Dont put it in print!!!!

by anglise 9 Replies latest jw friends

anglise

This is clever.
Everyone thinks the society are becoming more open as far as education is concerned.
We have had a few articles in recent years which even go as far as encouraging youngsters to get trained, got to college and acquire useful job skills for the future.
Then these are the magazines that the public also read and then think that the JW's maybe arent so weird after all.
But then go to this years DC's and we get the following;
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=6326&site=3
“Experience: a young sister had the goal of pioneering, but was such a good student that she recieved offers of a scholarship. But this would mean she would have to give up her goal of pioneering. She decided instead to give up material goals for spiritual ones. After a while pioneering, she found herself without sufficient money to continue. She prayed for her exact needs. Shortly, a job offer came which allowed her to work on her non-service days and provided EXACTLY to the dollar what she needed to continue pioneering. “
Thanks to LMR for the above info
That is clever. All the loyal dubs get the message that further education is still a no no and the general public are given a false impression yet again.
Is this a new tactic or am I just slow in picking it up.
Introspection

Well, I think there's a difference between job training and an education. Naturally, you need some kind of job skill to put food on the table, but you don't need to be an educated person in the sense of understanding the world around you outside of your job training. You're basically a machine in that case, you serve your function by doing your job and because you're not educated in any other way, it is less likely for you to think for yourself which inevitably means a difference of opinion. You can't really disagree because you don't know anything else other than how to do your job.
"It is not so much that you use your mind wrongly--you usually don't use it at all. It uses you. This is the disease."--Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
COMF

EXACTLY to the dollar what she needed to continue pioneering.

For how long? Will it pay for a new car when her current one wears out? Will it pay for her hospitalization and medication when she is stricken with serious long-term health problems? Will it pay off the mortgage on a house for her to live in when she is too old to work?
...Or do we just mean, enabled her to keep on pioneering for a few more years, until the car and her health degenerate, at which time she will be left destitute?
COMF
Enlighted UK

Good point Anglise!!
In the UK, the trend seems to be for pioneers to work a minimum number of hours in order to claim benefits from the state. They are then able to spend all their time in the ministry. Although i had noticed when accompanying a pioneer sister for a month that pioneering seemed to be a list of easy "coffee break calls", and sitting around in hospitals "visiting interested persons", not discussing anything scriptural, but leave the magazines anyway and you can count time time!! They also are provided with free travel to and from the assemblies, paid for out of congregation funds.
I wonder what the Benefits Agency would think if they knew the reasons WHY certain people aren't able to work full-time??
Another fine example of not needing an education are the body of elders in the local cong, made up of the following:
PO - cleaner
Elder 1 - window/floor cleaner (just for variety!!)
Elder 2- carpet fitter
Elder 3 - back street mechanic
Elder 4 - window cleaner and (suspect) decorator (he has bad eyesight!!)
What a fine example to all those youngster in the congregation. Do you think they will get a lot of encouragement from the elders to get a decent education. I happen to KNOW that they don't.
PO's daughter is in late 20's, still living at home, cannot pioneer because of bad health (brought on by being out pioneering in bad weather), and has been a school cleaner for the past few years. No skills, no training, no prospects, no independence(which is probably the reason why she has been discouraged)
Elder 1 actively discouraged ALL his sons from going to college when they left school at 16.
Elder 3 didn't want his son to find employment in anything that would mean the son getting "involved" with future work colleages.
What a forward thinking lot they are!!
Enlighted UK
Enjoy your life, it is the only one you'll have
anglise

RE job skills.
It seems the only ones with any real education and /or training are those who came into the org as adults.
The org then seems to milk these ones for all they are worth.
I can remember being told of a brother at Brooklyn who was being used for his artistic skills, his paintings in the PE book and others.
The interesting thing was he had only been in the org a very short time, and was whipped away to serve the org.
But of course he had already enhanced his talent through further education.
What I found sad about this was the number of very talented brothers and sisters who havent been allowed to develop their gifts but must peddle the mags.
Maybe a little training for a job skill is just about ok with some but certainly nothing as esoteric as art or design etc.
The hyprocrisy goes on.
Copernicus

It seems the only ones with any real education and /or training are those who came into the org as adults.
The org then seems to milk these ones for all they are worth.

