Ya'll left smurfs off tht list!
Why, why, why?
by Honesty 19 Replies latest jw friends
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Big Tex
In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was frightened of heretics (apostates), science, astronomy and divorce. Why?
See Stilla's answer.
Same play, different actors.
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Frannie Banannie
The subliminal message behind all WTS teachings and publications is, "Be afraid.......be VERY afraid."
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free2beme
Fear is the single best way to control people. So it only makes sense that some of the most afraid people you know, would be the controled Witnesses.
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SirNose586
Add to that, at least for the kids around my age, fear of people finding out about their real hobbies and pastimes. Maybe it's because I'm in the "spiritual wasteland" of southern California. At least that's what the witnesses in NY say about folks from southern California...
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joe_black
It's because their faith is non-existant, if they only had faith the size of a mustard grain, they could move mountains, most JW's I know have no mustard and are very scared.
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FlyingHighNow
I don't know about ya'll, but all that shakin' in my boots wore me out, I fell apart, fell out of the "truth", and let go of most of the fear. I am still weeding out bits of it.
Episcopalians teach that faith is the opposite of fear. And they also teach that faith is God's gift to us, not our gift to God.
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Frannie Banannie
Fear is the single best way to control people. So it only makes sense that some of the most afraid people you know, would be the controled Witnesses.
Yup, Free2beme. It worked in Nazi Germany and it works today in the WTS.
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stevenyc
Why I am not a Christian: Bertrand Russell
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell0.htm
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Fear, The Foundation Of Religion
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.
steve
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FlyingHighNow
More forward thinking churches such as the Episcopal Church aren't using fear to control.
Science doesn't eradicate fear either. I spent a lot of my childhood terrified of the possibility of nuclear war. I never feared God and didn't believe in hell. I did, however, fear men who could press buttons and totally decimate earth and her inhabitants.