Are You Idealistic?

by choosing life 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  choosing life

  In the past, I was pretty idealistic. I believe this is what attracted me to the witnesses' idea of a perfect paradise on earth. I was a teenager when I first was contacted by them and quite disillusioned with life. Suddenly there was a perfect fix for everything.

  With experience, people tend to lose some of that idealistic thinking. I see a lot of posters on here who left the witnesses after many years. How much of this do you think can be acredited to just growing up mentally and thinking through the many flaws in their teachings?

  So, were/are you idealistic? Did it play into your belief in the jws' paradise/utopia?
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  hamilcarr

  So, were/are you idealistic? Did it play into your belief in the jws' paradise/utopia?

  It used to play an important role I think.

  My father, for instance, was one of the many idealistic leftist teens who joined the WT in the late sixties. I was "burdened" with the same.
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  caliber

  In his chief work Truth, Antiphon wrote: "Time is a thought or a measure, not a substance". This presents time as an ideational, internal,mental operation, rather than a real, external object.

  If even time is idealism then where and when does the real begin ?

  Caliber
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  caliber

  Without the Utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked. It was Utopians who traced the lines of the first City…..Out of generous dreams come beneficial realities. Utopia is the principle of all progress, and the essay into a better future.
  - Anatole France So in short yes I am an idealist

  Caliber
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  leavingwt

  "If a young man is not a liberal, he has no heart. If an old man is not a conservative, he has no head."
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  Maddie

  Hi choosing life - I definitely was very idealistic for most of my life. I was always attracted to "causes" that usually involved fighting for the rights of the underprivileged in society. I think it may have had something to do with my own experiences as a child and in my adult life. It got me into trouble on several occasions with the authorities.

  Maddie
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  choosing life

  Hamilcarr, I am younger than your dad, but I think the same time period shaped my views.

  Caliber, I always thought an ideal world is the world as we would like it to be and the real world is what we live in day to day.

  Leavingwt, time certainly does change your outlook on things. I think I would call myself more realistic as I get older, rather than idealistic. I still want things my way at times.

  Hi Maddie, There were a lot of social changes when I grew up, racial and women's rights, the idea that "love" could change the world. It makes me think of some lyrics-"I want to know what became of the changes we waited for love to bring. Were they only the fitfull dreams of some greater awakening?" There has been progress in some areas, but the world can still be a scary place.

  The point is that the witnesses used these idealistic views to hook me into the idea of a perfect paradise. I have so often heard them say that some of the best options for recruits are the young. They are right on that one.
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  RAF

  So, were/are you idealistic? Did it play into your belief in the jws' paradise/utopia?

  I am, that's why JWLAND didn't match with me actually !
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  Big Tex

  not anymore
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  caliber

  " Hitch your wagon to a star." That is the oft quoted advice of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Hitch your wagon to a star. That was the philosopher's way of saying that all of us need high ideals, a commanding sense of purpose, great ambitions.

  How can high sense of purpose be nothing but beneficial for all mankind ?

  "How low will you go

  Or else high will you fly"~~Caliber