It is my pleasure. 
I’ll expound on that decision some. I did consider not going. I have really tried throughout this process to take the high road. JWs are told that people like me are just terrible people. I’m a better person now than I ever was as a JW and I want that to show. I want to lead by example of how to human well.
I did talk earlier about how I wanted to give my dad dignity. I should also say that the last interaction we had prior to that was him calling me on the phone, for the first time in his life, to yell at me for “loving the gays” and “always taking their side”. Apparently years ago we were watching something on tv and the subject came up. I said something about how they don’t choose to be that way anymore than I chose to be heterosexual, it just is, or something like that. He had apparently harbored a grudge over me saying that and had to let me know about it before the shunning officially started.
Believe me, I realized the grief he surrounded me with. As a child I once got up in the middle of the night because I wanted to get a knife and stab him because I hated him. I didn’t go through with it and cried myself to sleep. As I went through all of this process of getting emotionally healthy I came to realized how messed up he was and had some measure of compassion for him even though things had been so bad. I reached out and tried to start a good relationship with him. I would take him fishing, to ballgames, etc. The man never had a friend before. Things were pretty good until all of this went down and he made that call. In one phone call he undid what I had worked so hard to build for us over the past several years.
Look, my dad was a total azzhole to me my entire life. I could have treated him in kind. However, my goal was to treat him like I want to treat people, not like he would have treated me. I want to be better than that. Did he deserve it? No. But even though I don’t care much about the Bible anymore, that whole treating others like you’d want to be treated thing felt good for me.
So much of this is so close to home for me that it’s hard to read. I’m so glad you’re out of that negative pit and safe with your wife and your family of choice. I’m sorry your blood family is shunning you, but perhaps someday more of them will exit also and you and your brother can show them that worldly people can be loving and forgiving.
Good on you for being candid and open about the brainwashing and the isolation. To anyone claiming that it’s not a cult because they’re not ‘forcing’ anyone to participate - I’d argue strenuously that limiting members’ information access, isolating them from potential alternate viewpoints, and inflicting emotional and mental abuse upon any signs of independent thinking is ‘force’ even in the absence of handcuffs or physical abuse.
Nice post Lasciel. You don’t tell much about yourself, but I’m sorry that this resonates with you because I know that there’s a lot of pain involved. Thanks for the kind words. The best revenge is a life well lived. I hope you have that yourself as well.
I had my turn a few years back. I’m doing my best, but some things leave lasting (maybe permanent?) scars. Doesn’t mean that life isn’t truly amazing and full of wonders and beautiful people, and that’s what’s important - now I’m out here with the world, and it is an amazing place to be.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=738764&highlight=quiverful
I hope your thread is as full of intelligent questions and respectful and supportive posters as mine - or even better.
Bolding mine.
When I switched religious denominations, to become a member of the Episcopla church, one thing I liked that the priest said was “Being Episcoplaian means you don’t have to check your brains at the door.”
I agree with justanothermike, and with Lasciel on what defines a “cult”
justanothermike, your answers have enlightened me about the behavior I have seen in some of the people I know who are JW and I appreciate the knowledge.
One of these people, a hair stylist, refuses to discuss religion with her clients and claims that she is really not all that religious. I’m not sure if she does that so clients won’t stay away or if there is really such a thing as a casual JW. Can you belong to the religion casually, say, going to church two Sundays a month and skipping the rest? Or will you be hounded about it? I ask because I also know someone who ended up divorced because his wife got involved and was told she should either bring him into the church or divorce him. He refused to be brought in, therefore divorce.
So is everyone who is in, in deep?
I don’t think so. As I understand it, JWs explicitly reject the concept of the Trinity because of the logical twisting necessary to support it.
AFAIK, JW’s consider Jehova as ‘God’ - i.e. omnipotent, etc, and Jesus as ‘a god’ (small G) meaning ‘a being with some supernatural power’ - Jehova is Galactus - Jesus is the Silver Surfer
And that, of course, is why they insist you attend group meetings so frequently. I’ve seen it in other cultish religious group, too.
Re. going to see your father, it reminded me of what my cousin told her mother’s second husband (who refused to consider himself my cousin’s stepfather, much less “new Dad”) when he was sick and expressed surprise that she’d go visit and help take him to the doctor: “I don’t do it for you, I do it for me”.
You didn’t do it out of external obligation, you did it because you are a good man.
Thank you for the explanation on the God and god thing. My source was my chaperoning friends, who evidently weren’t much into the whole thing back then already.
Re. limiting access to information, the JW kids in my home town aren’t supposed to speak with any of the worldly except as required by school. They’re only supposed to ever have any kind of relationship with other JWs. They’re not kept fenced in because the law doesn’t allow it, but if it did, they would.
I don’t know if I actually have any questions, but I wanted to speak up and tell you how fascinating I’m finding all of this, and how unbelievably brave you are not only to follow your heart rather than someone else’s teachings, but also to be so willing to discuss it with people. I wish you and your wife the best of luck as you continue to discover the world you’ve been missing.
Good on you for having the courage to leave, it’s also nice to read that you’ve realised you don’t need religious doctrine to tell you how to be a good person.
Sorry if it’s a bit of a ‘childish curiosity’ kind of question, but what’s the worst someone has treated you going door to door? I believe in being kind to people when they’ve done nothing to harm me, so just politely say I’m not interested but thank you, and have found that’s enough to get most to say ‘no problem’ and walk away. (I know there are some you have to be a bit more firm with as they try hard sell etc, but my experience is just a polite exchange). I’ve heard many tales of being as rude as possible and slamming doors in faces though.
