WT: Dumbing down the message; no intellectuals allowed (page 2)

mustang

Tomb Of The Unknown [BUT CELEBRATED] Watchtower Scholar

RIP

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;"

Mustang

BluesBrother

The old timers of my family that are still within the walls of the 'Tower will grumble about the "dumbed down message" that they have today.

The modern,cheap paperbacks do not satisfy an inquiring mind like the large old books once did..Lets face it, it may have been bulls***t but at least it seemed interesting bulls***t !

As a "50's JW", I was told that between the 50's release of the NWT and the ~1610/1611 releases of the KJV and the Douay, 1000's of manuscripts were added to the knowledge base needed for a translation. This was why the WTS came up w/ the NWT.

So fast forward to 2003, before the death of Dr. Gene Scott (2004, I think).

Dr. Scott collected MSS and amassed the largest private collection of Bibles and original MSS and anything related. He even was in competition (and collaboration) with the British Museum for such. He stated that similar large trove of MSS had appeared in the last few decades.

This means that a review of the whole situation would be in order. Scott was at that task before his death.

Where was the WTS? Our thread here shows that they were sticking their heads in the sand and developing the dodo mode of operation.

But what can you expect? The CELEBRATED WATCHTOWER SCHOLARS have left the building, left the field, and probably have left the planet.

Mustang

LongHairGal

I think there are a couple of reasons they are dumbing down the message. I think they figure the old timers are just about gone and the younger generations don't have the time or are mentally lazy and not educated well enough to tackle these older 'deep' books. The educational quality has been dumbed down over many decades in the country and some younger people would practically feel like they were studying a foreign language with these older books. Never mind that they may be 'old' light.

While I don't remember studying any of these old 'deep' books, I tried to read one or two on my own. Maybe I could read certain chapters but I coudn't read it all. Too verbose. I just couldn't stick with it. I was told that the 'anointed' supposedly had a hand in those and that is why they were so 'deep'. Whether this is accurate or not I don't know but you could tell there was a different writing style from later authors with their 'lighter' style books. The difference was like night and day.

Those smaller books that came out in the 70s or 80s were enjoyable enough to read on a bookstudy night.

One reason for the dumbing down could be that they do not want the complication of people reading other sources and coming back to them for explanations, etc. This implies thinking and intellectualism. They don't want this. They just want gullible sponges to sit there and soak up things and parrot them with no thought process.

Another reason they could be dumbing down the message is that they expect the influx of people to come from third world countries where English is not the first language. They are simplifying everything because they simply do not want to deal with the situation.

LHG

sir82

Somehow, Brooklyn may have gotten the idea that if you keep saying things, but say them S-L-O-W & S-I-M-P-LE people will just magically 'click' into an "understanding".

Reminds me of a great disappointment from when I was still a true believer.

Thre was an elders' school in the winter just after the year 2000 WT articles on blood fractions. They of course made no sense whatsoever ("you can take fractions of blood, so long as they are not what we arbitrarily deem 'major fractions' "), and at the school one of the speakers said something like "there has been a lot of comment and confusion over the recent adjusted understanding of blood, so we're going to clear that up for you."

I of course was in eager anticipation. "Finally, somebody will explain this."

The "explanation" consisted of the speaker reading the QFR directly from the magazine sl-o-o-o-o-w-w-w-w-l-l-l-ly-y-y-y with no additional commentary at all.

dogon

I do remember the Babylon books. I would not say it was deep. It was immersed in double talk, muddying the waters, and psychobabble that was very hard to follow. I would read and reread many paragraphs and still not get the meaning of something. I thought I was not smart enough, but as I studied fallacies of arguments, many of the dysphemisms, euphemisms, false dilemmas, ad homonym attacks, red herrings and many other false reasoning’s jumped out to me. It all became clear that what was going on all those years. They made it purposely confusing to keep us in line. To think just what I thought, that I was not smart enough to understand, and should follow the society, they after all knew and understood all this stuff right? But learning what false reasoning and bias is and how it works, is much like seeing a magician do his act, then having someone show you how it was done. Once you know the trick it is not so impressive any more.

besty

Think about where the WTS are growing (eg Nigeria and Brazil) and who they are attracting there (peasants) and now tell me why the publications are simple.

yknot

Totally.....

I agree with Besty too!

(Hebrews

5:12) . . .For, indeed, although YOU ought to be teachers in view of the time, YOU again need someone to teach YOU from the beginning the elementary things of the sacred pronouncements of God; and YOU have become such as need milk, not solid food.

Comes to mind....

StAnn

My Dub mother thinks she can impress my husband with her knowledge and maybe lead him into a "study." He read one paragraph of a WT and was saying out loud, "that's not right, that's not right, who thinks up this crap?" One paragraph of their dumbed-down tripe was all he needed. And Mom saw she'd never convert him! It was amazing how in just that one paragraph were glaring errors that could easily have been proven wrong with minimal research.

Huzzah for the Internet! We will bring down the WatchTower yet!

StAnn

zions watchman

You have to remember, the WT does not have ascess to UN Library, therfore no Intellectual knowledge is coming forth to the BORG of 9

WT: Dumbing down the message; no intellectuals allowed

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