reading a life time of WT literatrash = College education

by Free!! 46 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Free!!

  Or at least that's what my super JW ex-roommate told me when I try to have an adult discussion w her about the importance of a higher education... according to her (a girl that never finished HS because it was not necessary) she has a better education than any college graduate because the Jehovah has used the borg literatrash to teach her many many important things.... she says her knowledge of the "truth" is the equivalent of my 4 years of College education.....

  Is there a cure for stupid???!! I really wanted to slap her soo hard and tell her... can't u see ur sorry life working for less than minimum wage and spending every free second bugging the hell out of people w your annoying lies??!!!! but i decided to smile and walk away....
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  NewChapter

  They love saying that. People love hearing it. It's much easier than attending college--or in this case--high school.

  Edit: And you know what I REALLY hate about that, other than the fact it has no roots in reality, is that it makes followers believe they are prepared academically to discuss and judge complex subjects. In college, the answer isn't always in the book. You don't read a paragraph and reconstruct it to get the right answer! Sometimes you have to go beyond the book, or sometimes you have to read several paragraphs and layer your knowledge. At times you have to think critically because the answered is rarely spelled out and must be gleaned both from the words on the page and an accumulated knowledge. It is NOT like a college education. College forces a person to take in information and come to conclusions. The conclusions are not laid out for you to simply repeat. SOME things don't even have an answer. The best you can do is consider the material and state the possiblities. Where DO they get the idea they are getting a college education?

  In school, the information becomes progressivly more difficult and you must grow. Read WT today and read WT again in a year--no progression, just the same old recycled information. In school, sometimes the material contradicts itself forcing the student to look deeper and weigh the options. In the WT it's simply new light, no need to look further, we already answered it.

  GOD someone smack some sense into these people.

  NC
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  FatFreek 2005

  
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  Free!!

  Lol!! good one fatfreek!!

  NC: I know exactly what you mean, they believe the "scientific" articles in Awake! are proven facts and enough to hold an intelligent convo w a college graduate... they dont understand how cringe worthy is to hear them try to defend their fairy tale stories w information that has no reference or back bone... I mean seriously!! And to make matters even worst the w(b)itch had the audacity to tell me my executive job is not as demanding as her part time waitress job!! WTH! according to her i am wasting my time because she does more waitressing 3 hours a day and preaching the rest of her day.... and breathe!! wooozaahhhh!
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  Rocky_Girl

  The best thing you learn in college is how to learn. You never learn all the answers, just how to find them.

  You also learn how to question the information you are given and how to respectfully disagree when there is conflicting information.

  It shows the JWs ignorance of higher education when they spout off BS like this.
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  Band on the Run

  I must confess that reading Witness lit helped me in elementary school. Awake provided a wider view than I would have picked up in my neighborhood. Well, Awake and National Geograhic. National Geographic was purely educational, not worldly. I grew up with four books, not JW books. Now I cull and cull and still have hundreds.

  The WTS thinks college is about knowledge of facts when we know otherwise. Thinking skills can be applied in any subject. The cross over is enormous. Independent study was just coming in to vogue. Multidisciplinary studies were the hottest.

  I can no longer recall the details in the UPanishands or how to conjugate certain French verbs. I do not fear factual material. Most importantly, I am aware that I am biased, that observing an experiment changes the results.

  I'm curious as to whether you said anything back. Someone so deluded is to be pitied. Look at a salary chart for a short story. The Witnesses make learning sound so onerous. I had fun! It remains fun decades later.
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  Free!!

  BotR: At first i tried to rationalize w her.. but that was impossible (all the knowledge she needs is in those books).... so i just looked at her w pity and told her i had to go... she knows i dont agree w her and i think she is being stupid throwing away her life, I was about to go off on her but then i remember were these stupids arguments were coming from and decided to leave it as it is...
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  NewChapter

  Well said Rocky and BoTR.

  Free comfort yourself with the knowledge that she is not college material and would be a waitress regardless. She has the noble excuse of "THE TRUTH" to support her dropping out of high school---but I suspect that wasn't the real reason. Most witnesses I knew did graduate from high school---and honestly most went on to take in some extra education. However, never in Liberal Arts or any other thinking major---they stuck with completely job oriented programs.

  NC
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  MrDarkKnight

  To please my parents and the elders, I turned down a college scholarship to work at Watchtower facilities for 10 years. As NC mentioned, like a lot young Witnesses back in the 1980s, I went to a vocational high school, and I took a trade. When I left Watchtower Headquarters I worked in a trade and did well, but was unable to make maximum dollar until I started going to college. I was raised to think college was a waste of time but I quickly found out how far behind my contemparies I was and why. I did not know how to ANALYZE business problems and think CRITICALLY. I had a limited vocabulary and no BUSINESS PROCESS for getting tasks done.

  I found out that I did not know as much as I thought I did. Only after going to college did discover how ignorant I was.

  Now I have successful career in management and I am on track to being an executive with a major corporation.

  A college education is absolutely necessary to make it in this world. Now I am fighting to make sure my son avoids the path I took and gets his college eduction before he is 38 years old!
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  Sulla

  I would suggest that the problem is not that such foolishness makes them (or is symptomatic of) stupidity. I think the real problem with it is that it makes them (or is symptomatic of) prideful. The original sin of JWs is not dumbness, it is their blistering pride: they genuinely believe they are smarter, better human beings that all others.

  NewChapter is right to note that this sort of talk makes them think they are qualified to discuss complex topics. I routinely run into JW knuckleheads who imagine themselves to be qualified to discuss biblical Greek translations based on the fact that they own a lexicon and a book on grammar. To my great humiliation, I recall explaining to many people (in various contexts) the proper meaning of John 1:1 based on my extensive understanding of the use of definite articles in the languages of the period.

  At the time, I had a HS education and not a lick more. Yet I did not consider this a hurdle to sharing my opinion that all those scholars were stupid/mistaken/biased/whatever. For some unfathomable reason, nobody ever asked me who in hell I thought I was, talking such nonsense without any conceivable qualification in the field. It wouldn't have mattered, of course, JWs are also un-embarrassable.