when did the truth bcome the truth

by logic 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • logic
    logic

    I was sitting here thinking, which seems to be an indangered thing to do nowadays. It was about the last several discussions I have had with jws that I am related to and friends with. The things that I noticed is that you can hold the discussion for about 10 minutes while they try to answer your questions then they get agitated and then angry, they refuse to talk anymore and tell you that they know it is the truth no matter what so called proof you have, and that is all just apostate talk. The one thing that I tell them all is that rutherford through the 40's wrote practically everything, ran everything, there was no governing body and no organization as we know it today. Almost everything he came up with as the so called truth is now considered apostate but yet it was considered the truth. If you tried to read any of his crap to any jw they will tell you it is apostate, in fact they won't let you read much to them. Then my question to them is 'when did the truth became the truth' , it is a simple question, but I have never got an answer from any of them, they just go into that crazy glazed over look.

    All jws will come up with some things about the society if you give them the freedom to talk, even doubts, but they tell you that jehovah will straighten it out, but in the 61 years I've been associated with the society nothing has ever been so called straightened out. In my experience and the reflection of my past experience I truly realize that jws are mentally brainwashed. You just can't get through to a closed mind. I still think that those of us that have and are comming out were never completely turned into the robots that we were supposed to be.

    I have become frustrated with them and now I just leave stuff out in the open underlined so that they might accidently see it. My wife and I are networked with our computers so I have plenty of articles that she can access. This is one of the methods that the jws use so I thought I would try it. I think most jws are noisy enough and curious enough to check it out if they think no one is watching. (I know my wife is, ha,ha).

    I personally think the society will go on in some fashion because there are those people that just naturally flock to this kind of religion.

    Any way I thought I would put these thoughts in writing, sometimes I do this just to see what it looks like after I write it down as I am not much a writer. I like to read what everyone else has to say I guess.

  • Nathan Natas
    Nathan Natas

    The reason they get agitated and then angry is because they are "thinking" emotionally and not rationally. It is difficult for most people to admit when they have been stupid.

  • LayingLow
    LayingLow

    That is a profound question. I've had experience asking others that and you never get a rational answer (obviously).

  • Shawn10538
    Shawn10538

    The process you just described in your post, that the Witnesses you talked to were experiencing (getting defensive and angry) is literally called: Cognitive Dissonance, or rather, your story described a physical/emotional reaction to cognitive dissonance.

    The reason why your friends and families can not go more than 10 minutes or so before walking away is that they are experiencing Cogniotive Dissonance. Stuff is not adding uo in their heads, something doesn't make sense and disagrees with what they believe or have been taught. This is an uncomfortable feeling. We all experience cognitive dissonance in our lives. We usually experience it right before we begin to justify our actions or belkiefs to somebody!

    In other words If it doesn't add up, someone will point it out to us hopefully. We will feel this dissonance if we know we may be wrong as the friend or whatever is explaining and arguing that you are wrong. At that point we can choose to adjust ourselves to the new information and assimilate it into our lives (admit that we were wrong), or we can begin devising a way to argue our belief to others in hopes of converting them because if this happens and you convert someone to something you believe, then that makes you feel like you may be right after all.

    Of course on some unconscious level the person reacting negatively to the dissonance (disgreement) probably knows he is wrong and out of touch with reality. But, since his realuty is liable to change upon accepting the new beliefs, this scares him and he desperately tries to wish it so or not so, as the case may be, by trying to convince others thereby soothing his dissonance, especially if they adopt his beliefs as their own. This is a real victory for the cognitively dissonant because they got off sctot free, and didn't have to learn a single new thing, aside from how to skillfully defend an argument or position that is acrtually false and morally wrong for instance.

    It is about being teachable really. Cognitive dissonance separates the boys from the men. How we react to information that puts us in a negative light or may be evidence of our wrongness on a matter, is what makes us mature vs. immature, wise vs. ignorant or foolish, on a path towards truth vs. in denial.

  • Awakened07
    Awakened07
    'when did the truth became the truth'

    The startling fact is that they say they have "the Truth", but at any given point in time, they can only claim to have something called "current 'truth'".

    And if something is "true" one day and false the next, was it then true in the first place?

    So in fact, they (of course we know this) never had the truth. How can they claim they did/do?

    -Do they have the truth now? Ask a JW. "Oh, yes - we do have the Truth", they'll say.

    OK, but did you have the truth in 1994? Did you have the truth in late 1995? Or do you have the truth in 2008?

    What was true about "the generation" is no longer true, therefore false. It was false. False, false, false. But it used to be True, didn't it? So much so, that openly believing anything else (like what they are now currently teaching...) would have been a 'disfellowshipable' offense back then.

    How can they say they have the Truth, when the truth can be changed at the drop of a hat? And not as a result of a gradually increasing, cumulative amount of knowledge that 'makes the path brighter' either - - no, the entire 'path' is bulldozed over, replaced with a brand new 'path', on certain teachings!

    So - do they have the truth now? Or will they have the truth in two years? Or did they have it fifteen years ago?

  • megawatt
    megawatt

    Plain and simple, how bubba likes it. If ain't the truth, then it's false. It's not applicable for today, then it was never the truth to begin with. Think about it. It is really that simple. How can anyone accept the terminology spew by The Borg? I didn't see it before, and always thought those not accepting were the goat like ones. But I had to deal with a real issue where inner conflict (finally logic kicked in)came about and I had to make a decision. I could no longer make anymore excuses for The WTBTS...

  • sacolton
    sacolton

    For Jehovah's Witnesses, "truth" is defined in three parts:

    Old Truth (Old Light) - No longer truth.

    Current Truth - What is being taught TODAY.

    Future Truth (New Light) - Replaces "current" truth which becomes Old Truth.

    That's how it is being a JW. Truth is ever changing ... even when you don't know it.

  • wobble
    wobble

    What a great question!! One that's been on the tip of my tongue with the JW wife these last few days. Pilate asked "What is truth?" a question I thought was very profound, but was sneered at by witlesses who had the troof.Wikipedia points out that truth needs to be in accord with "reality and fact", excludes most WT stuff then!!!

    Another comment from this thread which hit me was "I was no longer able to make excuses for the WTBTsoc." which is why I started to fade,how many now in will run out of excuses?

    Love,

    Wobble

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