Posts by lifelong humanist

15

Has anyone tried tactics from"Captives of a Concept"?

by Coffee House Girl in

just read don cameron's book...which was very en-light-ening (sorry for the "new light" pun)....and i agree with many of cameron's points about how to reason with a jw but i am curious..... have any of you out there in jwn land ever tried to have a witness come to your door, pretend to have a bible study & get the jw in a "teacher" setting where they have to research for you the history of jw's in the time of 1919????.

were you successful?

did it not work out?.

lifelong humanist

Coffee House Girl

I've come to the conclusion that unless the person you want to help break free from JWs has already come to realize that the religion is just a scam through their own efforts, no tactic, no matter how 'clever' or 'well-intentioned' will work, far less prevail. Sad, but true, in my opinion.

I believe now that it is better just to forget it, and move on to more interesting topics. There are countless fascinating things to consider discussing apart from the weird beliefs of JWs. As far as I'm concerned, religion, no matter how friendly or divisive, just isn't one of them. Politics, likewise.

I arrive at this conclusion having tried and dismally failed to help my wife exit JWs after I DAd myself in 2003. Now, I don't bother thinking up new strategies or re-inventing old ideas - nothing works if the person 'wants' to remain a JW, or is genuinely scared of 'expressing any doubts'.

lifelong humanist

33

What keeps a JW in the religion? A new angle.

by Hobo Ken in

there are many reasons why but i wonder if there could be a dominant mental mechanism at work?.

i've done a bit of research and written this article on the subject.. the comparisons between stockholm's syndrome and jw behaviour are striking.. what keeps a jw in the religion?.

matt.

lifelong humanist

hobo ken

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your well-reasoned post and the readers responses.

As I'm still experiencing the painful 'shock' of my wife remaining fixed in the JW cult after I DAd myself in 2003, I've come to the conclusion that for many, if not most JWs it is just too much of an uphill struggle for them to even sit down and analyze just one of their core beliefs, far less critically analyze them using a logic-only approach.

This education-repressed cult doesn't encourage any free thought, or even minor criticism, so your average 'good' JW refuses to even take a first step down the road to potential enlightenment, far less do any proper, methodical research.

Quite frankly, I find the whole thing pathetically sad. Despite starting out keen to make a change, I no longer even want to try and create opportunities to stimulate thought-provoking discussion on how utterly illogical the whole JW religion is. Come to think of it, that would include all religion, not just the more extreme, mind-control varieties!

lifelong humanist

25

Hello!

by Scooby-Doo in

jw
friends

i have been reading this forum for about a year on and off.

it was a great help in discovering the real history of the jws and helped me realize what a controlling religion (cult?

very recently i stopped all contact with my kingdom hall and have quit my study, so i thought it was about the right time to sign up here.. i am (was) the third generation of my family to be involved with the witnesses.

lifelong humanist

Scooby-Doo

A warm, Scottish welcome to you. Best of luck that your grandparents don't shun you! It is a terrible, cruel and totally unnecessary practice in the dangerous world of the WT cult.

lifelong humanist

26

Thank you, and Goodbye

by cyberjesus in

thanks once again to all of those who post in this forum.

and good bye to those of you who choose to leave.. the healing process of exiting a cult is a slow one.

specially if you were born in it.

lifelong humanist

cyberjesus

I'd like to add my thanks to the contribution you've made to this forum, too. With over 2,000 posts, I can relate to the amount of time it takes to think and formulate each and every post.

lifelong humanist

8

Children Learning to Think Critically Aged Six!

by lifelong humanist in

yesterday, i started a thread about learning how to thinking critically.. so, imagine my surprise when last night my eldest son phoned to say that his son, my grandson, wanted to speak with my wife and i about a project he had to do at his school.

he has just turned 6 years old.

the project involved asking his parents and then grandparents questions about how things when they were a similar age.. i said that i'd be happy to speak with him, and answer his questions as best i could.

lifelong humanist

Yesterday, I started a thread about learning how to thinking critically.

So, imagine my surprise when last night my eldest son phoned to say that his son, my grandson, wanted to speak with my wife and I about a project he had to do at his school. He has just turned 6 years old. The project involved asking his parents and then grandparents questions about how things when they were a similar age.

I said that I'd be happy to speak with him, and answer his questions as best I could. I apologized that his gran was out at her Thursday night church meeting, so wasn't available to help. (I think he had a deadline for first thing this morning, so by the time she got home, he'd be sound asleep in bed).

So, it was just me that was available. I found it interesting that he wanted more than just one word answers to his list of questions, but involved giving reasons for them. For example:

First question - What was your favourite toy when you were my age? Then the follow-up question - What made it seem so special to you? Then even more in-depth stuff - What did you like about it? Then - What did you not like, etc.

Second question - Where did you go to school aged 6? What was your school like? How long was the school day? Were you tired at the end of the day? How did you get there? As I had to walk to school, there was a follow-up question about how far I had to walk, how long it took, etc. Did I go on my own? What can you remember about your teachers?

What type of transportation did you have in your family? As we didn't have a car in our family, the follow-on questions were quite clever! - Why did you not have a car? So, how did you get about?

I quite enjoyed answering. His dad wrote down some of my answers as he's still a bit too young to make the notations himself, particularly the more expansive answers that he was looking for to fulfil his project.

