TOP TEN ex-Jehovah's Witness MISTAKES and ERRORS of judgment

by Terry 7 Replies latest jw friends

  • Terry
    Terry

    1. Asking the wrong people the wrong questions in search of the wrong answers based on the wrong presuppositions.

    2. Failure to realize you can't drive without a steering wheel by facing the loss of autonomy, individualism and self-respect.

    3. Self-righteousness in failing to acknowledge poor choices you made coupled with a lack of curiosity as to why and how you made them.

    4. Unwillingness to learn what a Category Fallacy** is in searching for the "true" religion or "correct" interpretation of scripture, etc.

    5. Blindness to the autonomic response mechanisms drilled into you by the Watch Tower Society making non-bias impossible for you. (i.e. replacing the JW's with some other nitwit scheme of absolute certainty.)

    6. Failure to let go of black and white thinking by learning how to see the gray areas between extremes. (Repair your rational thinking by constant drills.)

    7. Obsessing over the inconsequential while neglecting the essential. (Food, shelter, clothing, money, education, career, relationships, recreation---which is which? Which come first? How?)

    8. Developing the habit of surrounding yourself with people who will urge you to get out and DO something rather than holding your hand indefinitely.

    9. Learning Self-Esteem comes from what you DO and not who you think you are.

    10. Not embarking on a Self-Improvement regime every day of your life improving all skill sets equally such as Vocabulary, writing, reading, math, education, etc.

    And . . . a special bonus!

    FAILURE TO AVOID CRAZY-THINKING by spinning off on wacky reading material, conspiracies, fads, entertainment rumors, gossip, UFO's, Bigfoot, dead/alive Elvis, apocalypse speculations, food faddist lifestyles, etc.)

    (Category fallacy: http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_categoryerror.htm

    a semantic or ontological error in which "things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another", or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.)

  • Old Goat
    Old Goat

    Terry,

    EXCELLENT.

  • ILoveTTATT
    ILoveTTATT

    FAILURE TO AVOID CRAZY-THINKING by spinning off on wacky reading material, conspiracies, fads, entertainment rumors, gossip, UFO's, Bigfoot, dead/alive Elvis, apocalypse speculations, food faddist lifestyles, etc.)

    Amen to that!! I pity people who go from fearing Armageddon to fearing the New World Order bullshit...

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    But the wacky reading material is so much fuuuuuun.....

  • Terry
    Terry

    In the last couple of years I have tried three times to sit and actually READ an article in either the Watch Tower Ragazine or Awake!

    I honestly couldn't penetrate it.

    I got a seizing in the stomach! It restimulated bad vibes!

    Plus--the writing is just awful.

    I'm not being all "apostate" when I say that--the writing stinks.

    How in the world did I put up with twenty years of reading awful writing?

  • TTATTelder
    TTATTelder

    6. Failure to let go of black and white thinking by learning how to see the gray areas between extremes. (Repair your rational thinking by constant drills.) - Terry

    Hey Terry what are some drills to repair rational thinking?

    Or for that matter what can be done generally to repair it or help it progress?

    -TE

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    Terry - "How in the world did I put up with twenty years of reading awful writing?"

    If you were like me when I was a dutiful JW, you did all your weekly studying at one sitting to get it over with, and then spent the rest of the week with novels, movies, or TV.

    (I did say I was dutiful, not devout.)

  • Terry
    Terry

    Part of the strategy of keeping all the Brothers and Sisters so damned busy comes down to:

    HOW MUCH LOGICAL REFLECTION can an overworked person exercise?

    If you can't read everything you have to read or study everything you have to study---you certainly don't

    have time to be analytical or skeptical.

    If you WERE, you'd ask pesky questions.

    If you DID, you'd be counseled for it.

    If that HAPPENED, you'd be MARKED as a troublemaker.

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