They are already in paradise

by Xanthippe 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Xanthippe

  Do you remember going door to door and if you went to a beautifil home with a beautiful garden often the person with you would say -'these wont want to hear the message, they already have their paradise'?

  It seems to me that was what a lot of the message of the new system was about. Who wouldn't want to choose a beautiful part of the world and build your own house on it without paying for the land or building materials?

  Also to go off at a tangent a bit I remember thinking we would have to find somewhere miles away from any elders, build up a small holding and be self sufficient. Keep away from all the sqabbling elders until Jesus sorted them all out. Maybe that would even take a thousand years. Do you remember thinking something similar?
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  Mr. Falcon

  Yup. Hell, I'm probably guilty of spouting this BS myself. I felt so sorry for these people, sure they may have a 5 story mansion, Bentley in the driveway, 22-year old lingerie model in the hot-tub and a Scrooge McDuck money bin, but they will never know the happiness of one day petting a tiger!
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  Xanthippe

  Oh yeah the vegetarian tigers!

  I am trying to cast my mind back and I think the idea of the small holding miles away from anyone, particularly elders, was the only way I could reconcile the whole thing about the promises are still real, it's just that the org is so fucked up. Stupid really, my husband and I used to talk about having to wait on Jah even in the new system until maybe the end of the thousand years because of all these imperfect leaders and their bs.

  I suppose slowly we were moving towards realising it was all crazy but we just couldn't face it straight away so we dreamt up this idea of paradise even with evil elders, but at a safe distance. My husband was an elder for four years before we left, by the way. That was how he knew what they were really like!
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  Chariklo

  Even in my brief JW experience I heard conversations of this sort. I know one group of pioneers (elder's family) who would parcel out available land for themselves as they talked. They certainly seemed to believe they would have vast empty swathes of Britain to choose from, in which they would be able to live in total happiness.
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  Xanthippe

  Yes Chariklo, I think it shows that it is a religion that often appeals to those that have given up on making a life in the real world. They've given up on education,getting a proper job and buying a decent home, finding it all too hard. So they just live on fantasies. It reminds me of magazines that have a target readership. They set out a lifestyle in the mag to a certain group of people they are targeting and then they keep reinforcing it to make the target group feel 'at home' and keep them purchasing the magazine. Seems like that's what the WTS do to a certain extent.