JW ADVANTAGES vs DISADVANTAGES (page 2)

VanillaMocha73

It encourages people to avoid things like smoking, drug use, alcohol abuse, "fornicating" and the risk of things associated with that (both physcial and emotional), dishonesty, and other bad behaviors that can cause one problems in life. Yes, positive peer pressure.

It provides a social network of (mostly) good associates for families, including a place for young people to meet other young people who also have higher than average morals and convictions.

=========================================================================================== Obviously you have not been a JW youth. Or a JW, I would bet. When you encourage people to avoid things out of FEAR, it doesn't work. I have met far more alcoholics among JWs than elsewhere. The only place I have met wife swapping has been among JWs. Dishonesty? How about every time they talk about Bible doctrine? Positive peer pressure? You mean knowing that your "friends" will turn on you if you so much as sneeze "cigarette"? Judge you for both real and supposed behaviours? Young people? I'd say the JW youth I grew up amongst were far MORE immoral - using drugs, wild parties, alcohol use - than the kids in our church, or the kids elsewhere. High than average morals? Not really. Convictions? How can they be strong convictions when they change every 15 minutes? Again, any group that operates on its members from fear is never beneficial in the long run.

VanillaMocha73

Expounding on the above....

I grew up in the JWs. The young people in the congregation I wasn't allowed to hang out with, nor did they want to hang out with me. I was invited to one of their parties. My father's rules was the he went to parties with me if they were not chaperoned by other parents. He went... he watched the young people sneaking off to the beach in pairs, the cops come because it was too loud... He asked me if I really wanted to be there. That was the end of my hanging with that group.

The morals of the youth was "don't get caught." It took a very rare young person who actually followed the moral guidelines out of love.

In my grown-up congregations, I was introduced to drinking parties .... Drinking parties that I have yet to find out here "in the world" .... Wife Swapping parties - they got drunk and who knows who went home with whom. I have yet to find those parties at my Christian church or even among the "worldly" adults I have hung out with. I met more men who ran off with women who were not their wives, and found some "sneaky" way to divorce, remarry.

When it is from fear, it is all about not getting caught and guilt trips. And it doesn't work. My kids are free to come home and say "So and so did this - it didn't feel right." There is no guilt trip that if they get pregnant they will be thrown in the trash. There is no lecturing about "don't smoke because God will kill you." They can come home and smoke ... funny thing is, they don't. They don't care about that stuff, because they don't need a fill-in for real joy and love. We don't have alcohol in the house because my husband is diabetic, so its not a good idea for him. But my kids have made the choice that they just don't want that stuff. It isn't prohibited from fear.

If someone in our church sleeps around, they just naturally don't fit among us. We don't shun them. We didn't gasp in horror when the young unmarried "shacking up" couple came to Sunday School. There was no guilt or "You better get married before we can accept you as serving God." Big deal - they got married later naturally - out of love for one another and the feeling of commitment to each other.

Yeah - sorry - I don't find any advantages to being a JW.

And uneducated uninvolved young people who take the bare minimum of high school because that is all that is encouraged - that aren't encouraged toward a career ... are prey to all the drugs, alcohol, and excitement they can find from elsewhere.

wasblind

Separating yourself from the real world and livin' in a bubble

does not gaurantee morals above average. The JW's have divorce

teen pregnancies, alcoholism, abuse just like the rest of the world

and the icing on the cake for them is the GB to make their lives even more

miserable than the day before.

Libelle

Just because they play up morals in the literature, does not mean they act on them. In fact, in my own experience, I find those who are the loudest about the evils of the world often engage in them, fueling their fire to preach.

Also, if they tell people, young kids, to ignore, suppress and even hate their true selves (I'm thinking esp when it comes to emerging sexuality), then no, there is no advantage. Just setting those individuals up for a difficult life at best.

And yeah, you can find decent people in most other groups, not just JW. JW are among the most false-fronted people I know.

clarity

I understand your trepidation Doc.

I've seen your quandry from both sides of the fence.

