JWs and Coping with Reality

by Vanderhoven7 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Vanderhoven7
    Vanderhoven7


    Become a JW only if you can't cope with the real world. I believe I picked this up here but can't find the thread. i think it worth a repost.

    “TOP TEN REASONS JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CAN'T COPE with the REAL WORLD

    ____________________

    1.The WatchTower hOrganization denies access to reality, substituting its OWN propaganda version instead

    1. Only Watchtower approved publications are allowed.
    2. No higher education is to be pursued.
    3. No non-JW friends or associations are encouraged with worldly "outside" POV.
    4. No free-style questioning of doctrine is permitted nor is constructive criticism.
    5. Threat of being "marked" or disassociated is wielded to discourage insubordinates.

    2. Between every real-world event and the JW's mind, a roadblock has been placed.

    1. The interpretive moment of free thought is interrupted by RE-LABELING in Watchtower-speak, jargon, and doctrinal rhetoric substituted.
    2. World events are twisted into a narrow storyline and propagandized as End Times signs leading to Armageddon.

    3. Individual tastes for Personal IDENTITY are expunged and replaced by a collective PERSONA. You are not yourself. You are to be viewed as a representative and example.

    1. Private thinking is red-flagged as selfish and sinful.
    2. Personal ambition is crushed. Only door-to-door ministry substituted as "worthy" endeavors. Beards and tight-pants are glaring demonstrations of satanic ego.
    3. JW’s are coerced into a public spectacle of theocratic performance for judgement.
    4. No individual is allowed a right to fall in love and marry or educate or earn without prior approval. You are the property of the Kingdom Hall and the Governing Body.

    4. Both History and Future cease to be objective occurrences

    1. Every human endeavor is judged as to whether it is part of Jehovah's Plan
    2. Great Leaps of advancement for humanity are disregarded and minimized.

    c. Terrorist atrocities are proof positive of a Satanic doomed world.

    d. Individual triumphs and tragedies have no particular value; only Armageddon matters.

    5. Talent, Creativity and Genius are transformed into useless ego obsessions.

    1. No personal achievement is praiseworthy since all glory is for Jehovah only.
    2. Neither Musical, Artistic, Scientific or Mathematical ability is encouraged because the preaching activity supersedes all else.
    3. Critical Thinking leads to skepticism and eventual disfellowshipping. Even intelligence itself is marked as suspicious.

    6. Ignorance, poverty, disease and psychological disturbance are NOT worthwhile for charity, education or institutional tasking for JW's.

    1. Building hospitals or colleges diverts precious time away from the JW ministry. Besides, Paradise implies repair and perfection anyway.
    2. Becoming a physician, social worker, volunteer in the community or joining any established task-oriented organization DISTORTS rather than solves human problems because Armageddon is coming quickly anyway.
    3. Humanitarian activity, disaster relief and institutional charity promote secular and false-religious creeds instead of Jehovah's solutions.
    4. Personal financial concerns aren't important to the congregation. Your finances are a symptom of End Times eventuality, not a focus of brotherly remedy.

    7. Human perception is untrustworthy, corrupted by sin and worldliness

    1. Only thoughts which come from official Governing Body writings are safe.
    2. Personal opinions, life experience and original analysis constitute hubris and running ahead of Jehovah's plan for his people.
    3. Calling attention to doctrinal irregularity, questioning "new light" and repeated calls for clarification red-flag spiritual weakness and danger.

    8. There are no "Good" people in any other religion. If they were good they'd join Jehovah's Witnesses.

    1. The appearance of goodness, charity, benevolence and selfless devotion to others by Catholics, Baptists, Buddhists or other religious types is only an artificial misunderstanding of Jehovah's permanent solutions to mankind's true problem: sin and death.
    2. Most do-gooders are religious fakes, imposters and money-grubbing charlatans who should be exposed and not admired.
    3. There is no one good except Jehovah anyway

    9. Everything you read, see, experience and think is a distortion by Satan for the purpose of deflecting you from Jehovah's TRUTH.

