site<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn the first video, “Obey Your Parents,” Mommy does the housekeeping. Of course. And she does it on her hands and knees, probably because she can’t afford a mop. A little background info might be helpful here. JWs are strongly discouraged (almost forbidden) to seek higher education, because when someone grows a bullshit meter they leave the cult. As a result most of them have menial jobs. The most common businesses run by entrepreneurial JWs are window washing and commercial floor cleaning, which can be started cheaply and be run without much brain power.<\/p>\n
Kids track dirt in the house. It’s part of being a kid. A good parent will hand the kid a mop and say “clean up your mess.” A bad parent, like Caleb’s dad, uses it as an opportunity to browbeat the kid and make him feel like crap. And yes, many JW women are so emotionally crippled that they will<\/em> break down and cry at the slightest provocation.<\/p>\nWhen Dad says, “That was a lot of work, right?” Caleb should have said, “Gee dad, it would have been easier if you had used a sponge instead of your bare hands. Or if you’d saved up for a mop.” But no, Caleb just bows his head and gets more indoctrination. Poor kid, I know just how he felt. Been there, put up with that.<\/p>\n
Next we see Caleb playing alone, again, which is sadly appropriate. (Anyone who is not a JW is considered “worldly” and a bad influence, so JW kids have very few friends.) Mom is obviously disgusted that her son is being a kid and calls him to “family worship” with a stern command to first pick up his toys. (When I was being raised in the cult it was called “Family Bible Study.” It consists of studying Witness propaganda in excruciating detail.) Then comes the most entertaining and informative part of the video. We learn that JW homes are so poorly built, and in such dangerously unstable neighborhoods, that an adult slipping on a toy can case an earthquake and destroy most of what’s in the house, including the stuffed bear made of incredibly flammable gun cotton. Perhaps if daddy had gone to college he could have afforded to get his family a nicer, safer place, stocked with less dangerous toys.<\/p>\n
Caleb picks up his toys while mommy changes into a skirt for their “family worship.” (God forbid she should be comfortable in her own house.) Then she kisses him, not for doing his job, not for helping\u00c2\u00a0around\u00c2\u00a0the house, not for being considerate, but for obeying<\/em>.<\/p>\nThe primary rule in this or any other cult is “Obey!” Don’t think, don’t question, just “Obey!”<\/p>\n
The second video, “Obey Jehovah,” reveals even more about the JW cult.<\/p>\n
Is mom happy her lonely kid finally made a friend? \u00c2\u00a0Hell no. She uses it as another opportunity to browbeat and\u00c2\u00a0indoctrinate\u00c2\u00a0him. If Caleb were older and more knowledgeable the conversation could have gone like this:<\/p>\n
Mom: “Magic is bad. Jehovah hates it.”<\/p>\n
Caleb: “I know Mom. Except for turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt and tunning Aaron’s rod into a snake and making it rain frogs and blood and parting the Red Sea and making a donkey speak and knocking down the walls of Jericho and stopping earth’s rotation\u00c2\u00a0and saving Daniel in the lion’s den and Jona in the belly of the fish and Jesus curing the blind and the lame and the lepers and turning water into wine and walking on water and raising Lazarus from the dead and then being resurrected himself then floating up to heaven, and a hundred other things I left out, Jehovah hates magic.”<\/p>\n
Mom would have smacked him hard enough to break her own hand, but it would have been worth it.<\/p>\n
If Mom wasn’t a complete bitch she could have at least let Caleb return the gift to his friend, but no, that wouldn’t be devastating enough – she makes him throw it away.<\/p>\n
Posters and insta-memes of Sparlock are popping up all over Facebook, ex-JW forums and other ex-JW online communities. He even has his own Facebook fan page<\/a>. We’ll have to wait to see if this spills over into the general public and becomes a true Internet meme. It is so bad, so completely appalling, that it just might.<\/p>\nEx-cult members often warn people about the group they escaped from. Their stories can be interesting or tedious, but most folks have heard it all before so they pay scant attention. It’s far more effective when a cult does it themselves by inadvertently showing everyone just how awful it is to be sequestered in their group.<\/p>\n
Few things are as satisfying as watching evil people shoot themselves in the foot. In public. With a shotgun. \u00c2\u00a0Followed by a blowtorch. \u00c2\u00a0I wonder if they have any idea how much\u00c2\u00a0damage\u00c2\u00a0they’ve caused themselves. \u00c2\u00a0Damn, it’s fun to watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It usually requires some time and research to determine the crazy\/evil level of any particular cult, and most people don’t care enough to put in the effort. Fortunately, Jehovah’s Witnesses just made it a lot easier to assess their crazy\/evil level with the release of two cheesy videos designed to indoctrinate their children. They both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1700"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1702,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1700\/revisions\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davehitt.com\/blog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}