"It takes humility to be wrong."
Excellent post Terry.
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Black and White Thinking: the ENEMY of Intelligent Thought
by Terry 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Terry
As a Jehovah's Witness you could practically get "high" proving people wrong.
The corollary is that you get to be "right" all the time.
Talking to people casually about religious ideas goes from being an exchange of ideas to an opportunity to gun them down and kill their
idea dead in the street!
Importantly, the JW loses an opportunity.
The opportunity to self-examine critically.
A gunslinger attitude is easy to develop. You have the "Truth" and can outdraw anybody.
Jehovah's Witness develop a quick draw reflex that goes like this:
" This householder's mouth is moving....I can't wait until it stops so I can give them my zinger reply!"
Stimulus leads to response. No genuine listening involved.
A hard-heartedness develops.
At first you pity people for not having heard the truth.
Then, you get callous and start developing contempt for their stupidity.
Finally, your love capacity rots. You can't wait for Armageddon to come and show those bastards you were right all along!!
Black and White thinking isn't really "thinking".
If you lose the capacity to see error in your closely held belief system you are opening yoursel up to a hardened version of humanity: the Idealogue.
You see them in Politics, on TV and in your daily life. The Talking Head that knows it all.
They interrupt, bully and put down with knee-jerk speed. They ridicule others and smirk.
Why? Because they only see their own side of things.
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minimus
This is interesting. I don't know if I agree with all that you've said, Terry.
There is a time for black and white thinking. To say "black and white thinking: the ENEMY of intelligent thought", well, it's simply not true. YOUR comment is actually very black and white.
I think many people rectify their thinking if they are shown to be wrong. I think human nature dictates to us the need to evolve and learn and not be Archie Bunker types.
I have a friend that is extremely black and white. If he percieves that a person is not 100% genuine, he avoids them like the plague. His reasoning is not necessarily wrong. What is disturbing is that his black and white thinking allows him no mercy or empathy because he cuts out people that he judges as being a social problem.
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Terry
Minimus said:
This is interesting. I don't know if I agree with all that you've said, Terry.
There is a time for black and white thinking. To say "black and white thinking: the ENEMY of intelligent thought", well, it's simply not true. YOUR comment is actually very black and white.
Hey, Minimus old Bud
My comments are posted openly on a Discussion Board for comment, rebuttal, discussion (of course) and testing. Further, I propose openess and testing in closely held beliefs. I caution against ironclad certainty.
So, is it really a fair characterization to say my comment is "actually very black and white."
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minimus
yes
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Terry
Minimus says:
There is a time for black and white thinking.
So, I guess it was time!
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Terry
Does anybody find it curious that the Watchtower Society doesn't use technology to spread the message about Jehovah's Kingdom to best advantage?
No TV time or radio broadcasts, for example.
The lame and annoying door to door work has been reflecting a luddite approach for decades which is (the numbers prove it) ineffective at changing people's hearts and minds.
ISN'T THIS PROOF they cannot get beyond their own roots of 19th Century colporteur thinking?
Hasn't this religion been stagnating into a kind of fungus for far too long without fresh ideas?
If anything, they are SHRINKING intellectually into a compact mass of reactionary regurgitations of canned speeches about tired subjects.