I just watched this video about the watchtower view of education at the end of the 1960's, when they were looking forward to the "end" coming in 1975. They haven't changed their attitude much either, from what I've read of late
Why go to schooll if you are a jw?
by fullofdoubtnow 6 Replies latest jw friends
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Gill
Oh Linda! Funny how those childhood JW memories bring an ache to my heart. All the time I was in school during the late 60's, 70's and early 80's, no matter how much praise or success I had, I never appreciated it. I always thought those A grades were useless as Armageddon was coming....wasn't it?
My parents were constantly telling me not to read, not to study, beating me about my head with my A level books and screaming at me to stop, because.....Armageddon is coming.....isn't it!?
So I surrendered! The white flag went up and I married, happily, my childhood sweetheart. With him, and the children we have had, I have no regrets. But, what could have been, what I could have done, what I could have learnt, .....so many opportunities turned to dust.
But, not to be negative...... I will soon, have time to start my education again, and have some other successes in life.
I am at the moment trying to help, indirectly and annonymously, a couple of young JW girls who have had ambitions, took their A levels, wanted to go to University but just not been allowed to by their fanatical, Armageddon obsessed parents. One has been pushed into pioneering and works for 10 hours a week in a shop, the other is being forced into an arranged marriage to a divorced JW who already has a couple of children. She does NOT love this man and DOES NOT want to marry him but feels she has no choice as she is not even financially independent from her parents at age 21 as she has only been allowed to work part time!
The abuse of young JWs goes on as we speak.
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blondie
This back-fired on them. I had several female JW "friends" that quit school and when 1975 came and went had to go back to school and get their diploma or GED so they could get a decent job to help support their burgeoning family. Some men and women were viewed as "financial leeches" on the congregation because they couldn't support themselves and didn't seem motivated to go back to school, not that the WTS or the congregation were going to help.
Too many men coming up the ranks without the administrative skills needed to run the congregations. Why do you think the fawn over the ones that come in with higher education and advance them so quickly; the only thing that makes better catnip to these elder cats is money, money, money, rich people to kiss their shoes, rings, rears, whatever.
Blondie
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garybuss
Why can't the Watch Tower Corporation allow the Jehovah's Witness people the same behavior and outlook that the Society takes? The Society preaches the end is imminent but they plan and invest and build like it is never coming. That'd be a good way for the Witness people to live.
The Society is asking the Witness people to do something the Society isn't willing to do themselves when the Society asks the Witness people not to be rational and pragmatic and plan for the long future.
Get an education, work hard, make a lot of surplus money, save, invest, plan for the worst. For the Witnesses, the worst would be living to be 90 and dying. Plan for it, they don't have to believe it will happen. Witnesses buy fire insurance on their houses and collision insurance on their cars without believing their house will burn down or they will be in a car wreck. Same thing!
There's such a wide spread between what the Watch Tower Corporation tells the Witness people to do and what the Society does itself, it's like they are on opposite rims of the Grand Canyon.
The Society used to be able to keep their own behaviors and business deals a secret from the Witness people, but that's gone, never to return. The reason the Witness people don't comply with instructions issued by the Society is they are doing what the Society is doing. When they educate, plan, earn, save, invest, and build, they are simply doing what they see the Society doing. -
fullofdoubtnow
Why do you think the fawn over the ones that come in with higher education and advance them so quickly;
I've seen that happen. They made Trev an ms within a couple of years of his baptism, and others who came in as adults, had completed their education, had well-paid jobs etc advanced quickly as well.
While I could never see the org admitting that they got their education policy, or any other policy for that matter wrong, I wonder if they secretly wish they had encouraged teens to complete their education instead of telling them to leave school with minimum qualifications and pioneer.
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Gill
I doubt 'regret' is part of the Governing Body's philosophy in life.
Certainly when it comes to education, only a 'fool' or someone with the heart of a fool can be daft enough to continually cling to Watchtower Doctrine and ever changing policies and contradictions. Anyone with an ounce of educated critical thinking would leave the Watchtower with a click of his fingers.
Disinformation has been the Watchtower's stock in trade. If all JWs began to actually research what they believed the Watchtower would have been dead at least ten years after the internet surfaced. But the majority of JWs are still too ignorant or poor to dare to research the Truth behind 'da Troof'. The R and F have to be kept dumb.
About a year ago, I listened as my cousins wives vied for supremacy over which one of them used the internet the least and which one of the missed it least and tended to never use it except for an emergency, or booking a holiday.
Why, with the whole world's library at your fingertips would you want to boast that you NEVER 'stepped into' that library unless you believed it is better to have No Knowledge? It was like listening to a 'who is the stupidest' competition!
Why are there so few, not that there are none at all, but so very few University educated people in the Watchtower Society? I wonder! I can honestly say, that in the nearly forty years of being a JW I met only six people who had been to university. Funnily enough, five were educated in law, the other was a meteorologist.
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fullofdoubtnow
Why are there so few, not that there are none at all, but so very few University educated people in the Watchtower Society?
I used to wonder that, Gill, when I first associated with the jws at 21.
At the time, I was the only person in my congregation who had been to university, I finished my degree course before I started studying. Apart from a couple of people, no one had stayed at school beyond 16 either. In my 25 years as a jw, I only met one other person who had been to uni, and he isn't a jw now either.
It just seems to be something they don't do, obviously due to the watchtowers negative view of it.