Elders encouraging young ones to live in a fairy tale

by Addison0998 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Addison0998

  So one of the elders at the meeting tonight addressed to parents in his talk, “If your child wants to flip burgers for the rest of their life, because that’s is the only job that will allow them to have a schedule for full time service, you would want to support them the best you can.” He has also said told parents that if their children already have plans to go to college, even in the near future, they should try to do everything to stop them. There’s so much ranting I could do about that alone, but to make matters worse, this is a considerably well off man. He has his own buisness, a nice house with an additional room he added on last year, and him and his wife just took a lavish European trip.

  Consider another example I’ve seen. After me and my fiancé woke up, he started working full time and going to a short trade program that would allow him to get a particular job that would make more money and give us more opportunities to travel (he got the job by the way :)) anyways, when he quit pioneering an elder gave him a very hard time about it and questioned him why he would quit the best privledge one could have? My fiancé stood his ground and explained that he wants to focus on working while he’s young for a while so he can buy a house soon and have a family of his own. The elder was totally flabbergasted and upset, told him he shouldn’t be focusing on things like that, that those things will come in their own time. Wth?! Even if we were still brainwashed, it makes no sense. How will things like that come in it’s own time if you don’t work your ass off for it? He is a grown man about to get married, we don’t want to pay 1000$ a month for rent the rest of our lives and Slave away at a crappy resturaunt with no benefits like the rest of the young couples around us!! Oh but this elder is also a hypocrite. He has a paid for house and car, and is living off a good retirement. And a wife and 2 adult children.

  It’s terrible how older people like this in the organization are completely ruining these naive young people’s life, influencing them to deprive themselves of a good life that they themselves are enjoying!!! I wish I could call them out on it.
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  LongHairGal

  ADDISON0998:

  I’d call these you-know-whats out if they ever called on me...Thank you for bringing up an issue I noticed in the Jehovah’s Witness religion years ago when I WAS a young person there. I was a single working woman not raised a JW.

  These hypocritical older people with cushy lives were pushing poverty for young people. Especially for single women who they imagined were going to do favors for all the users. Boy, were they full of shit because I certainly wasn’t going to follow in the footsteps of other single women - jackassing around doing favors- when they should have been working or educating themselves.

  These older people had a pension under their belt or a worldly spouse and were affluent...So, why were they pushing poverty to me?..I’m so damn grateful I ignored these people. Maybe my non-Witness upbringing and practical nature saved me from falling for their bullshit.

  If I had listened to these bastards I would not be retired and you know what? These hypocrites with their cushy lives have passed away and are not even around to help anybody stupid enough to have listened to them.

  I am sorry history is repeating itself with older people (with an education or career under their belt) pushing poverty for young gullible idiots. This is immoral as far as I’m concerned! So sad.
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  john.prestor

  You can in small ways. Do you talk to any kids or teenagers at your hall? If they ever bring up the subject of college, or you bring it up yourself opportunely because he gives another cringeworthy talk like that, tell them about the man giving the advice: that he doesn't need to worry about money, but they may one day unless they get a good job, and for that, they probably need a college education.
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  djeggnog

  @Addison0998

  So one of the elders at the meeting tonight addressed to parents in his talk, “If your child wants to flip burgers for the rest of their life, because that’s is the only job that will allow them to have a schedule for full time service, you would want to support them the best you can.” He has also said told parents that if their children already have plans to go to college, even in the near future, they should try to do everything to stop them.

  This kind of thing (advice that one would consider as being bad) is obviously not Bible advice nor religious instruction, but mature Christians know that just because someone is appointed to be an elder in their congregation doesn’t mean that person is qualified to be a financial advisor or lifestyle counselor. No one knows the day and hour, but some think by the dispensing of such advice, this would serve as a protection for those that might not be considering marriage and raising children in the organization, but spiritually mature Christians would be expected to make decisions consistent with their circumstances, which might include college if they can afford to do what some in their congregation cannot do.

  There’s so much ranting I could do about that alone, but to make matters worse, this is a considerably well off man. He has his own buisness, a nice house with an additional room he added on last year, and him and his wife just took a lavish European trip.

  What does the fact that this elder owns a business, owns his own home and could afford to renovate it, and took a vacation in Europe have to do with the bad advice he gave? If he lived in an apartment and was employed as an auto mechanic and did “staycations” every three months, the advice would still be bad,wouldn’t it?

  It’s terrible how older people like this in the organization are completely ruining these naive young people’s life, influencing them to deprive themselves of a good life that they themselves are enjoying!!
  

  “Older people” or this elder? I think you may be viewing this matter with an anti-JW bias, because we have doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., in the organization that attended one or more universities before entering their profession, and not many of them served as elders until after their children were grown because they simply could not serve before then. Just as not everyone in the organization—in one’s local Kingdom Hall—has the same spiritual maturity to the same degree as everyone else, not everyone has the same degree of maturity about various aspects of life. Perhaps you are now more mature than you were when you began to associate with Jehovah’s people, but they are Kingdom preachers with a message that will save the lives of many, and had you been in a position to do so, I’m sure you would have tried to offer your own advice to counteract what you thought was bad advice. I read your rant, but what seems clear is that you were unable to do so and regret that you did nothing to help. Anti-JW bias aside, whose fault would this be?

  @djeggnog
• 

  Gorbatchov

  Take the doctor Luke for example instead of Jo Publisher.

  G.
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  Finkelstein

  Its really a shame seeing people waste their lives on this commercialized false prophet, that isn't going reward anyone with salvation.

  ......... just make some old geezer powerful, privileged and secure in their old age.

  The lies, ignorance will keep coming though because there are still a lot JWs men that would like to ride on that golden chariot that the GB members ride on.
  
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  Half banana

  To be a JW means to give up your own thinking, which is a desperately bad idea by anyone's standards.

  Instead of rational thought you are obliged to receive the thinking of a cult which covers over the bald fact that its predictions of the "time of the end" have always been wrong and always will be wrong. There is no such thing as the time of the end, it is one of the fictions implanted in he brains of unthinking JWs to create both hope and anxious dependence on the governing body.

  The reasonable thing to do is to escape the cult compound with its fairy tale mentality as soon as possible and make up for the mistake of being a JW by getting a college education.
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  zeb

  Addison 0998.

  I would like to spray his house with the word 'Hypocrite'..
  
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  Bungi Bill

  Hypocrisy is a central theme throughout all religion - without exception, and including that of the JWs.

  The case cited above by Addison0998 is yet another example of the "I've got mine, but you cannot have yours" attitude.

  that!
• 

  Phoebe

  Not only were we discouraged from having a career, we've always been discouraged from putting money in pension plans because we'd never need one.

  Now I am are older (65) and my husband and I are financially in a mess. So imagine how I felt when one of the elders giving this advice retired recently and told me he was sorting out all the many private pension plans he'd set up.

  I could kick myself for being so stupid as to listen to these people when all the time half of them were not taking their own advice.

  Thank goodness, we had the presence of mind to make sure our boys were well educated or we'd never forgive ourselves.