Jan 1st WT: Reaching out, Higher Education and Providing for one's needs

by truthseeker 70 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Pistoff

  The longer I fade, the more I realize that the world of the devout witness is one of nearly complete UNREALITY.

  The unreality is created by the fundamentalist teachings of the GB, tightly controlled by the GB, the CO's, DO's, and the local elders.

  In this alternate reality:

  Loving elders question young people about what underwear they were wearing before a sex act;

  Loving elders ask a woman who was raped what underwear SHE was wearing, and did she scream?

  Loving elders ask 6 year old children to confront their accused sexual abusers; they publish books that show a 6 year old girl holding her hand up in refusal to a father/uncle/babysitter who wants to sexually abuse her;

  Going to college is viewed as being selfish, greedy and materialistic. This does not prevent much groveling to those who make good money off their college degree.

  We view all nations as Satan's, but also quote Paul when he says that they are God's minister for our good.

  We alone think that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607, when the entire world believes it was 586/587.

  We don't believe in reincarnation, but believe that God will put our memories in a different physical body when we are resurrected!

  HOW can we think that they will see the reality of needing college??? They think 2 WITNESSES to child sexual abuse is NECESSARY, and biblical, and good policy.

  The GB is losing control of the young and the quick adapters in the organization. These people can READ, they can solve problems and they have learned to gather information quickly that would have taken our parents years, going to libraries, etc.

  Colleges teach people to think critically; colleges are places where the decency and morality of most people is obvious.

  These are very dangerous things to a tightly controlled cult.

  [Jehovah's witnesses live in a world perfectly symbolized by a movie called The Village. In it, a completely farcical belief system is perpetrated in order to keep the peace, but the young ones believe it even after they learn it is a farce. Welcome to my world.]

  Back to college: at the very next WT I attend that discusses college, I am going to offer the comment that 50% of the jobs in the Sunday paper are off limits to people without a degree of some sort; many companies do not require a specific degree, they just want to know you can focus on a long term goal and see it through.

  I never learned this skill; I have focused on 2 year windows, 5 at the longest. I really believed the WT when it said in 1969 that it would be months before Armageddon; all my family, friends and influences in the congregation did as well. 3 elders in my hall quit their jobs to pioneer; my mother quit her job and sold her house!! I am doing better now, but after realizing I could not be an active witness and keep my sanity, I felt lost and mentally unprepared to even be alive and in "this system" so long after 1975, 1994, etc. My mind said to me: what now? Why is everything still going?

  SO to the writers at headquarters, I offer this: In the next article on college, offer us a vow that you will NOT show a preference for candidates for Bethel who have had college, and then we can discuss this again.

  F**KERS.
• 

  LDH

  Back to college: at the very next WT I attend that discusses college, I am going to offer the comment that 50% of the jobs in the Sunday paper are off limits to people without a degree of some sort; many companies do not require a specific degree, they just want to know you can focus on a long term goal and see it through.

  Pistoff truer word never been spoken.

  I will also offer the observation that the 'trades' that you are supposed to learn in trade school ARE HEAVILY BIASED towards jobs that traditionally belong to men. How many women do you know that are dying to get their HVAC certification or Plumber's apprenticeship? I have to wonder if this is not intentional. When much-too-young JW sister marries Dudley-do-right and he earns most of the money in the family, she learns her place quickly.

  College is about learning who you are away from Mommy and Daddy. All of this bull crap in the article about "Mother kept a tight rein on me." this is repulsive.

  No we all know the JW has spies here, and they had to know we would catch on to it. Why would they regurgitate such garbage? Because they operate based on fear--and many of the rank and file fear the internet. But that is changing, thankfully.

  Lisa
• 

  Pistoff

  I will also offer the observation that the 'trades' that you are supposed to learn in trade school ARE HEAVILY BIASED towards jobs that traditionally belong to men.

