Posts by Mr Lebowski

32

Our own personal growth and leaving

by Mr Lebowski in

jw
friends

first, the tee-up: many on this board are former jws.

former jws fall into two categories:.

1) those who consciously chose out, perhaps as an intellectual position, perhaps as an emotional reaction to some event, maybe while in the throes of some existential crisis.. 2) those who blew it, and got busted for (cue music) breakin the law, breakin' the law, breakin' the law.

Mr Lebowski

First, the tee-up: Many on this board are former JWs. Former JWs fall into two categories:

1) Those who consciously chose out, perhaps as an intellectual position, perhaps as an emotional reaction to some event, maybe while in the throes of some existential crisis.

2) Those who blew it, and got busted for (cue music) breakin the law, breakin' the law, breakin' the law. Many of those in group number 2 have since chosen to join group number 1. Others are still wishing they never got caught. (By the way, here's an idea for you reluctant #2s: you decided to do something that got you kicked out, fairly or unfairly...it was still your choice. So...what was that about - why'd you do it?)

So, those of you in group number one...what need were you filling while you were in the Witness Protection Program? Inclusion, acceptance, praise for good performance? And what finally got you off of the crack pipe? What changed for you? Not the story, but the back-story - what went on for you inside?

As in, "I went out and got a job and got really good at it, and my professional accomplishment gave me enough self-esteem to walk away from the Witnesses as my only source for self-worth". Or "I had sex". Or whatever.

Be the change you want to see in the world. Mohandas Gandhi

Peace and compassion,

The Dude

207

Jehovah's Witnesses Are Under Mind Control

by minimus in

jw
friends

if you were to tell a witness that they were "brainwashed" or that they were "under mind control", they certainly would not rationally accept it.the reason is because witnesses cannot distinguish between mind control and "obeying the faithful and discreet slave".

it is only after a person stops exposing himself to the subtle mind controlling tactics of the watchtower that a person can see how thoroughly duped they are in their beliefs.

how might you be able to tell that you are no longer your own person, able to make your own decisions in your life?

Mr Lebowski

Membership in any group is contingent on playing the game by their rules.

If I went on TV as a member of the Sierra Club and started advocating drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, I'm pretty sure that the Sierra Club would boot me to the curb pretty publicly. True, the Witnesses get a little obsessive-compulsive about it.

I think a fascinating question is "What need within ourselves was served by being a witness? Why did it eventually stop being enough to keep us in it?"...(Hey! A new topic!)

11

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening!

by SpannerintheWorks in

jw
friends

how are you today?

feeling good about life, or do you want to change something?

how is your life?

Mr Lebowski

I agree with exelder...it takes courage. Definitely.

The British have a word which describes acquiring information without ever taking any action...it's called wanking.

Ex, may I speak directly? Please accept these words in the spirit in which they are intended - or skip right over them, that's OK too...and please recognize I am talking to any reader and to myself as well.

You don't know how long you have left on this planet - none of us do. How do you want to spend it? You don't sound happy now...my guess is you're settling for scraps of happiness here and there, but by and large, you sound like you are gnawing on a dry bone. Leaving the Witnesses completely requires a transition period emotionally, and it also requires you to essentially ask those who say they love you to make a conscious choice whether they really do love you or not. It's a scary thing! The good news is, if they shun you, it's not about you! It's about their fear - it doesn't make you less, it doesn't mean you're not loveable, it doesn't make you evil or wrong or bad.

If it's going to take you N number of days to transition from where you are now, to being happy, when do you want to start?

Getting advice from those on this board about how might be useful...but not until you decide what you want to do. So...what do you want to do now?

Peace and compassion, my brother in humanity

The Dude

207

Jehovah's Witnesses Are Under Mind Control

by minimus in

jw
friends

if you were to tell a witness that they were "brainwashed" or that they were "under mind control", they certainly would not rationally accept it.the reason is because witnesses cannot distinguish between mind control and "obeying the faithful and discreet slave".

it is only after a person stops exposing himself to the subtle mind controlling tactics of the watchtower that a person can see how thoroughly duped they are in their beliefs.

how might you be able to tell that you are no longer your own person, able to make your own decisions in your life?

