I don't have the stomach to read much of their literature lately, but It seems to me that every article I read was loaded with weasel words. Is this still their MO? What have you seen lately? For an interesting set of examples, I looked up the following Wikipedia Article on Weasel Words: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word
"A growing body of evidence..."[12] (Where is the raw data for your review?)
"People say..." (Which people? How do they know?)
"It has been claimed that..." (By whom, where, when?)
"Critics claim..." (Which critics?)
"Clearly..." (As if the premise is undeniably true)
"It stands to reason that..." (Again, as if the premise is undeniably true—see "Clearly" above)
"Questions have been raised..." (Implies a fatal flaw has been discovered)
"I heard that..." (Who told you? Is the source reliable?)
"There is evidence that..." (What evidence? Is the source reliable?)
"Experience shows that..." (Whose experience? What was the experience? How does it demonstrate this?)
"It has been mentioned that..." (Who are these mentioners? Can they be trusted?)
"Popular wisdom has it that..." (Is popular wisdom a test of truth?)
"Commonsense has it/insists that..." (The common sense of whom? Who says so? See "Popular wisdom" above, and "It is known that" below)
"It is known that..." (By whom and by what method is it known?)
"Officially known as..." (By whom, where, when—who says so?)
"It turns out that..." (How does it turn out?)
"It was noted that..." (A commonly used start of a line by Auditors with poor workpapers or little evidence)
"See why more of our trucks are sold in Southern California than in any other part of the country." (Southern California is a big vehicle market.)
"Nobody else's product is better than ours." (What is the evidence of this?)
"Studies show..." (what studies?)
"(The phenomenon) came to be seen as..." (by whom?)
"Some argue..." (who?)
"Up to sixty percent..." (so, 59%? 50%? 10%?)
"More than seventy percent..." (How many more? 70.01%? 80%? 90%?)
"The vast majority..." (All, more than half—how many?)
All of those sound pretty familiar to me...
cheers
Witnessing WatchTower weasel words first hand
by darthfader 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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darthfader
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ScenicViewer
Reading that list is like reading the Watchtower's "the Bible conclusively proves" remarks.
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cofty
"evidently" was the overlapping generation one wasn't it?
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DesirousOfChange
They have this the first course at Watchtower Writing Class 101.
DOC
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WTWizard
There is one thing that makes it much worse. When someone here uses these terms, other readers are allowed to type in terms into their search engine, click onto as many of the sites as they feel like, and do their own research. If the majority of such sites agree with the post, they are allowed to keep the viewpoint. They can also modify or rebut it if they see other research that differs from what the post says. And they are allowed to rebut what the post says, whether it be totally (such as a post "X+Y=2011, thus the world is going to end in 2011"), or simply clearing up the 15% of a viewpoint that is errant.
When the Washtowel does it, they do it with the clear directive that outside research is banned. If they make a bad doctrine, even if you can prove it wrong using their own Bible, you are still supposed to abide by and teach the bad doctrine until they themselves fix it. And your life is supposedly at stake--you are supposed to bet your life on the accuracy of their doctrines without having the chance to rebut it (like 607 BCE + 2520 = 1914). Even modifying something to improve the 15% that you disagree with is banned. When this happens, you had better make sure your sources are reliable and correct. Otherwise, with people banned from researching it, you are going to be assured that your bad doctrines are going to force others down with you.
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Ding
For an organization that claims to be Jehovah's only channel of communication to mankind, they do hedge their bets a lot, don't they?
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punkofnice
Wow! I thought I'd just seen the watchtower library in digest form!
9 out of 10 cats!
A million housewives everyday pick up a tin of beans and say...........................................!
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Alfred
Excellent post.... marking