by Seeker4 179 Replies latest members private
my wife's paycheck has regular withdrawals into the kids education fund, on top of that I make another payment at the end of the month.
I have just instructed my wife to NOT TELL ANY in the congregation of this at any cost.
I can hold my ground, but this being so fresh, I want to have a little peace of mind, and not have to do the kangaroo court shit.
Thanks. And I might add that it was during my visit to the WTS in Brooklyn, N.Y. that I was particularly swayed in the direction that I would ultimately go when I visited the legal department of the WTS. For all the years that I had been told that I could/should not go to school and I was introduced to an entire staff of attorneys - to me, it was either good or bad. It could not be both at the same time. It did not matter if they worked at the WTS (i.e. pursuing 'kingdom interests') or in corporate America, they were attorneys. If they ever left the WTS, they could always get a very good job. Yet, the rank and file did not have such a privilege or option. Upon returning home, I resigned and never looked back. So much for my pilgrimage to NY.
As someone that has grown up to be in my 40's and has always resented not being able to go to college when I was younger because of this outrageous stance and basically forced to go to Bethel, I think I've got an interesting perspective on this subject. I can remember being in brooklyn bethel back in the late eighties, specifically, nov 1988. That was when the org published the article that basically stated that higher ed was a private decision between parents and their children and that no one should criticize them for whatever the amount of of higher ed that they deem necessary in their case. I can remember going totally ballistic in my one room, 10th story flat in the Towers after reading this, since here I was at Bethel and not in college where I really wanted to be at the time !! I From what I have come to understand, Lloyd Barry, a GB member at the time assigned to the writing dept, was behind this effort to liberalize the pursuit of college education, despite fierce opposition from Ted Jaracz and the other hardliners. Ironically, since he died back in the nineties, it seems that's when the tide began to turn so to speak and shift back to the old view that it was wrong altogether. Although he is not on the GB, I also think Max Larson is very involved in wt policy making and is firmly in Ted's corner on this one.
If there ever was a flip flop issue for the org, this is definitely one of them.
It seems every policy the GB makes these days causes more and more JWs to begin thier exodus. I think the GB is caught between a rock & a hard place,, loose many more member due to higher education or loose many but not quite as much through a policy change. I think they just did the math on this one and obt'ed for the slower loss figure they have in thier imagination: based on thier best guesses coming from thier slow working indoctrinated minds(& lets not forget hardening of the arteries too).
They will continue to make more and more of what apear to be blunders as the days go by,, forced to,,, as they face the the ever growing encroachment of exposure due to the mighty power of the information age and easy access by internet.
Might this be a direct response to Rolf Furuli's pro-education stance?
I only HOPE it will cause problems. I am not active but very close to a WIFE of an elder who is in grad school! What happens to an elder whose wife is in college? I can only hope this this is the point where they finally start questioning...
Could this be the Watchtower's goal?
ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM Jesus exhorted his followers to "become as little children", and the Church throughout history has extolled credulity, and feared and distrusted the free intelligence. During the Dark Ages the Church was in control of education, and for centuries scarcely anyone who was not a potential priest learned to read or write.
One of the most persistent fallacies about the Christian Church is that it kept learning alive during the Dark and Middle Ages. What the Church did was to keep learning alive in the monasteries, while preventing the spread of knowledge outside them. To quote W.H. Lecky, "The period of Catholic ascendancy was on the whole one of the most deplorable in the history of the human mind...The spirit that shrinks from enquiry as sinful and deems a state of doubt a state of guilt, is the most enduring disease that can afflict the mind of man. Not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries to the universities, not till Mohammedan science, and classical free thought, and industrial independence broke the sceptre of the Church, did the intellectual revival of Europe begin" (History of European Morals, Ch. IV). Even as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, nine-tenths of Christian Europe was illiterate.
Rockhound
Thanks Rockhound.
Definite anti-intellectualism in the WTS.
And VM - I know Rob Pollock. His wife was from my old congregation. His father and step-mom are still in the congregation . In fact, they live in this town where I'm writing from.
I remember visiting Rob and Cindy at Bethel, probably during a visit in the 1980s. Rob was going to college, helping with projects, and according to a comment from his wife, hardly ever attending meetings.
S4
in 1968 i gave up a college education to pioneer for 5 years ---- after all the end was coming in 1975 --- this has proofed to be the worse decsion i have made in my life ------- get the education let nothing stand in the way ---- if you have to just fade away ------------- if you are a young person in the jw's dont let your parent influence stop you from enjoying high school or going to college resist at all costs and get away -- they(your parents) belong to a cult ------ the boys scouts is a better religon the jws -- all they ask of you is that you believe in God and act acoordingly-----
i grew up son of a former gilead grad, circuit overseer, congregation servent later elder
at 17 i was the watchtower study conducter and have given talks at yankee stadium and fenway park as part of conventions thhey had me good --- it ruined a section of my life and took years to recover
DONT LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU
