So it's not like "Fight Club"?
u/d (of the makes soap too class)
The New and Hidden Class Consciousness of Jehovah's Witnesses
by truthseeker 45 Replies latest jw friends
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Tristram
Logans....believe me, they (we?) are out there. Debating whether its a "class" or not just seems like semantics to me.
I'd post more, but still am a bit trepidatious about possibly being found out. Maybe I'll be bolder in the future.
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ezekiel3
The new sub-group of Jehovah's Witnesses primarily includes those who KNOW about the false teachings of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, who know about the scandals in the organization, such as child abuse, but for one reason or another have chosen to remain in the congregation, perhaps because of family reasons.
The members of this group are savvy, computer literate, and regularly engage in secret, private discussions about their faith with other Jehovah's Witnesses.Moi? Thanks for the nod. I always wonder how many fellow-JWs I bump into are in the same "sub-group" as I.
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truthseeker
TheListener
-Once you really don't believe anymore but you continue to associate for whatever reason you run the risk of not realizing how weak spiritually you really look. The society knows the signs to look for and the elders are well versed in this. Has your commenting declined in amount, perhaps quality?; has your field service time dropped?; do you get to the meetings as early as you used to or stay as late as you once did?; do you miss meetings more frequently than before? especially bookstudy?; do you maintain the same amount of social acitivities with those in the hall who are/were your close friends?; there are more but you get the point.
As the one living the double life we don't always realize how we appear to others. That is dangerous and can really trip up a fader. They label you as weak; then you start getting sheperding calls; if you still don't respond and your body of elders is zealous you will get more and more attention. They want to bring you back, but barring that they will punish you.
How true. It's already happening with me. Low service hours, not commenting much at meetings. Friends have commented to me that "I miss a lot of meetings." I still maintain the same amount of social activities, but I found that the friends were not as open to me as they used to be. They probably wonder what's going on with me.
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truthseeker
Last year when I went to the District convention, I wondered about aimlessly - well, I was looking for a friend, but I thought to myself, "How many people here really believe? How many here are just here because of family?"
I looked at some of the faces I passed - a mixture of happiness, boredom and fatigue.
There's really no way to know, no handshake, no nod.
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DannyHaszard
flat affect flat affect An affect type that indicates the absence of signs of affective _expression.
The absence of or diminution in the amount of emotional tone or outward emotional reaction typically shown by others or oneself under similar circumstances; a milder form is termed blunted affect.
It's the dawn of the dubs the zombies are coming...
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Zapper_1
I've never been able to understand how a group like Jehovah's Witnesses can claim to know the Bible while living in the shadow of fear. The scriptures very clearly tell us that "God hath not given us a spirit of fear" - any fear that they might feel comes from someplace other than God and there is only one place that I can think where that might be. What it really comes down to is that the REAL problem with Jehovah's Witnesses isn't what they believe about God, it's what they believe about the WTB&TS.
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TheListener
Aahhh but there is a way to tell who is a member of this elite class. It's been written in our code of apostate conduct. Didn't you see it?!? :)
You must wear your tie with the little part winging out past the big part.
Then and only then will the knowledge of the kind you seek be available to you.
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itsallgoodnow
How true. It's already happening with me. Low service hours, not commenting much at meetings. Friends have commented to me that "I miss a lot of meetings." I still maintain the same amount of social activities, but I found that the friends were not as open to me as they used to be. They probably wonder what's going on with me.
Yeah. I got the "do you know what you are doing" speech from a person formerly known as my friend recently. Yeah, I think I do know what I'm doing, and apparently so does everyone else. Oh, well.
I don't know if I'm completely buying into this "class" of non-believing JWs who want to reform this religion stuff. I just don't see it ever working, and who would want to dedicate their life to that anyway? I don't know.
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TheListener
I agree itallgoodnow. I don't think this class or group is interested in reforming. They are in it for survival.
Another poster made an interesting comment on another thread yesterday (6/29) that really made sense to me. She (can't remember posters name) said that when she was a dyed in the wool dub that she basically felt that she would make it through armageddon but didn't really want to understand or think too much about the religious stuff like dates and types and anti-types (something along those lines). I think there are even more of those types of witnesses. They are in it for the new world and don't really listen to a lot of the mumbo jumbo from brooklyn. They follow the laws of the society as a necessary evil to surviving armageddon. But, as soon as the society says something isn't a law but a conscience matter they are all over it.
I believe it is because of these two types of people that the society's numbers are stagnant. There just isn't enough of the energetic crazy eyed dubs running through the streets with placards any more.