BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS - namely those who believe in false prophets
I would like to draw your attention to some rather disturbing events that have come to light recently. It seems that the God botherers are on the march once more. It seems to come in waves, but this lot are a bit more organised and a lot less academic than the clergy. This makes them highly dangerous. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are what the average science fiction superhero would have as a worst enemy, because they keep regenerating and no matter how many you successfully wipe out, another one is being brainwashed elsewhere.
We firstly need to look at some behind-the-scenes detail – I have first-hand experience of the JWs as some are members of my own family – there is room for everyone who is a social outcast, bitter at society for its evils, fed up with failing politicians, but especially the vulnerable minded, who usually fall into one or other of their target categories. These are people who are looking for the reasons for their misery, or who are acutely aware of their own need for guidance, being unable to take decisions of their own without firstly consulting someone who they believe has authority.
This means, the ideal candidate for recruitment to the Jehovah’s Witnesses has everything to gain and nothing much to lose. In other words, they don’t have much of a life. Furthermore, there are some significant reasons for wishing to team up with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the main one being that they provide continued support for their fellowship and thus to the needy individual who is unable to find his/her own source of solace. The final, and main source of recruitment, is amongst those who do not have such a high amount of education. By recruiting from this sector, the Jehovah’s Witness leaders are able to airbrush, manipulate and modify any fact they wish to purvey, dressing it up as “education”.
" Christians should regard education as a means to an end. In these last days, their purpose is to serve Jehovah as much and as effectively as possible. If, in the country where they live, minimal or even high school education will only allow them to find jobs providing insufficient income to support themselves as pioneers, then supplementary education or training might be considered. This would be with the specific goal of full-time service. "
--Watchtower 11/1/1992 p.18
POWERS OF PERSUASION - conspiracy theories are just the start
They have extremely potent powers of persuasion. By dressing up a scientific fact with religious implications, they are able to find God’s (or Jehovah’s) work in everything. Or indeed the devil’s. I am quite sure that a thousand Jehovah’s Witnesses will now condemn everything I say as being the work of the devil, and to be honest, if I believed in anything of what they spew out as their “Truth”, I still wouldn’t be quaking in my boots. We have to put everything into perspective here, and the fact of the matter remains that they are able to quote any verse of the Bible at will to counteract most signs of disobedience. This seems like a great skill to the great uneducated masses, longing to be led, but it is more evil than anything else I can think of. If I were given the choice of spending an hour in a room with either a Jehovah’s Witness, a possible Islamist terrorist or Stalin himself, I think I would be far more scared of the JW’s effects on my psyche than the other two, even though I am educated enough to realise that the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ view of life is so addled, warped and beset with flaws that I could pick it to bits in an hour if I were allowed a word in edgeways.
You see, the other way they drag you in is by pressing the buttons that are most appealing to you, and then if you are making your own point, they interrupt you to continue bombarding their views upon you. By continually showering you with their notions they are slowly breaking down your barriers of defence and without you knowing you find yourself either agreeing wholeheartedly or admiringly saying, “well, I never thought of it like that”. And once you say that, they’ve got you hooked. They can feed you with other misguided pieces of recruitment jargon skilfully wrapped up in an appealing package and float it out into your waters, where the under-educated or weak-minded will pick open the ribbons and from then on you’re forever in their service.
Oh yes, you will praise them, you will sing their glories. You will tell everyone that they are the happiest, most well-balanced and caring group of people you have met. But let us face facts here: it is a well-known actuality that strong, close-knit religious groups of all kinds, whether fundamentalist or puritanical, liberally or directly commanded, provide the most amount of well-mannered and obedient people. That is a cunning way to disguise the fact that this is also because they are the most heavily manipulated people.
ONLY MEN ALLOWED - women aren't to be taken seriously
The leadership of fundamentalist groups is usually full of men and the Jehovah’s Witnesses are no exception. One of the earliest beliefs of the ecclesiastical setup was that women were inferior to men. I remember going to one Witness wedding, where the presiding minister said, in his sermon, “the man is the head of the household and what he decrees will be done. He should consult his wife, but he has the ultimate decision”. He said that because of women’s monthly cycles and common hormonal chaos, men were the only ones who could provide stability. And people sat there taking this without a single eyebrow raised in disbelief. Now dub me a feminist or a traitor to my sex if you wish, but I think there are just as many intelligent women about as men.
The Judaeo-Roman belief that strength is more important than method, which led to the macho concept today, is looking increasingly tired and worn out in the 21st century world. Women have kept their lights under bushels for centuries in most parts of the world, deferring to men and all our exigencies. But when I confronted a Jehovah’s Witness with the idea that there have not been enough women leaders, he said that Margaret Thatcher was a good enough reason not to have any more. And Pol Pot? And Benito Mussolini? And Josef Stalin? What about them then? Honestly, I kid you not, the Jehovah’s Witness idea of counteracting opinions against their beliefs is as old and as worn out as the Patriarchal society which has led us to wars and economic turmoil, rich-poor divisions and the materialism they so long to rid us of. A piece of good advice: no, we don’t want Thatcher back, and that’s why ALL women should not become leaders. What utter rubbish.
