by dontplaceliterature 41 Replies latest jw friends
It is the "for public consumption" edition.
I'd venture to guess that they want outsiders to be reassured that they welcome questions and diligent research. Once you're in, they pull the bait and switch manoeuvre, such that "you know it's The Truth™", "trust us, we're the Faithful and Discreet Slave™", and questioning + deep research = Apostasy™.
leolaia - consise and to the point.
Scully - It is the "for public consumption" edition.
I'd venture to guess that they want outsiders to be reassured that they welcome questions and diligent research. Once you're in, they pull the bait and switch manoeuvre, such that "you know it's The Truth™", "trust us, we're the Faithful and Discreet Slave™", and questioning + deep research = Apostasy™.
Great observation I had overlooked. As I recall very few witnesses ever read the WT unless they needed to underline the study articles for showing at the meeting. Now that there is a "public edition" my guess is that only a very few JWs bother to open one.
I am going to make a few copies of the above "Our Readers Ask" and the "fight against independent thinking...etc" staple them together in pairs and keep them near the door for the next JW visit. OH! better yet make a meeting night parking lot raid and put them on a few windshields.
I tried reasoning on this same point with my dad the first time I REALLY talked to him about what I was going through. I shared with him the article from the 8/22/78 Awake! "Do Others Do Your Thinking?". It went over like a pregnant pole vaulter. He said that we didn't need to investigate the organization with a critical eye since we knew we already had The Truth. That will be the exact response you get from any Jehovah's Witness you give this article to, whether they actually say it, or they just think it.
Sad.
I think it's just a dishonest way of gaining trust. The old, "Don't take my word for it, research it yourself!" By encouraging fact checking, they disarm the other person who often concludes that fact checking must not be necessary or they would not have suggested it. I mean, who directs you to the very thing that will discredit them? But they also decide WHERE you can go for fact checking----their own literature. You don't want to check on the internet! That's not valid info. You don't want to read anything from an ex-member! That's just hateful rhetoric. But please, check the facts! The Watchtower library is just full of supporting evidence for what we are saying.
Kind of like a guy telling his girlfriend that he was only out with the guys last night, and if she doesn't believe him, she can call his best friend for confirmation. Yeah---okay. He's not going to tell her to call his other girlfriend for confirmation.
This also brings up the old question - Why are those disfellowshipped for disagreeing with "old light" not being exonerated and the shunning discontinued?
This "Our Readers Ask" article is not as flashy, funny as the sign language video, but it is, in my opinion, a better tool to discredit the WT.
The only "facts" that JWs will let you near in order to shore up your faith in their religion, is what has been sanitized and published by the WT Corp.
The last few lines just above the soldier's pic made me sick. "Faith based on accurate knowledge becomes...a large shield that PROTECTS US FROM EMOTIONAL and spiritual harm.
Yeah right! Tell that to all the ones emotionally devasted by this cult. Leslie
Great point, Leslie.
The ultimate act of arrogance is to insist others need to scrutinize their beliefs but you don't need to scrutinize yours because you already have the truth.
It's not a modern phenomenon: It's ancient: The arrogance that has informed organized religion for thousands of years and is stamped approvingly in most, if not all, "Holy" books.
