I love to read and always read more of what I wanted to read which wasn't the WTBS publications. Sure I studied at times but like most of you I don't think I ever read one of their books cover to cover except for the Live Forever book because that is what I studied to come in and we went over every paragraph.
Does the borg really produce great readers? How much did you actually read when in?
by likeabird 23 Replies latest jw friends
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msconcerned
The only things i read were the publications, i really never enjoyed reading as a pastime. Although i am an excellent reader, i read at the meetings quite regularly. I did however read my very first novel last year....i was awe struck that I could get so into it.
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Band on the Run
Me, too. The WT is very reader unfriendly. Now I don't think that they want us to read it. Why else must the content be read word for word at KH?
I lived in a rather poor neighborhood. Trips to the library were so much fun. Without library books, though, I had only National Geographic and WT material. It has nothing to do with WT theology but I feel the enforced reading helped me read several grades above my level. Teachers would ask what books I had at home. I will read toothpaste tubes if bored.
Also, when I was a young child, the library had extensive holdings. My brother and I attended library school, where we celebrated birthdays and holidays. I was still young when my reading level became adult. The adult books were forbidden. The local library had one bookcase for young teens. It was painful. I thought all the adult books had to be marvelous. Time after time, I begged to read those books. No way, kid. Well, I so much wanted to prove evolution was wrong that I had my teacher intervene. I was allowed to pull adult books that were mentioned in Witness literature. Perhaps the church/state business scared them. I earned my first and only D. My friends said it was unfair so he raised my grade to a C.
I love reading classic literature. The WT goes out of its way to destroy the English language. Yet I knew many things my classmaes did not because of Awake!.
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Athanasius
I was an avid reading while in the borg and after. However, as a JW I merely skimmed through Watchtower publications, preferring to read history and politics and still do. As others have mentioned the publications of the Freddy Franz era, though kookie, did take more than a 5th grade reading ability.
I should also mention that while in the JWs I read almost every book that Hugh J. Schonfield wrote including the Passover Plot and the Pentecost Revolution. Of course I left the borg in 1984 when it was a slightly different religion than present day JWism.
During my JW years I read the Bible Genesis through Revelation only once, and I was an elder. Back then most of the elders that I knew rarely read the Bible and barely kept up with the latest Watchtower magazine. Moreover, the Bible that I read cover to cover wasn't the NWT, but the New English Bible which included the deutrocanonical books not found in the NWT. Since leaving the JWs I've read the New American Bible and the Today's English Version.
Currently I'm reading Wild Bill Donovan--The Last Hero by Anthony Cave Brown.
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snare&racket
They claims to teach reading on the charity status forms.
In 25 years of JW interaction I never once saw anyone teach anyone to read. I wished they had some Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings...
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Julia Orwell
I've always been a prodigious reader. However, I always found the 'publications' boring, dry and repetitive. I've got stacks of modern classics at home I read over and over, as well as biographies and history treatises. My books are my escape. I love immersing myself in beautiful English. Probably why I found the WTs so boring and only ever skimmed the Awakes: no literary devices, no imagination, no sentences that take your breath away. No pathos- nothing but a dry religious stuff or infantile articles on something like African papayas or Sami art. Those topics themselves are not boring if written about with depth and flair, but the Awake writers show little flair and no imagination.
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Phizzy
From my youth I have been an avid reader, back then nearly all exciting fiction. My opinion of the WT stuff is almost identical to Julia's above, so I never read the Magrags or books properly, just enogh to comment at Meetings.
I did read a bit of Russell's stuff, and marvelled at how fanciful it was, but read in to it the basics of WT theology, which I suppose it was to a degree.
Since leaving I have realised how uneducated I was, so I have read much on History, Philosophy, Evolution and other scientific theories and knowledge, and even some natural history, I need to do more in that area, I know next to nothing there !
I have read a little too on Bible exegesis, and the textual criticism of Bible books, such a study really opens your eyes !
JW's as a rule, (certainly not all of them), are lazy readers, hence their reading in public is of terrible quality, they do not read and understand their own literature, certainly they are rarely really " students of the bible" as they claim, and they know little outside of the WT bubble, in other words they are woefully ignorant.
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SophieG
I have been an avid reader since childhood. I have numerous candid photos my mom took of me reading a book, it’s hilarious. However when it came to reading the publications, I used to feel guilty because I could never seem to get my brain to absorb the information. It’s something about the way they are written, it’s weird. I tried to delve into some major WT “tomes” and my head would hurt. Don’t get me started on the Revelation Climax. I stopped pretending after the 2 nd time we studied it. I tried to read the Bible and once I hit Numbers my brain would shut down. However, I can say I enjoy sections of the NT, especially the gospels, because I do find Jesus fascinating. But overall, I never felt like I walked away with anything when I read the literature.
Now if you want to get me going, give me Historical Fiction/Sci-Fi any day. I developed a twisted fascination with Henry the VIII, Elizabeth I and Wars of the Roses. I got all twisted behind the African/West Indian/Caribbean slave trade! But my all time fav so far: Games of Thrones.
In “past lives” I must have been some lower-tiered Medieval/European/Colonial American aristocratic (crazy-as-hell white lady), who loved to observe all the various intrigues. I don’t know why I relate to those time periods so well.
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LisaRose
I have always read a lot, but when I was in the Borg it was mostly fiction, light stuff. Since leaving I still read more fiction, but it is now usually more thoughtful fiction and I now read more non fiction on a wider variety of topics. I am a very self taught person, I taught myself to program as well as a lot of other things, but 13 years after leaving the Borg, I find I have reached the limits of that and that I need to take some classes to get the depth I need need in some subjects. I am interested in writing, so right now I am looking for an online course of some kind. It's like the more I learn the more I realize how much I don't know. I have also learned a lot from some of the posters here, I am constantly amazed at the depth of knowledge of some of them.
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gorgia2
My grandmother, such a clever lady, really used to confuse me when I was a child, with her exclamations of gratitude over the Awake! magazine and how wonderful it was that Jehovah provided his flock with its entertainment and information. I couldn't understand why she always said this when she was so intelligent and well-read. Now I suspect she was protesting too much.
gorgia