On a macro level, the Witnesses are pretty harmless

by logansrun 61 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  jschwehm

  About the blood issue.....

  So called blood medicine is extremely expensive particularly in third world countries. I cannot remember what country it was in but there was a study done that mentioned that it was three times as expensive to open up a bloodless medicine clinic than one that is not so specialized.

  So, yes, the doctors who have perfected certain surgeries on JWs probably have some appreciation for the JWs willingness to be human guinea pigs.....However in the long run such specialized medical centers increase the expense of health care at large and also create many deaths that could probably have been avoided and many people who could have been cured less expensively...

  So, I am not so sure the whole no blood thing has as many benefits as the JWs and others might thing it does.

  Jeff S.

  www.catholicxjw.com
• 

  avishai

  Yeah. Well, the negative legal precedents theiy are trying to set with the child molesting issue will definitely have a macro effect. So there. Nanny nanny boo boo. Phhht.
• 

  Gill

  Good morning, Logansrun! I can't help but notice that you still haven't replied to the points raised by Wanderlustguy, and I would be very interested to read what reply you could give him.

  Although, the point you make is very intelligent and I do mostly agree with you that they Jws are 'pretty' harmless, you did have to add the word 'pretty'. So, I take it you realised they're not 'completely' harmless.

  Sadly though, this organization, the WTBTS is dangerous in that it controls the minds, hopes and futures of people born trapped into its grip. You've 'run' Logan, because you had something to run from. Are you not interested in the welfare of those who have not been able to escape. What do you think of the children still being sexually abused even though they have gone to Elders for help? Or those to whom these things happened in the past? Their thougts had been trained to believe that they could not go to the authorities and bring shame upon Jehovah's name as if they did...well you know the rest.

  Looking forward to reading your reply to WLG!

  Best Wishes

  Gill
• 

  dedpoet

  Oh yes, they are harmless, as long as you don't mind being lied to, lied about, brainwashed, browbeaten every time you question anything, told what to read and what not to read, what music to listen to and what to avoid, what tv to watch etc, then being a jw will do you no harm at all
• 

  ithinkisee

  This does not negate the point that these people need help. While some are lost causes, there are thousands of JW children drowning their future in a baptism pool.

  I agree with Ezekiel3's point on this. For many of our parents in a desperate time, perhaps this is the mental novacaine they needed. But for many of their children, this is not something we would have even remotely considered as a way of life had we been able to make the choice on our own - without the mental conditioning from childhood.

  -ithinkisee
• 

  DelTheFunkyHomosapien

  ithinkisee - If you want another perspective on parenting and the impact on how we turn out read "They F@#k You Up" by Oliver James it doesn't try to blame parents but some of his ideas had a profound effect on me.

  On topic though any amount of abuse in all its forms has anything but a 'macro' effect on the world.
• 

  PaulJ

  The GB is dangerous to the JW's and the JW's are dangerous to the public.
• 

  logansrun

  
  Here 'ya go Gill,

  Wanderlustguy said:

  You know I thought about this a little more...the reason the organizations is so dangerous, is BECAUSE at a macro level people think it's harmless.

  They are pretty harmless on the macro level! The Witnesses pose no real danger to society, in part because they have essentially "dropped out" of trying to change society while they await their Answer From The Sky. They don't take part in politics and they are not involved in violence of any kind. What's the great danger to Joe on the street?

  over 6 Million people...brainwashed, beating their kids, tricking them into having no future, no retirement, etc.

  First off, I don't like the term "brainwashed" because it isn't really a scientific concept. JWs are manipulated, but that doesn't mean they can't break free (as I/we did).

  Do JWs 'beat their kids'? Perhaps some, but probably the percentage that do is not much greater than the percentage for society as a whole. I was raised a JW by JW parents and can honestly say I was never spanked even once. Of course, I was a good kid. And spanking -- which is what the JWs mean by "the rod" -- is practiced by many loving parents. Is that the same as "beating"? I remember the Society even warning parents not to go too far in their discipline. Do you not see how you are exaggerating, or perhaps extrapolating from a few (your own?) experiences to JWs as a whole?

  "Tricking them into having no future." Okay, can it really be said that JW kids have no future, or just that their future will not include living forever playing on the "hole of a cobra"? How different is that from a Luthern parent telling her kid that she will go to heaven after death? Or, perhaps you mean no future in the "current system of things" to borrow from JW lingo. Maybe you mean that JW kids are not encouraged to go to college (though, in my experience, most do) "make a living" and so forth. This is implied in your statement about "no retirement." Well, funny that my grandparents were both JWs and they are happily retired. My mother was a JW from 10 years old and she has a 401k plan. Even when I was a JW at 20 years old I started buying mutual funds..."just in case." The fact of the matter is, you are overgeneralizing the experiences of a few people who have had it really tough as JWs to the whole of the organization.

  The average JW living in the United States poses no physical danger to the rest of society, poses no political or educational danger and will lead a mildly happy existence.

  It's far from harmless.

  Again, I didn't say it was harmless. Notice I used two qualifiers: 1) on the macro level, 2) "pretty" harmless. And I stand by that.

  I could go on and on.

  B.
• 

  daystar

  So, when it comes to greater society -- which, of course, is far and away mostly people who have never been JWs -- the Witnesses pose no real threat at all. None. Nada. They are not even on the radar screen. Booooorrrrrinng.

  I disagree with you, and for one reason only. A society is made up of what? Its members. When you have a portion of a group's members who are psychologically sick, that poses a threat to the group as a whole. If they were a group of say, 1000 members, I might agree with you that they are insignificant.

  Comparitively speaking, they pose less of an outward threat, sure. But the threat that they do pose is a subtle one, and one might argue, a greater one. Or, it would be if they were better at keeping their members.
• 

  logansrun

  Big Tex,

  To compare the JWs to the Nazis in any meaningful way is absurd. The Nazis actively rounded up people and gassed them to death. The JWs simply wait for Jehovah to do something similar, but consider killing by their own members a great sin. That is a great qualitative difference. I'm sure you can get that.

  Valis and others,

  While I do find it humorous that the Society lists "relief work" in their trumpeting of their accomplishments, and surely some of the other things they mention are exaggerations and partial truth, that does not mean that the JWs do not accomplish some good in those areas. For instance, a lot of the advice the JWs give regarding families is indeed good advice. No, not all of it, but some of it. For instance, I was always taught to be extremely respectful of older people as a JW. Sad to say, most young people are not. Is that something unique among the JWs? No. But, that fact doesn't negate some of the good that the Witnesses do.

  Why is it so hard for some of you to even admit that the there are some genuine good aspects to being a JW and that some JWs can indeed be happy? I think I know why. Because you got burned. Because you're an overgeneralizer. Because that's the fucked up nature of a human being.

  Don't take that the wrong way. I guess there is some good in ex-JWs not seeing some good in JWs after all.

  B.