The process is engineered to make it seem meaningful, to load it with consequences and obligations. It gives what they do the veneer of a religious rationale. It's still a load of hooey though when you take a step back from it all. Did you really sign a contract with invisible bearded guy in the sky? Really, really sign one? You didn't even sign one with the WBTS that has any meaning outside of JWland. No-one gets to dictate your life to you on that level unless you decide you want them to. Or you live in a repressive totalitarian dictatorship. That's the decision which is hidden behind it all and which they desperately mask behind words. It's always 'Jehovah' and 'the bible', never 'us guys in Brooklyn had a vote and 4 of us decided that...'.
WT Study 1/10/16 Encouraging Child Baptism And More Nonsense
by JW_Rogue 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Designer Stubble
Interesting in The Golden Age June 6, 1934 p.571 - "What is Real Baptism?" the article shows that 12 years old is to be considered "infant baptism". It also uses Numbers 4 to scriptural demonstrate that one must be of ... the magazine stated that Jesus did not contemplate baptism at 12 and still viewed this as infant baptism.
http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/7593/realbaptism.jpg -
The Governor
I was trying to talk to a JW out of having his daughter baptized at a young age. I ask him if he would ever invest in getting a dog for his 12 year old daughter. I said it takes times, money and about a 15 year commitment to put forth for this dog. I asked him if he thought his daughter could commit to taking full responsibility for a 15 year commitment of a pet.
He told me that she wasn't old enough to do that. I then asked "Then why is she old enough to take on a life long commitment of baptism at the age of 12?" I ask him "Why wouldn't you let your daughter own a dog because the 15 year commitment is to much commitment for a child but a life long commitment in baptism isn't?"
He actually told me he saw my point and will reconsider having her being baptized at a later age. -
steve2
Fact:
If the organization dissuaded minors from being baptized, an even steeper decrease in the total number of annual baptisms would result.
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stuckinarut2
We have said it before, but here goes:
Not old enough to leave school
Not old enough to drive a car
Not old enough to leave home
Not old enough to drink alcohol
Not old enough to go to the doctors alone
Not old enough to vote
Not old enough to sign a financial loan document
Not old enough to have sex
Not old enough to get married
Not old enough to buy a knife, or fill up a car with gas, or purchase chemicals, or handle firearms etc
Not old enough to get a job without parental consent
Not old enough to open a bank account
Not old enough to cross a street alone
Not old enough to travel on a plane alone
Not old enough to buy tobacco
etc...
BUT, old enough to be coerced into a lifelong commitment just to please parents. A commitment that has serious consequences for questioning when older.
Please add to the list
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Finkelstein
The WTS men want children to get baptized because they know it sets the precedent of these ones of being controlled by them. Unbaptized JWS members do not offer the same amount of compelling control and they know that.
What better way to influence children to do this than to instill fear by telling them that judgment day is coming soon.
Lies, corruption, deceit , its all there in the Watchtower Publishing house.
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steve2
The organization probably knows baptism doesn't keep the munchkins in the organization.
However, it gives the organization extra ammunition against them should they ever stray.
Young ones are especially vulnerable to the prospect of being shunned.
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Half banana
With the failure of the d2d preaching...it now takes something like 13,000 hours to make one convert, the best way the JW org has now found to keep its numbers up is to ‘harvest’ their own children.
Yes it is indeed a trap but it’s also even worse than that; it is a form of child abuse.
It is forcing hapless children, who have little idea of how the real world works, to make a commitment to something they have no knowing of whether they can keep to it or not.
The trap is sprung by the lure of pleasing the parents and barbed by a no escape clause with the threat of heartless shunning by family and friends should they try to get free.
The JW Org is without conscience and shameless in its disregard for the welfare of the young under its control... and the world is getting to know it.
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Half banana
Post script:
the next stage will be to baptize the dead as the Mormons do...this way the numbers chart will look healthy!
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cha ching
Blackmail at it's finest!
