Skills Gap

by M*A*S*H 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  done4good

  Simon-

  Just so you are aware, the quote function is very clunky to edit, (at least in Firefox).
  

  d4g
  
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  Blackfalcon98

  marked
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  Blackfalcon98

  As a young mentally out fader (fade after college), one brother said: "You know they need [insert my profession here]s at bethel!" I replied: "They need ##### everywhere..." I hope it gets him to think.
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  steve2

  M*A*S*H perceptive observations in your OP.

  If intelligence is defined as flexible adaptation to the requirements and demands of one's environment, it could well be that, whilst those of higher intellectual functioning are attracted to more rewarding environments, others of higher intellectual functioning may well have the ability to fit in with the JW environment because it is good for business and the most effective way to navigate complex family and extended family networks.

  As we know from direct and painful experience,it is no mean feat leaving behind business/employment prospects as well as family - to say nothing of all the other kinds of meaningful ties we develop as we get older.

  Even so, your observations are exactly what I have observed. The local Witnesses who "man" their literature trolleys seem disengaged from the public, almost disinclined if not disinterested in responding to any passerby interest.

  OneFingerSalute: I agree with your post. The dumbing down of the literature and platfrom presentations has been especially evident since at least the late 1990s and continuing throughout the 2000s to the present. Yes, I also felt that back in the 1960s, the literature was "meaty" and required above-average reading skills to master. Even though slanted from a Watchtower-perspective, there was a sense that the organization wanted the Witnesses to be well-informed and able to hold their own in a debate. Definitely not so today.

  Unless Witnesses are trying to engage the religiously ignorant and those of lower education, they are simply out of their depth...and they don't know it.

  Every time the Witnesses cannot answer a question regarding their doctrines or policies, they say something like, "Yes, but we are the only organization that shows love to one another...we don't go to war...don't get involved in politics.

  All doctrinal and policy roads lead to the tired mantra "We-are-the-only-people-who (then follows a hacneyed list of do's and don'ts)" and the discussion grinds to a halt.
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  stuckinarut2

  Have a good look at the people coming in as a result of "witnessing"...

  They are all "low hanging fruit" of the community...people with little to offer, and who desire a better world like the utopia the org/wt seems to offer in the "panda paradise" .

  NO educated people actually go further than a polite chat with witnesses!

  Why??

  Because anyone with half a brain sees through the charade...

  The REAL LEADERS of the org are those that have been born in...yes 2nd and 3rd generation (or is that "one" generation??) So these ones are just perpetuating the whole cycle over and over again.....
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  joe134cd

  Stuckinarut2=I agree about the quality of the new converts entering the organization today. I can give a good example that highlights this. There was an interested couple attending the meetings for a couple of months. He ran a successful business while she had a responsible position in a government department. Both were just down to earth, lovely, desent people who would of been an asset to any organisation they joined. Anyway I remember them saying they were going to have a chat with their pastor about the things they were learning at the hall, and after that we never saw them again. They always stayed in my mind. Fast forward a few years and at the same time I was learning TTATT I happened to see them in town, and I asked them the reasons for not coming back. Well it turned out that they didn't have to go to their pastor, as a relative done a Google search. The two main reasons I was given was the Internet and child sex abuse. I think that pretty much sums it up.
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  M*A*S*H

  joe134cd: The fact that it is easy to find out about JW culture is important as highlighted in your post. This is why I get concerned by a ever increasing pervasive idea taught and practised in schools, the press and increasingly in the work place - the idea of 'respect'. I do have a big problem when we are asked to 'show respect' for ideas or philosophies that do not deserve it. IMHO it's important that the TTATT especially not be tainted by the faux respect we are all asked to show.
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  M*A*S*H

  I think that the religion's conversation rate, which is already terrible in terms of man hours, can only suffer as the new stock of JWs are 'dumbing down'. This dumbing down will become self perpetuating as they are now highly unlikely to attract new blood from the society's intelligentsia (or even those that got through college).
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  Caedes

  This is why I get concerned by a ever increasing pervasive idea taught and practised in schools, the press and increasingly in the work place - the idea of 'respect'. I do have a big problem when we are asked to 'show respect' for ideas or philosophies that do not deserve it. IMHO it's important that the TTATT especially not be tainted by the faux respect we are all asked to show.

  That is an interesting point, I have always thought that respect is earned not given as the saying goes. I think having to earn respect is what makes it worthwhile. If it is just given; especially as a matter of course; then it really has no value at all.
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  Phizzy

  I am of the opinion that silly beliefs and unprovable doctrines do not deserve any respect whatsoever. I would not show disrespect to any individual holding such beliefs, but the deluded ideas themselves deserve ridicule.

  I think too that we may be looking back with "rose coloured spectacles" on a JW past that never really existed.

  They have always attracted the less well-educated, whilst at the same time having a few with a reasonable education amongst them.

  I think the O.P is right though, that, as a rule, the young JW's that are still in it now, and haven't yet made the break, are very lacking in the skills that many a JW had twenty or more years ago.

  They cannot, as Caedes says, defend their faith, but they also cannot follow a conversation that is trying to reason with them, they are not capable of listening and comprehending what is said.

  All of this must accelerate the decline and eventual demise of the "religion", a few smart people in each locality would make a difference, but they don't breed smart people, and they sure as fate don't convert them and get them to join.