I had no religious upbringing at all. Abandoned at a very young age, I lived on my own worked hard and supported myself. I had respect for myself, morally and ethically. Never smoked & hated booze! Could have done any darn thing at all, but didn't. Go figure!

Now, I agree with you, youths do seem to have a degree of restraint because of watchtower commands teachings, but the almost sole factor in staying within these teachings is .... FEAR.

Fear of dying at armageddon, fear expulsion & shunning, being abandoned by family and by every one of their friends, deep shame, fear of what the parents will do to them, fear of having their name called out at the kingdom hall, fear/shame of sitting at the back of the hall for at least a year ...if they don't, they won't be forgiven, fear of losing their home & job and fear that god won't hear their prayers anymore.

See a difference ... it is almost ..............blackmail!

But you're right jw's are disuaded from sin ......... for as long as it lasts.

Bottom line you must make your own decisions. Looks like you need more information to do that. Keep looking.

clarity

wasblind

Watchtower 1989 Mar 1 p.3
In fact, as a group, they are the most privileged, the most successful, and by far the happiest group on earth today, as you will see in the next article

" JW are among the most false-fronted people I know."

You got that right Libelle, and they tell damn lies too

tell me how do you have the most successful, least educated, most stressed out happyfied people on earth ?

Everything they say is a contradiction

wasblind

Hello there Clarity,

You said a mouthful when you said they " seem" to have restraint

JW kids are good at livin' double lives, they can't open up and tell

how they really feel. Worldy children don't tell their parents everything

and they have the freedom to do so with out bein' shunned, JW kids

have more of a reason to do things undercover than the worldlies

iceguy

My girlfriends kids are truely good kids. They don't smoke, do drugs or engage in "fornication". The 2 girls are 17 and 15 and her son is 11. They are all honor roll students enrolled in advanced classes. They all are focused on getting a good college education and don't want to do anything to get in the way of their goal. They don't get in any trouble in fact they are better behaved then most jw teens i knew. They have managed to to steer clear of trouble without the WTBTS or any religion for that matter telling them do's and don'ts. they have a very close relationship with their mom and they tell her everything to which I am amazed by. I to have been able to talk to them about anything and hopefully I give them good advice to help them make good decisions. So i guess my point is you don't need the Org or any other religion to raise kids of good character...just be a good parent and communicate with them and help them set goals so they can live to their potential. The Org left generations of kids not living up to their full potential and thats what angers so many of us that are well past our prime and our potential.

Retrovirus

DOC, just a thought from a non-jw:

I'm a single parent with two grown children. When they were young, I would have loved to have the feeling of security of a community with consistent standards, regular meetings etc. I felt as if I had to make up my rules as I went, and that I had little or no authority as a parent.

Having read a lot here and on other sites, I now think that "feeling of security", a sort of security blanket perhaps? cannot be confused with actual security. The ability to think clearly and say what I think is very much part of who I am.

I keep in touch with the jw ladies who "studied" with me; they are very pleasant and honest people. I wish we could be friends but they keep their distance as I have failed to progress. There must be something there for them.

Retro

simon17

Any measure of higher 'morality' among JWs is simply due to the organization being a high control group.

Agreed on this. I think you will find a larger percentage of JWs who are apparently very moral (i.e., not going around having premarital sex,committing adultery, trying drugs, smoking, etc). However, its due to the controlling nature of the group. Children are not learning their limits and forming an understanding of how to act. Instead they are putting up barriers to action and experimentation. What happens is if they ever get beyond those boundaries, they haven't learned how to set their own boundaries and restrictions and just go absolutely crazy. So yes, I think a JW kid has a better than average chance of being a very moral responsible person. But they also have a better than average chance of being absolutely out of control to the point of being self-harming. They have a lower chance of being a typical teenager who goes to a few parties, breaks a few curfews, hooks up with a few boyfriends, joins a frat house, but then gets a job, gets married and settles down to a happy, even-keel life.

JW ADVANTAGES vs DISADVANTAGES

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