The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually. This has been the story behind the old WTBTS and the new JW.org. Jw's are being cooked slowly by the GB.
The boiling frog
by wolfman85 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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wolfman85
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hoser
Too bad it doesnt work that way. The boiling frog story is just that a story, an urban myth.
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jgnat
Yes, one of my big disappointments when this myth died. So handy.
I would use the boiling frog analogy for the six month study/indoctrination process, never faster. The student is lulled in to leaving his all unanswered questions indefinitely. Who has the fortitude after six months to admit it was all a collosal waste of time? Multiply that over 30 years amd you have a lot of trapped people.
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wolfman85
Too bad it doesnt work that way. The boiling frog story is just that a story, an urban myth.
I know it's a myth, but the sad thing is that what's happening with the JW's is very real.
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Phizzy
Metaphors don't have to work in the real world, they still vividly illustrate the point, and this is a good one !
Of course, the literal minded JW may jump on the fact that it is "not true" to avoid taking on board the lesson from it, so, if using it to a JW , we should explain that it is a metaphorical example first.
It does really underline my own experience, from birth and "in" for nearly 60 years, I did not really notice the morphing of the religion. It was only once I had left and I looked back I realised the religion I was born in to was long gone by the time I was twenty, and it morphed again about every decade.
The process seems to have speeded up now, I have been gone less than a decade, but the religion I left no longer exists, an even sillier version is in its place.
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Vidiot
Phizzy - "The process seems to have speeded up now..."
With a subtle hint of quiet desperation, too, from the looks of it...
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wolfman85
Thank you Phizzy. You got my point
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neverendingjourney
True story: There was an elder in our hall who used the boiling frog metaphor as an illustration during a public talk.
To his credit, the elder clarified that it wasn't an original illustration he had come up with. Rather, a CO had come up with it and the elder simply borrowed it from the CO's talk.
In hindsight, the ignorance of the average JW is startling.
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Apognophos
I used to hear this metaphor fairly often from the platform.
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smiddy
I was not a born in , however I can relate to this experience
", I did not really notice the morphing of the religion. It was only once I had left and I looked back I realised the religion I was born in to was long gone by the time I was twenty, and it morphed again about every decade."
And of course that is how they explain new light , but never explain how the old light was wrong.
smiddy