Some one or something to fear #3 Cases, folks and outing

Fear to use a name of a ghost, person or group

5. Fear from knowing previous cases

Ghost fear (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

It is not always from personal history that a person learns to fear. Regardless of whether they themselves have experienced trauma, or if they have observed the fear in others, people are aware in what happens in others and anticipate in what could happen to them when they know what happened to others in a similar situation. History has brought forth that people know how many people were teased, pestered, tormented and even killed for their love of God. Often they become worried to be put in an embarrassing situation if they would mention God or His Name. Their conscience pricks them, not having pangs of conscience, but more of the fear to become confronted with something others do not like, or would not find it ‘cool.’

6. Coming out

They should better have an uneasy conscience why they do not like to come out for those things they do believe. Because as a follower of Christ we should have a beautiful example in what Jesus did for his faith and for those people who even did not like him.

Christ the Saviour (Pantokrator), a 6th-century encaustic icon from Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai. NB – slightly cut down – for full size see here (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nobody wants to be a figure of fun or made a fool of, and often it is not easy to be able to take a bit of teasing surely when we know that it easily can take on the form of bullying and going to worse.

Also to fear to be associated with loonies, conservatives, fools or lunatics or with associations or groups which are not so much liked in society.

For this reason several priests and preachers do not dare to use the Name of God. In the fifties we still could find Roman Catholic Bibles with the name Yehowah printed in it. But when a group of lay street-preachers started to put the attention more on God then on his son Jesus and the Church institutions, the Institutions themselves felt taken under fire, and wanted to bring it forth that those people using the name Jehovah were the children of the devil. But then they themselves could not use the same name as those ‘dangerous’ objectors. The growing Jehovah Witnesses became a formidable or fearsome adversary. The church institutions wanted to get rid of this opponent which tried to open the eyes of the unknowing parishioners. According to the Catholic Churches people should not read the Bible because they are not able to understand it. But now those common folk tried to get others to understand that anybody could find the Truth in the Word of God, the Bible.

7. Dangerous folks

Many institutions tried to bring a hate feeling for those ‘dangerous’ people of Jehovah, who had to be avoided at all costs. The fact that those Witnesses also dared to call at the door at the most awkward moments of the day did not make them very popular. That they also showed up at the worst moments was not in their favour. Therefore it was not difficult to have them become a subject of laughter and of hate mails.

According to several studies, when individuals are presented with fearful vs. neutral faces or being confronted with figures clothed in a certain way this triggersthe occipital cerebellar regions including the fusiform gyrus and the inferior parietal / superiortemporal gyri.[1]A fear is created by the looks of the persons. Everybody can see the Jehovah Witnesses from far away. (We probably do not have to have a picture here.)

The cognitive, and behavioural components make that several people come in to a psychological and physiological state whereby they produce worry going into anxiety, angst or in the worst case terror. The Jehovah Witnesses were considered a hazard. Nobody wanted to risk the loss of their members to such an association were everybody seemed so close to each other.They even considered the others in the group as brothers and sisters. That would make such a close relation that they would do a lot to help and protect each other.  It would be more difficult to get them away from the group than when they would stay just some individuals in a community. To make the fear greater for those people the churches found it best to say that those Witnesses of Jehovah were not only the adversaries of faith but also a dangerous sect or cult which would make that families would be broken up.

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[1] Radua,Joaquim; Phillips, Mary L.; Russell, Tamara; Lawrence, Natalia; Marshall,Nicolette; Kalidindi, Sridevi; El-Hage, Wissam; McDonald, Colm et al. (2010).”Neural response to specific components of fearful faces in healthy andschizophrenic adults”. NeuroImage 49 (1): 939–946. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.08.030. PMID 19699306.

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Additional reading:

1. 7000 to 20000 words spoken each day
2. Darkness, light, burning fire, Truth and people in it
3. Greatest single cause of atheism
4. Breathing and growing with no heir
5. Facing disaster fatigue
6. Fear knocked at the door
7. 8 fears caused by the fear of Man
8. Walking alone?
9. Fearing the right person
10. Fear and protection
11. Anxiety is the gap between the now and the later
12. Vile language and behaviour plus little secrets
13. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #4 Mozaic and Noachide laws
14. Condemnation of the World and Illustration of Justification
15. Fear not tomorrow. God is already there
16. Do not be afraid. Good news because a Saviour has been born
17. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #2 Calling upon the Name of God
18. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #1 Prosperity
19. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #3 Rejoicing in the insistence
20. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #8 Prayer #6 Communication and manifestation
21. I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late !
22. Look for your Refuge by God
23. Praying For What We Want or Don’t Want
24. Prophets making excuses
25. Would You Run?
26. Control and change
27. When discouraged facing opposition
28. Only the contrite self, sick of its pretensions, can find salvation
29. Try driving forward instead of backwards
30. Be strong and take courage
31. A small trouble is like a pebble
32. Look for today
33. Rejoicing in the day
34. Give your worries to God
35. God is Positive
36. God Feeds The Birds
37. God become master of our passions
38. No fear in love
39. Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
40. Wondering
41. Eternal Word that tells everything
42. Power in the life of certain
43. Being sure of their deliverance
44. Jehovah’s Witnesses not only group that preach the good news
45. Focus on Jehovah’s Witnesses
46. Focus on Charles Taze Russell
47. Charles Taze Russell never claimed to have found a new religion, or a new church.
48. Bringing Good News into the world
49. A small company of Jesus’ footstep follower
50. Follower of Jesus part of a cult or a Christian
51. Those who call the Christadelphians a cult
52. Breaking up with a cult
53. Being religious has benefits even in this life

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