Comments You Will Not Hear at the 6-24-07 WT Study (Youths Goals Honor God) (page 5)

Pistoff

Count me in with the group that lost out by listening to the dire warnings about going to college.
After all, the WT's and Awakes were saying that we would never finish college, and would not even get to the career.

This article is continuing a track that the WT started 2 years ago: the completely black and white view of college.
In the drama about Timothy (the son of rich parents, was he just rebelling against his father? Did his parents contribute to Paul and the others so that they would tutor Timothy?) the line is very heavily drawn between:

"All the education I ever needed is in the Christian congregation" (actual line from the drama, spoken by a friend of Timothy)

and:

the only person advocating "higher education" (buzzword used by society to paint the choice as elitist) and a "lucrative career" was the greedy employer in the first century congregation.

NO middle ground; no mention of improving one's MIND, or just needing a 4 year degree in order to avoid poverty in this country. No calm voice in that early congregation to tell Timothy's friend that he needed to follow his own course; education could only affect him negatively if he allowed it.

This week's article again repeats the words "higher education" and "lucrative career" in the same sentence as if every person who goes to college or university is GREEDY.

I agree; this makes me very angry and determined to oppose the policy somehow.

Hecklerboy

I was around in the 80's when they were really slamming education. Thank God my mom was wise enough to make sure i get some kind of education. She made sure I went to a vocational school to study drafting which has given me a nice career. Now you have to have a 4 year degree just to get an entry level office position at my company. In contrast, on the production floor you don't need an education. However, it can get to 100 degrees in the summer and it's very hard labor. Everytime I walk out onto the production floor I remind myself of how fortunate I am to have a good education.

Usally once a year I go to the local high school on career day to speak about engineering and drafting. I encourage all the kids to go to college and get some kind of degree. Some will come out and say they don't want to go to college, so I encourage them to go to the local vacational school to get training.

All of the lurkers out there: it's very, very, very, hard to get a good paying job (above poverty level) without some kind of extra education. Please make sure you or your children get the education needed to live good lives.

jschwehm

I was around in the 80's when they were really slamming education. Thank God my mom was wise enough to make sure i get some kind of education. She made sure I went to a vocational school to study drafting which has given me a nice career.

So was I. I can remember after coming home from a rather frustrating day of pioneering and talking to myself more than anyone at the door that I had called the local vo-tech school to see about taking some classes. My JW mother found out and quickly talked me out of it. I eventually went to Bethel and discovered that that place was NOT for me and I found my better half while I was there.

Interestingly, after I got back from my one year service at Bethel and had gotten married, I could not find a job that paid decently to save my life. Then, when my new wife had to have two major surgeries within the first 6 months of our marriage and we had no health insurance, my parents to their credit agreed to help me go to college. However, I did get some flack from those in the congregation.

Jeff S.

bennyk

Most precious of all, you will "get a firm hold on the real life"-eternal life on a paradise earth. -1 Timothy 6:9, 10, 17-19; Acts 20:35. (paragraph 20)

Does it bother no one other than myself that the Watch Tower Society equates this statement regarding the "real life" to their concept of a "paradise earth?" I feel very confident that Timothy and the early Christians had an entirely different understanding than that of the Society.

LiveLife

blondie,

Thanks for this review.

I hate to bear bad news. However, I find it my sad duty to advise you that 1969 was almost 40 years ago, not almost 30 years ago, as your aside suggests.

Since 1887 very little of the founding dogma remains. That remaining bit is not defined by what the religion positively states to be true. It is defined by separating itself from what it calls false, i.e. the rejection of dogma characterizes all of the remaining similarity between the original organization and the current one. Nothing else remains. C.T. Russell would no more recognize the current Jehovah's Witnesses as his than did Jesus recognize C.T. Russell or the current JWs as his.

Regardless of what anyone else chooses, I will Live Life

blondie

I hate to bear bad news. However, I find it my sad duty to advise you that 1969 was almost 40 years ago, not almost 30 years ago, as your aside suggests.

And it seems like yesterday. I keep trying to make myself younger than I am in my mind.

Blondie

Merry Magdalene

All of the lurkers out there: it's very, very, very, hard to get a good paying job (above poverty level) without some kind of extra education. Please make sure you or your children get the education needed to live good lives.

Too too true!!! When i was in my teens my mother wanted me to live at home and pioneer forever...or until armageddon (whichever came first). She was willing to continue feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing transportation for me if I would do that. But I did something even more stupid...I eloped. LOL.

At any rate, being deceased she can no longer provide anything for me even if I was still a JW, and never having got a good education, I can barely provide anything for myself. I live in a town of 675 people, good jobs and careers are virtually non-existant. Even if I were to move somewhere with more opportunity, I am not qualified to compete. I am 42 years old, divorced, with one child, and I have no insurance or security of any kind. I am having to start from scratch and do what I should have been doing 20+ years ago, and hopefully I will be able to help my daughter do better earlier.

Listen to good advice not bad. You can still worship God, have faith, and be smart enough to look after yourself and your loved ones. I beliee God wants us to do our best in all areas of life. Poverty is not essential to spirituality.

~Merry

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 6-24-07 WT Study (Youths Goals Honor God)