Excellent work Blondie, perhaps one of your best! I was guilty of partying dating drinking and taking drugs as a young witness, this article came out a little late or perhaps I might have had the oppourtunity to live in a paradise on earth eh!
Beans
Comments You Will Not Hear at the 5-25-03 WT Study
by blondie 21 Replies latest watchtower bible
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jgnat
Blondie, after reading this article, I ran to my computer to get your comment. So innocent-looking, so guilt inducing. No wonder the JW kids are so messed up.
Yes, the world apparently has nothing of quality to offer (para 4). If I knew nothing about youth today, this article would have me believe that all worldly kids drink, get in to debt, do drugs, and get pregnant. The Rich Blessings (para 13) that come from serving the WTS, howeer, are not specifically mentioned. The best the WTS can offer is pain avoidance. Cutting-edge technological gadgets (para 14) similarly are slammed as being the cause of debt and therefore causing stabbing pains.
It would serve a youth well to look over the garment they chose very carefully, especially the faith they chose to live by. Consider how Witnesses are treated when they are no longer able to keep up the punishing pace of meetings and literature placement. Consider how the discouraged and overworked are treated in your congregation. I paraphrase one thought to ponder:
The [WTS] will use you, and when it is through, it will throw you away.(para 3)
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minimus
The bottom line is that the writers can only hope that they can entice a young person with the "reward" of everlasting life if they forgo any fun in this system.The young adults of today do not even think of the "reward" of everlasting life. They are more concerned about normal "worldly" things. This generation of Witnesses is just about non-exsistent.
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concerned mama
Thank you for the analysis, blondie.
There are some JW kids who smoke and drink and have sex and there are some non-JW kids who smoke and drink and have sex. This article is pretty darn insulting to all the good worldy kids, and there are lots of them. So sanctimonious . Grrrr, as the Mom of 2 great teenagers, this Watchtower makes me so mad.
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blondie
Rocketman,
I remember a few summers ago at a Convention a part in which we were "encouraged" to avoid buying soda at work (they "encouraged" taking water instead or packing your own cans of soda) because we could save money and hence concentrate on more "worthwhile" pursuits.
What a thoroughly anal-retentive idea! Man, they even want to control what a person drinks. My mother would have snorted and said, "I suppose the lunch bag police are going to be by every morning."
Beans,
I was guilty of partying dating drinking and taking drugs as a young witness
Not me, but not because I was a JW. I grew up in an alcoholic family and had seen several neighbor kids fry their brains permanently with drugs. I’m glad you came out intact. Partying and dating were fine but I was too shy. The JW teenagers at the KH were wilder than the non-JW kids I hung out with at school.
Jgnat,
Consider how Witnesses are treated when they are no longer able to keep up the punishing pace of meetings and literature placement.
The WTS knows only the young can keep up. I was one of those misguided ones starting to regular pioneer at 19. I thought it would make me happy, close to God. More like closer to insanity. I hear the chorus now, do more, do more, do more, don’t you know you must do more.
Minimus,
The young adults of today do not even think of the "reward" of everlasting life. They are more concerned about normal "worldly" things. This generation of Witnesses is just about non-existent.
That’s how I see it. Young people are not "motivated" any more like when I was younger. Of course, the young men had Vietnam looming over them and so Bethel service and the regular pioneer service looked really good rather than ending up in prison or in Vietnam. And 1975 was coming up on the horizon. The WTS has very little to scare young people with any more. Only being financially supported by mom and dad IF they pioneer or go to Bethel. Or mom and dad may withdraw their emotional and financial support if their children forgo baptism. And making parents’ spiritual status dependent on their children’s actions. What a crock!
Concerned mama,
This article is pretty darn insulting to all the good worldy kids, and there are lots of them.
That’s what I always thought, concerned mama. I was a teenager over 30 years ago and the WTS was saying the same things. I went to school with the kids and I knew that only a small minority were wild. The rest were like me, interested in school, having some innocent fun, having a good home life, etc.
Yes, the WTS demonizes everything in the "world" and makes it seem that everyone is holy in the congregation; the same congregation that harbors alcoholics, drug users and dealers, child molesters, vicious gossipers, defrauders of old people, neglectors of older parents. Yes, they can all be found at the kingdom hall.
Blondie -
Francois
In point of actual fact, JWs regard "their" young people as an interesting and literal form of "wild" life; something that must be carefully, but not too obviously controlled.
It has been a very long time since I was a teenager, a very long time indeed. And I can say with no fear of contradiction that the regularly scheduled, much awaited WT articles about "our" youth are exactly the same as they were when I was a part of this form of wildlife. Take a look at WT articles from, say 1962, about the subject topic and compare it with the current one and see if there is any meaningful difference. That should give you a clue about how much they really care about "their" youth, i.e. not at all. The stresses and challenges faced by young people today are, IMO, vastly more difficult than they were when I was in high school. For instance, I never once saw, was offered, heard about, or thought about drugs in high school. I was most definitely interested in beer, but heroin, coke, amphetamines, serious drugs like that? Nada. It was sex and beer that I was interested in.
So, Blondie, as you allege, in the matter of the WTBTS and its interest in "their" youth we find the same kind of sneering, cynical hypocrisy as we find in all else they preach. It's rather disgusting, isn't it?
And the most disgusting thing about the JWs? Here they are, certainly familiar with the charge that they take care of widows and orphans and they're sitting on bales of money, and do we ever see that they lift one little finger to help the youngish sister with three small children who lives alone because her husband left her over the JW issue? She can hardly clothe these children, they grow so quickly, or should I say out-grow? They must be fed, housed, educated. And how, in today's society, does this uneducated (likely) sister prevail against the peer pressure her children will meet to drink, use drugs, engage in unprotected sex and a host of other societal ills? Do we see the society doing anything to help this sister and the thousands like her? Hell no! Any decent church would have burned the JW Governing Body ages ago. What a bunch of bastards. Grrrrrrrrr.
francois
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KGB
A lot of the young that was in the KH when I was attending either quit going or have been DF`d.
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rocketman
We found that among young people my daughter's age (teens), jw kids were more wild than the non-jw kids. They were the ones indulging in underage drinking and premarital sex.
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concerned mama
I don't know a lot of JW teens, but of the ones I do know, rocketman, your comments are right on the money.
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run dont walk
like your comments, hope you keep it going for a long time.
Things don't really change from generation to generation do they ???
I used to run a nightclub (1986-1990)(one year after I left the borg), and every Friday and Saturday, the so-called JW'S would come in, they all smoked, did drugs, drank excessively, had sex in the cars etc etc etc etc etc. I knew after watching this regularly I made the right choice to GET OUT OF THERE. I lost all family but oh well.
I know of many people that I knew from the Kingdom Hall, that did all of the above and believe it or not, had abortions, got married to get out of the house (that must of made the situation better), went to prostitutes and still gave talks and go in service. But the one that stands out know that I look back is Brother Red Head (approx 25 at the time) used to come to the club only on Sundays. Well Sunday was our teen nights (13-18). I never thought of it before, but now, he's probaly one of the ....... you know.
Great work as usual blondie, keep it going ............