"If you participate in activity X it will leave less time for spiritual activities"
This I think is a false "or" type of fallacy. As if our choices are a matter of choosing between non-spiritual or spiritual activities exclusively. Can't we glorify the Lord in all our activities? Aren't we given talents for a reason? Shouldn't we develop them with our Creator's glory and not our own in mind? Do our activities have to meet a schedule? Can't we move our "spiritual" activities around to accomodate our "worldy" activities?
Is our spirituality ONLY developed when we participate in organization defined activities? Of course a Christian benefits from association with other believers, but we were only admonished by Paul not to "forsake" these associations. For all you jw's out there, the word forsake means "to give up entirely". Forsake does not mean missing one of five meetings.
Another tack might be argumentum ad absurdum (or something like that, I don't speak Latin). The idea here, is that you could argue that since the wt presents our choices as strictly between spiritual, and non-spiritual, shouldn't we be reading, studying, going out in service, attending meetings all times when we are not eating, sleeping, or earning a living!!! Don't want to get killed at Armageddon!!! I would love to see my 12yr old keep that up.
Background FYI, this comes up because I am trying to make sure my kids don't get only the wt version of a university education. What a bunch of crap that was!!! I think all ubm's have to make sure to present a quick alternative view to their children anytime there is something stated that we don't agree with, or are not convinced is true. Help 'em out! Give them a different perspective!
CYP