Mr Lebowski

Rock on, UC.

207

Jehovah's Witnesses Are Under Mind Control

by minimus in

jw
friends

if you were to tell a witness that they were "brainwashed" or that they were "under mind control", they certainly would not rationally accept it.the reason is because witnesses cannot distinguish between mind control and "obeying the faithful and discreet slave".

it is only after a person stops exposing himself to the subtle mind controlling tactics of the watchtower that a person can see how thoroughly duped they are in their beliefs.

how might you be able to tell that you are no longer your own person, able to make your own decisions in your life?

Mr Lebowski

So if someone lies to me, and I act based on believing that lie, am I absolved from responsibility for my actions?

I would answer "no". I would say that a defining condition of adulthood is taking responsibility for what we beleive, say, and do. I would further note that ignorance of the truth is not a defense in legal issues, dating back to the Magna Carta, I think...but that might be an irrelevant digression.

Actually, I suspect that the opposite of what you say is true. I think that many of us would rather beleive that we were controlled, that someone "did it to us", rather than say to ourselves and the world, "I freely chose of my own volition, to shun people that had been my friends, despite the pain I can now clearly see it caused them, because I was more afraid of what would happen if I broke the rules". I think that saying that out loud is seen as more embarrassing by most than saying, "look what they did to me!"

It's certainly easier to view others as responsible. I doubt that it gives us a useful place to answer the "what do I want to do now?" question, though... because asking the question presumes that we are responsible.

Big purple dinosaur feelings,

El Duderino

207

Jehovah's Witnesses Are Under Mind Control

by minimus in

jw
friends

if you were to tell a witness that they were "brainwashed" or that they were "under mind control", they certainly would not rationally accept it.the reason is because witnesses cannot distinguish between mind control and "obeying the faithful and discreet slave".

it is only after a person stops exposing himself to the subtle mind controlling tactics of the watchtower that a person can see how thoroughly duped they are in their beliefs.

how might you be able to tell that you are no longer your own person, able to make your own decisions in your life?

Mr Lebowski

Just as I was getting ready to stop reading this board any more, Gary and others "grabbed the wheel" and swerved the thread onto a road I'd like to travel.

Are witnesses controlled? Yes - by their own insecurities, fears, motivations, and personal psychology. Not by the Society. They're like a fisherman that dangles bait - some fish take it, some fish don't. (With apologies to Peter.)

If Victor Frankl wasn't controlled by the Nazi concentration camp guards, in the most vicious and inhumane circumstances imaginable, then I certainly don't get to claim "Mind Control" for having played the JW game. (Frankl was a noted author - he was a trained psychiatrist and neurosurgeon when imprisoned in WWII by the Germans, and survived to tell the tale and write the book Man's Search for Meaning - I highly recommend it.)

I stayed in it because I was afraid - afraid of rejection by my family (especially my mother, whose conditional acceptance behavior predated her exposure to "the truth", but was magnified by it), afraid of rejection by everyone I knew, and a belief that I held no value apart from being the member of a group and couldn't make a difference in the outside world.

But acting out of fear is not being under "mind control". Many of the techniques some of you guys describe as mind control are used by many organizations - the military, many religious organizations, large corporations, etc. It would make a fascinating philosophical/scientific discussion - what is Mind Control? Where does the line get drawn? - but with all due respect, it probably isn't best answered in a forum with a lot of people who feel that they are victims of mind control - it's too hard to be objective. Many of us get too angry and too righteous, and I'm not sure what I learn when I'm in those states, but I personally feel that for me they feed that internal desire to play victim, rather than take responsibility.

I decided to go to meetings. I decided to knock on doors. I decided to not go out on dates. I decided to shun df'd friends. And eventually, I decided to leave the witnesses, and I knew that part of the price I would pay would be rejection by people close to me. I didn't like it, but you know what? The universe didn't care! That was still the price, and my job is to deal with it. My job on this planet, as far as I can tell, is to deal with what is, rather than resisting what is. Neither mentally "beating up"the Witnesses for "doing it to us" nor beating up ourselves for buying into it will change a darned thing. What do I want to do now?

