because we're the "We Say So" corporation

rockhound

If the Watchtower says that up is down, up becomes down. The loyal witness makes the mental switch because the "We Say So" corporation says so. This is relativism in its purest form; and it does not serve truth. Under relativism, the familiar points of reference such as up and down, black and white, lose their traditional, reality-based meaning. They become whatever the organization proclaims them to be.

The atmosphere of indifference and apathy that prevail in the organization is no accident. The average witness mind is programmed to accept the "Official" Watchtower version of events without consideration of any and all contradictory evidence. Injustice becomes Justice, Lies become Truth, Hate is called Love.

An unwillingness to confront the evidence, and thus the inability to come to rational decisions based upon verifiable facts, become a major hurtle for all of us that try to reason, with those we love, that are still being spoonfed by the society.

Question: How have some of you finally cracked the nut, and gotten past the "Wall" of fear with your relatives?

ROCKHOUND

SickofLies

The idea that those in the origination subscribe to relativism is true only in a very local sense. They don’t fit in the usual definition that all other points of view are equally valid. Here’s a definition of relativism to make my point more clear:
Although there are many different kinds of relativism, they all have two features in common.
1) They all assert that one thing (e.g. moral values, beauty, knowledge, taste, or meaning) is relative to some particular framework or standpoint (e.g. the individual subject, a culture, an era, a language, or a conceptual scheme).
2) They all deny that any standpoint is uniquely privileged over all others.
They fit the first point perfectly but reject the second. It was relativism and modernism that brought about fundamentalist belief systems like the JW’s in the first place.
As far as dealing with family members, well, I’m still working on it.

VM44

A case of Orwellian "DoubleThink"? --VM44

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

Carmel

Is being shunned by your family a JW form of "relativism"?

carmel

A Paduan

I have noticed that many here believe that discourse on text taken out of context is pivotal to jw misinformation - but I think that more basic is the altered definition of words - how can discourse be meaningful when black is white to one party (or maybe not at another time) ?

The barrier to meaningful discourse with jwism begins at single words, and this is more difficult to overcome than conversing with those who speak a wholly foreign language, because in regard to jwism they are utilising the same word sound with different meaning. Jealousy is envy, envy is covetousness, worship is paying homage, and on it goes - and there is use of strange meaning altering adjectives like 'undeserved kindness' or 'unconditional love' - as if kindness can be something else, or indeed love something else.

Their lives are directed by reading directions from a book while using a different language to read it with - confusion is hardly avoidable.

paduan