Just some thoughts on watchtower criticism

by sleepy 9 Replies latest jw friends

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  sleepy

  This is part of a letter I may send to a friend.
  I'm starting to have some real problems over my stand in regard to the society, and I'm starting to get angery with people.
  I will tell my story soon.Its nothing different or special, I just what to get it of my chest.
  Anyway In my anger I have written this to a friend.The letter is not written in an angrey tone , it just may be counter-productive to send it.

  In your letter the point was raised should I be critical of the society.
  This is in line with what the Aug 1 2001 watchtower said pg.14 p 8 “...a mature Christian ....does not advocate or insist on personal opinions or harbour private ideas when it comes to bible understanding. Rather he has complete confidence in the truth as revealed by Jehovah through his son Jesus and the faithful and discrete slave”
  Since none of us are in communication with Jehovah or Jesus that just leaves the faithful slave.
  Actually the faithful slave do not reveal truth to us as that is supposed to made up of all anointed on earth , only the governing body does so.
  That means we must put our complete trust in the governing body , that they are used by God and are the only ones that can understand the Bible. We must have our complete trust in them.

  It was strange to note though this comment in the July 1 2001 Watchtower pg 18 p 3. “Religious exhortations to the effect that you should just believe and should doubt nothing are dangerous and deceptive”

  So does this only apply to others. Only Catholics , born agains , muslins etc.
  Remember the quote from the creator book, “We invite all who have an open mind to consider this subject. The book Belief in God and Intellectual Honesty notes that one who possesses “intellectual honesty“ is characterised by a readiness to scrutinize what one believes to be true“ and “to pay sufficient attention to other evidence available.””

  To be critical or to criticise is often seen by Jehovah's witnesses in a negative sense.
  But this is only in regard to their own beliefs. We often feel free to criticize other peoples beliefs or ideas, the watchtower and awake are full of criticism of others.
  So why is it wrong to find fault with the society?
  Lets look at one problem this potentially causes.
  If for arguments sake the society were wrong and were not the “truth” then those people who are witnesses will never be able to read or discuss the relevant information as by definition it will be critical of the society. Any one who discover such information will not be able to tell his friends as they will not listen out of loyalty to the society , this person will also be shunned as a danger to the congregation.
  That means if the society is wrong people will be forever stuck in it unable to use their reason and thinking ability in an effort to always be inline with the “faithful slave”.

  Even if the society is right and not in error then surely it will withstand critical analysis.
  If the society is right but we as humans are not able to cope with outside criticism but must only rely on the “faithful slave” to guide us in life then in which way are we using or God given thinking ability? How would we ever know the truth. The truth could never be proven true as none of us would be able to reason that it was the truth. All we could do is fall in line with what we feel is right. Just like many over religious people all we could appeal to is “I know its the truth”. But when people say that in reply to witnesses on the ministry do we answer back “well I know this is the truth”?
  No we try to reason with them.
  This shows we do rely on our reasoning ability to discern what we feel is truth.
  Therefore it is dangerous for us to delegate our thinking to another human , and to rely on them being right to such a degree that we feel criticism of them is a sin.
  There is a word in the dictionary that has this definition: Devotion to or admiration of a person or thing. Devotion means : Great love or loyalty.
  Is the giving completely of you mind over to a select group of people to such a degree that criticism is not allowed , that friends ships with others are to be cut off , that you’ll even die in support of their ideals and beliefs, not devotion?
  The word is cult. I really hope people are not becoming cult like in their worship.

  I leave with these questions,
  Were in the Bible are we told to hand our thinking over to a group of men?
  Were in the Bible are we told that truth only comes from a select group of men?
  Was the Bible truly written so that only a select group of men in the 19, 20 and 21 first centuries could understand it or was it written for all men?
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  refiners fire

  every religious institution in history has been founded by a person who found his own interpretation of scripture.A person who rebelled against the corruption of the established religious order,and its dogmatic insistence of compliance.
  Tell them,you insist upon your own interpretation, as indeed did Pastor Russell.
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  barry

  Good point refiner and to add to that the position of the reformation is that the bible is sufficiently clear oh the fundamentals of the gospel together with the holy spirit in the beleivers life. The WT position is the Catholic doctrine of the teaching authority of the magisterium. In my own experiance the people i studied with wouldnt even look at books I showed them some of which agreed with what they were saying. Ive never seen anything like it before in my life grown adults frightened of my books .

  Hope im not too tough on them Barry
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  Pathofthorns

  Nice letter. This is something that infuriates me as well. Their hypocrisy and their double standards in this regard are blatantly obvious to anyone with a brain.

  The way they try to reason on the subject is devious. They don't want any criticism but at the same time don't want to state this in a way that makes it apparent they are a cult.

  The letter is good. I'm not sure what sort of Witness your friend is to have alot of confidence he/she would read it. I'd also leave the questions out at the end. The Bible can be twisted to support whatever, and your letter stands well on its own.

  Path
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  hungerartist

  Nice letter Sleepy,

  I appreciate those comments.

  I 'escaped' from the wt society by dismantling the bible itself in criticism. What I mean is that when conflict arose in my life, I quickly found the source was in the book we called God's word.

  I didn't have much resentment toward the organization because I saw why it was misguided.

  But more and more I realize that others really have faith in the bible, and are being devoured by their trust in the disseminators of its knowledge.

