are witnesses dumb?

by under_believer 14 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  under_believer

  No, they're not. They're merely ignorant. And WHY, you ask, are they ignorant? Because they are kept that way.
  
  In August, 2007 a professor at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan named Pervez Hoodbhoy wrote an essay titled Science and the Islamic world—The quest for rapprochement. It is a very recommendable essay about why the Islamic world is so backwards, scientifically, when it was responsible for a scientific Golden Age between the 9th and the 13th century and basically carried the torch of intellectualism through Europe's Dark Ages.

  You should read that essay if you have time, it's great. But a couple of the things he said hit me right in the gut when applied to my experience as a Witness:

  The scientific method is alien to traditional, unreformed religious thought. Only the exceptional individual is able to exercise such a mindset in a society in which absolute authority comes from above, questions are asked only with difficulty, the penalties for disbelief are severe, the intellect is denigrated, and a certainty exists that all answers are already known and must only be discovered.

  Sent shivers down my spine. And:

  If Muslim societies are to develop technology instead of just using it, the ruthlessly competitive global marketplace will insist on not only high skill levels but also intense social work habits. The latter are not easily reconcilable with religious demands made on a fully observant Muslim's time, energy, and mental concentration: The faithful must participate in five daily congregational prayers, endure a month of fasting that taxes the body, recite daily from the Qur'an, and more. Although such duties orient believers admirably well toward success in the life hereafter, they make worldly success less likely.

  It's the same complaint many have about Witnesses: when one is ridiculously busy with religious pursuits, one has no time for anything else, including rational thought.

  People of every religious stripe but especially those entrapped in fundamentalist systems are all dealing with the same problems.
• 

  changeling

  Thanks,I'll read that.

  changeling
• 

  cognizant dissident

  The scientific method is alien to traditional, unreformed religious thought. Only the exceptional individual is able to exercise such a mindset in a society in which absolute authority comes from above, questions are asked only with difficulty, the penalties for disbelief are severe, the intellect is denigrated, and a certainty exists that all answers are already known and must only be discovered.

  Amen to that brother Underbeliever! I went to university on a science scholarship. When I told my father (an elder and PO) that I had won a scholarship for biology and chemistry he was very upset. He asked me what I was going to do with a degree in science, build a bomb? He also started complimenting me regularly by calling me a clever little bitch! When I called him on his hostile attitude, he claimed he meant it as a "term of endearment". I have never heard my father address me this way in 40 years.

  A few years later, when I told them I was no longer a witness, he asked me why. I gave him some of my reasonings (mostly science based). When he could not answer my reasonings with logic, he said I had traded the "truth" for worldly intellectualism. I had taken the easy way out according to him. I laughed at that statement at the time, but perhaps he was right. How much effort must one put forth in this information age to keep up the level of ignorance that JW's demand of themselves and their followers. Keeping those blinders on 24/7 is a full time job nowadays. It probably is easier to accept reality than to deny it.

  Cog
• 

  White Dove

  No, they aren't dumb. I've heard them speak. They are kept in mental suspended animation. They don't know any other way to think. Poor blokes.
• 

  White Dove

  I suspect the reason why so many of them walk around with something stuck up their butts is because they put all of those nagging doubts there because they have no where else to put them. I know I sat on my doubts for many years not risking pulling them out for questioning.
• 

  steve2

  They are kept in mental suspended animation. They don't know any other way to think. Poor blokes.

  Come on now admit it: To be kept in this state of "mental suspended animation" you have to be either dumb to begin with or choosing to stay a witness for secondary gain (e.g., avoid loss of family). But, overall, it seems that the dumber you are, the less worried you'll be about doctrines that don't add up or policies that reek of human interpretation.

  It's an old but true maxim: Cults exploit the willing stupidity of their adherents.
• 

  coaster

  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Until something wakes us up.

  coaster
• 

  Siamsa

  Bearing in mind that most members of the human race belive that they are members of the 'Best and most intelligent' Religion, Race, Species, Country, Club, Political Party or Society...........it does not say much for the future of mankind if they all turn out to be wrong.

  I wonder would the word 'Doh!' work on the last day?

  As the JW glitterati in the 1970/80's used to indoctrinate the lions that were led by donkeys with the words - "Many followers of Christendom are not jst wrong, they are sincere but sincerely wrong". How prophetic that turned out to be. Maybe they had a point after all !
• 

  Honesty

  Dumber than a box of rocks.

  I was until something woke me up and I pulled my head outta my butt
• 

  WTWizard

  Dumb or not, they are Witlesses.