You can't enslave a free man - the most you can do is kill him. Robert Anson Heinlein

Peace and compassion,

El Duderino

36

How would you explain jws to a non-jw?

by Gadget in

jw
friends

in the past, when i've been talking about being a witness they haven't really understood just how much of an impact it has on your life unless they've been one too.

whats the best way to explain it to someone who has never been a witness and had little contact with them?

i'm more thinking of how much control there is over your life, and the reason why a lot of witnesses feel down and suffer from depression, ect.. gadget

Mr Lebowski

First off, I would avoid most doctrinal explanations. Usually, I get partway into a doctrinal explanation, and I start getting incredibly embarrassed about having followed (even as a teenager) a religion that sounds as if it was conceived by a brain-damaged three-year-old eating peyote. Second, most people will ask about the doctrinal points that they are curious about - the rest bores them to tears.

Instead, I suggest focusing on the effects of the beliefs - explaining Jehovah's Witnesses as people, rather than the religion/doctrine itelf.

They avoid looking into the future by constantly beleiving that everything is about to end.
They beleive that all other religions are wrong, that all governments are controlled by Satan, and that they are the only ones with a line on what God wants.
They have a very rigid, black-and-white worldview based on conditional love and perfomance-based acceptance.
They are taught to believe that individuals can't make a positive difference, that the world and everyone in it is evil and dysfunctional, and that the only way we can get approval and acceptance is by earning it through obediance and submission, rather than self-expression, self-discovery, or self-actualization.
They are taught to purposely limit material success and acheivement, and to view others who succeed and acheive materially as wrong and bad.
They are members of a close-knit group, and many derive enough sense of belonging to this group, and have enough fear of the stern rejection that follows deviating from prescribed behavior, that they stay in the group for years and years.

29

Qualifications of Elders

by iiz2cool in

jw
friends

in my experience with elders in the past i was counseled for many things, most trivial and stupid, but some were serious issues.

one thing i noticed was that the elders always seemed to approach issues with some preconceived ideas, or they would try to read between the lines rather than actually listen to what i was saying.

others i know have had similar experiences.

Mr Lebowski

Lemme see if I can boil down the takeaway in this thread:

1) Some elders are OK, but it's because they are good men who are taking individual responsibility to try and be of service, not because the system supports them in learning HOW to be of service. (Thanks, Gary)

2) The system doesn't support them in being excellent, it supports them in protecting the system.

3) Elders have a high incidence of assholes. The percentage difference compared to the incidence of assholes in the general populace is unknown.

Any position of power or authority that's accessible without difficult qualifications (long training, schooling, examinations, etc.) will attract weak, insecure people who will act out their inadeqacies through the position. JWs are not unique or special in this regard. This does not lessen the significance of the acts committed or allowed by such an arrangement, but it shouldn't be too surprising.

26

How more vague can the society get at the assemblies?

by be wise in

jw
friends

his is a quote from the give god glory district convention showing how they avoid their own questions and provide the usual vague answers that no jw understands.

we don't want to be personally refuting these untruths unless jehovah's organisation assigned us to do that, publicly.

now, are we talking people in our ministry or elsewhere about points about what they have heard, read?

Mr Lebowski

1) They seem to be just as vague as they were for the 20 years I attended - nothing new here.

2) As far as the statements they made about talking to the media, you get basically the same thing if you're an employee of Wal-Mart or a member of a large non-profit group such as the Sierra Club, especially if they are involved in a high-profile lawsuit. (Minus the Satanic paranoia, of course...)

Doesn't make it right, but doesn't make it surprising either...

17

Why some will never leave the org.

by JH in

jw
friends

we all had the same teachings when we joined the jw's.

we all studied the same books and magazines and all came to the same conclusion that this had to be god's organization.

we were told how god would establish a new world where we would all be healthy and eternal.

Mr Lebowski

so young to be so cynical. :)

some do, some don't. trust me, not all religious folk are narcissistic - and no, i'm not religious.