Posted by Acheick on January 06, 2004 at 23:17:21
In Reply to: Re: the truth!!! posted by Michael on January 05, 2004 at 09:56:22:
How can you be "in" and be left to live a life making "free" decisions. That's an illusion to think that anyone "in" TF really has any rights to make any free decisions. If so, why must they be reminded or told that they are free? No, in fact, they are not free because even with the charter there are so many rules and regulations and spiritual boundaries placed on the members that they have very little chance to think on their own. They lie to their own members telling them they are so "free now."
And really, what is true freedom but to be able to cultivate and gather information from many and all sources and decide what one wants to believe. My experience in TF and out is that there is a real restriction on what one is able to read or believe in TF whereas once one is out, the world is open and there is so much to learn and digest from. Because of that one fact, one's view of the world and life is very distorted to say the least. After all, in TF you have to read Maria letters over and over and digested Berg quotes and believe them as if they are fact. I don't have to do that anymore, thank God.
Then there's the next generation. I've had some in my home, and this was after the charter, where they had to stop whatever they were doing 5 times a day and get together to name whatever they are thankful for at the moment. Do you think everyone "wants" to do that? How would they know, they have not had a chance to decide for themselves because it was an edict sent out from the top. Then I noticed they couldn't go anywhere or do anything outside of the home comfortably because they were so used to being told what to do and living according to someone else's schedule. Once left on their own, they were lost as to how to make any decisions. I don't know about you, but I find that appalling and extremely sad. How disempowering to the individual and how sad that you cannot see that.
Though it is true that there are a lot of atrocities and injusticies in the world (wasn't that we joined TF in the first place?), however, at least there are recourses that one can make use of to counteract them. In TF, there is only a leadership chain that is full of holes as you even described yourself and inexperienced people placed in positions they should never have been allowed to have, with little to go by except Berg and maria letters that are so off the mark they more damage than good. Instead, these abusers in TF are allowed to carry on as usual and even end up in leadership positions themselves. You'd hardly find that happening "in the world" unless someone was lying through their teeth. The problem in TF, is that it's all done in the open with no shame and there is no recourse for someone who has been wronged.