by PublishingCult 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Of course not...
Children, be obedient to your parents in union with [the] Lord, for this is righteous: “Honor your father and [your] mother”; which is the first command with a promise: “That it may go well with you and you may endure a long time on the earth.” Ephesians 6:1-3
Spade, you don't count.
Spade is lying - again.
First, it is a well known and established fact that a huge percentage of Witness kids 'leave the truth'. This, by itself, pushes them towards failure, as they must cope with the world, often while being shunned by friends and family at a time in their lives when they need support to build a career.
Second, to the extent that Watchtower indoctrination enters their minds, they are trained to expect negative, hopeless outcomes. The world is Devil dominated and corrupt. Everyone they know outside of the congregation will die horribly at Armageddon soon - including well meaning schoolteachers, helpful police, older mentors and that kindly old lady down the street who paid them to do odd jobs. These 'wicked' people are doomed, doomed, doomed because Jehovah is going to kill them all soon. Try maintaining a sense of optimism about the future with such negativity as a continuing backdrop to any effort to build an independent life.
Finally, many closeknit religions make an effort to train, support and cultivate young people in practical skills and career knowledge - such as Mormons and Orthodox Jews. There is little of this among Witnesses, whose cold-hearted leadership proclaims that they are not a "social club".
metatron
Being exposed to the Christian congregation for over thirty years and judging from my own observation of youths raised as Jehovah's Witnesses: At the least, successful youths were raised by fine upstanding citizens and emulated their parents example in financial matters even if they didn't pursue the Truth. You lie...
Some Witness kids object to the stupidity in meeting/assembly counsel - such as 'young sister so and so kept hanging around the mall with her worldly friends and she ended up getting pregnant'.
To which, one young sister replied, "what? Going to the mall too much makes you pregnant? Really?"
metatron
I think they have little chance to succeed in life. Limited education and being indoctrinated to not think critically are major handicaps for them. The few witnesses that I know that I would consider financially stable are either college educated or they got into decent jobs right out of high school and worked their way up without a college education. The problem is that those who worked their way up are older. Those kinds of opportunities may have been prevalent 20 years ago but they are few and far between now. An Associate's degree or military experience is required for bottom of the barrel entry level jobs at my employer, and if you want to move up you have to get your Bachelor's. All other jobs require a Bachelor's degree or higher. The company is pushing every one with an Associate's to get a Bachelor's, every one with a Bachelor's to get a Master's, and recommending anyone with a Master's start working on their Ph.D. There is so much emphasis on education that they are paying the tuition and book costs for anyone that wants to go back to school. Heck, they paid for my Bachelor of Science in Business Management degree six years ago and are paying for the Bachelor of Science in Materials Engineering that I am currently pursuing. The education requirements in all industries is getting tougher and a Bachelor's is becoming the equivalent of a high school diploma 20 years ago.
Lack of critical thinking skills is also a major roadblock for JW children. They are told to not question anything the GB says or publishes. Any independent thought is seen as dangerous. You can't go through life just doing everything someone says without question and be a healthy individual.
When I was still in I saw some of the younger JWs graduate high school and move out. Without fail every one either got DF'd or publicly reproved. They all lost their privileges because they went from this sheltered life into the real world. Instead of experimenting slowly they were suddenly free and did more rebellious things in a year than most kids do in all of their teen years. This happened three years in a row. None of the kids are successful at all. The ones that stayed out of the organization live in poverty on minimum wage and have more debt than they can handle. Most of the ones that were repentant moved back home and are financially dependent on their parents again. None of them have even tried to better themselves by going to community college or night school so they can get the first two years of college out of the way at little cost. They are all content to work at dead end jobs that pay nothing and provide no benefits because they view the world as evil. They don't realize that they just overindulged and made stupid decisions, and they will likely never see the errors of their ways because they are back being brainwashed.
I also hate when they say you can just learn a trade and start your own business. There is nothing wrong with doing manual labor and small business ownership is an admirable goal. But the GB doesn't tell these people how hard you have to work to be a successful small business owner. They say it frees up more time for field service. I say it does the opposite. When just starting out you have no capital and no clients. You have to work your tail off to build the business. Go out and find clients during the day, take care of the paperwork and books at night, and not take weekends off because you need as much work as possible to make ends meet. If you follow the law and get all of the required licenses, permits, bonds, insurance, etc. the costs to start a business are not insignificant. Most of the witnesses I know that owned small business (landscaping, window washing, office/house cleaning) were not licensed contractors, not bonded, not insured, and didn't carry business insurance on their vehicles. I guess Caeser's laws don't apply to them.
Somebody's gotta flip my burgers.
Of course JW kids are set up for failure. People who don't fail at life don't remain JWs. Intelligent JWs are all "apostates". JWs with money have better things to do than knock on doors. All the "good Witnesses" are failures. Everybody else is gone, leading a "double life", drifting away, or on the fringes.
Ah, yes, Spade - another example of "deceivers being deceived" among Witlesses.
Of course, you refer to "successful" youths - ignoring the wreckage the Watchtower creates and the negative mindset to be overcome. If all we had to judge were the "successful", no problem would appear, would it?
Let's ignore the 'unsuccessful' - because they don't count, right? Those who married too young to escape fornication and masturbation, those who got secretly molested. that the elders covered up (part of the reason I resigned as an elder after 40 years in the 'truth'.
But don't take my word for it, let me quote Brother Insulman, our former C.O. - who complained on stage that the circuit was loaded with young people who 'weren't doing anything in the world or in the 'truth'' - and this was before the internet existed.
metatron
Being exposed to the Christian congregation for over thirty years and judging from my own observation of youths raised as Jehovah's Witnesses:
At the least, successful youths were raised by fine upstanding citizens and emulated their parents example
in financial matters even if they didn't pursue the Truth. You lie......AliceInWonderLand/Spade
Your in my World,Dumb Ass..There are some really smart succesfull kids raised by JW`s..But ..
They are few and far between..Some are still JW`s..Some are not..
The ones who were raised by Idiots like You..
Never had a Chance..
........................ 
...OUTLAW
Judah Schroeder - spent a lifetime at Bethel - I believe until he was in his 40s. He had it made. He was set for life. Never had to get a real job. He could have lived out his days in a multimillion dollar condo. All expenses paid to travel the world. People kissing his feet because of who his daddy was. Heck, he could've started partaking and been a GB. The next smartest thing he did though, was marry into money (Wasn't hard - when you're a permanent bethelite son of GB). For JWs - there is no better success story. That is the top of the top for JWs.
Instead of rolling in that though, he and his wife decide it is not the most successful he can be. He enrolls in undergarduate business studies at Columbia university. I think he may even have gone on to attend graduate or law school.
As far as I know he stayed a JW. However, I don't think he went back to bethel. He used to have a picture of President Clinton in his bethel office. This guy had higher aspirations. But it makes you wonder why? He had money. Prestige in JW land. Privilege like no other JW knew.
If JWs - especially at bethel are the highest educated people in the world as JWs claim, what would make someone that has it all already from the JW standpoint - give it all up?
I don't know if was said, but one of the reasons(and there are many more) I personally was set up to fail was because "the new system" is right around the corner.
I wasn't supposed to ever get out of grade school....or jr. high....or high school.
Nothing I would ever do would ever matter because the new system was almost here.
Was I lazy? Maybe. But when you tell a teenager that the only thing of any importance is knocking on doors.....well, life ain't all that appealing.
.......and Spade, my mom and step-dad were a couple of stupid morons that let themselves be suckered into a cult. I should honor them why?
