"The American Religion"

onesong

I posted this a while ago, thought I'd repost as some newbies might find it interesting.

"The American Religion" by Harold Bloom. He reviews and critiques American born religions and has a chapter on Jw's.

Here's some quotes:

Opening sentence of chapter- " Every national faith is bound to call forth it's antitype, and ours has produced it's anthithesis in the pecularily stark phenomenon of the Jehovah's Witnesses."

"And though Jehovah is the universal father, to us as to Jesus, he is not a particularily loving father. Power , not love, is his true attribute always."

"The power of Jehovah is the obsessive concern of the Witnesses. So intense is this exaltation of power in the Witnesses' writings that I must catergorize it as pathological."

" The writings of Russell and Rutherford offend anyone's sense of human dignity, provided such a sense exists. They propose a theocratic Fascism that is not mitigated by assigning the dictatorship to a tyrant they call Jehovah."

"What makes Jehovah's Witnesses different is not their expectation of destruction, but their violent hatred of what will be destroyed, which is to say:our country, our world, our common planet...There are no positive elements in existence the Witnesses seek to salvage:they wish to see all of us vanish, and as quickly as possible."

He quotes DH. Lawrence "The Apocalypse does not worship power. It wants to murder the powerful, to seize power itself,the weakling." Bloom-"There, in my own judgement, is the heart of the aspiration of the Jehovah's Witnesses...Intellectually weak, spiritually empty, Jehovah's Witnesses dreams of seizing power itself, so as to share in the majesty of the great Theocrat, Jehovah."

" But no one, including the major theocrats of the Watchtower Society, ever fully understands the Witnesses' chronology. Chronology has followed chronolgy, and will be followed by more. It is not the dates or even the patterns of chronology that seem to matter, but rather the idea of chronology itself."

"No other sect has so abounded in the mystical mathematics of the city of heaven, or has so gratified the American appetite for supposed fact. That there are no immutable dates, or even unchanging doctrines, does not seem to bother the majority of Witnesses.There is something not unimaginative, even if a touch zany, about the movements capacity for absorbing changes in doctrine."

"Yet what a superb imaginative achievement they would be if they were American fiction rather than American fact. Even our most apocalyptic writers could not have conceived Russell, Rutherford and their followers.If the entire movement had been created in the writings of Herman Melville or Nathaniel West...we would find no grander invention in those dark visionaries of our culture."

He goes on to give a factual and hilarious rendition of the end of the world as Witnesses see it.( To long to post right now. )

And concludes:

"I have omitted a mass of details, but they do little to alter this pattern.What can most of us do with such a narrative? Lurid and cruel, it contrasts poorly with the apocalyptic elements in early Mormonism or even with the eschatological longings of Seventhday Adventism. Though there are a number of rather savage apocalytptic scenerios current among the American Fundamentalists, I am aware of none quite so inhumane as the Jehovah's Witnesses account of the End of our Time. There is something peculiarly childish in these Watchtower yearnings: they remind me of why very small children cannot be left alone with wounded and suffering household pets."

Anyway, the chapter is a great read as you can imagine. Bloom's new book " Jesus and Yahweh , the Names Divine" is excellent as well.

Wordly Andre

I would guess that while writting this book some dumbshit knocked on his door early saturday morning and disturbed poor Harold, ha, ha, ha, I read his other book "Omens of the Millennium", it was very good but kind read like a textbook.

bigmouth

"" But no one, including the major theocrats of the Watchtower Society, ever fully understands the Witnesses' chronology. Chronology has followed chronology, and will be followed by more. It is not the dates or even the patterns of chronology that seem to matter, but rather the idea of chronology itself."

"No other sect has so abounded in the mystical mathematics of the city of heaven, or has so gratified the American appetite for supposed fact."

Therein lies the fascination for people like OBVES.

"The American Religion"

onesong

Wordly Andre

bigmouth

freyd

Homerovah the Almighty

5go

carla

Siddhashunyata

Hortensia

SirNose586

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