The tone and voice of the WTBTS publications/writings

by HappyGuy 18 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  snowbird

  HappyGuy, when I was leaving the JW's, I came across a website in which the writer had compiled a list of 300+ OT prophecies about the Messiah.

  His tone was so warm, caring, and compelling that I could hardly believe it. In his concluding statement, he exhorted his readers to e-mail him if they found any prophecies that he missed.

  Of course, he was so thorough in his research, that was highly unlikely. Yet, I was struck by his humility.

  Can you imagine the WT writers doing this?

  Cattails, I've come to the conclusion that anyone who refers to himself in the third person or uses the imperial "we" has serious delusions of grandeur.

  Sylvia
• 

  sir82

  WT writings have the tone of an exasperated impatient 19th century schoolteacher who is convinced that his students are the most insipid and lazy dullards on the planet.

  "You dunces! Do I have to go over this again?!? Don't cook in your hotel rooms!"
• 

  palmtree67

  I've said for a long time that if the WTS told the elders to start using cattle prods on the flock, most elders would be more than happy to comply.
• 

  koolaid-man

  See their bag of tricks .... http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/bagoftricks.html
• 

  Sapphy

  A lot of the stuff is recycled as well, so the condescending company house style cascades down through the decades.

  Are we not thrilled...
• 

  HappyGuy

  I want to thank everyone for such well thought out answers. I especially appreciated the link to the bag of tricks. So, I wasn't crazy or an idiot after all to get taken in by the WTBTS for all those years.

  I was so zealous when I was younger and then I had a shipwreck of faith. But, of course I had a shipwreck of faith because it was a faith based on lies.
• 

  Balsam

  Back in 1971 right after my then husband and I studied with JW it all seemed too good to be true. The end was coming in a few short years and the earth would be a paradise. We were getting baptized in just a few weeks after studying for only 8 months. We were happy and excited about our life serving our creator.

  I had a dream and in the dream the JW's we so loved and trusted were hoodwinking us. But they were not fooling us deliberately but fooling us and the WTBTS was not what it appeared to be. I was so upset and I remember talking to my husband about it but he said it was just baptism jitters. Well I dismissed it and got baptized but I so wished I'd listened to my sub-conscious way back then it was warning me and I totally ignored it because we were so enamoured with the JW and fully believed they were just as they seemed.

  There is no love, and the literature shows that if anyone like you did reads it closely. It is full of distrust of anything in the world when it comes to anything outside the organization. They teach fear, love is not true and it is strictly conditional even for its own children.
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Increasingly, I see the more direct appeal to authority by the GB, "because the Governing Body said so." It seems so absurd the way they capitalize something that isn't even in the Bible.

  Also, I think the mentality is less "us against them", and increasingly "the more spiritual of us against the less spiritual of us".
• 

  HappyGuy

  Also, I think the mentality is less "us against them", and increasingly "the more spiritual of us against the less spiritual of us".

  This is exactly what I was feeling about the WTBTS but I coudlnt' find the words to express it. I was always made to feel guilty, that I was never doing enough, and there were these spiritual "giants" who I could never emulate.

  When I started reading the literature with an open mind I saw so many absurdities. Like in all the year books, 100% of the true life stories celebrated the fact that the person/couple were janitors. The GB constantly bashed professional and white collar careers and loved the idea of a JW being a janitor.

  I finally came to the conclusion that the GB gets some perverse pleasure from fucking with the "flock" after recognizing such absurdity for what it was.