Apostates, brighter than the average witness?

by sleepy 21 Replies latest jw friends

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  sleepy

  Apostates, brighter than the average witness?
  What do you reckon, are we brainer than people who remain witnesses?
  It may seem proud or boastful , yet I feel there can be little other expliantion.
  Or course people come across information at different times and in different ways and this will effect what they do with it.
  But ultimatly to work out what you have been taught from birth is wrong when you are presented with false and baised information claiming to be true ,propergannda has been forse fed into your brain since a baby, your whole world of family and friends indoctrinated in the same ideas, man ,you've got to have brains.
  No when I think of all those people I've left behind in the "truth" I think of people who don't question who like to be told what to do.
  People who may have done a little research to justify their faith, but only just enought.
  Lets consider ourselves a lucky group of people, who have had the ability to look at our lives and what we belive and reject it due to unrefutable evidence.
  We have reached an other level of human conciousness.
  Others have reached it from different routes, but we've been able to cean the mists of human emotion and desire from our minds to see clearly the error of wishful thinking.
  How many people who belong to other religions or follow other base less ideas have been able to do so?
  Are you now more able to see through baseless ideas and scams?
  I hope we don't give up here and look for a return to a safe and comfortable life base on further baseless ideas.
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  rekless

  We may not be smarter, but out thinking abilities have matured beyond infancy stage.
• 

  SYN

  Well, apostates are actually allowed to think for themselves. Dubs aren't allowed to mentally wander past the DO NOT CROSS markers at all, because the WTBTS wouldn't like that, now would it?

  The earlier in the forenoon you take the sun bath, the greater will be the beneficial effect, because you get more of the ultra-violet rays, which are healing. - The Golden Age
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  NeonMadman

  I know some pretty intelligent people who are JW's. The difference, I think, is not in intelligence but in what some might call "thinking ability." The JW has been trained not to think outside certain parameters, and if his thoughts start to wander, checks and balances that have been implanted through indoctrination come into play and guide his mind back to acceptable areas of consideration. Some might call this "mind control".

  Or, to put it another way, JW's are not only incapable of 'thinking outside the box,' they have trained themselves not even to recognize that there IS a box.

  Tom
  

  "The truth was obscure, too profound and too pure; to live it you had to explode." ---Bob Dylan
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  Seeker4

  Brighter? Probably not.

  Having said that, I do think it's often a combination of intelligence, the ability to reason maturely on things, and the courage (and this may be the key) to speak up and act when something doesn't make sense.

  I saw a lot of the WTS flaws for years, but it took a while for me to get to the point where I just said I've had enough.

  I've also discussed on other posts here the idea that some leave due to a transformation, a move to a higher level of consciousness and, for want of a better word, a higher level of spirituality. But others just leave because they are upset at WTS teachings or the people in their congregation, that sort of thing. Many of those just move on to some other form of religion - and very likely a literal or fundamental one. They simply seek a new translation of the same old stories and myths, and they aren't interested in - or perhaps capable of - a genuine transformation of consciousness.

  As one poster put it a year or two ago on the old H2O - "They have simply crawled out of the ditch on one side of the road and into the ditch on the other side."

  The thing is, the Witnesses would lump all of those folks together as "apostates." In my view, the "apostate" that leaves the Witnesses in order to just move on to some other literalist church is probably a lot dumber than the average Witness. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing time and again and expecting different results?

  S4
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  Undecided

  In my case it had nothing to do with smartness, I was just feed up with all the control and my life being bound up by what someone else thought I should do. It was much later that I looked at the "truth" and found it to be the opposite. I'm not dumb but not especially smart either. I guess I just got lucky.

  Ken P.
• 

  RunningMan

  I was a Witness for decades. Am I smarter today than I was in the past? - no, I'm the same person, with the same abilities. However, I know a whole lot of stuff today that I didn't know before.

  I don't think it's a question of intelligence. Rather, we can point to access to information, openmindedness, and personal circumstances.

  Most importantly, I think there are some people who have a basic need to rely on that type of religion. I do not have that need. I was born into this outfit, and the mild insanity required to be a loyal JW was not present in me. It was always a bad fit for my personality.
• 

  ThiChi

  Well, all I know is this: I can now see scams, smoke and BS coming a mile away!
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  amccullough

  You must be joking! First of all, you must realize there is no way you can generalize the intelligence of either group. And if you do, than it is out of the same arrogance that allows a self-righteous JW to look down on those who are not (and I am far from implying that all or even most JWs are self-righteous.)
  I know some extremely intelligent JWs and some very dumb JWs. I also know some extremely intelligent non-JWs and some very dumb non-JWs. I don't think there is a difference of level in intelligence or spirituality between those who stop being a JW and those who are faithfull to their beliefs as a JW...they just have different conclusions.
  And if you are going to make the assertion that their is a difference in intelligence, than run your posts through a spell check to catch words like "propergannda", it might add a little credence to your claim.
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  Farkel

  M. James Penton has commented in his book "Apocalypse Delayed" that the WTS is losing its best and its brightest, and to some extent he's right. It's hard to put humans in pre-defined little boxes, though.

  A person of average intelligence might be endowed with an active "Bullshit Meter" and leave the WTS when a person of superior intelligence either turned his own meter off or chose to ignore it.

  The WTS society was right about one thing, though: a dub who chooses to get a University education has a high likelihood of leaving the society. They teach logic and science at the University, much to the chagrin of the WTS. Once someone has learned to master even the basics of logic, his/her "Bullshit Meter" gets regenerated and the society's bullshit doesn't stand much of a chance.

  Note that having a University education has nothing to do with intelligence, but on the other hand, it doesn't take a very intelligent person with a little thinking ability and logic to see how seriously flawed WT theology and eschaetology really is.

  Farkel