by Black Man 46 Replies latest jw friends
I dislike the belief for other reasons. It kills ambition, deferring happiness to a vague future. Why bother to learn a musical instrument now when you have an endless future ahead of you?
Also a trick of our attention is that we will see what we are looking for. Invariably Armageddon hopefuls see a steadily declining society, facts be damned.
bttt!
It's also true that whatever your basic personality, being a dub makes forming lasting relationships difficult. You MUST build a wall in your psyche. If people are not dubs, then they could die at the big A, so you can't form a lasting bond. I would argue that you really can't form a lasting bond with any JW either, after all, they could be an apostate against the GB!
So all jokes aside, the big A does mess up your mind, and therefore your outlook and by extension, your future.
DD
Ditto about the lasting relationships. When I first observed the Witnesses, I noticed an odd detachment of Witness mothers. Now this is a gross generalization of course, but it must be difficult to invest so much in a child that might turn away from your faith when they get older. Or what if the mother has doubts and has to risk losing contact with their children? Makes it hard to love you forever, doesn't it?
Odd detachment of Witness Mothers _____JGNAT
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Exactly JNAT
I was told point blank that I had chose my daughter over Jehovah
when I allowed her to miss a meetin' for an extracurricular activity
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I guess I was supposed to put off her happiness until
the new system kicked in
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Doesn't the ARMAGEDDON teaching foster a MORBID view of the future?
Yes but what compelling thing to place in people's minds to control them to do what you want,
such as being a sales representative for the Watchtower Corporation.
A sickening repressive notion of fear, anxiety and depression to place into people's psychological presence.
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The WTs. shows that in actuality it was and still is a freewheeling exercise of religious charlatanism.
I vividly remember when I was a little kid in the 1970s seeing those awful drawings in the big old orange book called “From Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained” depicting buildings swaying, hailstones raining, and huge crevasses opening up in the ground with people of all ages falling in to their deaths. That image, along with all the associated indoctrination and coercion, was prominently burned into my psyche, and was always present in my subconscious. I can tell you that this kind of morbid and destructive dogma has profound effects on a youth’s development, especially during puberty, which is a time where a whole gamut of various sexual desires and fantasies can become manifest, often as a sort of escapist coping mechanism (certainly in my case). I had a reoccurring dream about a dark and eerie storm with tornados approaching slowly but steadily from a distance.
My dad would occasionally scare me about sinning against the holy spirit (thus my user name, “SAHS”) and being irreversibly condemned by Jehovah. Thus, for considerable time I lived with the feeling of quite possibly being on a kind of “death row” awaiting the execution of my fate. (Lovely thing for a child to have to live through, isn’t it!) No wonder my parents were informed consistently by primary and junior high school teachers and counselors that I had definite low self-esteem and self-defeating behavioral issues.
This apocalyptic judgment and Armageddon dogma constantly being spewed from the WTS is more than just morbid – The X‑Files and Criminal Minds were often rather morbid; however, the psychologically destructive and hateful sh^t from the WTS is a most vile poison! Kids beware.
I bet most JWs suffer from scrupulosity to some degree. You can't reason with someone performing an OCD.
bttt!
Nihilation from wikitionary ( there is wiki everything now huh?
From Latin nihilō ( “ I reduce to nothing ” )
nihilation (plural nihilations )
This is defined isa current self help bok my husband is reading as the prime reason for suicidal tendancies, and it the consequense of emotions not developing from the teenage age, where this view of life can be common. The more detailed desctiprion of examples fit the WT/JW teachings and therefore, beliefs of this world as hopeless, filled with evil, bad people, all doing evil bad things where no others can do a thing about it. They feel life is all about suffering.
No wonder a person with this belief set feels hopless and helpless. No wonder they cling to the idea of the " spiritual ark" as the oe and on;y chance to to save them.
The damage this has done to my husband may never be reversed. For almost 10 years now he has diagnosed organic reasons to be depressed, ( known neurological consequenses of what he has) on top of his JW upbringing. Now that he had regained interest in the JW a few years back, he may be at a point of no return. He defends purely in emotional thinking, and when asked to do critical thinking he shuts down and gets angry. Deep down I understand he is afraid to really critically think about it. He knows the contridictory things I brought up in the beginning of his interest had basis in fact but chooses not to believe it. His nihilation belief is one I wish we could explore. How deep is it? I see in his past actions he really doesn' believe it fully, but if asked point blank he will likely defend it. His mind is living with duplicity, cognitive dissonence. Trying to make sense of the irrational, and damaging JW teachings. But then gives up many times and just "follows". If his emotions take over, then he is lost and fully into the JW cult.
His childhood up bringing is one with two very loving parents, though his father is stand offish in exprressing his love, he does SO MUCH for his kids. But the full JW upbringing had to have so much of a negative impact. How else does my huaband have repeated severe low self-esteem diagnois form multiple drs, anxiety now uncontrolled, and severe depression. Even with the organic component, his is overly severe and unresolved. ( He was mentally and physically abused by his over a decade long year relationship with a woman....somehow ( low self esteem) he allowed the absurd cruel treatment)
This armageddon teaching to children is abusive inmy opinion. Interestingly my husband got a JW bible stories book for children long ago and began to read stories from it but then stopped on his own because of the violent nature of the book. He was upset at it. ( so some hope there at least)
