Tony Dungy, and cognitive dissonance

DanTheMan

One thing that always struck me about JW's was their insularity, how truly ignorant so many of them are about the world outside of their world. To hear many JW's talk, Worldly People™, to a person, live in a constant state of debauchery.

I would guess that the majority of American JW's were watching the Super Bowl last night. Towards the end of the game, Phil Simms (the color commentator for CBS) was talking about how Tony Dungy (the coach of the Indianapolis Colts) never raises his voice, never curses, is "class" all the way. Similar praise for Dungy's unimpeachable character has been repeated endlessly on sports radio shows, in newspaper and magazine articles, by TV commentators, etc. both in the runup to the Super Bowl and in the articles I was reading today. During one of his post-game speeches or interviews (I can't remember which) Tony spoke of how he proved that you can succeed the "Lord's way"; this and other comments he made lead me to believe that he is devoutly religious.

Now, if I was still a JW and I had seen this, and knowing what a genuinely likeable character Tony Dungy is, I would have experienced intense cognitive dissonance at all this. The idea that dumb little Dan from stupid Ohio who hasn't done shit with his life is gonna be spared at the Big A while people like Tony Dungy were gonna get wacked, it was thoughts like this and the accompanying mental anguish that literally almost drove me insane during my last few years as a jaydub.

Can anybody relate to that?

AlmostAtheist

Oh Dan! Sure, he has a FORM of Godly Devotion*, but not according to Accurate Knowledge*. And without Accurate Knowledge*, Jehovah God can't accept his worship. Jehovah is sort of obsessive-compulsive, he has to have things EXACTLY a certain way, or he gets all nutty. (That's why you hear him say stuff like, "A ruin, a ruin, a ruin I shall make it". Quietly to himself he's counting "one ruin, two ruins, three ruins")

Hope that straightens things out for you. (And yes, I did watch the Super Bowl! [So can I keep my man membership another year?])

Dave

* "Godly Devotion" and "Accurate Knowledge" are registered trademarks of WatchCorp.

New Worldly Translation

Yeah I know what your saying. JW's have a certain distasteful arrogance towards 'worldy' people, especially those of other faiths. It's drilled into them by WTS publications that there are nice people in the world who do good things, but they're still under satan and his deemins. It's implied that their persona is just a facade and if you scratch beneath the surface they're still bad people.
This is despite, in my experience, JW's being some of the most racist, bigotted, uncharitable people I've ever known. And that's just my family.

V

Really "good" people in the world do not fit into the JW mindset.

The response that Dungy would get from some JWs is: "He is such a sheep-like personality. He needs to find the truth."

The JW mind claims such ones as their own when they appear too good for the world. As soon as Dungy appears as "follower of Christendom", then he can be written off as a member of Satan's false religion. And so the JW mind rests.

MsMcDucket

Don't forget that any witness that appears to be a fan of Dungy's would be accused of "idolatry".

DanTheMan

Oh Dan! Sure, he has a FORM of Godly Devotion*, but not according to Accurate Knowledge*.

Oh god, I had forgotten about that bit of torturous Bible-based™ reasoning. Thanks for the painful reminder.

As to your man membership, I would probably need to know a little more about said Super Bowl watching. Were you watching it because you were at a social engagement where it was being shown on the TV and you were not in a position of power to switch channels? If that is the case, as I suspect it indeed is, then I'm not sure how much we can credit it to your man points. As you are aware, you currently are well below the minimum needed for renewal.

If you state that you were at home alone watching it, I may need you to come in for a polygraph test to verify this as I'm sure you can understand how difficult it would be for us to believe such an outrageous claim.

JW's have a certain distasteful arrogance towards 'worldy' people

To say the least. It's an easy position to hold when you're whole fam damily and everybody else you know is JW. For me, aside from my first couple of years with the dubs when I was ultra-holy and self-righteous, every time I met a nice person who wasn't a JW it was killer cognitive diss.

The response that Dungy would get from some JWs is: "He is such a sheep-like personality. He needs to find the truth."

Oh yeah, heard that one a lot. I got to feeling like, thank god they aren't trapped in such a weird religion as this.

Don't forget that any witness that appears to be a fan of Dungy's would be accused of "idolatry".

Yeah, you can only like a wordly™ person so much before guilt or the elders get ya.

willyloman

Can anybody relate to that?

Uh, yes. Mother Theresa would be one example. And I wonder how the "sisters" can watch and quote Oprah all the time and not have a light go on... but that's cog dis.

New Worldly Translation

Well Mother Theresa was an interesting character but not quite as saintly as she liked to portray according to Indians she purported to help in Calcutta.
That's another topic though.

itsallgoodnow

JWs would say Tony Dungy was like the foreign boys Dinah was associating with, they were the kindest, most well behaved of their people, and they still raped her. Tony Dungy to them is no better than a rapist whose act of rape led to the slaughter of many.

You can't argue with that logic!

Abandoned

Hey buddy, I can fully relate to what you are saying. I remember the bible study where we talked about false religion. I don't remember which chapter, but it was in the ironically named (considering it is no longer in use) "live forever" book. The conductor told me that every (other) religious leader was a hypocrite. Martin Luther King Jr, Jimmy Swaggart, Pastor Larson (where I grew up), and any other leader was against God. I don't know why I didn't turn and run at that point... I guess they have that far enough along in the study to where they've already sabotaged your intuition.

Tony Dungy, and cognitive dissonance

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