorrah?
Going back to the OP, I see in a roundabout way it has helped me to reason things in a logical way
No, not at all. Well- I take it back ( a little bit) speaking in front of large audiences has made it easier for me to perform music in front of audiences now because as JW's we used to speak in front of 120, 1,000 ,or 10,000 at assemblies. That's about the only benefit I have felt in my life as I'm less nervous in front of a crowd than I possibly might have been if I had never done it before
I stopped smoking. Does that count?
It gives men who otherwise would be total losers an "opportunity" to be bigoted bureaucrats in charge of mind-numbed hordes of uneducated, poor, deluded people.
Congratulations, Elders and MS's who, in the real world, could only be nobodies. But, wait a minute!
Come to think of it, it might save lives. Random shootings are almost 100% perpetrated by white males who want to move up in society but lack the education of social skills to do so. JW's can give these potential murderers the illusion that they have achieved something and are big shots.
Mum, you are bang on the money with your perceptive observations: The big fish in a little pond syndrome. You're probably broadly correctin yourcomments about saving lives - but I would point out the stories of domestic violence perpetuated by male household heads in fundamentalist families make very disturbing reading. Also, there have been some - admittedly rare - news stories of JW males who have killed family members under tragic circumstances. I can recall at least two separate instances in the States in 2013. Other posters might konw the relevant links.
Overall though I agree: Give an unhinged loser something to occupy his time so that he doesn't spend his days brooding about pay back.
You're right, steve2. It's probably a wash when you consider the harm done to individuals on the inside, especially women and children.
"Maybe you should.. milk and poison often work quite well together." - Dis-Member
You are missing more that a point. But in my metaphoric example, the milk is already poisoned. Even if the poison represented only a small percentage of the whole, drinking more milk means, drinking more poison.
Take care,
Ismael
Like all religions, it gives people hope, which makes them happy. It also creates a closely bonded community. Besides that, not really. The good doesn't make up for the bad in this case.
Any amount of benefit is cancelled out by the bad. It's a dangerous mind-control cult.
"At least the trains ran on time" was a claim about Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. That started out as a way to show the people the efficiency of fascism and grew to become an example of how something good can come up from the worst of circumstances.
This is what a writer had to say about that:
Mussolini may have done many brutal and tryannical things; he may have destroyed human freedom in Italy; he may have murdered and tortured citizens whose only crime was to oppose Mussolini; but 'one had to admit' one thing about the dictator: he 'made the trains run on time.'
If all that were true, it is a great example of how the Italians would have been better off without him and even without the trains altogether. Besides, the 'trains' thing was propoganda and wasn't even entirely true.
It's similar with the JW religion. If someone says "At least I am over my fear of public speaking," I can demonstrate they were better off without the religion for a number of other reasons.
