JW morality: is it from virtue or calculating self interest?

True North

JWs love to congratulate themselves for being -- as they see it -- morally superior to "worldly" people. However, if one does something right to get a reward (eternal life in paradise, status in the congregation) or refrains from doing something wrong to avoid punishment (death at Armageddon, disfellowshipping), is that virtue or calculating self interest? Is virtue only what one does and not why?

How many JWs have you known whose behavior, which they take as evidence of their moral superiority, would significantly change if they were no longer concerned about Jehovah's carrot and stick?

gumby

Thats not a fair or realistic question. How many salsemen would smile and act happy to people the way they do if they were not getting paid. Humans suck up to others in so many ways they never realise how much they do it. Husbands and wifes use acts of kindness to get favors from each other How many kids would do their chores or get good report cards if they didn't get paid?

I'd say the answer is both....and both are good answers from a biblical perspective

Gumby

El blanko

How many JWs have you known whose behavior, which they take as evidence of their moral superiority, would significantly change if they were no longer concerned about Jehovah's carrot and stick?

A few to be honest.

Mainly ones who drop out of the organisation; having been bought up to accept the standards within and then have trouble upon exit using their own yard stick regarding personal behaviour. They go from being rigidly set upon a 'clean' lifestyle to drug-taking, womanizing loonies 'almost' overnight (these are brothers I refer to of course).

I have a friend who is this way and is currently trying to get back in to the org' and sat in his loft for months after being disfellowshipped listening to music and drugging himself silly, as he just couldn't get a balance on the outside. Nobody was there to set the boundaries for him and the carrot had gone, because to this guy, he was now God-fodder and what did it matter anyway?

All very sad, yet I understand the mindset well.

itsallgoodnow

All Christianity is set up that way, probably most religions are. For people who believe in Karma, you can say the same thing.

What makes JW "morality" so painful to watch is knowing they have swallowed the storty that they are the only people on the planet with high moral standards. That's just delusional.

jgnat

Human morality; is it from virtue or calculating self interest? I would say nearly everybody operates from self interest, even if it is as basic as they want to be liked and loved. One of my favorite quotes:

Those who serve a cause are not those who love that cause. They are those who love the life which has to be led in order to serve it, except in the case of the very purest, and they are rare. Simone Weil

willy_think

JW morality is a very simple thing. When you are in you are moral when you are out you are immoral.

JW hook;

Join to shear in the materiel and physical gains after the big "A".

Join or die bitch.

Can you say Carrot and whip?

doogie

c'mon guys...why pick on the JWs? isn't the whole concept of religion based on hope for reward/fear of punishment? actually, why just pick on religion? socially, humans operate on a reward/punishment system in all aspects of life.

as was said before, why do we go to work? drive the speed limit? pay our taxes? buy our significant other a gift? by your logic, there is no such thing as 'virtue.'

"Do good, for good is good to do;

Spurn bribe of heaven and threat of hell." -- Joseph Wheless

Maverick

Even when I was on the inside I had trouble with the two faces of JW morality. They used their supposed high standards as an advertisement for outsiders to admire and hopefully join. Yet I knew very few who had any real concept of ethical behavior. I see now that this is because their bosses have this same blind spot. The J-dub masters have no problem misleading and misinforming their "flock". They see no conflict at all. That is why J-dubs can talk a great game about the evils of gossip, cheating in business, protecting children and promote with speech and print all manner of good moral conduct and then actively do all of those things they speak against, and enjoy doing them! Mav

JW morality: is it from virtue or calculating self interest?

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