Interesting observation about the questions. For years I never bothered to even look at the questions, but highlight main points from the paragraph. From that you could almost reverse engineer the questions. The meetings are pretty dumbed down now anyway, hardly gives any reason to study unless you want to look uber spiritual and bring in an additional bible point that is relevant. Then everyone will see how intelligent you are and studious.
JW view of the Bible vs WT publications
by brotherdan 22 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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carvin
Brotherdan wrote - They say, in effect, "Come to us and we will do the thinking about the Bible for you." The meditation that they push in regards to the Bible is to entrench what THEY have said about the scriptures deeper into our minds.
That is ao on point, and you can see it way too often. Over religious people in general want someone else to make the decisions for them. I seems like they are banking that on judgment day all they will have to say is "I followed what my WT/preacher/rabbi/what ever, said and they will be covered.
Could you just imagine the conversation if they really did wind up in front of the Pearly Gates talking to St Peter?
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VM44
"Legalistic authoritarianism shows itself in the confusion of the Christian principle of unity with the human insistence on unanimity. Unity is a profound, even mystical quality. It takes great effort to achieve, yet mere effort will never produce it; it is a source of great security, yet demands great risk. "Unanimity, on the other hand is very tidy. It can be measured, monitored, and enforced. It is largely external, whereas unity is essentially internal. Its primarily goal is correct behavior, while unity's is a right spirit. Unanimity insists on many orthodoxies in addition to those of belief and behavior, including orthodoxy of experience and vocabulary. That is, believers are expected to come to God in similar ways, to have similar experiences with God and to use accepted phrases in describing those experiences....
"Ultimately, unanimity is impossible. It is brittle where unity is flexible and therefore strong. A single dissenter destroys it (so the dissenter may have to be dealt with harshly for the good of the group). For this reason, real questions are generally discouraged. Phony questions, however, where the answer is known by all, are part of pleasurable ritual. They are asked and answered in a wonderful nonthreatening confirmation of 'group think.'"
-Daniel Taylor's The Myth of Certainty
Web Source:
http://www.freeminds.org/psychology/mind-control/what-to-say-when-cults-boast-of-their-unity.html