I've never seen anyone come into the organization and tear up their University Diploma. I don't see people coming into the organization quitting their profession and take up janitorial work, window washing, carpet laying, car striping.
JWs "Encourage" Their Youth To Invest In The Full Time Ministry And Not Go To College so....
by minimus 24 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
LongHairGal
scotoma:
Sorry to tell you this but I WAS told I should quit my decent job and take up housecleaning!!! I kid you not! I was not a born-in but came in as a young adult. Here I am with education and skill and I am told I should give it up! Well, just to satisfy my curiosity, one time I tried to clean a house with a sister just to see what the hell everybody was bragging about. Guess what? It took so long that I could NEVER have made a living doing this manual back-breaking, knee-wrecking work. Just the thought of it makes me ill.
I am convinced that certain people in the congretation were just plain jealous. It bothered them to see a young woman with self-esteem and dignity and they wanted me to divest myself of it and take on poverty. They wanted me to ruin my life so jealous idiots could feel better about themselves.
Thank God I repelled their unwanted advice.
-
minimus
It is easier to tell a cleaner what to do vs. a professor.
-
Band on the Run
Ive done legal work, administrative work, and retail. People go on about the long hours of professionals. Compared to retail and office clerical, the time whizzed past me. It is so much harder for me to do work with no apparent meaning.
The character of the person should matter. God gave us brains and extraordinary talent. It should depend upon the talents of the indivdual. Apprentice jobs often pay far more than college degree jobs. When I became Anglican, the confirmation teacher said God required all of us - all our brains our intellect, our disciple, our art talent, etc. To turn over anything less would not be honoring God.
Let us cut to the actual reason they discourage education. Education people flee the Witnesses!
My mom worked so hard in a factory nights b/c my father did not believe in baby sitters. One parent had to be home at all times. I believe he was right. She worked with a low element. Scum. My father worked days as a maintenance man but he had a fairly working class/middle class work atmosphere. She had ghetto mostly. I used to cry that she worked in the factory. Later, she told me how much more $ factory workers make. When my father was dying, she transitioned to a proper day job. What a difference in her! Her work tales were full of fun. She was ambushed at a meeting by several brothers and ordered to quit her job and pioneer. It was NOT a suggestion. She was no well-maintained upper middle class matron, looking for self-fulfillment. Raised a JW, she merely said, "I work to put food in my children's mouth. There is no choice for me." and walked away. She could ignore them so well wihtout ever arguing.
When you have no children or parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, or cousins, your life is your own. Responsibility is continually stressed in the Bible. All right, Jesus was into abandonment but he also told parables of good stewardship. IT IS A CULT.
All education should be divine if you believe in God. All knowledge comes from God. Making knowledge/education bad is ungodly.
Moral character and faith have no correlation with education.
-
minimus
The more educated you are, the less you would want to be a JW!
-
King Solomon
They wanted me to ruin my life so jealous idiots could feel better about themselves.
Jesus repeatedly said you need to give up all of your worldly possessions and give them to the poor in order to follow him. He didn't say that in passing: he repeated that message, OVER and OVER. Whether they admit it or not, they believe it, and in fact, believe they will inherit the World.
Talk about hyper-socialism, the ULTIMATE redistribution of wealth....
It's funny when the Ayn Rand ultra-capitalists claim to be Xians, as if Jesus didn't say that...
-
LongHairGal
King Solomon:
Getting back to what Jesus said, if somebody followed that literally, then THEY would be poor! Besides, I think Jesus was referring to the grinding starvation of third world poverty.
I don't believe Jesus was referring to the poverty that somebody puts themself in DELIBERATELY because they don't want to be a responsible member of the workforce like many people in the JW religion, sorry to say!! He wasn't referring to the situation that exists today where you have people who never wanted to work because they hoped to be some full-time minister living off charity. People like that aren't owed anything as far as I am concerned.
The religion's biggest mistake was and IS to criticize people like me who work full-time and then have the audacity to act like we "owe" somebody something. I got tired of this garbage and I had to tell a few people off over the years.
I am glad I am not there now because I would be running from them!
-
apostatethunder
Totally agree with you longhairgal, I remember once we had in the local needs not to put our jobs at the centre of our lives, and to make sure our job wouldn‘t stumble others (my job at the time had some indirect Christian connection). I couldn’t believe my ears during the meeting, as the congregation had many other much bigger problems to address, and on top of that on the way home a sister that didn’t like her job, and that was always broke and owing money to others, was telling me how good the local needs were and how we needed to consider how our job could affect other people‘s consciences, etc.
I did as if the whole thing had nothing to do with me, and continued enjoying my full-time job with a good conscience. Nobody ever addressed me directly about that.
She continued owing money to others and soon after had a fallout with another sister because she couldn’t pay her back what she owed, and besides the other sister had two jobs.
I’ve known many other people, specially young single sisters, having difficulties making ends meet but still wanting to pioneer. And they consider this being spiritual oriented.
-
King Solomon
LHG said:
Getting back to what Jesus said, if somebody followed that literally, then THEY would be poor! Besides, I think Jesus was referring to the grinding starvation of third world poverty.
LHG, I've got a time-travel missionary work assignment for you:
-
LongHairGal
APOSTATE THUNDER:
Thank you! That is just it: the religion encourages irresponsibility. Never mind the scripture that says to "count the cost". Congregations are filled with people who can't make ends meet - but yet think they should pioneer. Sadly, in a lot of cases, these are single women (and I stay the hell away from them).
I feel sorry for the remaining responsible working people left in this religion and I am glad I walked away when I did! These people are going to be targeted left and right by all the deadbeats that have been there all along, in addition to all the people with serious issues that are attracted to the religion lately. What a nightmare!