I have barely broken through the surface of their religious beliefs – I will leave that to other people, as I have much more work to do with the temporal side of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ attitudes. Let us also take into consideration their own future council, the 144,000, who will take over the earth’s governance at the End. How many are women? None. Oh yes, and what about the palace that was built for the Second Coming in a push suburb of California’s largest city, Los Angeles? It was to welcome the arrival of the heavenly hosts who were to stay there when they came to take back the earth. When they so rudely didn’t show up at the predicted time, the worldwide leader of the Jehovah’s Witnesses moved into it to personally welcome their late arrival. They still haven’t turned up, and the house has since been sold and the details covered up.
"Treat Him Respectfully ... a woman should not cower in fear and permit a rapist to intimidate her, at the same time she should treat him understandingly as a fellow human."
-- Awake! 22/2/84 p.2
KEEPING YOU ON SIDE - disfellowship
Oppression of the people is easy if you withdraw the one thing they came to you for, and this is how they skilfully keep you on side: by threatening you with a return to normal, you will hang on to every tether of support they provide you with. If, once you become a member, you step out of line, or disagree, or even decide to go to a non-approved university to do a non-approved university degree, you will be shunned, ignored or even mocked. Yes, they will provide you with ways back, but that is hardly good enough if once you get there you will be carefully scrutinised, and your deeds placed on file for future reference if you dare do it again.
By leading exemplary lives and doing exemplary deeds, the outer surface of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is whiter than white, but underneath there is a huge amount of dexterous, cunning and experienced manipulation to keep you on-side and on-message.
One deviation from the idea and your perfidiousness is dealt with by the council, all men, and all capable of making your life miserable. I heard of one particularly bad case of a woman who was not a JW and a man who became one. As the patriarchal nature of this relationship took hold through his belief of being superior, she was slowly wound down by his gradually destructive behaviour as the household self-designated leadership: banning Christmas for the entire family, not co-operating in schemes not organised by him, and eventually she caved in and joined up, for the sake of the family, who had all been coerced into becoming members. That too happened to an elderly lady I know who once she had joined up, decided it was not for her and upon stepping out of the organisation was spurned by that part of her family for ever more after that.
We must also not forget one of the “principles” upon which a Jehovah’s Witness builds his/her life: that all other religions are false and there can only be one truth. Who says? Can anyone provide me with a statistic that says this? Can anyone prove all other religions wrong? I am not a betting person, but I would put a great amount of money, pride, self-worth and even my own reputation on the line in my total conviction that the whole charade enacted by the Watch Tower, its society and council, its people and their “benevolence” is nothing more than a money-spinning ploy with serious Big Brother overtones, where they gauge the “faith” of their subjects through distressingly clandestine methods of indoctrination.
HANDS OFF MY BLOOD - gauging your faith
Let us take the old cliché itself, blood transfusion. This is one of the definitions of Jehovah’s Witnesses, that they will not “eat blood”, because it says so in their version of the Bible. If a family member is in hospital and needs a blood transfusion, they are supposed to refuse it, as human blood is sacred, according to them, and should not be mixed. Sounds a lot like something Adolf Hitler would have gladly said, but it means that you cannot dilute it with others’, even if it means you’ll die. This is because your heavenly life is more important and of course more permanent than your earthly one, according to them. Now call me a nasty old cynic, but if a family member of mine were going to die, I don’t think an unverified principle like this is going to stop me from saving them. Indeed, if the spiritual life is more important, then a silly little blood transfusion isn’t going to stop my ascent into the afterlife. So the fact that you let a family member die due to your refusal to allow a long-established scientific marvel get in the way of your religious beliefs will give you extra status in religious circles. The eye of the needle is surely opening up for you because you let someone die. How nice for you – I’m sure Jehovah will fast-track you into His Kingdom. The fact that human life is sacred has no importance compared to allowing the death of an innocent victim of circumstance.
"The blood in any person is in reality the person himself. ... poisons due to personal living, eating and drinking habits ... The poisons that produce the impulse to commit suicide, murder, or steal are in the blood. Moral insanity, sexual perversions, repression, inferiority complexes, petty crimes - these often follow in the wake of blood transfusion." (Watchtower, 1/09/61 page 564) [Remember that JWs believe man is monochotomous, wholly physical]
COMMITMENT OR ETERNAL DEATH - well I'll take the chance thanks
And that is how they gauge your faith: if you so blindly permit the unnecessary death of a member who needs a blood transfusion, you must be committed. There are other little assessments like these, all which go on file and, like a spiritual credit rating, permit you to ascend the ranks of their society. But I am sure if there is someone up there, they've got paper party hats and red noses on and are having a real laugh at the gullibility of these individuals.
The chances are high that I am now to be condemned as a heretic and a disbeliever. And that I am also proud of, because it means I at least have a mind of my own, able to make up my own decisions without wondering what the leaders will say about it. And moreover, I am probably to be condemned to the eternal suffering the Jehovah’s Witnesses profess we disbelievers will end up in. Well I’ll tell you here and now – I am so convinced in my unreserved scepticism of any of their immoral and misguided ideals of the fate that awaits us after death that I am unequivocally willing to take that chance and lead a wholesome, secular and worldly life to the full here and now. We only have the one life and it should be spent very wisely indeed.
"Without religion, we'd have good people doing good things, and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion" - Stephen Weinberg
Just remember one thing, and this is from me, a person who has renounced all of this science fiction and moved on to other things: if you are a Christian, the will of the God of Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed will NEVER take you where the grace of God cannot protect you.