  Thank you for your comments.

  Apply the same logic you used in your letter toward the bible, if the conflict does not resolve for you; it also claims hold over your thinking in many ways.

  I am sure your faith and personal integrity can handle the challenge.

  Nice comments also rf and barry. Check my quote --- it says everything.

  "Every revolution evaporates and leaves only the slime of a new bureaucracy" ~ Franz Kafka
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  DannyBear

  Sleepy,

  No angry tone at all Sleepy. In fact your letter is very accomodating to the jw mindset. Use of the latest Wt quote is a good touch.

  Of course when your friend gets to the word...'cult'...his poor mind will start to reel. But it just maybe the final touch, that puts all your information into perspective. If not at the time he reads it, he/she will be obliged to ponder your words, the next time he hesitates to say or question something released from the fds.

  Send the letter, you know you will feel better.

  Danny
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  Francois

  Sleepy that was a good presentation of your position.

  I can find no place in the scripture where any of your theoretical questions are asked. Nor are many of the WT teachings found in the scriptures. The same bible is used by a wide variety of religions to "prove" a wide variety of teachings, thus the teachings of all these religions - including JWs - is nothing more than their interpretations of scripture, derivations that satisfy their emotional preferences.

  Take one example. Many religions find no prohibition in the scriptures against drinking alcohol in moderation, and of course they use it in the celebration and remembrance of the last supper. And others, using the very same set of scriptures, find that any ingestion of alcohol is enough to send you to eternal torment in the flames of hell. (I know one "full-gospel" type that won't bake homemade yeast bread because the process creates alcohol in the dough. Never mind that the heat of baking it drives out all the alcohol. It's an emotional thing, not a rational, logical thing).

  I also note that it was OK for the Boreans to examine what they were being told. Of course, the society puts a spin on that which Bill Clinton would applaud.

  Believe what you will. God loves you.

  Francois
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  cornish

  It is a good letter,well put,it may or may not do any good but as they say ,nothing ventured ,nothing gained,Go on,get it off your chest and send it,I remember what really stuck into me which got me out of that cult was comming to realize the actual indoctrination and manipulation methods the Watchtower used to control me,I think that does far more good than arguing over scripture interpretations.
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  proplog2

  I occasionally defend JW's as an organization. However I detest the arrogant attitude of the Watchtower. Truth is truth not because someone says it is truth but because it can be defended. The Watchtower KNOWS the arguments that are raised by dissenters but they make absolutely no effort to equip JW's to deal with the arguments. They are content to warn people about the internet and seem to be willing to tally the causalties of those who really believed that they were ready to make a defense before anyone who demanded reasons.
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  LoneWolf

  Hi, Sleepy,

  That's an excellent letter and I've downloaded it to use some of the thoughts later, if it is alright with you.

  I felt you would be interested in the following quote. I used it as a part of a piece I wrote on "The Natural Life-Cycle of a Religion." I've posted the whole thing on the board before and don't want to bore everyone by reposting it. Hope you like it.

  Crux Ansata by H. G. Wells
  Rather than try to describe the next developments, let us quote H. G. Wells' book Crux Ansata --- An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. (Please be assured that we are not picking on the Catholics here, for the principles he speaks of applies equally to most organized religions and, for that matter, most bureaucracies of any kind.)

  " . . . In the jangle of these incompatibles the Church, trying desperately to get on with its unifying task, became dogmatic and resorted to arbitrary authority.

  "Its priests and bishops were more and more men moulded to creeds and dogmas and set procedures; by the time they became popes they were usually oldish men, habituated to a politic struggle for immediate ends and no longer capable of worldwide views. They had forgotten about the Fatherhood of God; they wanted to see the power of the Church, which was their own power, dominating men's lives. It was just because many of them probably doubted secretly of the entire soundness of their vast and elaborate doctrinal fabric that they would brook no discussion of it. They were intolerant of doubts and questions, not because they were sure of their faith, but because they were not. The unsatisfied hunger of intelligent men for essential truth seemed to promise nothing but perpetual divergence.

  "As the solidarity and dogmatism of the Church hardened, it sloughed off and persecuted heretical bodies and individuals with increasing energy. . . ." (Pages 12 and 13)

  He goes on: "The intolerance of the narrowing and concentrating Church was not confined to religious matters. The shrewd, pompous, irascible, disillusioned and rather malignant old men who manifestly constituted the prevailing majority in the councils of the Church, resented any knowledge but their own knowledge, and distrusted any thought that they did not correct and control. Any mental activity but their own struck them as being at least insolent if not positively wicked. Later on they were to have a great struggle upon the question of the earth's position in space, and whether it moved round the sun or not. This was really not the business of the Church at all. She might very well have left to reason the things that are reason's, but she seems to have been impelled by an inner necessity to estrange the intellectual conscience in men.

  "Had this intolerance sprung from a real intensity of conviction it would have been bad enough but it was accompanied by an undisguised contempt for the mental dignity of the common man that makes it far less acceptable to our modern ideas. . . ." (Pages 17 and 18.)

  Does this sound familiar to you? LOL.

  If you'd like to read the rest of that piece, it should be in the archives. Either that, or send me your email address and I'll send it to you. You'll note that my box is open, and anyone is welcome.

  LoneWolf