JW thinking is an act of evasion. What is it? The unstated premise that problems with the Truth will go away if only you refuse to identify them
Thinking is an ACTIVE process.
EVASION is avoiding that action of active thinking which would create a positive difference. . .awakening. . .realizing the truth about The Truth.
Thinking is the virtue* man prizes most. All other virtues proceed from thinking.
EVASION is the willful suspension of one's consciousness. Evasion is *evil.
It mean's you deliberately UNfocus to avoid what is really happening to ruin your life!
What you refuse to see, hear and understand leads to a refusal TO KNOW.
Jehovah's Witnesses STAY IN because of the many things they refuse to know.
JW thinking is an unstated premise that problems with the Truth will go away if only you refuse to identify them.
What induces evasion?
Unpreparedness. If you are unprepared to face the facts you are doomed to attempt to avoid acknowledging they exist.
Fear sets in.
How would they cope without some organization to dictate their every move?
What would they do without all their "friends" to support them (their so-called brothers and sisters)?
How do JW's evade?
1.Prayer
The premise of prayer is that you are helpless. The premise of prayer is that there is somebody out there who can help IF YOU ARE WORTHY. But, prayer never works without pretzel-logic interpretation of mundane events.
2. Fellowship
The premise of fellowship is the others give you strength and encouragement and on your own you are weak and selfish. Fellowship is the opposite of self-esteem.
3.Indoctrination
Reading matter controlled to filter out reality programs the evasive mind to set life's purpose on a future event in order to squander all opportunity for life in the here and now.
4.Magic-thinking
Spending your thoughts on fantasy and fending off actuality leave no time for analytical purpose destroys your rational process.
5.Dulling the senses
Pills, alcohol, tobacco, entertainment (fill in the blank) all serve to take the edge of what is really happening and make intruding events go away. "Make the world go away" is a delaying mechanism and an evasion. It means you have no skills to live in the here and now and must resort to hiding from the natural alarm-bells that go off when action must be taken. Dulling the senses is a way to shut out the alarm.
6.Seeking advice
To seek advice you have to regard yourself as incapable of thinking out your solutions to life's problems. Seeking advice means a total stranger who does not live in your shoes is given the magic power to tell you how to live your life for you. This is abandonment of the self and a collapse of personal individuality. The difference between consulting an informed source and seeking advice is this. A consultation will afford you facts that require decisions of action. Seeking advice is turning over the wheel to another driver.
7.Delay
Procrastination delays the decision that must be made now; the action that must be taken. It is a default decision which is no more than a coin flip. It says "Whatever happens; happens. All things work out for the best. I'll let go and let god..." The difference between a person who is an individual and a slave is the slave must wait for commands.
It is not ORIGINAL SIN which infects mankind. No, it is suspending your mind in an act of abandonment which destroys you.
Evasion, blanking-out and avoidance lead to mindless out-sourcing of your thinking to a worthless OTHER.
Horoscopes, I Ching, Tarot, rabbit's foot, superstition, religion, fortune cookie, magic 8 ball, etc. These take the place of your active mind and become your master.
Evasion begins when you are made to feel inferior, sinful, worthless and in need of rescue. Worthiness is paid for by servitude.
SOUNDS LIKE EVERY JW I KNOW. Fear is their master.
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*Some helpful definitions:
VIRTUE: is being consistant with rational values. The choice to live with the facts of life and not the fantasies must be implemented with uncompromising rationality. In other words: you walk the walk and don't just talk the talk. The trick is this: choose your values carefully. Select values that are attached to reality. Act in order to impact on what is real. Faith is passive reliance on fantasy.
LOGIC: is the art of non-contradictory identification and measurement. Refusing to accept effects without causes. Thinking is an act of identifying and integrating what is identified. Logic is the measuring device that divides the consistant from the inconsistant.
EVIL: is the failure to think and act RATIONALLY. (The evil of Hitler's Germany was the result of good people refusing to act to prevent what what happening. The default mechanism of not acting allowed others (who let the STATE think for them) to do harm.
In other words; we cannot possess and live by values passively. We cannot identify and measure passively. We cannot prevent harm passively.