Ever notice when there's a bro in the hall who IS really smart, that all the others suddenly start trying to one up him in the answers? Or when a CO or DO shows up, same thing? And there's always that one brother who knows alot of stuff, but always manages to just get it wrong? Goes on and on about some minor character in the bible and how they did this, but it's really not germane to the conversation?
Pseudo-intellectualism @ the hall...
by avishai 5 Replies latest jw friends
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RisingEagle
Yep. I had the great displeasure of transporting a jw relative to an from a get-together recently and the bro who stood as my best man in my wedding came waltzing out when I picked up my relative. This guy had an opinion about every topic under the sun (usually wrong). Buying a car? He would tell you the cons of the vehicle you wanted and the pros of some POS he managed to pick up. Going on a trip? He'd tell you the wrongs of your route and go on to tell you why you should go someplace he had visited in the past. Even more irritating was his habit of finger thumping you on the chest to emphasize his points, usually with a, "Huh? huh?"
"Whatcha doin?" "I was going to replace this lightbulb." "What? With a 60watt bulb? You know there was an article I read in the Awake that said our eyes don't need as much light as we think they do. You could use a 40 watt bulb instead. I went through my house and replaced all the bulbs with 40 watt bulbs and I can see just as well. Besides, I do most of my reading during the day and you don't need a light on when you're watching tv anyway. You should replace all your bulbs with 40watts, too. Then you'd be saving some real money. Huh?" Thwack! "Huh?" Thwack! Richard Cranium.
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avishai
The "know it all" seems to be more accepted by JW's than society at large.
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My Struggle
The "know it all" seems to be more accepted by JW's than society at large.
It seems to be that it provides some kind of validity to the truth to the JW. Saying that "Well, Bro. Genius accepts the truth, which proves that it must be logical because he is soooo smart". I have know of one in every hall that I have attended for any amount of time, which happens to be five.
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WTWizard
I used to be the "brother" that knew it all, at least when it came to science. Of course, I was too well integrated in my thinking, so when they came up with questions, they were always obscure terms to things like the Great Crowd or something like that. There were always 50 or so answers, most of which I never heard of, and so they could pick one after I gave the most prominent answer and tell me that it wasn't the one they were thinking of.
Too bad I know that the Bible glorifies value destruction, murder, and the like in the name of God. It condones initiatory force, threat of force, and fraud when God is the one that benefits from same. Additionally, the Watchtower Society's rules can be found nowhere in the Bible (at least not in a proper translation), and are arbitrary. Not to mention that the problems they posed had nothing to do with a solution to a totally different sort of problem I have pointed out.
One prime example of the latter was that I suggested that they cut the lawn at 3 inches (a mainstream suggestion, which cuts down on drought damage and weeds). They wanted me to apply that knowledge on raising children for others who actually had that privilege (and, since they had actively sabotaged my ability to attract "sisters", I would never have). As I saw it, not only did the proper cutting height on a lawn have nothing to do with raising children, but they didn't deserve any advice on the subject from me after keeping me from having any. I can only hope that they continue scalping the lawn, and that it all dies.
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chickpea
there was the one..... when he was called on you could detect a nearly universal "rolling of the eyes"
he would launch forth on a topic and i swear there was a "code" of coughing that erupted when he hit the 2 minute mark of his expository traipse thru unmedicated fantasy and fallacy
of course, he was counseled for some of the stuff he said, but for some reason they kept calling on him......