Althought the organization pushes everyone the same, to do more and be more, there will always be different personalities and levels of dedication among human beings. Try as they may to create an army of little cult robots, there will always be people that don’t give it their all. I’ve found that if kids are raised by parents where one is a JW and the other isn’t, not as much is expected of them and the parent that is in. If you’re the child of an elder you can get away with a lot more stuff too. Different congregations have different personalities too. I grew up in an older congregation where members were more strict and old school. People move to congregations that fit their personality more.
With all of that said, everyone studies the same materials. Everyone has the same expectations put out there for their consideration. How serious they take it is on them. Both my wife and I were the oldest of the kids, and the oldest is often a people pleaser and the one that responsibilities are placed on to be a good example. We both tried to live up to those expectations.
Both of our sets of parents were perfectionists even prior to being JWs. That only ramped it up. So both of us have had to take steps to recover from those perfectionist ways of thinking and being. It’s still tough. Our families were by the book, black and white thinking, kind of extreme JWs. They took everything literal. It was in their nature, and some just aren’t wired that way.
As far as being hounded about things, you would think they would hound you. However, you find out quickly that nobody in that organization really cares about you unless you’re in the cool club. We have missed meetings for a year before anyone ever called to see if we were alive. If we were at least related to a cool family we would get a call.
It’s actually really odd. JWs will spend thousands of hours to recruit one new member, and about zero hours after trapping them inside trying to keep them there. I guess they think the indoctrination will hold you. They certainly make little personal effort to encourage you to stay. Neither of our families did anything to try to keep us in the flock, so to speak. Once we messed up in their eyes they just washed their hands of us. JWs shoot their wounded, so to speak.
Yep. There was an illustration that they loved to use to encourage this. In a pack, the safest place from predators is in the middle of the pack. If you’re on the edge, you might get picked off. Satan the Devil is “like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone” (this is where a scriptural cite should go), and it is important that we stay in the middle of the congregation. That means being as involved as possible so that we’re not led astray. It means your everlasting life, not just your life today, so it’s even more important.
First, thanks for the kind words. I do try to be a good man. I didn’t have many examples of that but I aspire to be better than what I saw growing up.
As far as the part that I bolded, the fact is that as time has gone by more and more are choosing to home school their kids. They are isolating them and it is being encouraged. I really feel for those kids. My wife was one of them. She was “home schooled” which consisted of being there to raise her little sisters and keep her lonely mom company. She didn’t graduate. When she’d try to do school work her mom would invite her out to go to WalMart or something to shop. Most kids that I knew that were home schooled, including two of my siblings, did the bare minimum. I saw some of my sister’s high school work and it was appalling. It was stuff that I learned in middle school or earlier, and she graduated with that level of knowledge. I went to public school in a traditional program and excelled, graduating as the salutatorian. I had opportunities to get scholarships and had goals in the engineering field but was discouraged from going to college and missed the boat. I also had a unique business opportunity at the time and passed it by as well. I was no match for the pressures of that organization.
Again, thanks for another kind remark. A lot of bad things survive in the dark because nobody talks about them. Maybe this thread is found by someone researching Jehovah’s Witnesses and it helps them in some way someday. Maybe it helps someone stuck in another group or situation. Life can and does get better if you’re willing to take the steps needed to make it so. Unfortunately freedom isn’t free, there’s always a price, but it’s worth it.
First let me say that I think a lot of stories that are told in this realm are just that, stories. People sometimes tell tall tales to make themselves seem tough or to get a laugh. After all, who’s going to verify these stories?
With that said, personally the worst thing I experienced was one morning I knocked on a door and a little kid came to the door and ran off. Apparently he went and woke is mom and she worked nights. She cussed us and told us that she was getting her gun, and we left and apologized. We never saw any weapon.
I do know of women that have been met by naked men. I do know of some in a rural situation in Kentucky that were met with guns because the people thought they were feds and my guess is they had some agricultural crops that weren’t exactly legal. My mom once had a man grab her Bible throw it, and push her off a porch.
Most people were nice enough or just let us know that they weren’t interested. I never pushed it. Some did. A LOT of time is spent knocking on doors where people aren’t home. It is largely a waste of time except in third world countries where they’re just being introduced to “The Truth”, which is what JWs call their teachings. That doesn’t seem culty, does it? Lol.
I knew a JW couple where the husband beat the wife so badly he put her in the hospital. Two elders visited her, telling her not to press criminal charges because it was her fault for being “a bad wife.” They promised to talk to the husband about it.
What’s your take on this?
P.S. She filed charges, left him and the JW’s.
Thanks for the response, I hadn’t even thought of guns (I’m in the UK) and kind of forgot how common they are across the pond in response to unexpected visitors!
That’s a really good point - I’ve often suspected that people claim they’ve said what they wanted to say but actually didn’t go through with (because I know how tempting that white lie is when you’re trying to impress someone). I think it’s when people are face to face they really ‘see the human’ and good healthy inhibitions kick in. Except of course when one is hidden behind a wheel, a keyboard or is drunk - then all bets are off!
My take is that it is a disgusting practice that Jehovah’s Witnesses care more about their appearance to the outside world than the safety and health of their members. They put themselves on such a pedestal that they feel they should be the true authority in all matters. You are not allowed to sue a brother either in a court of law. There are a lot of shenanigans where brothers scam one another and are discouraged from pursuing anything legally.
There is a history of telling women that if only they were “giving their husbands their due” (having more sex), or being a more submissive wife, or praying more, or… or… or…, then perhaps they wouldn’t be victimized. It is typical victim blaming.
My dad was a total jerk to my mom. He never hit her, though I can remember as a kid her saying that many wives wish their husbands would hit them so they could leave. I’ll make a separate post immediately following this on the subject of leaving and how all of that works. It is mind blowing as well.
It should tell you a lot when a person is assaulted, whether physically or sexually, and their first call is to the elders, not to the police. It says everything about this organization.