What’s the deal with all the Smart-Educated JWs?

by John Aquila 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Finkelstein

  Cult indoctrination can be persuasive even to the educated and this isn't strictly unique to the JW cult.

  So yes educated can and do get involved in cults and some even start them. ie. J. Rutherford
  
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  Dagney

  I don't get it either.

  They must have cognitive dissonance. They keep one foot in their career which is far more interesting than anything JW. Yet all those hours spent at those meetings...week after week and year after year...how do they do it?
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  John Aquila

  Having said that, successful people do not make good robots, and very often times, with the passing of time and experience, probability dictates that something will happen to these ones that will force them to wake up.

  I agree D4G. after I finished my degree, it still took about 4 years to get out. But once I was going to school, I could start seeing the cracks. It was a slow process.
  
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  John Aquila

  Magnum

  There were two teachers (married couple) who had master's degrees in education, but I swear that neither of them should have been let out of the third grade (I'm not exaggerating).

  LOL, now that's funny.

  Finkelstein 5 minutes ago

  So yes educated can and do get involved in cults and some even start them. ie. J. Rutherford

  Good example.
  
• 

  Londo111

  As Steven Hassan pointed out, it is a fallacy that only uneducated or unintelligent people fall prey to cults. In one book, I forgot that exact wording, he said that the more intelligent a cult member is, the more creatively they can rationalize in ways that even the leadership did not come up with.

  I don't know much about martial arts, but it's sort of like a mental judo, where a person's strengths are turned against them.
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  Oubliette

  Well John, I can't explain it. Why would such highly educated people stay in a cult that is constantly dumbing down their educational content.

  The psychology of such a thing is difficult to understand.

  Mind-control and manipulation work on even highly intelligent and educated people, just not as often.

  That being said, your area seems unique. I was in the cult for over 30 years in southern California, serving as an elder for about 20 years. During all that time I only met two other JWs that had a college education. One was a lawyer and the other has a PhD in psychology. Pretty much everyone looked down on the person with the PhD, making snide remarks about her ignoring the direction of the FDS.

  This was while I was attending university to get my BA in Education. It was during that time that it became increasingly obvious to me that I was in a religion that lacked academic honesty and intellectual rigor. As I began investigating I started uncovering things such as the UN/NGO scandal and the pedophile problem. The house of cards started falling pretty fast after that.

  So how could it be that there are so many highly educated JWs in your area? Who knows! It's an anomaly for sure.
  
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  John Aquila

  Oubliette

  Well John, I can't explain it. Why would such highly educated people stay in a cult that is constantly dumbing down their educational content.

  The psychology of such a thing is difficult to understand

  I guess we need a little more time to see how it all transpires in the next couple of years. Some of these changes in the WT are just eye popping. It may be that most of these educated people are in the process of waking up. And as you know, the process takes time. The young kids going to school may also be waking up and perhaps they are trying to figuring out how they are going to fade. So we will see.
  
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  Oubliette

  JA: It may be that most of these educated people are in the process of waking up. And as you know, the process takes time.

  Agreed.

  It took me about six or seven years from the time I began having serious doubts to the time I actually left the religion.

  Of course, the last few years I was "in" I was just going through the motions because I didn't want to get DF'd and lose my family. Ultimately it didn't matter.

  Although I am currently technically a JW in "good standing" none of my JW family and former "friends" talk to me because I don't go to their insipid little meetings.
• 

  John Aquila

  Magnum

  And, one's having completed some kind of schooling does not necessarily mean he's smart, and that applies to advanced degrees, too. Then, there are different kinds of smarts.

  I've found that being successful in a career or business is mostly being at the right place, at the right time, and knowing the right people and "Learning" the right skills. (That make come after the fact)

  Some of these JW with degrees are making 50-60k a year, the engineers are making 70k-80k a year. Then some who dropped out of high school and started picking up trash and cutting grass for a living now have business that make them over a million a year. The successful business owners tell me, "Jump on opportunities, always keep learning everything you can and be good at what you do. And build a network of friends with different skills that can bail you out of trouble if you get yourself in a jam.

  Since they are JWs, this is their favorite scripture they use all the time;

  (Proverbs 22:29) . . .Have you beheld a man skillful in his work? Before kings is where he will station himself; he will not station himself before commonplace men.
  
  
• 

  Diogenesister

  I think you will find most of those degrees are going to be vocational degrees. I am not saying they are not hard work (law in particular entails a huge workload )and yes, you do have evidence to evaluate to some extent, particularly at the higher level. However some (vocational degrees in particular)are less intellectually challenging than others, in the sense of thinking creatively or/and with real intellectual rigour as opposed to 'learning facts.' With a degree in medicine or education I would argue you could maintain a JW worldview unchallenged. Apart from the above mentioned post pointing out the brainwashing aspect there is the cultural aspect of their being Americans. Having a strong faith is considered far more mainstream in the US than Europe. A fundamentalist Christian would be considered eccentric in a European university - less so in an American. I mean you even have Christian uni's in the states whereas education is strictly secular in much of Europe.

  I will eat my hat the day you get a European with a masters or phd in philosophy become a JW.