    1. Watchtower study replaces corrupt images, thoughts and ideas with clean, purified and approved replacements.
    2. The human heart is desperate and corrupt. What you "feel" is probably sin and not compassion. Don't trust yourself to know anything.
    3. The entire world is in the control and power of invisible demonic forces hellbent on destroying humanity

    10. Doubting Jehovah's organization isn't the result of logic or awareness of errors

    1. They never said they were perfect or inspired or prophetic
    2. Jehovah eventually repairs any damage (Wait on Jehovah)
    3. Disloyalty to the Organization is disloyalty to Jehovah himself. Armageddon will settle that score.

    In view of the Ten reasons above, there can be no doubt that the Organization has completely REMOVED REALITY from JW awareness.

    _________

    Being denied a right to reality is to have one's mind taken hostage.

    Without thinking your own thoughts you cannot ever be an actual real person.

    The group thinks FOR you and instructs you what to do and say and how to be.

    Without that GROUP there is only doubt, emptiness, and longing to be cocooned by the "other" and cradled away from fear.

    ________

    Why it is hard to break free?

    You wonder why JW family member won't listen to reason?

    You wonder why the obvious isn't at all obvious?

    __________

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat

    https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/resources/sociology-online-papers/papers/holden-averting-risk.pdf

    This paper examines the ways in which the Witnesses conceptualise the modern world and how they resist the secular forces that threaten their religious identity. Close analysis of the testimonies of current members reveals that the movement’s millenarian weltanschauung is a reaction to a world that is perceived as hostile and ambiguous. The paper concludes that the Witnesses’ allegiance to this quasi-totalitarian movement signifies an escape from a modern age that hedonistically celebrates individual freedom.

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot
    “…Don't trust yourself to know anything…”

    I couldn’t do it…

    …the feeling of being intellectually hamstrung was depressing AF.

    I was able to have fewer and fewer in-depth conversations about anything interesting.

  • enoughisenough
    enoughisenough

    saw this on a FB posting-something like this. JW info: indecisive? No worries. JW tell you how/what to think, feel, behave, dress and groom-see comment ....in the comment it said a good ex. could be found on the official JW site Dec 2023 update #8

  • enoughisenough
    enoughisenough

    ..."why hard to break free" ....I just watched a video where a testing of people were done. They were given math problems and a faulty calculator. They were to compare their answers with the calculators. 33% went along with the faulty calculator. That same video mentioned 66% of children raised as JW leave but there is the 34% who stay in. Interesting video.

  • Vidiot
    Vidiot

    I’m not a big believer in coincidence.

  • GrreatTeacher
    GrreatTeacher

    The one that jumps out the most to me is that human perception is faulty.

    When you can be convinced that you aren't seeing what you're seeing or hearing what you're hearing, then you can be convinced of anything without any Evidence.

    It then becomes your choice to pick a Receiver of Reality. Then that's it. They interpret everything and tell you what to believe and what to do.

    For a certain personality that can be comforting. Hard for me to believe because I'm the polar opposite, but I've heard JWs exclaim over how very glad they are not to have to think and decide what's right or wrong. This is the kind of person who is susceptible to cults.

    Now imagine instead a person with the exact opposite personality, one for whom life is an intellectual exercise, who exists in logic and reason, enjoys intellectual debate, comes to strong conclusions and is born into the JW religion! They're told their very identity is wrong. They're told they're being misled, they're evil. But they are intelligent enough to know they are not being misled, that the JW religion is misleading everyone else, yet they can't make anyone else see that.

    They feel very alone. And they leave as soon as they get the chance.

  • InquiryMan
    InquiryMan

    Chief physician in my municipality is a born and raised Jw (sister). Would be Impossible according to above information

  • ElderBerry
    ElderBerry

    Everything in that post is absolutely true except the beards which needs updating now.

    This is a very very deep subject but here is a deep question to ponder. What if JWs are happier believing the lies the GB say?

    Yes the red pill reality is more scary than the safe blue pill that GB offer.


  • Ding
    Ding
    Once you surrender your thinking to the borg, it's very hard to take it back.

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