"Worse and Worse" - It Makes My Blood Boil!

by metatron 29 Replies latest jw friends

  • metatron
    metatron

    Everytime I get stuck going to a Sunday meeting at the Kingdumb Hall, it seems

    they have a speaker who repeats a popular Witness mantra:

    "Worse and Worse!"

    Will any objective improvement ever stop these Doom and Gloom lovers from

    being infatuated with saying "the world is getting worse and worse!"?????

    I guess not! I suppose if they invented a pill that gave you Eternal Youth

    - and a slight rash, the Awake would print a cover with a forlorn looking woman

    entitled "The Global Itching Epidemic - What is the Solution?".

    The LEAST bit of common sense should tell you that , at any given moment,

    some things in the world are better, some things are worse, and some things

    are the same - and a tiny bit of honest observation would go much further.

    For example:

    I attended a small work related technical summit last week in which the Big Boss

    told us about the companies' future. His technical adviser was a young, geeky

    African-American man.

    After five minutes of listening to the adviser, none of us had any doubt that he was

    top-notch and utterly qualified to build an IT infrastructure. He knew his topic and

    had no fear of questions or objections tossed his way.

    and I thought

    Here is a young 'black' man

    He doesn't pick cotton- like his enslaved ancestors

    He doesn't make his living from basketball- or any physical sport

    He isn't a gang member- and doesn't live in the ghetto.

    He isn't a 'token'.

    He is a techie geek - like everyone else in the room.

    What a wonderful (WORLDLY) success civil rights has been!

    I'm old enough to remember the riots, the tear gas, the vicious dogs,

    the fat racist sheriffs, the 'block-busting' realtors, the lynchings,

    the separate schools for 'colored', the protest marches and more.

    I remember when Captain Kirk kissed Ohura - on Startrek to show the

    future 300 years from now! Don't tell me "WORSE AND WORSE",

    I'll yell back "No!, BETTER AND BETTER!" - and the successful quest

    for human rights is , a vast MORAL improvement in society.

    My wife became enamored about a program that showed knights

    and lords and ladies in the age of chivalry.

    I pointed out:

    They smelled really bad (no regular baths)

    Women died in childbirth

    and -- with indoor plumbing, refrigerators, cars, and everything else

    our lives are vastly better than the greatest emperors of history!

    My car has air bags, safety restraints, and a padded dash. In my mother's

    day, none of those things were found in her Chevy. Heck, in her time, beating

    your wife and kids was barely thought of as a crime ( or don't you know

    about the "rule of thumb"?)

    Repeating the "worse and worse" mantra is just cult-maintenance. It is a

    mass agreed-upon lie needed to shore up the imaginary world view of those who

    eagerly blind themselves to the bounty around them. It may sound corny,

    but when I drive to work, I thank the Creator ( as I understand 'Him') for the

    roads, the reduced pollution, the rule of law, the filled potholes, the antibiotics

    that saved me from appendicitis ( years ago, I just finished the bone-head Awake),

    the nice air-conditioned mall, the tapes I can rent at Blockbuster, the service

    industries that teach many people to be polite ( yes, even Walmart!), the online

    college courses my parents never had, central heating, last-minute vacations on

    Yahoo!, ...... need I go on?

    "Worse and worse" - don't buy into this nonsensical "attitude without gratitude"!

    metatron

  • micheal
    micheal

    Great post met. Could'nt agree with you more. I asked myself not too long ago, If I had a chance to live permantley in any time period, which one would it be? I chose today. Mostly for the reasons that you listed above.

  • A Paduan
    A Paduan

    It also promotes separatist activities, incites more horizontal violence, instills fear and delusion, stifles critical thinking and hinders the sense of hope, promotes pessimism and retards the good of the human people.

  • Sam Beli
    Sam Beli

    Amen, brother!

  • r51785
    r51785

    Your reference to appendicitis made me think of one of the early stirrings of doubt I had. When I was a teenager I got sick in the middle of the night and by 5 AM my parents realized they had to take me to the hospital. They called Sister Z in our congregation whose son Chris had recently had appendicitis to find out where they could take me so that I "wouldn't get a blood transfusion." Well we got to the hospital and I made it through with a ruptured appendix. Now just think if I lived one hundred years earlier. The time I had from first pain to rupture was less than 12 hours. Don't tell me that this is "the worst time in human history." I think it's the best because I've lived at least thirty years longer than I would have if I was born before 1914 -- the mythical beginning of the "last days!"

  • bebu
    bebu

    I agree whole-heartedly with you! Every day you can look and see wonderful things and be thankful and happy. Life is beautiful--just as the movie title says.

    It must be so miserable to live long and never appreciate the beauty that is there for each of us, because of wearing world-view "lenses" that are so warped and pessimistic. (Watch out, tho', that your boiling anger doesn't work havoc on you... )

    bebu

  • Elsewhere
    Elsewhere

    JW's.... Perpetual Pessimists

  • spero
    spero

    Very true. It wasn't that long ago that the average life expectancy was around 45 years.

    The only problem is that being exJW, if you are not careful, you automatically see the worst because thats what you have been doing for twenty or however many years. You wanted things to be better, therefore you needed armageddon, therefore things had to be getting worse, so thats what you focussed on, so thats all you saw, therefore you wanted things to be better.................................

    One hell of a circle!!

    Thanks for the post, Metatron

  • Englishman
    Englishman

    Metatron,

    You're just too optimistic generally to be a dub.

    Englishman.

  • garybuss
    garybuss



    Some Witness people like to imagine the world as a bad place getting worse. Back in 1992 during a visit to my Witness brother, I told him I was doing volunteer work with disadvantaged people. He became very angry at hearing that. He said it's because of people like you who are helping to make this world better, that keeps it from getting bad enough for God to destroy it. He said it's because of people like you that Armageddon isn't coming yet.

    I was just like the current Witnesses. I failed to realize that the news media filters out the vast majority of the good news and sensationalizes the negative in order to sell Buicks and laundry soap. I started to look for the good and I saw it everywhere. Soon, all I could see was good. Days would pass with no murders here and no traffic accidents. People helped people everywhere I looked. Every job is a person serving their fellow man.

    I was on a trip up the Oregon coast and it was beautiful. I criss crossed the country and I camped out and I talked to strangers in practically every city in the county and people were nice to me everywhere. I stopped in Washington state to let a fire truck and a paramedic ambulance go by and I realized if I was sick or hurt, complete strangers would rush with lights flashing to help me. That doesn't happen in an all bad world.

    Slowly my outlook changed and an appreciation for the planet and for other people emerged. I avoided people who were gloomy and negative. It's like I got a new pair of glasses. The encapsulated world of the Jehovah's Witnesses seemed so far away and strange. I was comfortable in my body. I liked the planet. I enjoyed nature and people and art and music.

    Great subject Met, thanks for starting it. GaryB


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