If they drop that teaching then there is no reason to be a Jehovah's Witness.
What the Watchtower needs to do to survive.
by jwfacts 76 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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outsmartthesystem
"If they drop that teaching then there is no reason to be a Jehovah's Witness. "
There is no reason to be a JW since 607 BC is a bunch of hogwash too.....yet 7 million people follow. Fear and mind control prevent people from thinking rationally
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PaintedToeNail
outsmart-you have described my spouse exactly, he agrees with almost everything I tell him, yet he couldn't stand the trauma and does ask "where else will I go?"...sad.
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binadub
jwfacts: Thanks for your thoughts.
What is ironic is that the Leaders, the GB, are all of the Anointed class, so expect to die and go to heaven. They use the carrot of never dying to control the emotions of the followers, yet are above such fears themselves.
That fear is manifest in the doctrine of other religions as well. Some Evangelicals teach about a rapture, where they won't die as such, but be raptured straight to a spirit body.
Yet does it seem the GBs and other so-called JW annointeds do fear dying as we know it. People like Russell, Rutherford, Knorr, Fred Franz and other late GBs made every effort to sustain health and live as long as possible. I seem to remember hearing that Knorr in his dying days felt great disappointment that he would not survive Armageddon.
Like the Evangelical "rapture," if the professed annointed ones would survive Armageddon, they do not expect to die, they expect to be "taken." As I recall, they compare it to the way Jehovah "took" Enoch and Elijah to heaven.
I've enjoyed the comments of everyone in this thread. Good topic.
~Binadub
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steve2
"People line up seeking seduction simply because they have been programmed to believe that life for them without certainty would be unbearable.
With all due respect, I prefer the way I orginally worded it, Breakfast of Champions. There's a centuries-old astute Latin saying that nicely sums up pretty common approaches to religious beliefs, which translated into English reads "The world wants to be deceived"*.
We don't need cults to programme people into a desperate need to ditch common sense for the sake of cherished stupidity. Most people do it all by themselves. All cults do is take advantage of the human weakness for the "divine".
*"Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur" (Sebastian Brant, 1457-1521).
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breakfast of champions
We don't need cults to programme people into a desperate need to ditch common sense for the sake of cherished stupidity. Most people do it all by themselves. All cults do is take advantage of the human weakness for the "divine".
Excellent point, STEVE2. I guess the perspective I'm coming from is as a born in who feels as though I was programmed to think everything is B&W, and that feelings of ambiguity and doubt were a sign of a lack of faith. I certainly can't say that I have never deceived myself (that's why I'm on this website), but as a freethinking adult, I have absolutely NO need for the "certainty" that a god or religion or superstition provides - ambiguity is far more interesting!
Sorry to mess with your original comment. It was an excellent one to begin with (as your comments often are) and I should have left it as is. Just working things out in my own mind as I go. . .
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steve2
I guess the perspective I'm coming from is as a born in who feels as though I was programmed to think everything is B&W, and that feelings of ambiguity and doubt were a sign of a lack of faith. I certainly can't say that I have never deceived myself (that's why I'm on this website), but as a freethinking adult, I have absolutely NO need for the "certainty" that a god or religion or superstition provides - ambiguity is far more interesting!
I see where you're coming from BoC. I was born-in also and really did not have much choice regarding my programming. In this regard, it is pretty much as Richard Dawkins asserts: One's religious leanings are almost always an acident of birth. Once we realize that the urge for certainty is fed by our religious upbringing, we are freer to reject that urge in the service of being true to evaluate the evidence, rather than go running from it, like JWs and may of religionists do.