  What does the WT care about women? I have no opinion on the sexuality of current leadership, but the existence of 2 homosexuals on the GB is common knowledge now, and was then among bethelites. THEY did not need women, that's for sure. Here is a heartbreaking reality of the WT: 50% of the brain power is UNUSED. Women have as much to offer in the area of leadership and counseling, maybe more. The WT just throws them away, content to see them as a "large army". UGH.

  [The WT embraces the OT/NT view of women; though they don't deny that women will reign as kings and priests in the "new order", that doesn't mean they can carry microphones now, eh? Yikes. Face it, we are not that far removed from the time that the WT spoke of women as creatures completey ruled by their hormones. I see that as much more true of MEN than women; testosterone flows non stop.]

  Here is the other wakeup about trades: I made a great living in the trades, my wife was able to stay home and raise children; really work at home because raising kids and maintaining house and home is much harder than working outside the home. BUT: That is changing in the US due to immigrant labor: as far north as I am the trades are filling up with cheap mexican labor. They do a good job too; this is not a slur. But the reality is that young people may NOT be able to make a living wage in the trades.

  Why even go over all this? It is just too obvious to non witnesses. The reality is colleges require at least on course on critical thinking, or comparative religion, or both. Either one will destroy the thin ice of WT theology.
• 

  LDH

  Pistoff--did you see the ad for Testosterone cream at the bottom. LOL.

  Anyhow, these articles will also be read around the world where women who are just beginning to have the opportunities for education that men have--need it the least.
• 

  ICBehindtheCurtain

  Pistoff - VERY WELL SAID! Yes the GB members live in their own private sanctuary, and expect everyone on the outside to hold up to their standards, I'de like to see them out here, try to follow the Crap they preach while trying to make a living for their families if they had one, they would be on prozac and any other anti-depressive out there so quickly it would make your head spin.

  IC
• 

  rmt1

  Ah, Pistoff cracked open a pithoi of worms. Here in Tucson, Arizona, the state that has the least Federal funding for immigration control, the rate of illegal immigration is the highest. Pregnant illegal immigrants who cross the finish line bear U.S. citizens who, in the past 30 years, has produced a huge community of very legal and very hard working people who have higher mental endurance, lower ex$pectations (hegemonic, I acknowledge), close social networks, and increasingly pre-installed bilingual preference. If there’s a cracker male JW in Tucson who does not know Spanish when he hits his first McDonalds at 15, and does not already have a life-long tinkering bug that can be converted to a serious trade, he’s going to be scratching just to get a shot at the least desirable of the cleaning jobs. These people work terrifyingly hard (terrifying, that is, when you know you are soooooo close to being their direct competitors – my inadequacy syndromes coming through here) – just seeing the shit they put up with behind a fast food counter is enough to keep me up till 4am getting this cosmically stupid piece of paper.
  
  And for the JW brass reading this, who think that you can smugly look through your little pantoptical police one-way mirror and not be seen, but get a jolt up your spine when the perp like on a really good episode of Law and Order: SVU looks you right in the eye, I would like to request that in the next Watchtower you include a discussion of the Roman patria potestas, the idea of the uber-irresistible centrality of the oldest male of the family, who had the power of life or death even over his son of 40, 50 years old, and whose son of such age was still not permitted to conduct significant or material transactions without the old geezer’s express permission, because of the uber centrality of the estate. Please also include a discussion on the slave rebellion of Sicily, which stemmed from the fact that Pheonician pirates had snatched tons of educated Greeks from the Aegean and sold them to plantation owners on Sicily, and, oddly enough, for many years, these educated people inconceivably just could not fathom why they did not instantly en masse up and off every inhumane plantation owner. Then they did.
• 

  Bonnie_Clyde

  This may sound like another subject, but it's not.

  Two Mormon boys have been stopping by to see Clyde (my husband) and they actually started having Mormon discussions with him. I sat in on one of them and asked them what they thought about higher education. One said he planned to become a dentist after he finished his two-year ministry. The other planned something similar (can't remember).

