Who really are JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES......really.....?

by Terry 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

Terry

Jehovah's Witnesses don't expect to convert the world. They expect to educate the world about Jehovah's Kingdom and his Christ.
BEFORE: Nobody knows about it.
AFTER: Everybody knows about it.
How would you measure what people "know"?
How well informed is the average citizen in 2010 vs 1879, for example?
Ask casually, "What do Jehovah's Witnesses teach?"
Here is what I think has happened. Jehovah's Witnesses have a "reputation" rather than a message impact.
They are the folks who knock on your door to sell magazines and books. THE CONTENT OF THOSE BOOKS is unknown to the average householder even after 139 years of the "education work."
The average church goer only know that JW's DON'T BELIEVE in certain doctrines. They can't really tell you what they DO BELIEVE.
So, it is not an education work that Jehovah's Witnesses have done about Jehovah's Kingdom.
No.
It is a reputation work which has made the name "Jehovah" synonymous with "false prophecy about Armageddon" and "the don't believe in Christmas, Easter, flag salute, blood transfusions, etc. etc."
This is a NEGATIVE and not a POSITIVE reputation.
Stop and think about that for a minute.
To be a Jehovah's Witness means to be a contrarian, oddball crackpot who DOESN'T BELIEVE in such and such, but, who will try to sell you a book about it---which apparently NOBODY READS!
Is this success for them?
Is this name Jehovah elevated because of their work?
Hardly. The name has been damaged and it is shopworn and old-fashioned. YAHWEH is more correct but they've not even taken the honest step of revising their persona to match. It would be more nearly correct to simply become Yahweh's Witnesses. But, hey--that's no going to happen.
Why? Accuracy and scholarship aren't part of the deal.
They are a BRAND with a product that nobody uses.
The religion is not about being effective at all.
It is about EXISTING as a brand.
Everybody is kept busy doing an ineffective "education work" just to keep those hamsters on the wheel until Armageddon arrives.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
This religion isn't really about what it says it is about. It is a way to keep people busy and controlled and self-deluded, PERIOD.
LongHairGal

Terry,
You are correct about them simply existing as a 'brand'. They are just brand X as opposed to brands A,B,C,D, etc.
When I was in grade school, a classmate said: 'Jehovah's witnesses stick their foot in your door'. This was the first time in my life I heard that name. When I became a young adult I actually became one - surprise, surprise. I was sucked in because I was interested in end-time prophecy which was and still is all the rage. I was led to believe they were simply 'bible students' with 'no clergy class'. Boy, was I deceived.
They are nothing more than another fundamentalist-like religion with a slightly different take on the usual beliefs. It is really the same old story just dressed up with a different costume. I always felt that religions in general are competing with the monarchies of the world. They crave the worship of other people.
garyneal

A few years back when I was praising them for their approach to discovering 'truths' I remember one of my coworkers was engaged to be married to a woman who was involved with the Jehovah's Witnesses. He was a regular church going guy who knew nothing about them except that he referred to them as 'A JEEHOVA.'
After he got married and before he left the company I asked him what he thought of being married to a witness. He said that he wasn't because he told his wife before they got married that he did not want to be married to A JEEHOVA. So she attends church with him. At the time I thought that he was wrong for forcing her to choose between her religion and him. However, once I began learning the truth behind the TRUTH I realize that he really did himself and her a big favor.
Most people just know them as those JEEHOVA's and are the butt of jokes due to their door to door ministry. Most people have no clue about their doctrines and how their strict adherance to them at all costs makes them a dangerous cult. The Christian religions that call them a cult cannot justify why other than their not agreeing with orthdox Christian doctrines.
littlebird

I agree with you, Terry. They are much more known for annoying people and for what they won't do, rather than for what they stand for.
Terry

I agree with you, Terry. They are much more known for annoying people and for what they won't do, rather than for what they stand for.
In other words THEY HAVE FAILED!
Jehovah's Witness=LOSER
They don't even take care of the converts they get from all those bible studies and door to door efforts.
I was thinking the other day what a financial struggle the average JW family has.
A teenager isn't given an apprenticeship in an existing JW business the way Jews and Mormons, for example, have going for them
No care, no concern for preparing for an actual real-world future of financial responsibility is what cripples the brothers and sisters most.
Fend for yourself should be over the front entrance to the Kingdom Hall.
TMS

