i have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.
last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.
one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.
In other words, their 130 year old "The Sky is Falling" gig is eventually going to send them to extinction:
-and it might well be a toss-up as to which will contribute the most to that,
i.e. interest by the community in the JW charade drying up , or haemorrhaging to death by loss of those already in (particularly the young).
Roll on the day!
Bill.
the awake about music was left behind and ended up at the break station... and one of the girls working was reading it and burst out laughing..... are these people serious listen what it says.... after listening to heavy metal music i abused alcohol and started using drugs......... they can't really believe that?
she asked laughing.......
Don't knock it!
After all, reading those things for four years gives one the equivalent of a college degree!
(A Bachelor of Stupidity, anyway).
Bill.
my mother told me of 2 young guys that have been appointed elders.. i could'nt belive it these guys have zero life experance and both their wifes walked out on them after a few years of marrage.. another one cooked his brain on drugs and his talks are painfull to listen to....all over the place and stumbles through them.. .
is it due to alot of young ones (60 to 70%) leaving and the pool to pick from is getting smaller so lowering the bar is the only way???
?.
Jeremy C,
You are quite correct, the whole JW thing is about Salvation by Report Card.
In their skewed way of prioritising matters, the main (or even only?) measure of a person's "spirituality" is that numeral appearing in the "Total Hours" column of the Monthly Report form. Never mind that this figure can just as easily be a bogus one (by the admission of many who post here on this Discussion Board).
So, yes, it is marvellous what an impressive total of monthly hours will achieve:
- conversely, any brother with low Field Service Hours has the proverbial "Snow flake's chance on a hot shovel" of ever making Elder or Ministerial Servant.
Further proof, if it were needed, that the WTS is just a book publishing company hiding behind the facade of religious virtue.
Bill.
When the JWs make remarks like that, they are using weasel talk in order to try and worm their way in. If events were to progress from there and a member of the public agree to accept the offer of a "free home bible study", they would soon find that all bibles are not necessarily the same.
I well remember what happened when my parents agreed to a "free home bible study" with the JWs. The pioneer brother conducting the study handed out New World Translations to everyone involved, saying that he was "tired of hearing the King James Version always being quoted." My mother was not impressed, being quite proud of her KJV bible - which had originally belonged to her grandfather.
Bill.
an arguement i've encountered recently is: god tells us right from wrong.
if you don't have a reason to do right instead of wrong then no one will have any morals.. i disagree with this entirely of course.
what kind of morality is it when you are only doing what is right out of fear of being punished for doing what is wrong?.
Further to the track record of some of the more notorious political leaders that have been mentioned:
- political extremism often takes on an almost religious dimension ("Heil Hitler", "The Thoughts of Mao", larger than life sized posters of Stalin, Mao Tse Tung etc.)
Then, once again, people can be easily manipulated into performing what otherwise would be classed as atrocities.
Steven Weinberg put it perfectly, "but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."
- bearing in mind that "religion" has many forms, some quite overt, others more covert.
Bill.
i have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.
last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.
one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.
I always give my father full marks for resisting the pressure from his newly-converted JW mother. She tried to place the heat on him to rear us three children "In the Truth." To his credit, my father saw through that one, and refused ( It only took his attending one Circuit Assembly talk to see the futility of forcing small children to sit through the mind knumbing JW meeting attendance routine).
At least my two sisters and I were able to have a more interesting childhood than those unfortunates who were raised as JWs!
All I can say is that the Witnesses do well to hang onto even that small minority of born-ins that they do manage to retain:
- the miracle is that all those born-in do not give it away as soon as they can do so.
Bill.
it always felt rather unatural the thought of seeing people who had been dead for years.
how would they come to terms with the huge passage of time that had passed?
how would they be able to cope with the fact that their family had probably hugely changed since they had died.
Not unduly distressed by this prospect!
In this as in many other things, I can handle it - as long as I know the truth.
i.e. I would rather know that they are gone for good, than be kidded along by some crackpot idea that I was going to see them again:
- only to see that turn to custard (like everything else the WTS promised).
Bill.
an arguement i've encountered recently is: god tells us right from wrong.
if you don't have a reason to do right instead of wrong then no one will have any morals.. i disagree with this entirely of course.
what kind of morality is it when you are only doing what is right out of fear of being punished for doing what is wrong?.
No!
Furthermore, introducing the G.O.D. word into things makes it possible to get people to commit acts that otherwise would be viewed as atrocities:
- such as sacrificing children on the altar, or burning heretics at the stake, to mention just a few.
Morality and religion are two completely separate issues, as witness the all-too-numerous persons about who are very religious, but yet no more ethical than anybody else.
Bill.
trying to work with jw's and their cd i notice that the harder i push their beliefs the more likely they are to hit back with some werid version of jw belives that exsists only in their own head.. its almost like they listen to the bs from the platform, run it through their head and then process it through their own filter and end up with a bastardised version of "the truth" that they feel comfortable with.. .
anyone else encountered this?
and whats your theory about it?.
The JWs that stick with it for any length of time would have to - in practice if not in word - follow their own version of it.
i.e. giving lip service to the more bizzare requirements of their religion, but conforming with its more "mainstream" aspects.
Otherwise, how else could they continue to preserve their sanity?
Bill.
that is what my wife always says if i express discontent with the present-day organization.
i should just put my unease aside and serve jehovah, regardless of what the other people are doing.
but they are just plain embarrassing sometimes!
How can anybody claim "it is not about people", when Jesus Christ said that theindicator of true Christianity was that they have love among themselves? In other words, if it is not about people - as your wife claims - then it bloody well ought to be!
Bill.
