The Organization That Didn't Like People

by metatron 6 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  metatron

  Once upon a time, there was an organization that didn't like people.

  Now, that may sound like a paradox - a bit like Yogi Berra saying "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded".

  Yet, paradox or not, it was true - although the key to maintaining to this contradiction is that the people in the organization

  never woke up to the summed reality of it all. Thus, the organization's leaders didn't like:

  Hobbies ( you know, painting, writing, collecting or other creative activities)

  Parties or almost any large gathering

  Most sports and competition

  any "association" outside of its narrow group

  Charities

  The organization strongly approved of capital punishment of a scale vastly beyond anything any modern nation dreamed

  of. They didn't like strollers or going out to lunch during assemblies. They didn't really like explaining their doctrines either,

  what was looked for obsequious acceptance, not questions from people naturally seeking consistency.

  They didn't really like families or children either and approached the subject with all the subtle understanding of a queen bee

  trying to explain human relations to a robot. They didn't like masturbation - or any sex outside marriage - or ( come to

  think of it) a lot of sex in marriage!

  They didn't like higher education or college. They didn't like getting drunk. They didn't like naked people or most people

  getting naked. They didn't like most music or TV or popular entertainment. They didn't like 'worldly' books.

  They taught that all people were inherently bad, wicked and deserving to die and didn't like people getting angry

  with them because of all of the above. And ... while the world generally seemed to be trying to do more for people

  ( health care, social security, medicare, anti-discrimination laws, daycare in churches, afterschool programs for kids,

  Habitat for Humanity, etc), under the slogan of "simplification", they seemed to be doing less and less for people.

  Now, do you see? The truth was, while they loved power, they didn't really like people. It's not so hard to understand,

  really. Most Communists and Nazis didn't like people either. They kept getting in the way and making messes and being

  difficult and quietly disagreeing and doing things that people like to do.

  on the other hand, the organization really liked money and seemed very successful with it.

  I wonder how this story ends?

  metatron
• 

  Maverick

  Your a man after my own, freethinking radical, heart!Mav
• 

  Scully

  Thanks for summing it up so eloquently, metatron!

  Here are some appropos quotes from Bertrand Russell that I came across recently in a book about the Mormons:

  One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it?

  You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world?.

  My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in the early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others. ? Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

  and another from R. Laurence Moore (in this quote, replace "Mormon" with "JW" and the likeness is positively spooky):

  Mormons were different because they said they were different and because their claims, frequently advanced in the most obnoxious way possible, prompted others to agree and treat them as such. The notion of Mormon difference, that is, was a deliberate invention elaborated over time. It was both cause and result of a conflict in which all parties discovered reasons to stress not what Mormons had in common with other Americans, which was a great deal, but what they did not have in common. One result of the conflict was an ideology that sought to turn the self-advertised differences of the Mormons into a conspiracy against the American republic. ? R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans

  Love, Scully
• 

  Carmel

  On the other hand....

  RELIGION IS PROGRESSIVE

  Religion is the outer expression of the divine reality. Therefore it must be living, vitalized, moving and progressive. If it be without motion and non-progressive it is without the divine life; it is dead. The divine institutes are continuously active and evolutionary; therefore the revelation of them must be progressive and continuous. All things are subject to re-formation. This is a century of life and renewal. Sciences and arts, industry and invention have been reformed. Law and ethics have been reconstituted, reorganized. The world of thought has been regenerated. Sciences of former ages and philosophies of the past are useless today. Present exigencies demand new methods of solution; world problems are without precedent. Old ideas and modes of thought are fast becoming 225 obsolete. Ancient laws and archaic ethical systems will not meet the requirements of modern conditions, for this is clearly the century of a new life, the century of the revelation of the reality and therefore the greatest of all centuries. Consider how the scientific developments of fifty years have surpassed and eclipsed the knowledge and achievements of all the former ages combined. Would the announcements and theories of ancient astronomers explain our present knowledge of the sun-worlds and planetary systems? Would the mask of obscurity which beclouded mediaeval centuries meet the demand for clear-eyed vision and understanding which characterizes the world today? Will the despotism of former governments answer the call for freedom which has risen from the heart of humanity in this cycle of illumination? It is evident that no vital results are now forthcoming from the customs, institutions and standpoints of the past. In view of this, shall blind imitations of ancestral forms and theological interpretations continue to guide and control the religious life and spiritual development of humanity today? Shall man gifted with the power of reason unthinkingly follow and adhere to dogma, creeds and hereditary beliefs which will not bear the analysis of reason in this century of effulgent reality? Unquestionably this will not satisfy men of science, for when they find premise or conclusion contrary to present standards of proof and without real foundation, they reject that which has been formerly accepted as standard and correct and move forward from new foundations.

  The divine prophets have revealed and founded religion. They have laid down certain laws and heavenly principles for the guidance of mankind. They have taught and promulgated the knowledge of God, established praiseworthy ethical ideals and inculcated the highest standards of virtues in the human world. Gradually these heavenly teachings and foundations of reality have been beclouded by human interpretations and dogmatic imitations of ancestral beliefs. The essential realities which the prophets labored so hard to establish in human hearts and minds while undergoing ordeals and suffering tortures of persecution, have now well nigh vanished. Some of these heavenly messengers have been killed, some imprisoned; all of them despised and rejected while proclaiming the 226 reality of divinity. Soon after their departure from this world, the essential truth of their teachings was lost sight of and dogmatic imitations adhered to.

  Inasmuch as human interpretations and blind imitations differ widely, religious strife and disagreement have arisen among mankind, the light of true religion has been extinguished and the unity of the world of humanity destroyed. The prophets of God voiced the spirit of unity and agreement. They have been the founders of divine reality. Therefore if the nations of the world forsake imitations and investigate the reality underlying the revealed Word of God they will agree and become reconciled. For reality is one and not multiple.

  The nations and religions are steeped in blind and bigoted imitations. A man is a Jew because his father was a Jew. The Muhammadan follows implicitly the footsteps of his ancestors in belief and observance. The Buddhist is true to his heredity as a Buddhist. That is to say they profess religious belief blindly and without investigation, making unity and agreement impossible. It is evident therefore that this condition will not be remedied without a reformation in the world of religion. In other words the fundamental reality of the divine religions must be renewed, reformed, revoiced to mankind.

  (Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 224)
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  minimus

  Great post, Met!!!! If the organization cared for people, they wouldn't make old people and handicapped ones sit in areas that were not comfortable at conventions. They would rather rope off an area and make them walk farther than show some humanity and kindness to those in need. I know of one "faithful" elderly sister who decided not to go to the DC this year because she had illnesses that required her to sit with handicapped yet the "loving brothers" refused her request---so she left!!
• 

  metatron

  Exactly! When there are rules about handicapped people to be enforced, those gimps can be such an annoyance to the

  attendants in charge!

  If someone condemns nearly every behavior that defines what a human presently is, how do they 'love' people?

  metatron
• 

  willyloman

  Meta, you have the ability to hold the WTS up to the light in a way no one else thinks to do. It's so true, they absolutely loathe people. And this is an organization that claims to be built on love! In fact, love just gets in the way; it's really about power.

  Toward the end (for me), every time I heard that scripture, "man dominates man to his injury," I instinctively thought it applied best to the WTS, an organization that has become so accomplished at domination.