What the hell are they thinking?

by JeffT 22 Replies latest jw friends

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  JeffT

  A couple of threads about recent Watchtower articles as made me wonder what they're thinking when they are writing them for a magazine that is supposed to be for preaching purposes. I tried to put myself in the mind of somebody that didn't know much about Jehovah's Witnesses. The stuff on weddings would have been weird at best, and the recent articles aimed at parents whose children leave the WT must strike normal people as down right creepy. I'm sure there have been others. I know there was one a while back about kids that died refusing blood transfusions.

  These can't possibly have any appeal to anybody outside the cult, and an editor in charge of magazine SHOULD be trying to think about his target audience.

  I can only conclude that the intended target audience is other JW's. If true, that means that the top brass has effectively abandoned the preaching work. The real intent of field service then becomes keeping the R&F in line, not making converts, or even "preaching the good news of Jehovah's Kingdom." They could accomplish the same thing by telling everyone they have to stand in a corner for ten hours a month to be saved.

  This is reflected in the dismal numbers being reported. A business that experiences a 1% growth in a year knows that it is in trouble and starts doing things to fix it. The WTBS shows no sign whatsoever of changing its ways.
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  FlyingHighNow

  Did you ever tell someone "worldly" a Watchtower policy, say on shunning, blood issue or the like, and know that it must sound ludicrous to them? Example: telling your neighbor about some teenaged girl who just was disfellowshipped for getting pregnant. Explaining the shunning policy and how her family has thrown her out of the house. Then the neighbor looks very troubled and tells you that is when she figures a teenagerwould need her friends and family the most.

  That kind of poignant moment, several of those kinds of moments really, added up and tipped the scale, not in favor of the WTBTS, for me.
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  Honesty

  In my line of work we call it DAMAGE CONTROL.

  Everything the Wacktower prints now is designed to keep its victims in the cult.
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  jambon1

  I have thought this myself after reading the material you mentioned. It is astounding. I concur with the poster who said that the look of disbelief on a worldly person face was enough to make me think seriously about the kind of utter bullshit I was parroting from the WTS. When you are not trying to defend the beliefs or you take a look at things outside the box, the whole religion is just, well, creepy!
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  Outaservice

  I think the non'JW's that read the WATCHTOWER has to be a very small number. Heck, most of the JW's don't really read it, often offering it in the door to door work when they themselves don't have a clue what the articles are about.

  For the ones that do read it................it becomes a Talmud of Watchtower current rules and interpretations to keep the troops in line. What a 'boring' rag the magazine is!

  Outaservice
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  Mary

  I agree Jeff, and I was thinking the exact same thing when I read the article on shunning your kids when they step out of line. I thought "If I were a 'worldly' person, I'd be thinking "who would want to join a religion where I'd be forced to shun my own relatives?"

  And they wonder why there's zero percent growth in half the countries of the world.
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  cyberdyne systems 101

  Its so true - when I was a JW i'd be embarresed to admit certain things to people, because in all honesty it didnt make sense to me when I was saying it to 'worldy' people. Once back in the box (among fellow JW's - it all made sense again). Now i've left all that I am happy to tell people about that past, because I can now agree that it was so much BS.

  CS 101
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  smellsgood

  ummm, everything in the magazines is creepy to an outsider I have to say.
  
  To me anyways. More than anything, the pictures, just so incredibly bizarre. It reminds me so much of Camazotz from "A Wrinkle in Time" creepy, weird, creeeeeeeeepy!
  
  And I've never held an "Awake" in my hands, but it seems like they do funky articles like "Anorexia: Starving for love; Why don't they eat more?"
  
  It would be hysterical if they had a special Awake! every year titled "Jehovah's Witnesses : Best and Worst Dressed Service Year ----"
  
  Now THAT I would want to see lol!
  
  The best p. 1-1.5
  The Worst p. 1.5-389
  The God-Awful p.389-700
  
  I hope nobody is offended that I think they generally dress HIDEOUSLY!
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  OnTheWayOut

  Someone had a thread that discussed the majority of Awake! cover articles:

  World Hunger: Will it ever end?
  Child Labor: Will it ever end?
  Pollution: Will it ever end?
  Over Population: Will it ever end?
  Homelessness: Will it ever end?

  You get the idea. Sometimes it said "Is there a solution?"
  The solution is always to destroy the majority of Mankind.
  Then of course, the tiny population left will not have these problems.
  If people read into those articles, why would they accept that solution?
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  Mary

  Someone had a thread that discussed the majority of Awake! cover articles: World Hunger: Will it ever end?
  Child Labor: Will it ever end?
  Pollution: Will it ever end?
  Over Population: Will it ever end?
  Homelessness: Will it ever end?

  Oh man, could we ever make some interesting articles based on the Borg using OntheWayOut's formula above:

  False Prophecying: Will it ever end? 5 Meetings a Week: Will it ever end? Saturday Morning Service: Will it ever end? Special Day Assemblies: Will it ever end? Murdering victims through refusal of blood transfusions: Will it ever end? Villifying Beards and Tatooes: Will It Ever End? The CO's Visit: Will It Ever End?