Yup Ginger, to sum up your excellent post in three words often used on here that are so true:
ITS A CULT !!!!!!
Is the Watchtower Destroying All Thinking Skills of New Witness, Compare them to when you were in the Organization!
by RottenRiley 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sir82
Listen, obey, and be blessed!
No need to think.
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hamsterbait
"Listen, Obey or DIE!"
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ABibleStudent
I can only hope that soon it will turn into an avalanche of stupidity so that fewer non-JWs will be indoctrinated into the WTBTS.
Unfortunately, I have seen for myself that JWs prey on the most vunerable of society to gain new recruits with their love bombing.
Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,
Robert
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Band on the Run
We were never taught thinking skills. My experience is from the 1950s but I had notes/lit from deceased family members. There had to be self-selection going on in who became a Witness. I thought I knew the Bible and WT doctrine. Well, I did compared to the male powers that existed at the KH. This was a very low level. It was only in college when I read the NT as a primary source that I began to realize that I knew nothing. All the time invested in the Witnesses decreased my knowledge. I was stunned.
There is no substitute for reading a primary text. In order to better understand the canonical gospels, we had to read the Gnostic and Infany gospels. When we studied Revelation, we also had to read Jewish apocalyptic texts. My grades were important if I wanted to work in several fields. I never wrote about anything that resembled Witness topics. I decided I could do it on my own during the summer. Not having any prior knowledge or exposure to a topic helped my grades.
During my final year I enrolled in the Jesus seminar which had prerequisites. Only the Orthodox Jewish pre-med students could relate factual material. When the prof pointed out that a crowd of students used to great grades could not report what we learned in the first course, I learned a valuable lesson.
B/c I was unable to study at a seminary, I can only access the scholarship every so many years. The academic views change.
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steve2
Be aware that people are not the hapless victims you make them out to be. There is an old Latin saying of centuries ago that tranlsated into English states, "the world wants to be deceived". People's need to mindlessly belong to something and believe it can be so strong they want someone else to do their thinking for them. While I might deplore the group-think mentality that prevails in the organization, the other side, so to speak, is the Witnesses' eagerness to submit to authority - to allow others to do their thinking for them.
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Xanthippe
That's interesting Steve2 because that was my thought on the ' Deep down they know it's BS' thread. That they are deciding to mindlessly follow the nonsense even when we try and point out the doctrinal problems. They're letting themselves be decieved for the social rewards several of us were saying but you disagreed at the time.
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jwfacts
Gingerbread - For a century they have been telling us that we can come to a true understanding of the Bible ONLY by reading and studying their publications.
BOTR - We were never taught thinking skills. My experience is from the 1950s but I had notes/lit from deceased family members. There had to be self-selection going on in who became a Witness. I thought I knew the Bible and WT doctrine.
Those two comments sum up the situation. JWs have always been forced not to think or research, but rather learn Watchtower doctrine by rote. They forcefully felt they knew more than others, and still do. That does not make Watchtower doctrine right, it is just that most religious people do not know their own doctrine well enough to hold such a debate.
Overall, both JWs and people of other religions are becoming less interested and educated about their own doctrine. That is product of society in general. TV, computers and ipads have led people to short attention spans and information overload. This generation operate off sound bites rather than extensive research.
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fulltimestudent
What do you need thinking skills for? All you need is FAITH, doncha?
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jwfacts
Tim Hopper - He was so au fait with his Bible that he could give a public talk with only the scriptural references for notes. Once, after I'd left, he phoned me and I mentioned that I was suffering with piles. He immedediately quoted a scripture that stated somethimng about those deserting would have a sore arse - something like that anyway.
Whilst many knew the Bible inside out, they did not know how to interpret it with any degree of logic, but rather have always does so in line with how the Watchtower forces them to. The Watchtower uses an Eisgesis approach to interpretation that is poor when compared to standard Christianity, yet educated and intelligent JWs still followed it without question because the religion was always about indoctrination and control. For example, JWs were unphased by flip flops around the great crowd, the worship of Jesus, or the ridiculous Revelation interpretations and antitypes. I has always been Watchtower devotion ahead of Bible accuracy.