# *LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend

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Posted by Gedanken [Gedanken] on October 30, 1999 at 10:39:14 {G0PnT/qYmkHdgEG/iekYGxDfYXLgH2}:

In Reply to: LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend posted by WorldlyWitness on October 29, 1999 at 18:14:12:

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WW,

I understand your post but have to disagree with you. One of the hard things about leaving this organization is that one has to accept that what one has believed for years is not only not as one thought but is actually almost diametrically opposed to what one thought. Anyone who has been a JW is guilty to some degree of the things that you charge Friend with. After all, what was our excuse for selling literature when we did it? All of us, at one time or other, have exiled to the dungeons of our minds the many little contradictions that we knew existed. Were we too cowardly and hypocritical to deal with them at the time? All of us who were JWs have engaged in what you call "hair splitting" in our attempts to preserve our core belief that "the Society speaks for God." All that differentiates us from Friend is the length of time over which we did it. Then again, we have the internet and the present senior generation of JWs did not when they were in their prime years. Years which, for many, coincided with 1975.

Friend is no more a hypocrite than are my mother & grandmother (in their late 60's and 80's respectively, with my mother having been a JW for 46 years) who say all of the same kinds of things that Friend says and have come to many of the same conclusions that he has. It is very painful for them. It amounts to saying that for all of their lives they knew only one thing and that turned out to be wrong. Well, maybe they can get some solace by concentrating on their relationships with God and Christ and de-emphasizing the mistakes of the organization. After all, if the Society is really just like any other religion then they can be forgiven for doing that. Because that's what people in other religions also do.

I get just as frustrated discussing WTS doings with them, as I do with Friend. Almost to the point of tearing my hair our. I have spent many hours trying to figure out what to say to Friend to make him see something that seems as plain as day both to me and any other literate person who happened not to be a JW. But are these people hypocrites? Not at all. We are dealing with people's cherished beliefs and hopes and to expect that they can jettison these altogether in their later years and shrug it off by saying "I was wrong" is harsh and naive. I agree that because Friend enters into the fray by participating on this board that he has to take his lumps but I would be very hesitant indeed to claim that I knew much about his personal integrity based on what he says here. Other than that I would come down on the side of him have very high standards in this regard, even if his understanding of english seems off the wall sometimes.

My personal theory is that after a years as a JW the brain becomes trained to make connections in a different way than is normally done. This is also true in many other areas of life. Linguists and physicists may think in fundamentally different ways and thereby arrive at conclusions by routes which are unrelated to each other. Ultimately what allows them to communicate coherently is a common respect for truth and language. However, when one has been taught to think along lines that severely deviate from the norm for so long who knows what the end result is? In other words, JW thinking really may be different from the thinking of non JWs on certain subjects. They may actually interpret what they read differently from other people because the meaning of words and the very language has been altered subtly. For example, left alone, people can evolve their own grammars. Given the degree of isolation that JWs experience, especially intellectually, then it is not a far stretch to expect that when they read X as Y they really do read Y. Friend has been able to break through the veil on many key issues in the WTS and he deserves great credit for that. But, the arguments he advances are so similar to those advanced by so many long time JWs that I cannot believe it is a result of personal hypocrisy. It defies reason to so think. Where Friend differs is that he also holds beliefs that would be considered seriously apostate within the WTS. However, as I have said to him, that he can see the Society's errors clearly in some areas does not imply that he is able to identify all of its errors.

Finally, I have to admit that I can get into bickering with him over what "constitutes a serious mistake" and such like but at the end of the day what do such minor things matter? I certainly think that to call him a "hypocrite" over such a thing is going well over the top. Nor am I directing this post at you, WW, particularly since, as I said, I understand your point and my reaction to some of his posts has been similar. Maybe there is some poorly understood dynamic at work that we have to factor in to some of these discussions and let the minor points slide. This in no way is meant to say that my default setting is that Friend is always wrong. Quite the contrary, he has posted some extremely compelling arguments in his time and I hope that he continues. I would like to get away from arguing over the meaning of words however. Perhaps a new topic for discussion might be Friend's thoughts on how his realization that the Society is "pretty much like any other religion" will affect the milieu of Jehovah's Witnesses if and when this idea gradually seeps into the organization.

Gedanken

Follow Ups:

- **LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Friend 17:02:12 10/31/99 (2)
  - ***LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Gedanken 15:04:23 11/01/99 (1)
    - ****LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Friend 19:17:00 11/01/99 (0)
- **LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend WorldlyWitness 15:03:10 10/30/99 (2)
  - ***LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Gedanken 09:16:01 10/31/99 (0)
  - ***LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Farkel 20:52:27 10/30/99 (0)
- **LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Farkel 12:00:53 10/30/99 (0)
- **LoyalorHypocrite?: Friend Farkel 12:00:31 10/30/99 (0)

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