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In Reply to: Some thoughts on your food for thought posted by Donny on October 16, 2002 at 21:36:37:
"If all you did was tithe to the group, you helped perpetrate the abuses of the group."
Why stop there? If all you did was give them a donation on the street you helped teach them that it was OK to rip you off.
If all you did was talk to them you encouraged them to carry on trying to convert people and win disciples.
So all that reasoning is crap as far as I'm concerned.
I give to beggars. I give to beggars, even when they look like heroin addicts.
I gave to this one addict lady for years. whenever she got on the subway begging. Nobody else did. She looked deathly ill like each time I saw her might be the last. People beside me gave me angry looks because I talked to her. Finally someone said, "don't you know she's going to take your money and buy drugs with it?" I said, "maybe, maybe not. It's just a couple of dollars, she might buy a meal with it. If she chooses to abuse my generosity, that's between her and God. I don't need to know. I gave from my heart." Well she stopped showing up on the subways and I actually missed that skin and bones lady. But one fine day I saw her all dressed up and looking healthy waiting for a train. So I went to talk to her, and she said, "Thank you! You were always nice to me. You gave me hope. You respected me as a human being. I was always glad to get something from you, because each time you gave I made a choice. But the way you were so friendly and sincere, I knew I shouldn't misuse your money. I started buying food. You made me eat again. FInally I decided to get some help to kick my habit. Now I'm on my way to a job interview. I hope I get that job! Thank you so much for getting me started on a new life!"
I can't tell you how much I cried tears of joy, and how happy I was to know I'd done the right thing, that I'd actually had a hand in helping her change her life!
Well then I remembered what it was like when I had to litness and busk to feed my kids, to pay the rent. It was either make enough or your wife went a whorin'. Some people rightfully gave me looks of suspicion. A few others were nice to me. I was just like the addict lady.
There were many times I said to myself, no way am I gonna cheat these nice people of their money, I will either do what I'm saying I use the money for or I am a fake and I must get out of this group.
The argument about "tithing equals supporting the crimes" might be true only if the people tithing really knew that abuses were being ordered from the top and they continued to tithe to them.
For that knowlege and awareness and thus accountability, there has to be normal thinking and judgement. But why do we hear over and over again that normal thinking and judgement were suspended? Many SGA's will debunk theories of brainwashing, because they simply believe FGA's were a lot more accountable than they want to admit.
For me, and I am sure I speak for many, there was a gradual awakening. I realized things one step at a time. At first these truths couldn't take hold, because I'd been taught to suspend and discard them as doubts of the enemy. I wasn't aware of abuses at the top, till I read letters like the Last State. But by then I was already out in my heart, just waiting for the right opportunity to leave.
It was only after coming to ex-member sites that I discovered there were wide-spread abuses. But how, pray tell me how on earth, could I have known what was really going on when my only sources of information were from F. publications?
Was I naïve? Couldn't I simply guess it was as bad as it really was after a while, after the first encounters with something wierd or wrong or abusive? Well, to that all I can say is, HELL YES I WAS NAÏVE! That's why I talked to them and bought into their ideas that I could help others and at the same time be part of this elite special group of end-time true followers and representatives of the almighty God.
So I bought into it. So I allowed myself to be deceived. But the point is, I was deceived, and that's why I gave and gave. When I was able to understand I was deceiving myself, I stopped giving.
And now, a final punch line.
Why the hell would anybody want to subscribe to a magazine put out by a group they actually already know perpetrates abuses, such as abandoned single mothers without care or aid, messed up SGAs without job skills and education, and more?
Beats me.
