The Plague of Our Era - False Certainty

by jgnat 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  jgnat

  I found this quote a nice summary of the problem with WT beliefs.

  The Smart Case and Religious Certainty

  ...In some ways, new religious movements are responses to some of the more noxious aspects of modern life. These sects often seek to compensate for the epidemics of loneliness, environmental degradation and meaninglessness that bedevil so much of our culture. In that way, they can be useful safety valves.

  But when they get sucked into the plague of our era - false certainty - they become menticidal and leave ruin in their wake. Mitchell's myopic attraction to polygamy - and, worse, his apparent willingness to kidnap children to marry so he could live out his vision - was an example.

  So the lesson in the Mitchell affair is the same lesson in any disaster rooted in false and fearful religion: Belief systems that allow no alternative interpretations are almost inevitably calamitous.

  Knight Ridder Newspapers, Mar. 31, 2003 (Opinion)
  http://www.fortwayne.com/
  BY BILL TAMMEUS, Knight Ridder Newspapers
  Bill Tammeus is an editorial page columnist for The Kansas City Star.
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  Gopher

  Yes. JW's meet the standard of obnoxious marketing: create a need (create a sense of urgency or despair in a customer) and then sell something to fill the need (in this case a false sense of the nearness of the end, followed by everlasting life for their customers).

  : Belief systems that allow no alternative interpretations are almost inevitably calamitous.

  -how true, how true.

  I tried unsuccessfully to find a definition for "menticidal". Perhaps it means murderous of one's mental abilities?

  Check in your thinking ability at the door. Let's play the follow the leader. "Menticide" for sure.
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  Satanus

  I wonder if some economists and some govts are also into false certainties and 'one way only' thinking?
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  jgnat

  Gopher, yes, that lovely made-up word menticidal covers it quite nicely. Kindly check your "independent thinking" at the door and leave your brain at home. I also like the WT's very own brain "permafrost" analogy that Blondie so nicely brought up.

  SaintSatan, False Certainty would be the best argument for democracy. In a democracy, even a demagogue has opponents that can't be shut up and a limited term of office.
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  DanTheMan

  You ought to see the way thousands of people in my city clamor after Rod Parsley, pastor of World Harvest Church (evangelical mega-church). The guy is a textbook case of a delusional religious fanatic.

  Seems like we are in an era replete with religious psychopaths. Richard Dawkins calls religion a mental virus. I'm seeing more and more how apt a metaphor this is.
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  teejay

  Belief systems that allow no alternative interpretations are almost inevitably calamitous .

  Too true. Of course, entertaining alternative interpretations is blasphemous when the given interpretation is supposedly of divine origin. As I see it, that's the problem with the jehovahs ... and other religions, too. Sometimes, this tendency toward intolerant narrow-mindedness is too easily adopted by people in areas of concern other than just religion.