  It seems like the Mormon church (at least in our area) is growing and that they are keeping their young people. On the one hand, perhaps they are staying because they are allowed to go to college. On the other hand, you would think that being taught to think critically in college would make them question their Mormon beliefs. Maybe it was just me, but very little of what they said made any sense.

  Your thoughts?

  Bonnie
• 

  diamondblue1974

  It seems like the Mormon church (at least in our area) is growing and that they are keeping their young people. On the one hand, perhaps they are staying because they are allowed to go to college. On the other hand, you would think that being taught to think critically in college would make them question their Mormon beliefs. Maybe it was just me, but very little of what they said made any sense.

  
  

  
  As much as my personal belief is that Mormons are another cult or high control group I have to admire the fact that they encourage their youths to go to College and they have (from my experience) a culture whereby their members are allowed to excel in anything they wish as well as preaching.

  JW's focus everything on being better ministers salespeople and they leave no room for anything else.

  DB74
• 

  greendawn

  The cultic hypocrisy of this organisation becomes very evident here. When was it that the WTS supported financially any needy old JWs that had faithfully served its interests for decades during their youth?
  
  And that's an org that plays not with millions but with billions of dollars, extremely wealthy and it became so by the donations and unpaid work of its deceived and exploited members.
  
  Enter the age old babylonian trick "you are really working for jehovah not the WTS and it is he that will reward you in due course". Needless to say that jehovah as they call him does not underwrite this fraudulent sect.
• 

  Mary

  Elsewhere said: Or perhaps even more insidiously, the WTS does know that this being used by faders and is about to perform a purge based on this litmus test… if the person is not willing to give up the job or education that is supposedly resulting in missed meetings, the person will be marked as “spiritually week” and socially ostracized in an informal manner.

  This has been going on for ages. Several years ago, our CO gave elders who missed meetings because of shiftwork two choices: either give up your job or your position as an elder. He deleted anyone who refused to obey him and even gave talks from the platform on whether or not we should associate with those who are "spiritually weak." And in my area, anyone who sends their kids off to university is automatically viewed as either "prideful", "materialistic", "spiritually weak" and any other derogetory name you can think of. The next step would be to make going to university a disfellowshipping offence. While that might seem unlikely and extreme from where we sit today, I'm sure Bible Students in 1920 never imagined that celebrating Christmas, smoking or believing that Jesus died on a cross would ever be considered disfellowshipping offenses yet we know all too well that they are today. I'm sure the Governing Body has already toyed with this idea and has probably put it on the back burner for now. However, if the R&F continue to "disobey" them, by either attending university or letting their kids go, then they might feel that the only way they can curb this "independent thinking" is by strickly forbidding it on pain of disfellowshipment. Anyone think they're not capable of doing this?

  It seems like the Mormon church (at least in our area) is growing and that they are keeping their young people. On the one hand, perhaps they are staying because they are allowed to go to college. On the other hand, you would think that being taught to think critically in college would make them question their Mormon beliefs.

  While the Mormons are just as much a cult as the Witnesses with some of their wacky beliefs and doctrines, there's a big difference: Mormons don't insist that their members attend FIVE meetings a week. As far as preaching goes, only the men do it and it's only for 2 or 3 years. And as far as I know, they don't have to get 10 hours in every month. Mormons are encouraged to make the most of their lives by attending colleges and universities which enable them to be very successful, which of course, means the Church gets more cha-ching, because the Mormons still Tithe. I'm sure alot of Mormons do question their beliefs, but perhaps they feel that as long as they can make something of themselves, they don't care too much about the doctrines. Witnesses of course are discouraged from making anything of their lives and to completely ignore any natural talent you might have. The never-ending cycle of studying for meetings, attending meetings, reading all the literature, preparing for Service, going out in Service, going to ASSemblies, is a big turn off for many. When you add the brow-beating of never doing enough, WT studies that scorn higher education and the never-ending guilt, it's no surprise that the Mormons are growing faster than the Witnesses.