"Everyone Wants To Leave"

by NotFormer 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  NotFormer

  A thread about Steve Hassan re-emerged and got me looking him up. His Wikipedia entry had a point under "criticism" that there is an underlying assumption in his approach that all members of high control groups ultimately want to leave*.

  While it is generally believed that there are a lot of PIMOs still attending, doing field service and giving lip service to the WT, I doubt that everyone within the congregations want to get out. It's not always internally and logically consistent, but it's been around long enough for enough workarounds to make it tolerable to emerge.

  What do you think? Do all JWs secretly, deep-down, subconsciously want to leave the organisation?

  *This is me heavily paraphrasing, not quoting.
• 

  Foolednomore

  Everyone has to have their own personal wake up call. When or where or how quickly, everyone is different.
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  Beth Sarim

  Everyone is different.

  Some never ''wake up"".

  You have to have your own ""come to"" or ''ahaaa thats it"".

  We have to accept the fact that some don't and/or we can't do it for them.

  Its the way it is.
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  Phizzy

  I think if people in such High Control Groups realise it or not, deep. deep down they DO wish they were free.

  This is how Cognitive Dissonance works, if thoughts about this begin to get nearer the surface, they are immediately pushed way back down again.

  So everyone does want to leave, even if the closest they get to expressing it to themselves is something like "I wish Armageddon and the New System were here", that means they wish the regime they live under was over.

  To criticise Hassan because his Books etc. assumes everyone wants to leave is silly, that is why they would be reading his books etc. !

  And deep down everybody wants to leave, even if they think they don't, and think they are perfectly happy.
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  TonusOH

  On the one hand, there are people who prefer for every decision to be made for them. If it's a group of men claiming to be god's direct channel, and they do all of the heavy lifting (interpreting the Bible, behavioral rules, general guidance), that is good enough for these individuals.

  On the other hand, there are so many people who chafe at not being able to develop relationships with "worldly" people. Especially when it is so onerous that you realize you are looking bad, such as not taking part in a charity drive or other helpful community activity. Or not observing holidays to such a degree that you respond to "Merry Christmas" by either offering a flat "thank you" or pretending you did not hear them. I think there is a part of us that feels left out socially, and that hurts because we are social creatures.

  The WTS may be afraid that allowing the rank-and-file to develop normal friendships and observe common activities will weaken them, but I think they are wrong.
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  Vidiot

  Phizzy - “…even if the closest they get to expressing it to themselves is something like ‘I wish Armageddon and the New System were here’, that means they wish the regime they live under was over…”

  That was me.

  Imagine my dismay when I realized that the regime fully intended to continue on after Armageddon into the New System.

  For another millennium, if not indefinitely.

  I felt sick to my stomach, and I was still, by-and-large, a believer at the time.
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  Vidiot

  re. TonusOH’s post…

  True, to a degree.

  For some of us, however, those things were never really much of an issue…

  …it was the realization that the Org was more and more wrong about more and more big things, but required you to accept those things as irrefutable fact anyway, with all the exhausting mental gymnastics required to rationalize it.

  For some of us, feeling intellectually hamstrung was depressing as fuck.
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  road to nowhere

  Everyone wishes it was true. Some still hold onto the hope, usually because of old age.
• 

  Diogenesister

  I always think the way humans compartmentalise is the real key as to why we seem to 'know' without knowing. Why we can believe what we do is all to the good, whilst being patently bad in the eyes of most reasonable people.
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  Diogenesister

  Especially when it is so onerous that you realize you are looking bad, such as not taking part in a charity drive or other helpful community activity. Or not observing holidays to such a degree that you respond to "Merry Christmas" by either offering a flat "thank you" or pretending you did not hear them. I think there is a part of us that feels left out socially, and that hurts because we are social creatures

  You've just perfectly described my experience as a witness. The charity thing always irked me so much.