The Jehovah's Witness Protection Program

[gall]

I had a JW friend growing up, and every time we celebrated someone's birthday at school he had to leave and went to his grandmother's house nearby. I pretty much always felt sorry for him because it looked like being a JW was no fun, and after reading the 141 rules it would appear that the JW leadership is really afraid of, well, everything out there which isn't strictly supporting the JW faith. I mean, no reading "worldly" books? Can't have a best friend who isn't a JW? Come on.

Of course, I don't fee very sorry for my JW friend these days because I had to unfriend him on facebook. EVERY SINGLE POST he made was some religious crap or bible quote, and I got tired of seeing that every day. It's not like we're close or anything anyway.

quite stupid to alienate yourself from the entire rest of the race save one group. Cannot imagine any of them are very happy inside there private place in the mind. My guess is they are all unhappy at some level waiting for god to come and give it to them.

Happiness if fought for loved for ran for sought after and greedily hung on to. How can one live a life in which 141 basic rules strip all of that from you and make you well frankly make you into a nine year old adult with an overbearing parent...

I didn't have that many rules at 5.

[Doubting Thomas]

I certainly wouldn't want to be a member of any organization which dictates to me what friends I can have or what private functions I can attend.

Really, though, all those rules look like what a cult leader would dictate to his members. You know they're really afraid of people leaving the religion when they feel like they have to control what they read, who their friends are, and force alienation upon anyone who disagrees with the group. It's all a bunch of mind control, and if their religion was worth following they wouldn't have to do any of that crap to keep members.

I'm going to keep these 141 rules in mind the next time the JW's come to my door with a copy of the Watchtower.

Oh that also reminds me of the guy who built a fireplace in our house when I was a kid. He was a JW, and after he completed the work, he stopped by our shop every once in a while for years to drop off a copy of the Watchtower.

[Fruity]

I grew up in a Pentecostal Pastor's home.

I could not:
Go to the movies
Listen to non-Christian music
Have a boyfriend
Visit Friends
Play Bingo
Play domino
Play any type of cards
Masturbate
Say idiot
Drink

I could go on.

Now my parents go to the movies all the time, visit casinos at least twice a week, go to concerts, drink margaritas... all thanks to my brother and me, since we talked them into sense. They are starting to live now. I feel like a mother watching her teenage kid go out to a party for the first time. I'm so proud.

[Doubting Thomas]

Yeah I almost feel sorry for anyone growing up in a home like that and only hope they rebel and live how they want to live when they grow up. I couldn't imagine growing up in a very strict household and wanting to continue to live like that for the rest of my life. And they wonder why we claim that they don't have any fun. Because if the most fun you can have is weekly bible study, then just put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger 'cuz life was meant to be lived.

If you read all those rules and still have a JW friend, it kind of makes you wonder if the only reason they've befriended you is because they want to recruit you into their religion.

[Tonus]

Really, though, all those rules look like what a cult leader would dictate to his members.

Because that's what it is. I was raised a JW, and the idea is to insulate and isolate the membership. If the only information you get is from the organization, then it's pretty easy to keep you in the fold. You may not be happy (I actually was, but I have always been the happy-go-lucky type) but you believe that it's much worse outside of the walls (an attitude you can see from some theists here from time-to-time).

It may be hard to understand why anyone would join them if they had not been raised in that environment, but like most cults they prey on people who are at their lowest ebb and desperately seeking comfort of any kind. Plus. they put on a very good performance for anyone who shows even a bit of interest; it may even seem very liberating at that stage.

For groups like the JWs there is a very high turnover rate, they lose tens of thousands of members every year for various reasons and when they're not pushing the whole "end of the world omg right now" schtick it can really slow their growth. The internet has been a particular problem for them, making it so easy to find the archives of old publications that help people to understand just what a strange institution it has always been, and just how far removed the present-day group is from the teachings of the early leaders, who are still held up as paragons of a sort.

[Doubting Thomas]

Didn't the Watchtower predict the end of the world back in the 70's?

[Jackalope]

Didn't the Watchtower predict the end of the world back in the 70's?

Isn't fortune telling supposed to be a sin?

Oh wait, this is *prophecy*. That's *different *.

[Tonus]

Didn't the Watchtower predict the end of the world back in the 70's?

The 1910s, the 1920s, the 1940s, the 1950s, 1975... predicting the end of the world is kind of their thing. 1975 was the last time that they were so brazen about it, because the increase in membership numbers were (unsurprisingly) followed by a gradual slowdown that threatened to turn into negative growth until they sorta-kinda "came clean"... five years later. To this day they peddle the story that they didn't REALLY predict the end of the world and that anyone who thinks they did is just wrong.

Your average JW has absolutely no clue that there were so many definitive and implied end-of-world predictions. They believe that Charles Russell (the founder of what is today the JWs) predicted only that 1914 was the start of the "end times." In fact, Russell taught that the end times began in 1874 and would END in 1914. Revisionist history, it turns out, is also kind of their thing.

One of the things that struck me after leaving was what CD pointed out, that it seems odd that a group that often repeated Jesus' admonition (that no one knew the day or time of his second coming) would seem so keen on predicting something that only god could know. But if the JW leadership learned anything over its history, it is that predicting the end of the world is very good business.

[Doubting Thomas]

They need to learn never to use an exact date in the prediction. Because when that date comes & goes you'll look foolish and lose members. They should take a lesson from the rapturites and say "any minute now."

[Doubting Thomas]

Just doing some thinking about this, and for me it's hard to understand why a religion or cult predicting the end of the world would gain followers. I mean, to me, if someone new predicts a particular date for the rapture or Armageddon, I just think "what a bunch of loons" and go on with my life. Even when I was religious I felt this way. But for some reason end-of-the-world predictions and ideas gain a lot of followers. I guess there are a lot of people out there with totally crappy lives who love the idea of everything ending and going off to "a better place." My question is how many Great Disappointments can someone go through?