slimboyfat: see what I mean - imo viv's words above plainly don't apply to me so the question is who is she addressing her words to?
How do we know JWs are wrong and how do we convince others JWs are wrong: logic versus persuasion
by slimboyfat 57 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cofty
who is she addressing her words to? - Ruby
Ruby, learn what words mean - Viv
I think there might be a clue there.
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shepherdless
Back to the original topic.
It seems to me that SBF's view on what is more likely to work to drag someone out of the cult is valid, because it negates what really keeps them in. People are a lot less logical than they think they are. The advertising and marketing industries are clearly aware of this.
The following video titled "Bending Truth" relates to how people get drawn into a cult and how they get manipulated. It particularly discusses "cognitive dissonance". It seems to me that the way to get a typical cult member out is to reverse the cognitive dissonance, not using logic and reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IaUhR-tRkHY
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slimboyfat
Yes my main point is, for example, that going to university is much more likely to result in someone leaving JWs than, say, discussing 607 with them.
Making friends outside JWs is much more likely to encourage them to leave that debating evolution with them.
People tend to adjust their beliefs and behaviour for social reasons, but they retrospectively explain those decisions in the language of logic and reason.
The reason this may be important for anyone who is interested in helping JWs out of the religion is that it may help focus on areas that work. Detailed doctrinal expositions may be more therapeutic for those who have already left than genuinely helpful toward the goal of empowering people to leave.
The pyschology of decision making would seem to suggest that areas to focus on would be demonstrating to JWs that very many people are already successfully leaving JWs. If teachings are discussed it may be best to focus heavily on the fact that authoritative experts in relevant fields refute the specific claims made by JWs about history, origin of life, blood, the state of the world, and so on, rather than getting involved in detailed discussions involving evidence and logic.
Because when it comes to persuasion, the evidence shows that social proof and sources of authority are much more likely to convince people than detailed arguments involving evidence and logic. Maybe some find this depressing, but it is a fact. Maybe some people can't abide the idea that people should be more influenced by social cues than by carefully constructed arguments they may devise.
(By the way, just to say, I do realise the irony of this situation where I have defended my position, which essentially says you should not appeal to evidence and logic if you wish to be convincing, by appealing to evidence and logic. So I fully expect that my argument here may not convince anyone, thereby proving itself.)
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StarTrekAngel
I remember when John Kerry was running for president. He sealed his faith when he told a group of college students that it was good for them to get a degree... or else they would end up in Iraq. He had a huge backslash for that. Soldiers were posting pictures with misspelled signs as a sarcastic way of getting their responses across.
In my view, Kerry had the right thought, but communicating it was a whole other ball game. Won't want to start yet another branched discussion under this OP but the main point is that sometimes is difficult to communicate the right things to people and much more specially when the listener is not ready or willing to discuss something that in their mind is already set in stone. I am not genius at this either. It is certainly a form of art.
While I am going to stop far from affirming that this is cofty's case (I agree that no one know him better than himself), it is not illogical to think that the influences in our live's can be pervasive, yet subtle enough that we won't notice them. I heard of many stories of JW who wake up once they begin to read the bible without the influence of the WT. They were seeking truth in the bible. Therefore, it is to be implied that the individual first accepts bible as the truth and begins to question his body of belief under the influence of the bible. This is because we were led to believe that regardless of our religion, the bible is the fundamental truth that leads to faith. I believe that this is why you see so many cases of people who upon leaving the JW, either go back to their original religions or have an eventual second awakening where they stop believing altogether.
I think that the ultimate reason for leaving our faith (in this case the JW) can most likely be found on the traits of our current life. This is what, most likely, we were seeking all along. How we got there is a process and is hardly ever easy to say what may have influenced us to get there or to even begin the process. We may also discover, during that process, that what we think led us to today, it was just a spark that lit a much bigger fire.
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Drwho
It seems we have forgotten about how they got entrapped , through mind control , false friendliness and withhold of certain facts . Im sure they dont mention on the door that the potential Jw must forfeit lot of fun things in life, then insert fun with shun
Anyone who joins an org for themselves and has whacky beliefs, thats fine but the kids born in to the WT dont have the moral , mental option to choose .
Sorry , but I feel sorry for them , i dont respect them or their views , because its not their free views
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slimboyfat
Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinion as the result of their own thinking - and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as that of the majority. Erich Fromm
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Chook
You can't love thy neighbor if you won't associate at his BBQ, you can't convince or change another person it has to come from their convictions.