Youth and Spiritual Goals in this week's WT study (Are you F-ing kidding me?)

by TerryWalstrom 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  TerryWalstrom

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I regret following the wrong goals when I was a young person.
  
  Such as?
  
  Such as spending a hundred hours a month of my precious youth rapping my unwrinkled knuckles on doors and waving soon-to-be-obsolete religious messages in front of aghast householders.
  
  Such as spending my 20th, 21st, and part of my 22nd years in prison imagining anything useful was happening or that I was pleasing the Big Guy in the sky.
  
  Such as taking a crappy job as a janitor and trying to support my family on beans and rice while I peddled cult materials, arguing with people who were better educated about fantasy scenarios I was brainwashed into parroting.
  
  Such as making excuses for my depressing existence for my empty feeling of constant depression by consoling myself that soon billions of people would be annihilated--EXCEPT for me and those I was able to convince to waste their time too.
  
  Thanks, Watchtower for twenty years of dry rot for my brain, a Jehovah sized hole in my heart, and a great big "thank you" in the form of shunning from all my wonderful spiritual Brothers and Sisters for all my efforts.
  
  Sure am I glad I didn't "waste" my Youth on education, career, lifelong friends, and (gasp) FUN!
  
  I was 12 years old when I was introduced to the Watchtower and the Kingdom Hall.
  23 years later, I walked out a free man.
  The emotional damage took decades to reconcile.
  I'm 71 and I'd be thrilled to have those 23 years back!
  The Watchtower is one of the most insidious time-devouring organizations on our planet.
  THANKS FOR NOTHING!
  ____________________
  The above is in answer to:
  

  This week's WT-study:

  The Watchtower - April 2018 - "Young People, Are You Focused on Spiritual Goals?"

  18 No one remains young for long. Young people quickly progress to adulthood. Sad to say, as adults, many then regret having followed the wrong goals when they were young or, just as frustrating, having had no goals at all. But youths who today keep focused on theocratic goals will well into adulthood be deeply satisfied with the choices they made.
• 

  Half banana

  I'm with you Terry, all those years wasting one's youth telling people the Watchtower message of doom. The unbelievable waste of time, youth, energy, with the loss of worldly experience and education, it was actually an impoverishment of life not a "blessing".

  " youths who today keep focused on theocratic goals will well into adulthood be deeply satisfied with the choices they made"

  This same lie is trotted out at assemblies until the poor suckers believe it is true. In fact I know of no one who believes it --but notice the qualifier; it only lasts until "well into adulthood" they claim. I suggest it there is little deep satisfaction at all for however long. It is a tired JW slogan and from personal experience I would say that it is profoundly untrue. Fortunately I think even JWs are realizing it!
• 

  Pistoff

  I am with you, Terry, from my baptism at 17 to when I walked out to never return at 47.

  What a colossal waste of time, energy and YOUTH.
  
• 

  Addison0998

  I’m so sorry for your experience Mr.Terry. I was fortunate to wake up at a very young age. I only spent about a year in half pioneering. And it was the biggest waste of time. Spending 20 hours a week with self righteous, McDonald obsessed, nosy, paranoid, crazy weird sisters who did nothing but judge me and act like I was the whore of Babylon because I refused to reform myself to their liking like the other girls did. Anyways, after my privledges we’re gone, I started working my ass off full time, and in four months I saved up twice the amount of money that I had been trying to work for for more than a year!

  They made it so obvious that they view works as more important than faith. Look a time paragraph 6.

  The second reason is that once you start working toward spiritual goals, you begin building a record of good works in Jehovah’s eyes
  
• 

  FedUpJW

  many...followed the wrong goals...youths who...focused on theocratic goals will be deeply satisfied with the choices they made.

  I noticed when the words are "simplified" that it appears to be a manipulative comparison. It gives the impression that there are ONLY two choices. And of course WT does not fail to use this article to bash education or a well-paying job...AGAIN! I guess that is why there are so many physically broke down old men (and some women) who are still having to find any menial job they can, for pennies on the dollar compared to educated people, well into their late seventies just to manage a pitiful home and lousy food! I did not buy into the tripe; and now while they are struggling I am comfortable, living in a paid off home, doing what I want to when I want to, reasonably healthy, and still looking at another few decades of life to enjoy!
  
• 

  eyeuse2badub

  Once again Terry puts into words the experiences of so many of us here on this forum.

  Yes it's almost impossible, and quite agonizing, to realize that I got baptized in 1959 at age 12 and wasted my teens, twenty's, thirty's, forty's, fifty's, and part of my 60's practicing the jw brand of mind control!

