How to defeat JWs in 10 easy steps

by slimboyfat 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    Have you heard of Ryan Cragun's book How to Defeat Religion in 10 Easy Steps?

    http://www.amazon.com/How-Defeat-Religion-Easy-Steps/dp/1634310128/ref=cm_cr_pr_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

    Cragun is a sociologist and an ex-Mormon who thought it would be fun to take what he'd learnt about religious decline from sociology and see if he could apply it as a number of proactive steps to undermine religion. Especially evangelical or conservative varieties, not so much liberal churches, which he doesn't object to so much. So he came up with 10 ideas, and I thought it would be fun if we could try to apply them to JWs in particular.

    Have a look and see what ideas you think might transfer well in the context of JWs.

    http://youtu.be/Xte8Q8QvUpo

    One of his ideas is to undermine the tax exempt status of churches. But how he suggests to go about it is interesting. Instead of just lobbying to tax churches he suggests a more gradual approach might be more effective. The first step would be to campaign for financial transparency. After all, if churches, or JWs in particular, get to use tax exempt funds, isn't it reasonable for members and the general public to know how they are spending the money? What reasonable person or institution could disagree with that? Once that fight is won, then we could argue that churches could at least pay some taxes, like property taxes, and so on.

    So the groundwork of an effective campaign might be to argue for financial transparency. Even some liberal JWs might support the move, especially in light of weird recent developments, the cutbacks and strange GB statements about funds and what is going on. Plus it puts the GB in an awkward position. It's hard to argue against financial transparency without appearing pretty dodgy.

    By this point in the post you're probably disappointed I haven't outlined 10 easy steps to defeat JWs. But let's work on it, I think some of these ideas show promise. In over 15 years of critically reviewing JWs and religion in general on this forum and elsewhere I think I can outline 10 ways not to defeat JWs if that helps:

    1. Tell JWs that the Bible does teach a Trinity and they need to repent and get saved.

    2. Attack any Witnneses who come to your door with a fire hydrant.

    3. Call them a cult at any opportunity and tell them they are as bad as Waco or Jim Jones.

    4. Take out adverts in the local newspaper to call them a cult.

    5. Ostentatiously destroy and deface their literature wherever you see it.

    6. Deliver an apostate talk to a stunned JW audience. (That must have been the best fun ever, and pure legend, but effective?)

    7. Generally feed into the JW siege mentality but acting like you are waging a bloody war against them to the death.

    8. Tell them they must accept evolution and your newfound materialist view of the universe or else they are the most ignorant numpties ever to have managed somehow to put on a pair of pants.

    9. Attend one of their meetings to disrupt and rant and gleefully post the whole thing on YouTube.

    10. Chuck Russell was a member of the masons don't you know and he built an underground tunnel in Brooklyn where they sacrifice...

  • DesirousOfChange
    DesirousOfChange

    I totally agree. EVERYONE should demand that all tax-exempt charities (including churches) provide full public financial disclosure. After all, (at least in the USA) they are operating on our money (as we pay higher taxes to allow them not to pay taxes).

    The US has a deficit of $18 TRILLION. The crooks in DC are going to have to create new sources of taxation. You can be sure they have religion in their crosshairs. They are all afraid to be the first to draw blood.

    Doc

  • Londo111
    Londo111
    As a member of any organization, religious or not, I would donate to, I would want 100% transparency. I would think most rank and file JWs would not object, but Watchtower definitly would.
  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    Okay I don't know how I managed it but I gave the wrong YouTube link above. Doh! This is the link to a discussion about Cragun's book How to Defeat Religion in 10 Easy Steps.

    http://youtu.be/rHHFz4_qmDQ

  • cofty
    cofty
    8. Tell them they must accept evolution and your newfound materialist view of the universe or else they are the most ignorant numpties ever to have managed somehow to put on a pair of pants.

    Obviously not. However sharing evidence for human evolution can be effective - If you really know what you are talking about and can share it succinctly.

    There are members of this forum whose journey out the cult began by being exposed to science.

    Edited to add - I would put sharing scientific facts that refute their worldview very high on a list of how to make JWs think.

  • LoveUniHateExams
    LoveUniHateExams

    I like 2.

    Please keep point 2 ...

  • scotsman
    scotsman
    11. Do not try to defeat Jehovah's Witnesses there are more achievable and worthwhile things to do.
  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    However, Cofty, you can sometimes give the impression that people who leave the Witnesses to become Christians rather than accept your materialist view of the world are no better off. Equally some Christians would say that JWs who leave to become atheists are just as damned to hell as they were before. Both those attitudes are two sides of the same coin as far as I an see.

    I'm not against sharing scientific ideas with people, or religious or political or philosophical or whatever for that matter.

    If we really want to make an impact on JWs at any level, individual or organisation wide, I think you could argue its's best to avoid doctrine altogether. That applies to evolution as much as to the Trinity. Because ultimately I don't think people really stay or leave the JWs for those reasons, even though our own stories are habitually explained in those terms. What really drives us is social factors, life prospects, ambitions, hopes, desires. Intellectual satisfaction and coherence too for sure, but it's not the top thing for most people most of the time. And too much focus on it can cause believers to hunker down rather than open up possibilities.

    In conversation, if you concede to a JW that doctrine is what matters most, and whether it's all true or not, in some fundamental sense I think you've already lost the argument.

  • cofty
    cofty
    you can sometimes give the impression that people who leave the Witnesses to become Christians rather than accept your materialist view of the world are no better off

    They have simply swapped one set of superstitious delusions for another.

    Because ultimately I don't think people really stay or leave the JWs for those reasons

    I did 100% - I am sure I'm not unique

  • cofty
    cofty
    Both those attitudes are two sides of the same coin as far as I an see

    No. One is an appeal to objective evidence and the other is a vacuous threat substituting for actual evidence.

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