Well expressed, Terry.
Jehovah's Witnesses seldom do as the TMS Guidebook suggests: Maintain common ground. As you suggested in another thread, their modus operandi is to dismantle another's beliefs. Of course, that almost NEVER works.
Imagine a householder graciously inviting a witness into their home and saying "I've always wondered what you people actually believe. I have a half hour. Please tell me your basic message, your core beliefs." The average JW would not have a coherent, polished, well-reasoned approach. It would not be as easy as reaching for the current "Awake!" on "What Is Happening to Our Coral Reefs?" or falling back into the current KM suggested Topic for Conversation. It would not be an epic moment like Stephen's testimony or Paul's before the Antioch synagogue, the Areopogus or Gallio.
As you think back on it, we were poorly trained for the work we attempted to do. Most of what we learned or practiced in meetings was impractical, unworkable. A typical meeting for service involved trying to harmonize a scripture text with a nearly irrelevant "Watchtower" paragraph, then assigning cargroups with careful allowance for cliques, feuds, breakers and non-breakers, the in and the out crowds, etc. In the field JW's were simply an early morning annoyance at the door, a lingering mid-morning annoyance at McDonald's, breathing a collective sigh of relief as the clock neared the noon hour. An impotent educational work to say the least.
tms
LongHairGal

Terry,
What you mention about them having no concern for preparing (and in fact thwarting) their followers for a real-world future of financial responsibility is what makes them especially dangerous and undesirable IMO. I ran into enough users and takers there to establish this as a fact as far as I was concerned. This insane stand of pursuing poverty causes desperation which in turn causes impoverished people to prey upon other people in the congregation.
This was my second rude awakening (after the first one about the slit in my skirt). I got the not-so-subliminal message that some people there thought I 'owed' somebody something because I work for a living!!!! This was beyond outrageous as far as I was concerned. Here, they don't believe in higher education and careers, deliberately live on the edge of the workforce and then paint somebody who is a responsible citizen working at a real job as being 'materialistic'. These are the stupid remarks I had to hear.
I always felt their stand against having a decent job was against their best interests because quite obviously somebody who is underemployed (or unemployed) cannot contribute much. Now, I know it is about control because they are intimidated by somebody who is self-sufficient with self-esteem and besides, maybe these brothers/sisters who are desperate and destitute may accept working for some 'brother' with a business who will pay them less than the going rate and take advantage of them.
Terry

What Jehovah's Witness ever knocked on a door and said:
"Good Morning, you are looking at a person who thinks Jesus has already come back and is telling me to come knock on your door!"
"What? Why?"
"Because, Jesus wants you to know he is now King and he runs a magazine and book publishing society!"
"Huh? A king that runs a publishing company?"
"Right! We tell you what it is vitally important for you to know. And if we get any part of it wrong---we will change it!"
"But, why would you get it wrong if Jesus is guiding you?"
"Because Jesus wants us to know gradually like the dawning of light when a new day has arrived!"
"I thought you people believed the End of the World was about to happen very very soon!"
"Yes, we certainly do!"
"Then, why gradually reveal vitally important information? That makes it impossible to trust what you say and we might not have time to get the non-erroneous information!"
"Jehovah wants you to trust his Organization even if they are wrong sometimes. After all they are only human."
"I need you to leave my front porch, please. Just go away and take your books and magazines with you."
"Wait! What about this vitally important information directly from the invisible ruling King Christ Jesus?"
"Come back when you get it straight!" SLAM!
SAHARA

My observations of Jehovah Witnesses are that they are a group of people who have been decieved by the decieved (I beleive that Ray Franz says that they are victims of victims), Organized by a group of decieved men determined to maintain a self proclaimed Authority over them and who have developed and refined a "turn key" system of tearing down the "faith of the theologically uneducated with half truths and deception, thereby converting and indoctrinating the truth seeker by manipulating and embelishing upon their psyche a dillusional parallel world of their own creation that includes a perception that this created world is the world of the 1st Century Christians which holds the truth seeker hostage through fear and guilt.
littlebird

Yeah, Terry , they won't help others, nor will they allow you to help yourself. No college, no work that requires you to miss some meetings, you have to ask for assemblies off. Many brothers I knew, including my husband, got jobs working graveyard shift, and then were critized for sleeping in the morning instead of going out in service.
You are constantly told to "give to the preaching work" and at the same time told to "live simple". I'm so glad to be off the hamster wheel.

Who really are JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES......really.....?

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