KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Terry

Knock Knock Knock

"Yes?"

"Good morning! My name is Joe and this is Charlie and we're in your neighborhood with a group of ministers this morning."

"Oh?"

"Charlie here is a kind of inventor. He came up with the idea of a Pyramid-powered religion and I improved on it!"

"Umm..I'm not sure I know what you mean!"

"Tell this household about your invention, Charlie!"

"Er-don't you gentlemen bother--no explanation is--"

"Hi there! I'm Charlie. Like Joe here just told you I've invented a pyramid-powered religion. By measuring the length of the passageways in the Great Pyramid of Cheops I can tell you when Jesus will return---"

"Uh-what Charlie means is--when Jesus DID return. Because, Jesus is back! Boy is he pissed! All those fake religions really gall him. But, he chose Charlie's pyramid religion for his special and exclusive throneroom operations!"

".....I hate to interrupt but I have some grocery shopping to do and....."

"Nonsense! Joe and I have all the "groceries" you'll need for everlasting life--right Joe? Ha ha ha ha ha h"

"Yep. Ha ha ha ha"

"...Gentlemen, I---"

"Hold on---we're not finished! We have a special offer just for you here today! Our religion is having a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE on absolute truth. This is in the form of obsolete religious books, pamphlets, newsletters and magazines that contradict each other on practically everything said there in!!"

"Right Charlie! This is a buttload of junk we wish to unload on the unwary householder such as yourself for a very modest price! Tell them about it Charlie."

"Stop gentlemen! I----"

"Shoosh, now--listen up. This really gets good. Here is our offer. We gurantee you everlasting life on a Paradise earth and a new perfect body if you act today! Buy our three thousand pounds of obsolete religious materials (which we call our "Witnessing Kit") and sell them to your friends and neighbors for extra revenue while insuring your safety when Jehovah's Pyramid-Powered destroyer angels start decapitating non-members."

"Joe is right--you have to act fast or the offer will expire. In fact--it has expired several times in the past! But, we won't go into that right now. Suffice it to say: WE'RE GOING OUT OF BUSINESS and you should too! If you watch TV you know Geraldo and O'Reilly only report the bad news that is everywhere. This is a "sign" that Jesus is about to kick butts and take names. Actually, we're the ones taking names.....you don't want to make our list by not participating----do you?"

"I'm going to call the police if you don't leave!"

"Ha--our kind get arrested all the time! True christians are always either in jail or in the morgue! It proves we are God's chosen ones. As a matter of fact---we are both dead right now. Does that surprise you? But--our spirit continues by the door to door work of hawking our bladerdash and crackpot End of the World warnings as Jehovah's Witnesses from house to house even today!"

"Are you insane????"

"Crazy like a fox! Ha ha ha ha Charlie here had a wife who was a real shrew who convinced him he was "god's mouthpiece" and after he died I just continued that nonsense. I applied it to our corporation with me as President eventually! That way I could write books and articles about not using aluminum cookware. It's poison ya know! No vaccinations because the germ theory is Satan's lie. Pasteurization of milk is a lie too. How do I know? Because the Lord Jehovah tells me so"

"Oh indeed, Joe, indeed! Joe here makes everybody go door to door selling his Witness Kit like a franchise. He's a genius! So--what do you say? Do you want to live forever? Millions once living who are now dead in their graves WILL NEVER DIE you know!!"

SLAM!!

"Just shake the dust from your feet, Charlie. Shake the dust from your feet. On to the next house! Let's spread the Good news like cow manure on a newly mowed lawn."

"Okay, Joe. This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship."

parakeet

Great post! Now you've described what's actually in those stale "meals on heels."
From what I've read about CTR and JFR, however, it's more likely they'd be at each other's throats and whoever came out of it alive would be the one left witnessing.

gumby

you went and forgot to offer them some Miracle Wheat before they slammed the door

ICBehindtheCurtain

Hi Terry, that was very amusing, thanks!

IC (of the Charlie and Joe were both crazy ass idiots - class)

Calliope

that was frightening.

imagine what we really sounded like to those poor householders.
sigh.

cal.

prophecor

sass_my_frass

Ha that's magnificent.

greendawn

Good illustration, the point is that the WTS are nothing but a bunch of cunning charlatans that have made a business out of religion on the basis of a several gross lies such as the invisible return of Christ the inspection of all religions and their selection as the only genuine Christian organisation.

Russell had no formal training in religion and as for Rutherford who formulated so much of the JW beliefs, he was a lawyer and since when do lawyers create religious doctrine? No wonder the dubs themselves rejected most of his writings as old light a euphemism for false doctrine. He couldn't withstand the test of time.

Terry

Russell had no formal training in religion and as for Rutherford who formulated so much of the JW beliefs, he was a lawyer and since when do lawyers create religious doctrine? No wonder the dubs themselves rejected most of his writings as old light a euphemism for false doctrine. He couldn't withstand the test of time.

The Witness family that brought me in to the (shudder) "TRUTH" were avid collectors of old Watchtower publications, books, etc.

I assumed they wanted them to read.

But, I didn't know about cognitive dissonance and how it worked back then at age 11.

Further, I now have this study in mind:

Origins and one of the first experiments testing the theory

In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1959 experiment, students were made to perform tedious and meaningless tasks, consisting of turning pegs quarter-turns, then removing them from a board, then putting them back in, and so forth. Participants rated these tasks very negatively. After a long period of doing this, students were told the experiment was over and they could leave. This is an example of an induced compliance study.
However, the experimenter then asked the subject for a small favor. They were told that a needed research assistant was not able to make it to the experiment, and the participant was asked to fill in and try to persuade another subject (who was actually a confederate) that the dull, boring tasks the subject had just completed were actually interesting and engaging. Some participants were paid $20 for the favor, another group was paid $1, and a control group was not requested to perform the favor.
When asked to rate the peg-turning tasks later, those in the $1 group rated them more positively than those in the $20 group and control group. This was explained by Festinger and Carlsmith as evidence for cognitive dissonance. Experimenters theorized that people experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions "I told some one that task was interesting", and "I actually found it boring". When paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, it is argued, had an obvious external justification for their behavior.
The researchers further speculated that with only $1, subjects faced insufficient justification and therefore "cognitive dissonance", so when they were asked to lie about the tasks, they sought to relieve this hypothetical stress by changing their attitude. This process allows the subject to genuinely believe that the tasks were enjoyable.
Put simply, the experimenters concluded that human beings, when asked to lie without being given sufficient justification, will convince themselves that the lie they are asked to tell is the truth.

LittleToe

Interesting Terry, both the story and the article on cognative dissonance.

Looks like the WTS might have made a mistake when they stopped getting their "Publishers" to charge 25p for the magazines.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Origins and one of the first experiments testing the theory

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