Quote:
Originally Posted by Trapped
These poor little people aren't allowed to use their mind without being shamed. They aren't allowed to ask questions without being labelled. They aren't allowed to participate in normal, positive human activities without condemnation.
The really good fakers, the ones who don't want to disappoint their parents, the ones who are forced to lead this double life as young children, end up in deep mental and psychological turmoil once they are old enough to actually choose.
The ones who don't care how they look, the "rebellious" "backsliders" seem to end up doing better just as stable adults in the long run..
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The world is arguably a mess. War, violence, corruption, greed, selfishness, disease, famine, natural disasters, sickness and death. Why shouldn't the young people question it? How is that somehow "rebellion" to try to use your brain and figure it out?
"Oh, Witness Lee figured it out already; all we have to do is buy his books and go to his trainings."
And then you read where in one place the psalmist dips his feet in his enemy's blood and WL's footnote said, "Christ is defeating Satan" and in another place similar sentiments get panned as "unchristian" and you go, "Huh?" And they say, "Don't ask questions". An LC defender on this site read my comments about the disjointed OT interpretations in the Psalms and said, "Perhaps it is like this." Yes, but perhaps it is not. And the children don't get to say, "Perhaps it is not".
Or you hear about a "storm" or "rebellion" and dozens or hundreds of assemblies have left the association/Church and you ask what happened and they go, "Oh, we don't talk about it." Again, the children don't have the option to look for alternatives. So they cope. As an adult, I was able to leave and go back to Podunk Community Church. They don't have an exit.
I came in as a young adult, and remember going to children's meetings and the elder's wife was telling them that dinosaurs' bones were put in the earth by Satan to deceive mankind, because we all know the earth is only 7,000 years old. I was like, "Huh?" What does that have to do with the Bible? But I kept my mouth shut because, Hey, it's the church! And of course the children just sat there looking up at her. What else could they do?
Try to imagine what that kind of environment of enforced thoughtlessness does to a person's mind, when they're programmed from early childhood. It took me about 8 years after leaving to begin to critically assess the Bible, and later some years on this forum to begin to peel the layers back. It took years to be able to read the
RecV and say, "Perhaps it is not like this". It's an impressively comprehensive and deeply rooted system of mind control. But the cost of assimilation is real.