Yes, PR, you are entirely correct. What we have here is the lowest of the low: the religious extortion of the the "least" perhaps of Jesus' brothers and sisters today. The WT knowingly holds for ransom the families and friends of people who have realized what a scam and a fraud is the organization of JWs. To say that this scrapes the bottom of the moral/ethical barrel is an understatement of massive proportions.
I certainly can't find any statement of Jesus that could be used in a straightforward manner to excuse a religious organization holding hostage a person's loved ones to force their compliance and continued membership in that organization.
Frankly, I don't find the concept of an organization anywhere in The Master's teachings. His Light was so bright and unhidden under a bushel basket, that he so lived his life as to attract others to discover what it was that he had found. And we know for a fact he left us with only two commands, neither of which have anything to do with membership in a religious organization.
A person cannot be convinced against his will, and that is precisely what the organization of the WTBTS attempts to do, it attempts to convince people against their own will. And cultic religions are the only phenomena who attempt to intrude on the free and unfettered personal will of a child of God.
Think about the seriousness of what the WT does. It is the equivalent of you telling your children they had certain freedoms and to go and exercise them freely. However, some deceiver comes along and says they know better than your father; that you cannot so exercise such free will. You must substitute instead for it their interpretation of what your father so clearly told you that you have the right to do. How angry as a father would you be at any such individual or group for intefering with and meddling in the relationship between you and your children?
What utter gall, likely motivated by greed, it takes for the WTBTS to interfere, and worse, to hold your loved ones hostage so that you must agree to continued association with "the unclean thing" in order to keep your family. It boggles the mind, enrages the spirit and is debilitating to the soul. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes when it's time to stand before The Master and recite the good things that you have done for "the least" of his brothers and sisters. This organization has the Karma of a Hitler and I feel sure we'll gaze in amazement at what happens to them in the end.
Sorry to wax so eloquent and long about this topic. It's one that really gets my disgust circuits all going at the same time. Please humor me.
francois
