Jws and poverty (page 4)

KateWild

You gotta credit the cult for instilling good hygiene and personal presentation habits in its members.-julia

You have a point there, but I think that was me before the cult anyway, but you do have a point. Kate xx

I mention that because the very first jws I associated with were 'housos', that is, people who live in subsidised govt housing. There were two families in that housing commission. Now being a houso is usually synonymous with being a messy, sloppy, trashy bogan/chav/scouser type with bombed up cars and beer cans in the yard and filth and nicotine stains and dog pee smells inside. The jws were so not like the rest of the housos I was very impressed with them, coming as I did from the solid middle class.

KateWild

LOL, we have houso's here in Liverpool too. You describe them so well, now thats poverty, so true

hijosdelawatch

Obviously there are no problems if you can get benefits.

But I have seen that happening and nobody helping with my own eyes.

WT doctrine on work and education only works if you live in a country with a well established Welfare state. In others, things are different.

Julia Orwell

So true. I was in Myanmar for the 2009 international convention and there were Burmese jws coming to Yangon from all over the country. I heard that many spent years saving and even sold their chickens n that to pay for the trip. So many of them came with no food or a place to even stay or money for the return train trip up country. I observed many wear their same good meeting clothes for the whole three days. The WT passed the hat around to we westerners to pay to feed the Burmese jws n pay for them to travel home. A few dollars to us could feed whole families the whole convention. Now those jws were truly poor, but a lot of the Burmese are like that.

Whole extended families will pool their resources to send one son to Yangon or Thailand to get education and employment other than subsistence farming and to be able to support the rest of the family. They make it possible for whole families to get out of the poverty circle. I remember loesch making a talk at that convention, saying jws shouldn't send a member of the family away to study in Yangon or work abroad, that they should stay home. This in a country where people work 6 days a week and in the country live on 50 cents a day. The jws are kept in desperate poverty there, and the Burmese I met were so humble and shy. The folks from the country acted like we westerners were royalty almost, that's how downtrodden the jws are there.

LongHairGal

Julia Orwell:

Even though I know it exists, I have not personally seen the kind of poverty in JWs that you describe. Where I come from (in the U.S.), I have mostly come into contact with middle class or better, with a few here and there on public assistance.

From what I could saw (in my area) years ago, there was a hypocrital stand on poverty. I saw that the "poverty" being preached was not for everybody, just somebody else. The affluent JWs I saw would not be caught dead being poor. They were urging some young person in the congregation (not their child, naturally) to quit their job and live on the edge and pioneer. To me, this was like jumping from a plane without a parachute and I paid no heed. Were these idiots kidding??

hijosdelawatch:

Yes. I noticed there were individuals in the religion who were not part of the workforce because they "couldn't hack it". Others had every excuse imaginable, period. Some found ways to get themselves on disability. Now, I am not saying there aren't people who genuinely deserve these benefits, and this is what the system is set up for. But, I came to see an unmistakable trend among JWs. I was shocked to have a JW woman tell ME that I should try doing this. I also feel that even if a person is physically "fit" for work, the religion's unwholesome doctrines cause depression and lead to the taking of medication in far too many JWs.

However, what if there was NO benefit system, like years ago??? Guess what, these people would have to somehow work or else starve to death. There would be no other choice.

So, you are correct that the WT doctrine against work and education only works in countries with well-established Welfare systems.

wearewatchingyouman

Don't cherry pick

I'm not cherrypicking. I'm saying that in larger cities with large homeless populations, in my experience, witnessing to the homeless was part of the preaching work. It wasn't a matter of just "sure, some will".

Julia Orwell

Yes, the no education doctrine doesn't work in Asia, Africa or any other place where if you don't work, you don't eat. And it also only works in a strong economy where jobs are plentiful. Since the gfc, there are no more economies like that. The unskilled workers are always the first to go, and employers have such a wide choice of workers they will choose someone with full time experience, a degree or certificate, and who is able to work all the time, not needing Thursday nites off, Sundays, dcs, all that.

kaik

Even in Eastern Europe, JW were never poor nor struggled. They did not had high living standard, but they also had not spent money on earthly pleasures, nor had issues with laws and lifestyle that would prevent them to gain employment. However, the major issue for JW is the old age. Almost nobody had saved money for retirement as they belived that Armaggedon is just beyond the corner and sturggle. My JW parent(s) did not save a dime as they thought that will not make it to retirement, but would live in new world. The reality hit hard when they retired, and instead enjoying silver years, they had to be supported by children or work part time. At least they have their own place paid off. I know a few old JW who are on various welfare nests and even used Catholic charity for food delivery.

Violia

I don't give the wts "credit" for anything Any Church can teach morals and hygiene, good habits and work ethic. Many religions have missionary's that really go out and help people- not just give the a copy of the wt & aw.

You gotta credit the cult for instilling good hygiene and personal presentation habits in its members.-julia

the feeling by the 80's in my area was - jws do not work the high risk poor areas ( unemployment, drugs, crime etc) areas. That felt Jehovah could sort it out.

I recall in the 50-70's it was not uncommon for a poor jws couple with a bunch of kids to move in to a Congo and use up all the Christian help and then move on - only to do it in another Congo. Finally Congo's started finding out about these folks and would report on these folks. Still it was easy to disappear and hard for a Congo to know they were helping gypsies.

In my area by the late 70's the wts was looking to put a new face on their religion. We heard from brothers in Bethel that jws were considered a poor religion that allowed blacks, Mexicans and poor whites in. The Congo's here were trying to distance themselves from that image and so were actively recruiting the college educated. A lot of the poor were marked, moved on or were df'd.

Most of the poor in my area were actively encouraged to MOVE to somewhere were they fit in.

LISA ROSE spot on

my mom used to say that jws were NO GOOD if you had problems ie, drug or alcohol problems, mental illness or had a dysfunctional family. she was right/

Jws and poverty

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