If you had any doubts about the pitifully poor mental prowess of Watchtower and JWs in general then I'm sure this week's Watchtower study (week of June 15-21, 2015) completely obliterated such doubts. The study article (Watchtower April 15, 2015, page 19: How Real Is Your Relationship With Jehovah?) was filled with blatantly fallacious reasoning that were outdone only by the more fallacious reasoning on the part of commenting JWs.
The article, in paragraph 2, says this about a relationship with Jehovah:
How real is your personal relationship with Jehovah? Would you like to strengthen it? James 4:8 tells you how you can do that: "Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you." Note that this is a two-way process. * [footnote: A relationship has been defined as the way two individuals feel and behave toward each other. Thus, both are actively involved.] As we take steps to draw close to God, he takes reciprocating action toward us. This interaction, frequently repeated, progressively strengthens our relationship with Jehovah. As a result, that relationship becomes very real to us.
The article then goes on to say in subsequent paragraphs that individual worshipers communicate with Jehovah through prayer. Now bearing in mind the point in the footnote highlighted above, how does Jehovah communicate with the worshiper - how is he actively involved in the communication aspect of the relationship? Paragraph 3 says:
And you allow Jehovah to talk to you, as it were, when you regularly read his written Word and meditate on it.
"Allow" Jehovah to talk to you - "as it were" ?!!! Oh the idiocy! Jehovah is actively involved by doing absolutely nothing! The worshiper does all the work! What kind of a relationship is that? Aren't both parties supposed to be actively involved in order for there to be a relationship? And yet Watchtower is essentially contradicting itself by showing that the worshiper is the one actually doing all the work.
By way of comparison, imagine a mother with 2 children whose father live far away and whom they have never seen or spoken to orally. The mother tells the children that their father loves them and provide for them. The mother shows them a letter that the father wrote to the family as a whole years ago before the children were even born and which does not refer to the mother or any of the children by name. She encourages the children to write to their father regularly to an address she gave them, but the father never, ever responds directly to any of their letters. To get his response, the mother claims, they have to read the original letter he wrote to the family years ago and meditate on how it applies to them individually. Now, who in their right mind would claim that this father is having a close relationship with his children?
And in this whole process of the worshiper talking to Jehovah and imagining that Jehovah responds to him, "as it were", when he reads the bible, the worshiper comes to develop a relationship with Jehovah? The relationship becomes real to him? You don't say! Who would have thought that someone could ever delusionally grow to regard an imaginary friend as being real due to regular repetition of behavior designed to reinforce the delusion? Such a thing could never happen, right? LOL.
Look at the utter idiocy of paragraph 5:
For example, read and meditate on Jesus' words to "stop storing up for yourselves treasures on the earth." If you feel that you are already focusing your life on Kingdom interests, you sense Jehovah's commendation. On the other hand, if you see a need to simplify your life and to focus more on Kingdom interests, Jehovah has alerted you to an area where you can work at drawing closer to him. - Matt 6:19,20.
"If you feel", "if you see"? So let me get this straight: Jehovah's communication to individual JWs is actually the individual JW's own imperfect and fallible feelings about his own "spirituality" in light of what he reads? So Jehovah speaks to the individual JW by the individual JW listening to his own treacherous and imperfect heart? This is utter . . . I'm at a loss for words. Let's expose the idiocy of this paragraph by just changing a few words:
For example, read and meditate on Jesus' words to "stop storing up for yourselves treasures on the earth." If you [are self-sparing and imagine in your heart] that you are already focusing your life on Kingdom interests, you [can imagine in your heart] Jehovah's commendation. On the other hand, if you [are unbalanced and overzealous and thus imagine] a need to simplify your life and to focus more on Kingdom interests, Jehovah has alerted you to an area where you can work at drawing closer to him. - Matt 6:19,20.
So Jehovah is reduced to being just a sock-puppet controlled by the peculiar, imperfect disposition and inclination of the individual JW. Way to go Watchtower! You're certainly revealing your great wisdom and insight - not!!
Paragraph 12 and 13 reveals more idiotic fallacious reasoning where they try to discount the fact that prayer is purely a psychological phenomenon by pointing to Jesus apparent conviction that his Father heard his prayers - which is recorded in the same book that promotes prayers! Talk about appeal to emotion (conviction) and circular reasoning! By such idiotic reasoning, if you meet a man who is utterly convinced that he has an invisible friend who listens to all that he says then that man must truly have such an invisible friend listening to him, right? Because why would he have that conviction if it weren't true? lol.
And lets not forget to mention that idiotic fallacious reasoning often brought out in comments that Jehovah answers prayers by the printing of Watchtower articles that addresses the specific problems that individual JWs have. Chee, with 8 million JWs worldwide, what are the odds that some will be suffering from depression, or marital problems, or anxiety, or [insert illness or problem that is bound to exist in a pool of 8 million people, here]? Furthermore, what are the odds that Watchtower will decide to write an article on such a issue given its existence? And given that all JWs receive all Watchtower literature, what are the odds that some JWs somewhere is going to get an articles that happens to address his particular problem? JWs have go to be some of the most mindless people on the planet!
