by Aussie Oz 26 Replies latest jw friends
The teenagers.
Via my teens i hear of plenty of baptized teens who are waaaaaaayyyyyyy left of centre.
Alcohol, sex, and parties are going to claim a lot more than 'higher education' i reckon.
Up yours Watchtower. Your youth don't think you are relevant.
Oz
Why be weird and abnormal when it is no fun ? I know many teens choose to be weird and abnormal in their own way, but that also involves "Cool".
Being a JW is not cool,or fun, booze parties and sex are fun.
I think this has always been the case. There has always been an element of JW youth who rebel, they break the rules and after a while either leave or get married and conform.
I know elders my age who were very rebellious and broke all the rules when they were younger.
Actually I heard a story from America a while back, about a JW party where they rented a warehouse(?) and hundreds of people from several states were invited. Even some elders went. Drinking, smoking, sex. . . quite a lot were df'ed after that.
Sounded like fun.
I just sat down and tried to remember all the kids I grew up with. I figured the ones born from 1980-1995ish in my congregation growing up I counted 34 people in total, I could be missing some but I know for a fact none were double counted. Of those 34 people there are currently 6 that are not actively opposed to the JW’s. The remaining 28 are either DF’d and don’t care, DA’d by choice or just stopped going and are living their own lives. Several have kids out of wedlock or are in live in relationships non-believers, a couple are even in same sex live in relationships. Actually now I remember another family with 4 kids, out of the 4 there is 1 who is even pretending but she married a nonbeliever. Her siblings are all DF’d. Now keep in mind this represents kids born in a 15 year time frame from 1980-1995 and from ONE congregation. The neighboring halls in neighboring towns are no better.
I guess the moral of the story is that against all odds people of my generation are finally catching onto the nonsense and are willing to do something about it.
Alcohol, sex, and parties are going to claim a lot more than 'higher education' i reckon.
Problem is that teens will do natural things, feel guilt they're not good enough for some bullshit god. They will get DF, and they will either continue to screw up their lives because they figure they will die at Armageddon so might as well party as if there is no tomorrow or/and return to the borg because they still believe in the wts deep inside.
Only a cult can screw up kids like that and then blame the kids for their messed up lives.
FA, I've seen that at several parties in the 90's when I was still in. One thing I did notice though. Whenever someone was, they only confessed to what the elders already knew. No new info was volunteered. This kinda kept the ability to party underground and that's what they did. I rememeber seeing a single incident getting brought up time and again because some new fact was brought out somehow. The kids want to party, experiment, whatever. I think it's a necessary component, (within reason), of becoming an adult. Dubs who don't go through this stage and then later on leave the organization, often experaince a late teenage rebellion.
Even though many of them leave for reason enough for them, I still wish more would read Crisis of Conscience or Hassan's books just to understand better this religion, its control and manipulation tactics.
Wish the schools libraries (jr. high/highschool) made available (w/school counselors advising all students about) anti-cult books in their libraries. If the laws of this country allow religious, cult, freedom they should also educate about the horror stories of them. Yeah, like that is going to happen!
Something needs to be done to protect the innocent.
LV101
I recently faded and have a teenage son.Last night he commented to me that for all the pamphlets etc available to warn youth about things, there are none warning about cults or high controlm groups. Thing is smoking is legal and known to cause physical ailments and they warn about that so why not warn about the dangers of joining groups that have the potential to mess with people's mental health. No groups needs be mentioned just the practices they have, especially the way they use behaviour, information, thought and emotional control ....the BITE model. Anyway my teenager is very perceptive and it is through him that I started to really examine things. He would never accept simple answers to complex questions, and frequently questioned the logic of banninmg reading other material if "they" were secure in having the absolute truth.
Look forward to more young people leaving themselves and maybe nudging their parents out too, by persistently asking the questions that have no logical answer.
