If you could pick out critical errors to the JWS religion what would it be ?

by Rocketman123 52 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    If you were to ask 100 people on the street, a few might be familiar enough with Jehovah's Witnesses to know that they distribute literature, but not one of them would understand the message itself.

    Only if you managed to find 100 people none of whom are JWs, former JWs, have family members who are JWs, or ever had a significant friendship with a JW through work or other contact, which is pretty unlikely, in the US and many other countries. In my experience, a surprisingly high number of “normal” people have been preached to one way or another through various kinds of contacts with JWs. In any context with a dozen strangers, or more, my experience is that the chances are pretty good of coming across someone who knows about JWs for one reason or another, if the topic comes up. A rough outline of the idea that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Armageddon is coming and that you need to join them if you want to survive it is pretty widely know, I would suggest. Cultural references in mainstream media to JWs that allude to the idea of Armageddon are also a good indication that the basic message is widely dispersed.

  • Doofgrandaddy
    Doofgrandaddy

    I'll go back to the beginning...

    The sheer audacity of a 19th century store keeper (Russell) believing that "God's Organisation" had disappeared after the first century and that God was now directing him and only him to revive the Eternal Truths to the whole world would in our current times be diagnosable in DSM-5 as psychosis....

    Or it was a massive scam

  • Rocketman123
    Rocketman123

    Or it was a massive scam

    Possibly with a commercial twist.

    Its like Russel wasn't really a well studied bible scholar/theologian but a turn of the century charlatan.

  • TD
    TD

    Only if you managed to find 100 people none of whom....

    I'm kinda at a loss as to why you think that would be difficult. (Unless things are really, really different in your neck of the woods....)

    JW's are not known for what they believe. They are known for what they don't believe when they're known at all.

    You might find a few people who know that JW's don't celebrate holidays and fewer still who are aware that they are against transfusion medicine.

    But an imminent judgement culminating in the destruction of non-JW's?

    JW's themselves will usually argue with you on that point.


  • LongHairGal
    LongHairGal

    ROCKETMAN123:

    There are so many things wrong in my opinion but I’ll pick the one most important to me:

    The knocking of college and careers even at this point in time takes the cake: as we speak, there are many JWs and ex-JWs at retirement age with no preparation because they were told Armageddon would be here!..They now have to knock themselves out in their senior years just to make ends meet.

    When they were young they were told they would be ‘weak in faith’ if they had a career or were known to contribute to an IRA.. People like me with full time jobs were told they should quit their jobs and pursue part-time menial work and full time ministry.. If they refused (like I did) they were labeled as ‘unspiritual’ and hardly invited anywhere (as a punishment I assume). But, that’s okay because I am Retired. So, in retrospect it was worth it to be ‘shunned’ by them.

    I just had a long conversation yesterday with an old JW friend who admitted this and shared that a family member was knocked and shunned for having a good job to support his family. So, I know I was not alone in the bad treatment I received.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    I'm kinda at a loss as to why you think that would be difficult.

    In the US 1 in 160 people attended the memorial last year, and 1 in 273 of the US population is an active publisher. So the chances of one of the people in your 100 actually being an active, inactive or former JW is reasonably high.
    Each of those JWs is going to have a number of non-JW relatives, friends, workmates, neighbours, schoolmates, and so on. So the chances that a few people out of a random 100 people will know about JWs and Armageddon, is higher still.
  • TTWSYF
    TTWSYF

    RM123

    Its like Russel wasn't really a well studied bible scholar/theologian but a turn of the century charlatan.


    Bingo Rocketman. Ever hear of Russell's 'magic wheat'?

  • jhine
    jhine

    I'm with TD on that , certainly in the UK . I don't think that l know anyone who has any idea about the WT , except maybe that they don't celebrate Christmas and that's usually because they have children of school age and are told " Sue or Tom don't have presents like we do at Christmas"

    It seems that like Mormons there are lots more JWs in the States than here.

    Jan

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    We don't have the time, endurance levels, or server space.

  • TD
    TD

    SBF

    In the US...1 in 273 of the US population is an active publisher.

    The nature of the question would preclude JW's themselves. Sorry for not being clear about what I meant by people on the street. I should know better than to use idioms like that.

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