and we sat there at the meetings forcing our children to sit with those books and magazines in their laps
Long term effects of Armageddon images
by Lady Lee 53 Replies latest watchtower medical
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Jim_TX
My memories go back to the 'Paradise Book'. That was used to indoctrinate new converts - using it as the book of choice for bible studys.
My memory is of the destruction at Armageddon... the book had artwork in pseudo-color - using one color other than black for the artists' rendition.
I remember... one was light purple. People falling into a wide-open earth. Tri-cycles, children, all sorts of people - falling - looks of horror as they fall - being destroyed.
Yeah... I think things like this have an effect on people - especially children - who do not understand what an 'artists rendering' is. It looks real. (Remember - this was before televisions were in every household. Before movies like Freddy Kruger - or other scary movies like that.)
I also think that it does a number on many folks who are JWs - psychologically (sp?). On one hand - they want to see images like this - and feel happy - that Armageddon has arrived. But - at the same time - this goes against their internal instincts - love and compassion.
It creates havoc mentally with many.
It also causes issues when there are terrible things that happen in the news today. September 11th, 2001 probably caused many JWs to go nuts - mentally.
JW-ism is not a good religion (if one can call it that).
Regards,
Jim TX
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Mickey mouse
Put it this way: I wonder how normal it is for a 5-10 year old child to have recurring nightmares about the armageddon and concentration camp scenarios?
I'm guessing not entirely normal?
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blondie
I grew up with the Paradise book...what concerned us more was the dog falling into the crevasse. We worried that our dog would die. But it did not cause PTSD because of those pictures. The live abusive action at home by my parents did though.
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Robdar
Blondie:
I grew up with the Paradise book...what concerned us more was the dog falling into the crevasse. We worried that our dog would die. But it did not cause PTSD because of those pictures. The live abusive action at home by my parents did though.
I will never forget the Paradise book. The image of the dog falling into the crevasse really upset me too.
Then, there was the Babylon the Great has Fallen book. That caused some nightmares too. You know, it just got worse and worse the closer we got to 1975.
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Jim_TX
A sort of irony... when I was growing up - I wasn't allowed to go to see movies at the theatres that had lots of violence - and murders in them.
You know... the 'hack 'em slash 'em' types of movies.
Which is okay, I suppose... I've seen a few of them later on when an adult, but they ARE filled with a lot of blood and gore.
The irony? We get handed JW publications that have artwork in them of 'hack 'em slash 'em' scenes of destruction in them. BUT - since it is the almighty god who is doing it - it is okay to see. No need to cover your eyes or look away.
Regards,
Jim TX
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Morbidzbaby
The only real effect the illustrations had on me was nausea...specifically the "Mankind's Search for God" book with it's realistic portayal of Aztec human sacrifice. A man being held down on an altar screaming in agony, his skin having that grayish pallor of death, his heart freshly cut out and being held up to the sun while blood drips down the holder's arm and pools from the victim and proceeds to flood down the stairs. HELLO?! Why the hell would you put something like that into a book that little children are going to see? When it was released at the convention, I remember flipping through it to look at the pictures and getting an instant wave of nausea when I found that illustration. To this day, I still associate the smell of new books with that image and it makes me a little queasy.
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Witness 007
I do have the desire to hoard food in case of a Asteroid hitting earth.....or a global Solar Flare......this is silly but true, keep some extra cans on the side.
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steve2
Come on people. Get a grip for goodness sake! For more than two or more millenia, the Bible's vicious stories of vengeance, including the Old Testament stories of wiping out entire peoples (babies too), have been disseminated widely. If we blame JW literature for (potentially) damaging sensitive readers, why stop there? What about the detailed accounts provided by some fundamentalist churches about hellfire and damnation?Do we suggest the Bible is to blame for (some) people's anxieties and even depression? No, we fudge the issue by picking on more convenient targets - forgetting that the cruel "inspiration" for the fear-inducing pictures is the wonderful Bible itself. Why single out the JW literature? Even the so-called "damaging" pictures () in the Paradise book are countered with some "happy" pictures of smiling people and congenial animals. The main problem I had with the Paradise book as a child was the absence of motor vehicles in the paradise pictures. How boring it would be, I thought - although my lovely mother reassured me Jehovah would give us enough "interesting" things to do so that I wouldn't miss cars.
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Heaven
Economic downturns may play a significant role in influencing or acting as a catalyst to many disorders and behaviours including anxiety attacks and hoarding behaviour. In our present world, survival depends mainly on your monetary wealth and the ability to acquire it.
Many who went through "The Great Depression", which lasted for about 10 years from 1929 to 1939, had/have this hoarding trait. I have seen this within my own family (JW and non-JW). A number of my friends and colleagues (non-JW) concur. There have been a number of economic 'bears' since that time including:
1) The 1973 Oil Crisis
2) The 1979 Energy Crisis
3) The Early 1980s Recession, classified as 'severe'
4) "Black Monday", stock market crash bigger than the 1929 crash, October 1987
5) The Early to Mid 1990s Recession
6) The 2000 "Tech/.com" Crash
7) The 2008 "Great Recession" we are currently experiencing
Our economic reality is that over the last 30+ years, in each decade, we have experienced some sort of turbulent event(s), which usually equates to the majority of people losing economic wealth. The terminology used by the economists, bankers, governments, corporations, and press all influence the thought patterns of people.
In economic 'bear' markets, we see terms on reports and in the media such as 'recession', 'downturn', 'downsize', 'Crisis', 'Black Monday', 'Crash', 'decline', 'job loss', 'uncertainty', 'bankruptcy', 'collapse', 'LEAN initiatives', and even 'negative growth' .
The economy is just one aspect of a multi-faceted bombardment of negativity coming into peoples' psyches. Add to this the local and world events over the last 30+ years, the genetic mutation/manipulation occurring to ourselves and our food, the advent of bio-toxins and other chemicals entering our cellular structures, and you have a lovely formula to start behavioural issues occurring. The JWs have additional bombardment from their own doctrines which definitely parallel the same negativism.
"Fear is the mind-killer" (Paul Atreides from the 1984 movie 'Dune')