Sounds to me that his school are trying to get young minds thinking about more than just answers, but the reasons behind them - a bit more like discovering why we do what we do, and how it involves others...

lifelong humanist

66

Could Teaching Critical Thinking Abilities, End Cult Mind-Conrol Forever?

by lifelong humanist in

in my mind, every child that undergoes an education system, whether it be a within the family, a basic pre-school kindergarten type structure, within a monitored school curriculum environment itself, or, as part of a further education programme, the emphasis should be on teaching people how to think critically, and for the common good of all.. if this was indeed the case, probably very few would succumb to mind-control techniques later on in life.

cults would struggle to dupe and recruit new members.

the cult leaders themselves, would derive little benefit from their evil mind games.

lifelong humanist

SweetBabyCheezits, jgnat, Mad Sweeney, et al

I've read and enjoyed the many, and varied, comments on this thread. So, thank you to all forum members that have posted.

lifelong humanist

33

What Are You Passionate About?

by minimus in

jw
friends

what's your passion?.

some people are very intense when it comes to politics, religion, jws, sex, love, the arts, music and almost anything that could get them revved up..

lifelong humanist

minimus

FIATs. Especially the latest generation 2 Cylinder FIATs!

Explanation required? - my budget doesn't extend to much more melodious Ferraris!

lifelong humanist

66

Could Teaching Critical Thinking Abilities, End Cult Mind-Conrol Forever?

by lifelong humanist in

in my mind, every child that undergoes an education system, whether it be a within the family, a basic pre-school kindergarten type structure, within a monitored school curriculum environment itself, or, as part of a further education programme, the emphasis should be on teaching people how to think critically, and for the common good of all.. if this was indeed the case, probably very few would succumb to mind-control techniques later on in life.

cults would struggle to dupe and recruit new members.

the cult leaders themselves, would derive little benefit from their evil mind games.

lifelong humanist

In my mind, every child that undergoes an education system, whether it be a within the family, a basic pre-school kindergarten type structure, within a monitored school curriculum environment itself, or, as part of a further education programme, the emphasis should be on teaching people how to think critically, and for the common good of all.

If this was indeed the case, probably very few would succumb to mind-control techniques later on in life. Cults would struggle to dupe and recruit new members. The cult leaders themselves, would derive little benefit from their evil mind games.

I'm convinced that high mind-control cults clearly know, and acknowledge that they need to repeatedly recruit new members to maintain their cultish behaviour. I can testify to the fact that being raised in a third generation JW family, this can often produce seriously unbalanced people. Left untreated, unbalanced people can lead to an unbalanced society. An unbalanced society leads to all sorts of expensive, social problems.

Wouldn't it simply be better for a modern society to educate young people to just think critically? After all, 'prevention is better than cure'. With the exception of the mind-controlled cult leaders, everyone would be a winner, and society would generally be much better off.

What do you think?

lifelong humanist

38

Did you have higher ed when you were in? If so how were you treated as a result?

by highdose in

jw
friends

i went to both collage and uni when i was a jw, i got marked and shunned as a result.

it seemed like every week there would be some dig made from the platform about " those that chose higher education" , my so called "freinds" were constandly on at me " why don't you pioneer highdose?!!".

i even had the ciruit overseer denounce me from the platform as being "spirtualy weak" never mind that most of the peers i grew up with had got themselves reproved or disfellowed and that i was the only who had been good!.

lifelong humanist

highdose

Thanks for starting this thread.

I studied full-time at a nearby Scottish university during 1994/95 for a one-year MBA (Marketing) degree.

This was an exciting point in my life, and an expensive one to take as I had to live on previous earnings to finance the expensive course. This was my first introduction to learning about adopting critical thinking techniques - an ability that I used to gradually see that I'd been conned big-time by the WT cult.

At the time I was studying, I was an active elder for about 8 years. I was responsible for the TMS. During the course, I asked to be relieved of this pressurised responsibility to devote more time to what I found was a very difficult, challenging course. The other elders weren't at all happy with my request, and several tried to actively persuade me that it was much more important to take the TMS, rather than waste time at university. I didn't cave-in under the pressure though. I was genuinely surprised how bitter their reaction was. I held fast to my goal to pass, and graduate. Other members of the congregation commented to me that I wasn't a good example any longer to others for pursuing university. Two of my 4 sons were studying to be engineers at another university at the same time. I was viewed with a great deal of skepticism, and my motives were questionable! I honestly can't recall any positive comments being made to me at all! At the time just before graduating, one or two commented to me that they'd seen my name in the newspaper list of graduands.

lifelong humanist

If only I'd woken up sooner - I didn't DA myself until 2003.

lifelong humanist

3

List of cult researchers and authors

by besty in

not sure if this has been posted before but looks an excellent resource for those wishing to investiage the nature of cults and new religious movements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_cult_and_new_religious_movement_researchers.

there are almost 150 works listed and dozens of subject matter experts including steve hassan.

lifelong humanist

besty

Thanks for posting this information. When I've got some free time, I'd like to check out the UK researchers.

As far as writers commenting on religious cults, Steve Hassan is in a class of his own, I think. His books certainly opened my eyes to the cult practices brazenly exploited brazenly WT writers.

I trust you and yours are all doing well. I can't recall exactly where I (think) I read it, but are you moving from California back to the UK or was it just a trip back 'home' that I recall reading about? If so, it would be good to meet up sometime, if possible.

lifelong humanist