by Terry 32 Replies latest jw friends
I've talked to clueless pioneers, clueless elders, and clueless circuit overseers. One elder in particular would rather know the latest rule on how to sort the magazines than the latest understanding on the faithful and discreet slave. It is a sad day indeed when an inactive fader knows more about the doctrines of the religion than a congregational leader.
hoser
The existence of this website & others like it is the best thing that can be done for active JWs
If they ever feel a twinge of doubt, or curiosity, well, all the information they could ever want is sitting here online.
but they have to make the first move, to click on the link!
Tell you what I was in "the truth" since 1977 and only stopped going to meetings 2 years ago,we both pioneered on and off regularly for years,we lived the truth 24x7 for all those years rarely missing meetings,I thought I studied the deeper things but realy I didnt, I just read what I was told to read, accepted it and then preached what I had learned. I have learned more from this forum about the truth than I ever did in all those years, what an absolute waste of all those years of my life,I will never get them back not ever. Well now I am OUT of the club and have discovered that far from being a lost soul people actualy quite like my company and now I am so involved in life I barely have a free day,I think life is very good now,of course their ignorant,thats how the whole thing works. Ignorance and fear, the two greatest evils.
You can be totally ignorant. You don't have to think. The Org will think for you and tell you how to think. Any questions?? Just use the WT Library and do your "research".
Doc
" If you attend all the meetings, go door-to-door every Saturday, and comment at the Watchtower study, you could be as dumb as a box of rocks and still be "in good standing". "
Good Standing?!?! How about being an authority figure, Shepherd, " Star " in Jesus' right hand?!
LET us be precise!
It isn't just ignorance on the part of the Elders; it is arrogant ignorance which allows no correction by others.
Humility is ready to listen and learn and change.
Hubris is not.
As far as the "leadership" within the religion--nobody listens to evidence and nobody is willing to admit to error humbly.
hoser , that is so true!
"One elder in particular would rather know the latest rule on how to sort the magazines than the latest understanding on the faithful and discreet slave"
Hubris - " an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power." That says it all.
As to the original post..one does not need knowledge to be a sheep in good standing. You can be as thick as a brick and the sort of person who blanks out anything that he/she cannot immediately grasp. I have known many much loved dubs who were like that. The more trusting and gullible the more they like you...just smile and always be cheerful, turn up for everything and you will get on fine. It is the ones who ask questions and do not always do what the elders tell them - they are the dangerous ones.
In Orwell's "Animal Farm" was not it the sheep who would continually bleat "Four legs good, two legs bad" at every turn ? They were popular with the ruling overseers, the pigs.....
I'm sure there may be a few pigs on the GB!
I've come to several conclusions.
Being a JW is a lifestyle first and foremost. The esoteric doctrine and theology which gets thrown around and which is so hard to fathom for people "outside" is not that big of a concern for JWs in some ways, which may seem somewhat counterintuitive to us given its emphasis in their literature. Many are quite happy to go with the flow and be considered a JW according to the core practices as defined by the WTBS (field service, meeting attendence, no part of the world etc). Some of these essential practices are corporate in nature and not necessarily religious. There is this strange tension between the WTS as a corporation and the JWs as a religion, given that the two are so tightly intertwined.
They are not interested in launching an in depth investigation of their own religion. And even those who know their stuff relatively well and a bit of the history (quite rare indeed) are not interested in any kind of profound analysis of the JWs which might lead to any reflections which are not religiously approving of the org. They have very little frame of reference.
They will not get into any sorts of analysis of the politics behind doctrines or power struggles either in the present or the past. I think most are not even aware of looking through that kind of lens at the org. It would be totally foreign to them.
I also found that witness perceptions of themselves and their organisation are often conditioned by their daily reality, their routines at the kingdom hall etc. Many have no clue of the how the higher levels of the org function, or any sort of complete understanding of how the whole power structure functions in reality.
In a sense, it almost pays to be ignorant to be in good standing. Otherwise, if you really knew how things went down both in the present and in the past, ie. the power struggles, the connection of doctrine development to specific individuals, the duplicitousness and carelessness, the wackiness of it all, how could you be a true believer? You would need a critical sense to begin with to be able to analyse the org in the this way, which is not what they want.
How can an organisation which abhors higher education and is suspicious of scholarship produce a disinterested account of themselves? It's ironic but they do not know even know who they are, and it's by design. I've always thought it would take intelligent ex JWs to write a decent history of the JWs.
The most pointed comment I ever had was from a housholder lady who asked me this question ( after I gave my canned WT message)
"are you happy as a JW?
after I gave my limp noodle "yes", reply-
she gave me the this advice -
"you need to stop lying to yourself"
She let that sink in for a few seconds and then closed the door.
I was thunderstruck- she had seen right through me. It's too bad I didn't stop lying to myself right then and there- I would have cut my misery in the KH in half.
