Groupthink - following orders

[awareness]

It seems that following orders reduces our empathy toward others. Is that why cults are so seductive? :

Obeying orders from an authority reduces empathy and guilt-related activity in the brain, finds study that reveals why people commit immoral acts under coercion

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...udy-finds.html

[TLFisher]

Yup. That's my experience with the elders and even other "responsible" brothers. In face of the other side of the story the typical response is "I feel to honor the feeling of the Body".
How is it once they've been removed from that environment, there is a change in empathy?

[Trapped]

Yes, I've experienced it too. The phrase used was "we believe if we go along with the brothers we will receive the blessing".

Except what "the brothers" above them wanted them to go along with was absolutely a sin and completely against scripture.

No mention of what "the blessing" might be or how they would know when it had arrived and could be attributed to the sinful thing they were going along with.......

[awareness]

Originally Posted by Trapped

Yes, I've experienced it too. The phrase used was "we believe if we go along with the brothers we will receive the blessing".

Except what "the brothers" above them wanted them to go along with was absolutely a sin and completely against scripture.

No mention of what "the blessing" might be or how they would know when it had arrived and could be attributed to the sinful thing they were going along with.......

The local church was/is a modern day cargo cult.

The deal in the study was, following orders suspends areas in our brain that controls empathy, compassion, and conscience.

That explains why the saints in the church in Ft. Lauderdale, that were ordered to not have any associations with me and my wife, could suspend their brotherly love toward me and my wife. They were following orders from the lead elder, in other words, from on high.

You can't get any orders from higher than God, which is what is thought about elders of Lee in the LC.

Would God suspend empathy compassion and conscience? Orders in the LC aren't from God.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by awareness

The local church was/is a modern day cargo cult.

The deal in the study was, following orders suspends areas in our brain that controls empathy, compassion, and conscience.

That explains why the saints in the church in Ft. Lauderdale, that were ordered to not have any associations with me and my wife, could suspend their brotherly love toward me and my wife. They were following orders from the lead elder, in other words, from on high.

You can't get any orders from higher than God, which is what is thought about elders of Lee in the LC.

Would God suspend empathy compassion and conscience? Orders in the LC aren't from God.

I agree. Local churches operate more on "fear of man" than "fear of God". If brothers and sisters were God fearing, who cares what the brothers say? For all I know they have impure motives and are being political.
If you fear God more than you fear man, many of ones social connections will be cut off. That's the impressions I get of ones who refused to distance themselves from Max R. Price for being God fearing is to have your name smeared.

[SerenityLives]

Originally Posted by Terry

I agree. Local churches operate more on "fear of man" than "fear of God". If brothers and sisters were God fearing, who cares what the brothers say? For all I know they have impure motives and are being political.
If you fear God more than you fear man, many of ones social connections will be cut off. That's the impressions I get of ones who refused to distance themselves from Max R. Price for being God fearing is to have your name smeared.

At the young age of 19, I had my name smeared in the LC. At the time, I thought it was the end of the world since I lost all my connections, all my support system, but in the end, those were people. I made new friends and family. Can you imagine the elders and so called seevkng ones telling all the young brothers and sisters on college campus and sisters and brother’s houses not to communicate with me, not to associate with me, telling them to block me from all social media channels and taking my email off their fellowship church thread? Can you imagine me trying to visit my intial home, the sisters house, only to find that it is locked and the sisters tricked me to going there (while the elder brother is at the police station making a teport about me), and a few seconds later, the cops show up? Is this love or intimidation? At age 19, I was barely an adult, mich less since LC stunts our developemental stages. On one word: traumatic. Stupidly I tried to go to the college conference only to be avoided by all my former sisters whom I considered close friends. Falling apart in the bathroom, only one sister cared enough to lead me away. The rest just stared. I wanted to disappear and regretted going. My younger bio sister took my place. My parents brought me home after three days of that hell and I had extensisve therapy for next five years. Still haunts me at times. Those memories were vivid. Not a peep from those 25 aisters I lived with in that sisters house for last decade, not a single one. Is that love? or fear from higher ups? or downright controlling cult?

But in the end, most importantly, God was with me and blessed me everystep of the way. Did I recieve compassion or even a single phone call or text or any remote message from anyone at the LC? No, only the “fringe “ ones or those that were ironically the gospel friends I brought in who dint buy the LC. Quite the opposite, I was shunned, discriminated, gossiped about, even nearly a decade later. It’s like they have nothing better to do with their lives than to gossip about a 19 yr old who was kicked out of LC. The news spread to San Diego when I was in LA. Now all of LC in southern california knows. And the news traveled back to my parents, eight years later they sat in that “fellowship” meeting with me and those LA elders. My parents fortunately now dont care that Im no longer in the church, even though they are begrudgingly still in it, believing our family wont have God’s blessing if my poor dad stops going to church. They just want me to be a good Christian and my grandmother told me before she passed, “dont listen to man, listen to God and your heart”. Wisest thing ever and I will live like that til the day I die.