why me wrote:Cylon wrote:
Wow. You take one little comment where you know nothing about the context, and since you don't understand it, you immediately assume that he can't be telling the truth. Classy.
Cwald went to church and was treated nicely by the members last sunday. So, I really don't understand how one can leave a church because of one's immediate family not understanding his inactivity when the members are nice to him.
It is a little confusing.
Darth J wrote:
Well, see, Why Me, to some people, Mormonism is a religion, not just a social group. And when those kinds of people sincerely believe that the Church is true, and then find out that the truth claims of the LDS Church cannot be supported by fact or reason, it sort of diminishes their interest in maintaining loyalty to the organization.
Hare Krishnas are generally very nice people, Why Me. I'm totally serious; they are. So why don't you join their religion and pledge your devotion to Krishna? People being nice to you makes their religious dogma true, right?
And what is more, the Bhagavad Gita has never been proved false. There may be a few bitter ex-Krishnites on some message boards, but they are denying the spiritual witness they received and left because they couldn't meet the high standards of the Church.
Do you recognise the bitter tone of the apostate, whyme? ... as the time came when I become more determined to leave the community a former member of our monastery was beginning to make movements to again take up the practice of Krishna consciousness. I can't recall if I told the story already, but one day I was on Google Chat, and he started to talk to me about how he was preparing to meet up with our Guru to discuss things. I knew he was hoping for my encouragement, and I felt such heavy irony in the fact that I was only days away from leaving Krishna consciousness behind just as he was entering again.
We've never really discussed his original reasons for leaving Krishna consciousness, personally I'm not willing to speculate. But I what I can say is that the community reacts in a very specific way whenever devotees do leave the community. How they react is that they construct their own explanations as to why devotees have left. This serves to shift any possible blame away from the pristine and amazing leadership, camaraderie, facility and training which they have been offered, and instead places the blame 100% on the shoulders of the person exiting the community. In every case that I witnessed of a person leaving the Krishna consciousness community this is exactly the response I have witnessed. And this served as a constant retaining mechanism for the community.
To begin with, it serves to dismiss any claims brought by an exiting devotee. They weren't honest about their motives, they weren't willing to work on themselves, they hide aspects of their lives, and this resulted in them leaving. As a result, whatever statements they have to make about their experience within the community is likely fictional, a creation of their own minds, bewildered by illusion. This also serves to contain the impacts of those who leave. Their departure can now easily be explained and dismissed without further investigation. And finally, it serves to create a sense of fear amongst the community, as devotees worry "I wonder what they would say about me if I left?"
Or maybe all religions of a certain type use the same tactics to discourage members leaving?