Sometimes I get a question that just stuns me. This one was from a self-described "ex-JW" who says he was disfellowshipped for some ethical lapse or some such. He thinks there's nothing at all wrong with the Watchtower Society, just something wrong with him. I mentioned that if the testimonies of those who have left or been kicked out of the Society have any truth to them, most Kingdom Halls are abusive churches, and I want nothing to do with any abusive church.
He replied:
"So tell me please, how is the Kingdom Halls abusive? I don't recall ever seeing any form of abuse there."
Here's my answer. Please let me know what else I should add to the list if I follow up later.
"Most Kingdom Halls are abusive, unless you subscribe to the theory that everyone who leaves the Watchtower for any reason is a pathological liar. Personally, I can't buy that hypothesis.
In what ways are they abusive?
They make you read Watchtower publications, for a start -- that's pure torture, even when what you read isn't a lie.
They discourage getting an education, or any career that requires one.
They have a long list of unscriptural prohibitions, which is a sin according to the Bible.
They forbid JW's to read what they call "apostate literature", even when (especially when!) that literature is telling the truth and the Society is lying.
They disfellowship rank-and-file JW's for joining the YMCA (even if it's only to use the only clean swimming pool in town), but they joined the official United Nations booster club for ten years, pledging in writing their support of the UN and its goals once every year for each of those ten years!
They insist on shunning those they disfellowship, regardless of why the person was disfellowshipped, though the Bible only commands that extreme action for rare and extreme cases, such as unrepentant false teachers who start divisive sects (as Charles Taze Russell did).
They teach a convoluted and contradictory maze of prohibibitions about blood, such that a JW is allowed to take each and every piece that makes up blood, but not blood as blood, to save his life, though of course there is no command in the Bible that in any way even relates to blood transfusions. (I consider being pressured to die for a false doctrine pretty abusive.)
They have a policy that requires a child who is being raped on a regular basis to produce two eyewitnesses to the act before any action is taken beyond filing a report that is never referred to again, but if the child warns anyone that there is a rapist in the congregation, it's the child who is disfellowshipped, while the rapist is allowed to continue knocking on doors, taking notes of which households have young children in them.
They write in The Watchtower that voting is a "conscience matter" for JW's, but if a JW follows his or her conscience and actually votes, that's grounds for automatic disassociation or disfellowshipment.
JW's are told that they must agree with all doctrines taught by the Society. If any JW disagrees, even if he can prove that the Society's doctine is wrong directly from the Bible, he must stay quiet about it unless and until the Society gets around to changing the doctrine.
The Society changes its doctrines frequently for no other reason than one or two of the handful of old men who vote on those doctrines either change their minds or are pressured into changing their votes. It's abusive to have to abide by doctrines (especially when your life, or that of a family member, may depend on it) that are not based on the Bible, but are based on a handful of old men voting on them, while the ordinary JW has no vote, no chance to express his or her thoughts about how the vote ought to go, no knowledge of when or if the vote is being taken, and no notification of how the vote went after it's over -- unless the vote overturns a standing Watchtower doctrine, in which case the end result of the vote will be published in a Watchtower article, but not the fact that the doctrine was changed by a vote.
Many, many times the Society has lied about when the end of the world would come, giving specific dates and/or deadlines, despite God's clear prohibition against such sinful presumption, then when the false prophecy failed to come to pass, they blamed the JW's to whom they had lied for believing them!
I could go on for a few hundred pages, but that's enough for now."
Robert V Frazier
"How is the Kingdom Hall abusive?"
by Robert_V_Frazier 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Robert_V_Frazier
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skyman
Sheep that has been mind alterred and well so BAA with them again. Let him be he wants his eyes blinded he is confortable there.
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avishai
Hear, hear!
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RichieRich
5 bucks says its DEFD.
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Frannie Banannie
The "Ex-JW" described sounds as though he's well into S&M. If one is not sado-masochistic, one leaves the borganization and KH's.
Frannie
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A Paduan
Please let me know what else I should add to the list if I follow up later.
You and your family must do everything we say, give us rights to your children, work for us, and work at getting other people to do it too, by deception if necessary, or by our threat -- that our friend jerhovah will kill you if you don't.
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Hellrider
Forcing children to sit thru hours on hours of Armageddon-propaganda. JW-children are the only kids I can think of, that go to school, thinking about their classmates soon-to-be, violent, apocalyptic deaths, even from the first f##king grade. I literally imagined my classmates going up in flames, right before my eyes. Note to lurking JWs: Revelation isn`t a childrens book!!!!!!!!!!!
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damselfly
How is the kingdom hall abusive?
By taking over families and telling parents and children to shun those who choose to leave or who are forced out. They destroy the natural human bonds of family in the name of a loving god.
Dams
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Ingenuous
How 'bout:
They insist on re-writing history and forcing JWs to agree, especially with regard to the Jerusalem-destroyed-in-607 BCE lie.
When they encourage anticipation of the end of the "system of things" and it doesn't come to pass, they blame the R&F for "rushing ahead" in their expectations and claim complete innocence.
They teach that the R&F don't have a personal relationship with God and that Jesus is not their mediator. That the "great crowd" can only find salvation by complete subjection to the Governing Body as their mediator and channel of communication with God.
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DannyHaszard
P ar an o ia pl ay b oo k my first coloring and "teething" book http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/88858/1.ashx
Kingdom Hall mental boot camp: During the 1960's we had K.Hall service meeting skits on how to endure rape torture and plunder and lessons on drinking my own urine in the concentration camps during the final assult of 'gog of magog'."
We were told how Cuban dictator Castro wrapped two of our faithful bro's in barbed wire, and buried them alive in a vat of wet cement." Would i as an 8 year old be as strong for Jehover?
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Danny Haszard Bangor Maine-expert witness on the jehovah witness