The Dangers of Independent Thinking

by daystar 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  LongHairGal

  HEREIAM60:

  Good story. You mentioned that pioneer brother became ‘pushy and intrusive into your personal life’. He also suggested you ‘changing employment so as to be free for all meetings and field service’🤣.. And then gasping at the thought you wanted to be independent, was so absurd. This was all so similar to my story when I got involved with the Witnesses decades ago.

  Looking at it all today as somebody long Out, I realize just how ridiculous the JWs suggestions were back then: so out of touch with reality.. Anybody looking for employment like that wouldn’t be able to get it much less keep a job! But, the Witnesses weren’t looking out for my welfare! I had to do that myself and so I just ignored anything they said pertaining to my employment, which was none of their business anyway!
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  hoser

  One old elder said as he was conducting a watchtower study about independent thinking.

  He said independent thinkers think their way out of the truth.

  The audience laughed

  True story
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  Vanderhoven7

  Dawana writes:

  Because independent thinking means that you're not following blindly to what the governing body tells you to think. They don't want you questioning what they tell you, and they don't want you talking to others and putting questions in other people's heads.

  

  
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  LongHairGal

  HOSER:

  Without meaning to, that old elder made the Witness religion look bad when he said: “independent thinkers think their way out of the ‘truth’”.

  If somebody is able to think their way out of any so-called ‘truth’, it must’ve been pretty flimsy to start with!

  In my case, I didn’t really have to think too hard about anything. It was a gut punch feeling at a Sunday meeting when a WT article was being read and discussed. So, in the end unchristian treatment topped by a changed major teaching (1995) did it for me.
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  Sea Breeze

  It's funny how the WT demonizes learning how to think, while educators spend a lot of time trying to get people to do just the opposite, learn the skill.

  
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  Vidiot

  I distinctly remember the moment I realized that the WTS didn’t really want me to think too much.

  I actually felt a measure of despair, because I practically lived in my own head.

  The prospect of being intellectually hamstrung for God knows how long (if not forever) was depressing AF.