What's wrong with the WTBS in a nushell.

by JeffT 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  JeffT

  I realized the other morning that it was twenty years ago that I started my exit. At the spring 1988 Circuit Assembly (I think it was in February or March) they absolutely hammered on the point that higher ed was a waste of time. Armageddon was going to happen any day now and there was no point in preparing for life in system that was about to end. My two oldest children were in middle school at the time and doing well. I did not want to see them grow up washing windows or whatever.

  I had been sucked in during the pre-1975 hysteria and was already wary of the end of the world stuff. This one pushed me over the edge. I went home and asked myself "If we keep saying the world is about to end, doesn't it actually have to end some time?" I couldn't come up with any internally logical response to my own question.

  I realized that the only things I knew about the organization was what they'd told me themselves. I began doing my own research, unkown to me my wife was doing the same thing, except her issues were doctrinal.

  The trouble with all of this is that the WTBS says this stuff, and people believe and act on it. How many kids sitting at that CA are now stuck in dead end jobs waiting for the world to end? In the intervening time since we left my kids have been to college, I have a granddaughter, and generally speaking life has happened.

  The world has yet to end.
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  potleg

  They're NUTS and it's HELL = NUTSHELL It's a Nut's Hell
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  daniel-p

  I believe the single biggest thing "wrong" with the Jehovah's Witness faith is that it's outdated. Ever since the first failed prohecies of Miller (the Adventist guy) and then Russell, it has struggled to stay relevant. Sure, it's numbers have grown, but only by scaring people into thinking the end of the world is coming. They're a one-trick pony, proclaiming the end of "this system," while expecting their adherents to not change with the times.

  For me, Carl Sagan summed it up perfectly when he wrote about 1914:

  "One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and – while the events of that year were certainly of some importance – the world did not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, Oh, did we say '1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvinenced in any way. But they did not. They could have said, Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth. But they did not. Instead, they did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the fact of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough- mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry."
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  Low-Key Lysmith

  That would have to be one hell of a giant nut to fit all of the WTS bullshit inside.
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  crazycate

  They want to have it both ways. Make a mistake, and say "We never said we were inspired." But claim to be God's mouthpiece so that their word cannot be questioned.
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  JeffT

  crazycate: That really struck me when I was doing my research. If all their stuff was preceded by some statement like: this is interesting speculation and you can believe what you want of it, we might have less issue with them. But try being a witness and disagree with even the smallest point in a Watchtower! They leave themselves no wiggle room, if MUST believe EVERYTHING they say. But if called out on it, they retreat into "but we're only human."
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  crazycate

  JeffT: Precisely. And when you consider that some of the things we can't question are literally life-or-death matters, then such a stand is serious indeed! I would be much less freaked out these days if they presented themselves as seekers after truth instead of the only ones possessing truth.

  Cate
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  jaguarbass

  There is no God, and the bible is a book full of errors and contradictions.

  So the wactower society could be likened to a craftsman trying to work without tools.
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  momzcrazy

  "What's wrong with the WTBS in a nutshell"

  The nuts that are running it.

  momz
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  BreakingAway

  I'd call the WTBS "squirrely" but I like squirrels.