  O well, sh*t happened !

  just saying!
• 

  TerryWalstrom

  An analogy I've used goes like this.
  Here is an empty glass. That was me at age 12.
  That glass can be filled all the way to the top with something.
  Once the glass is filled, there isn't room for anything else.
  
  My glass was kept filled by Watchtower with busy, busy work, meetings, field service, book studies, Bible studies, meetings, etc.
  
  When I left, that glass was so full of WT thinking, ideas, morality, judgments, doctrines that there was still no room for anything else.
  I walked around as a non-JW but--for all practical purposes--still a propaganda machine.
  
  The ONLY WAY to change my beliefs, my processing, my attitude was to POUR OUT what was in that glass.
  How?
  I took a 3X5 card with me wherever I went each day. On the card was a simple vocabulary word which represented important IDEAS--but with correct definitions (to replace WT definitions.)
  
  It took about 5 years and 5 X 365 terms to UN-brainwash myself.
  Instead of plunging back into some "other" religion, I studied the art of reasoning as developed by civilizations through history.
  
  Philosophy's purpose was to answer the question: What do we know and how can we know it?
  I settled on Aristotle (the father of Logic) and worked my way through the developments of reasoning and the use of non-contradictory definitions.
  I started from scratch reading basic Science facts and how those facts were discovered, tested, and determined.
  
  Books I read?
  Mortimer J. Adler's 10 Philosophical Mistakes was an eye-opening book. It discloses how little mistakes here and there damaged mankind's ability to find the proper methodology for discovery and knowledge.
  
  I began reading about cults and how they were started, soon mutated and eventually endured: Mormons, Scientologists, Moonies, Hare Krishnas, each had similarities.
  
  Then, mainstream religion was next.
  Reading Karen Armstrong's books (The History of God, The Battle for God, the Great Transformation) on religion and god was an astounding education in itself.
  Richard E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible was and is an enlightening book.
  This led to a real deconstruction by "whistleblower" Bart Ehrman and his best-selling books: How Jesus Became God, Misquoting Jesus, God’s Problem, Jesus Interrupted and Forged.
  What a journey! Richard Carrier was hoot!
  _____
  
  Had I grown up in the computer era and the Worldwide Web, I would like to think it would be impossible to convince me of Jehovah's Witness "Truth."
  In fact, I don't know how it is possible today unless the people being converted aren't computer savvy or are simply intellectually dishonest and superstitious people.
  
  I spent a couple of years watching debates on many subjects with such people as late, great Christopher Hitchens and--wow! It's not easy to be naive about religion after that.
  
  I think most of us who leave the Jehovah's Witness cult behind go through necessary but time-wasting stages. It's impossible to avoid.
  Problem:
  We really begin by asking the wrong questions which lead to wrong answers and blind alleys.
  
  "Who has the true religion?" That is the wrong question.
  "What is the correct Bible interpretation?" That is the wrong question.
  
  "How does man determine what is true?" That is the right question.
  
  We can't skip finding out what Logic is (the art of non-contradictory description.)
  We can't skip understanding Fallacies, Confirmation Bias, Propaganda and basic Science.
  
  All the above interest me and I've spent considerable time in discovery, contemplation, and dialogue with others.
  
  Note: personal debates are really counter-productive although I surely got into them with a real vengeance.
  I say arguments are counter-productive because neither party in a debate is humble and trying to learn. (It is anger and ego tinged with revenge.)
  
  The worst part of being a JW other than wasting your life is the time spent shutting out everything else: i.e. the art of living a happy life.
  
  Loving your life really is the first Art one should master.
• 

  WTWizard

  Spiritual goals? Not only do you miss out on all the fun wasting all your time in field circus. But, its end product is total enslavement of the whole world. Sure worth it.
  
• 

  resolute Bandicoot

  Terry said - Had I grown up in the computer era and the Worldwide Web, I would like to think it would be impossible to convince me of Jehovah's Witness "Truth."
  In fact, I don't know how it is possible today unless the people being converted aren't computer savvy or are simply intellectually dishonest and superstitious people.

  Bingo! Here is a little experiment that anybody can try if you are currently attending, ask a few folk what there favorite websites are or what is the best thing about the internet. my bet is that most of the answers you will get are "oh I don't have the internet" or "I just look at jw.borg". All of the bright ones with inquiring minds have seen the light and flown the coup.

  RB
  
  
• 

  Finkelstein

  Since spirituality is adhering to fear, human ignorance and self imposed imagination from men who are usually seeking their own subsequent power and control over people .

  The leaders of the JWS are wanting people to come under their direction in spreading their published works to the public with the intent of creating more people to come under their power and control.

  Those people also bring money and at times land.
  

  That's always been the underling intent of the leaders of the Watchtower Corporation, more working subjective slaves creating a bigger more powerful Kingdom of their devise.