How Quickly the "Truth" Evaporates

by metatron 13 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  metatron

  Another powerful observation about Witness kids: It's amazing how quickly the "truth" can evaporate amidst them.

  While you and I talk about healing and moving on and agonize about changing our whole lives, many of these kids

  react as if the organization never meant anything to them.

  I knew a young sister who left ( an honor roll student with long term Witness parents, elder dad and aux pio mother)

  who acted astonished that the congregation would df people for "living together". To her, this seemed like an odd custom from

  a medieval age - DESPITE BEING TOTALLY RAISED IN THE "TRUTH", complete with all field service, meeting attendance,

  and home family study. She got df'd and thus far despises her Witness background.

  A relative of mine lamented that their son was doing 'so well in the congregation' ( raised in the truth) - UNTIL he met his

  new worldly girlfriend. Now, it's total and complete abandonment of everything Witness related - as if it never existed.

  Talk about "snapping"! He now decries Witnesses as sleazy and dishonest - and that many 'worldly people' are better.

  Off topic, I am tempted to wonder if the behavior of young Witnesses could get so awful that the Society will feel pressure to

  actually start giving up assemblies.

  It's sad and amazing how a superficial religion can evaporate - when it's spent years emphasizing rules and hours counted,

  and meetings attended - with charity and compassion ignored.

  I see new Watchtower articles on youth - same nonsense, different day. They just don't get it............

  metatron
• 

  minimus

  In conversations with my daughter, I find it interesting that she is unclear on almost everything about the "truth". She and her friends do not and have not believed that this is the "truth" for a long time.Although, she does know which are DFing offenses, and she wasn't honor roll.
• 

  Satanus

  Met

  That is hormones/love/lust at work. It can make a person throw everything away. Unfortunately, it doesn't usually last. Later on, religion usually comes back.

  SS
• 

  metatron

  I understand your point about lust and hormones - but we had them too and didn't act this way!

  I don't think it's because the hormones are so strong but rather because the 'truth' has become so weak - and a mere

  set of appearances - that kids are very good at maintaining. In both cases I observed, these young people are now

  well past the onset of puberty (20-23) and largely independent of parents.

  and so it goes...

  metatron
• 

  bluesapphire

  It's because none of it makes sense. How many people in the world are going to pursue something if it doesn't make sense? And witness kids are not treated with the love bombing that non-witnesses are treated with. More is expected of them because they are supposed to have learned it all by osmosis. Look at the elders and pioneers. How much time do they spend on their kids? Very little as well all have observed. So there isn't a whole lot to unlearn doctrinally. My husband is a typical witness. The only doctrine he had to unlearn was the FDS doctrine. What does that tell you!

  That's why this is the last generation.
• 

  Maverick

  Again this relates to Blondies WatchTower lesson this week. The backlash of a controlled closed society is when the restraint is removed people revert to 'type'. They may not even be aware of their own true feelings because they suppressed them. The longer a person lives the lie, (goes against his/her true nature), the more depression and unhappiness they will suffer. The Society is not based in reality, it can not give people what they need. It has you forgo the needs you have by promises of a better future. And then it puts the resulting misery back on the person or worse on God! What does the Society really GIVE you? Bottom line it. Maverick
• 

  Liberty

  This is perhaps the result of an Armageddon postponed into infinity. Many of us believed so strongly because it looked like the End was really coming upon us in the late 1960's & 70's. We lived at the same time as the Watch Tower's main Guru, Fred Franz, so he calculated everything so that it would occur within his lifetime and we bought what ever he said lock stock and barrel. The kids today are getting Fred's now pathetic hand me down and time expired theology from an unimaginative and disappointed leadership whereas we got it fresh and urgent from the fevered source. The change in the 1914 Generation dogma really ended the concept of a "real" time frame so they now running on fumes.
• 

  dedalus

  Kids these days are more media-savvy, and it's rather difficult to bullshit them. What Witnesses believe is 100% bullshit. Consequently, most Witness kids don't take it to heart.

  I hope this is what brings down the Organization -- each successive generation of kids takes it less seriously, until there's not enough serious Witnesses to run the Watchtower circus.

  Dedalus
• 

  Pleasuredome

  i remember talking to one 20 year old lad. he came back to meetings after a brief spell 'in the world'. i said to him that you ought to try and read the bible as often as you can, and it'll make loads of difference. he said that he couldnt read it, 'cos to him it just didnt make any sense. well, i just didnt know what to say to that.
• 

  Big Tex

  Isn't some of the reason perhaps because the organization itself has changed over the years? I mean when I was growing up in the early to mid 70's I was raised about brothers who really believed it. I knew a couple of brothers who had been baptized when Russell was around. There was a different feeling about the organization and at the hall itself. People were interested in the meetings and assemblies. There seemed to be more life back then. Yes there were rules, but there was also quite a lot left up to one's conscience. I remember no one really raised an eyebrow when a pioneer sister held her wedding at the hall and had a candlelight wedding (they both also read their own vows). And this is in ultra conservative Texas! We used to get together as a congregation once a month just for picnics. We could debate the latest Watchtower article, and disagree about any other teaching, without fear of being labeled apostate.

  Now everything is done by rote. The meetings are dead, and the people are only there because they have to be there. Not because they want to. Oh I'm sure there are individuals who feel differently, but the vast majority of folks are just so weighed down, and everything about being a Witness now feels like just another burden. It's no wonder the "truth" evaporates so quickly. Why would you want to keep what's left now?

  Just my thoughts.