Peer pressure at its finest. The parents face the peer pressure of having "spiritual children" by all other families in the organisation , and the kids feel the obligation to also fit the perfect mould expected by parents....
WT Study 1/10/16 Encouraging Child Baptism And More Nonsense
by JW_Rogue 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Divergent
There have been many new rules & guidelines which have been introduced by the org in recent times. If this wasn't meant to be a guideline, then the age would NOT even be mentioned at all!
So thanks to all these guidelines, if you are now NOT baptized by 14 & NOT an MS by 23, you would be considered as a spiritual loser!
-
sowhatnow
ill have to read the article to see what scriptures 'support' a belief that they used to criticize [ when done by other religions ] probably none.
not to mention ,Ive not seen child or 'teen' baptism mentioned in the bible. [or anything leading one to conclude there was]. the only kind of baptism I can see that was spoke of in the bible is that of those converting to the law of Israel, and becoming 'believers'.
This is one main thing that I had come to detest, and helped to catapult me right on out.
how dare they prey on young people when they are emotionally immature, and abuse the power and rights of parents. even Jesus, someone who was supposed to be 'perfect' [yea a perfect follower of the law] was 30 yrs old before he started his ministry. if we were followers of Christ, non of the Jws should be doing 'service' until they were 30. 'the age of maturity'.lol
I recall making that comment once at a watchtower lesson, i think there was a paragraph about marriage, and how you should be careful with your 'emotions' and desires, and not let them lead you to getting married too soon. they were discussing maturity issues, and I mentioned, that Jesus was 30 yrs old when he got baptized, and he was a perfect man, so anyone younger than that in my opinion may wish to make extra sure they know what they are getting into.lol I wonder how that went over in the minds of those elders?
-
LaurenM
I was baptized at 12 and I didn't truly believe it even then...but I did it to please my parents. Most kids want to please their parents and trust their parents and don't understand the ramifications of such a serious action as baptism...there was a kid who got baptized at 7 last assembly...so sad. -
stillin
All kids go through stages. They may want to make their parents proud, and that's good and normal. But to hijack those feelings and spin them in such a way that they are signing a contract that affects the rest of their life is opportunist at best, evil at worst. -
freemindfade
Baptism is a contract.
The jw pyramid scheme is starting to hit it's apex and die. They need to lock more people in to keep numbers up.
-
Tornintwo
Ive noticed that each WT study and talk seems to have the SAME basic points they want you to remember, can't believe I never noticed it before.
1. Do more in 'serv-us'. Spend as much time as humanly possible in field service, or volunteering to support our aims. Feel like crap until you do.
2. Don't get involved with friends, activities, news or education which is outside our organisation.
3. Don't complain when our hierarchy treats you like crap. You are supposed to be miserable, its the time of the end.
4. Put your own needs last, put our needs first (They say God's needs but we know what they mean)
4. Get your kids to follow all the above too. If they won't, shun them until they will.
-
sowhatnow
tornintwo , you noticed that too?
years ago i started to notice the negativity in the lessons, and started to take a highlighter marker and highlighted every negative word or sentence. you can imagine how much of the article was covered. i wondered where is all the admonition to help and be friends with people? where was the light load??
-
StephaneLaliberte
Two weeks ago, I had a conversation with a family member who is an experienced elder and I finally told him why I had stopped attending to the meetings (this might be subject for a new topic).
Anyways, in that long conversation, he asked me if I was not afraid of raising my kids outside of the organization. I told him that I was concerned about them becoming good people or not. And I felt that JWs would actually make it more difficult for me to achieve this goal.
I than named names of a) someone that was sent to jail for two years and did a lot of drugs. b) another that became an exotic dancers after being disfellowshipped. c) that elder's daughter that was known to be the school's "whore" d) one of my friends that was sexually abused by a stranger e) and at least a dozen more that cheated on their husband/wife as they felt they got married to young.
All of these people where raised JWs. Did the teaching protect them or actually made things more complicated for them and their family? If you have a kid that wants to do bad and leaves the house, what is best, to keep talking to your kid on a regular basis and urge them to turn around or ignore them until they do everything all by themselves? Which has the ring of truth? Which sounds like something that Jesus would preach about?
-
Hadriel
@freemindfade is freaking dead on. Do you think the baptism questions are to see if you know the teachings of the organization? Yes some are but pay attention to the more than half of those which are targeted at consequences. They are formulated in a way where you're answering in the affirmative that you realize there are repercussions.
The second question at the day of the baptism the contract is inked.
Make no mistake this process is so that you can be held accountable. It's as plain as day. There's no conspiracy here that is exactly what it was designed for.