This brought back to mind a conversation I had with a CO one day in service. We just happened to discuss my background and employment, and he said, “you know, the society is ALWAYS looking for engineers.” And I thought to myself, hmmmmm. . . I’ll bet they are, LOL.
He then went on to lay out the wonderful theocratic opportunity (read: privilege) before me – to blow off three weeks of my vacation time, and at my own expense, fly out to Brooklyn to offer my unremunerated help with an ongoing project there. No thoughts on his part about the possible negative effect on my family, the financial impact, etc. I just changed the subject and he let it go.
It’s always amazed me that for an organization that frowns on higher education, they are ready in a heartbeat to take advantage of anyone who already had it before coming in. But really, how smart do you have to be to peddle magazines, which is job description numero uno in the borg.
I read somewhere, maybe in one of Franz’s books, about how the society set up special semi-annual meetings in this country (USA) for all the lawyers and doctors who were actively associated, to discuss issues relevant to JW’s. Yep, no special distinctions are made in this bunch! Funny how you never find out about these sorts of things by reading the WT. I guess it might have a questionable impact on the r&f, causing them hold off going door to door while instead reaching out for something more then janitorial service and low end construction jobs – so that they too could attend meetings like these and hold a place of honor.
Yes, the society was always urging us to simplify, while they skimmed off the cream of the crop for free, and used them to guild their palaces (eg: Stanley Theater) in Brooklyn and Paterson.
It’s enough to piss an old boy off.
Francois

Goes further than that.
When I was still in the borg there was a firestorm about pants suits for the sisters. Bad. No-no. Evil. Wicked. Mean. Bad & Nasty. Worldly. Egotistical. You know the drill.
Then, at the assembly in Macon, suddenly it's announced that pants suits are Okee Dokee. Well.
The local congregational tyrant (the one I finally drove off the body of elders with a well-placed letter to Borg central a couple of years later) announced from the platform the week after the assembly that even though it had been okayed at the assembly, he wanted to see "what the sisters at Bethel" were going to do. Not that he was forbidding it, you understand, but he was expressing his disapproval. And lots of the sisters were conflicted. Some flaunted their pants-suits in his face.
And myself? Although I hate to admit it I got myself outfitted with a kakhi leisure suit that looked like something Ernest Hemmingway would wear on safari. Wore it all the time to the meetings. Drove him nuts. And he spent a lot of time telling me how inappropriate it was, to which I rejoined how tacky it was to wear white socks with a business suit. We went round and round. Gads, it was fun. But what a waste of intellectual energy!
ft
Liberated

Francoise (safaria boy)
Jerry Falwell said that pants suits are the work of the devil and that women were given big hips for child bearing.
There's an elder in New Mexico who lectures the sisters about wearing knee-highs; evidently they have to wear panty hose. Why else did we wear long skirts except to hide the knee-highs!!
-------------------
Anglise---good points:
--"these are the magazines that the public also read and then think that the JW's maybe arent so weird after all."--
---"It seems the only ones with any real education and /or training are those who came into the org as adults."--
And Coperincus---
---"It’s always amazed me that for an organization that frowns on higher education, they are ready in a heartbeat to take advantage of anyone who already had it before coming in. "---
Our PO came around asking us if any were professional people, with degrees, and such----I was in only 6 years but I knew about the ban on higher education. So the faithful followers were now left out and the borg was looking for those with higher education among the newer recruits.
Libby
anglise

Hi Copernicus,
My husband is also qualified in his field and very shortly after baptism was being used in the design and build of a local hall - a traditional build not quick build-.
Afer that all the local congs seemed to have our phone number and tapped into his expertise and time, all for free, with meetings here, there and everywhere.
Being new and enthusiastic he willingly did all he could, and all this with 3 young children and a full time job.
Then of course added to this there was the building of our assembly hall and weekends away, and when it was finished he was "given the privilege" of overseeing the maintenance and at the drop of a hat giving up extra days to go and sort out problems.
I dont want to count the weekends and hours given to this when our own home was in need of some tender loving care.
Still you live and learn.
On the plus side we did meet some really nice brothers (its seems to be mainly brothers who do maintenance) at these times and had some very un-theocratic laughs.
ozziepost

If ALL JWs were to 'listen and obey' with NONE of their young ones going to college and university, what would be the result within the 'spiritual paradise'?
Additionally, if ALL converts were to follow the 'encouragement' to live a simple life (read= sell up, live in a caravan (trailer) and go pioneering), what would the result be to the Society?
I'm just trying to take this to its natural conclusion. Surely, nothing of a technical or skilled nature could be done, could it?
It's rather like the argument about avoiding military service. Who will defend the JWs in the event of invasion? Why, those wicked worldly people, that's who! If everyone was a JW, what then?
The issue of higher education has been around for generations now. Yet another 'sin' added to God's Word.
To those who may be newly associated with Jehovah's Witnesses: Beware!
Cheers,
Ozzie
Freedom is not having to wear a tie.

Dont put it in print!!!!

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