JW Religion same as Stock Market/Gambling (Concept)

by Da.Furious 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Da.Furious

  For the last few days i was discussing with a colleague of mine at work about the stock market and how some people, even when losing money, they will hold onto their shares because someone said they will rise again. This may lead to lost opportunities or even losing all their money instead of de-risking and offsetting loses by buying another stock, in other word jumping ship.
  

  This got me thinking about JWs (knowing that i am still in). Took one step back and looked at our family and what we have done by sticking to this religion.

  Since i can remember, i always heard the end is near and live your life as if tomorrow is the end of the system. This had major impacts on our lives, parents never saved anything for the future, never invested since it was considered waste of time, never encouraged us to seek higher education and the list goes on - also worth mentioning we were surrounded by pioneers who seemed did not care about anything and they were always available for any event; best life ever!
  

  This made me reliase that my parents, and to some extend myself, kept holding to the hopes that the WTS gave us. Ditching this hope made us think, what if the end really is near, what if the system ends tomorrow. Let me keep holding since i have lost a lot (family, health, etc.). Then you start thinking 7-8million can not be wrong.

  For someone clinging to any bit of news that helps his hope to stay alive, it is very hard to get them to move on. For my parents, late 70s, even if they may have doubts they would not think about it at all because it is too late. Unfortunately what they are not doing is helping the new generation to wake up and help them to move on.

  Although i an not holding to the believes anymore, i can not move on fully. Family ties, due to the shunning policy, will have drastic impacts on the family and not to mention emotional stress ( will leave this to another discussion).

  Even with JW friends, any discussion about the future and investments for the family, they will look at me in a very strange way. I even had an elder telling that my priorities are not aligned correctly!
  

  Going back to the comparison, JW religion and believes are the same as Stock market and Gambling , you keep holding and waiting, hoping for something to materializse and put you back in the green. Any minor glimpse of hope will make it harder and harder for you to let go and move on.

  The irony is in this, is that WTS encourages us to stay away from gambling and an indirect way not to trade in stocks!

  Hope the above makes sense.

  Da.Furious
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  Simon

  JW-ism is the ultimate gamble - feel lucky? Trade your current life in for the promise of a better, longer lasting life in paradise!

  Theists often use the "but what if you're wrong" argument to claim people should believe in god 'just in case'. Of course the reverse is true as well, especially with groups like the WTS, where people end up wasting their life and opportunities on empty promises and feel compelled to "stay faithful" to the end. It's all about sunk cost - if you've wasted 50 years it's easier to waste the next 10 or 20 than admit you wasted them.

  Small print: Your investment is not guaranteed. Past results almost certainly indicates future performance. Your home, family and retirement will be at risk.
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  Driving Force

  D.Furious

  It certainly makes sense what you said. I have recently woke and I am now beginning to scramble so that I may have some kind of retirement.
  
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  fastJehu

  One brother in our congregation was setting his JW "stopp-loss" for the year 1975.

  He said: If there is no great tribulation until January the first of 1976 - I am out.

  He ist out since this date. He understood the stockmarket (great analogie Da.Furious)
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  OneEyedJoe

  Yes, much of what keeps many JWs mentally enslaved is what amounts to the sunk cost fallacy.
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  Da.Furious

  Very true Simon.

  And the problem as some other poster, on a different topic, mentioned that because we allowed the WTS to take over our way of thinking, it is hard to to mix with people around us not too mention sometimes is very late to build yourself again. So why bother.

  One would think i have invested several years, is it worth pulling out and face all the repercussions or just stay there doing bare minimum!
  
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  Vidiot

  Frankly, I have a higher degree of confidence in the stock market than I do the "Truth".
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  Half banana

  Perhaps the GB thought that God's name was riding on those shares...

  Of course the rank and file aren't allowed to gamble but the GB have a special license to do whatever they want.
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  WTWizard

  All for nothing. It would be one thing if they said "The end could be tomorrow, but it could also be another 20 years out. We need to bear in mind that it could come tomorrow, but we must be prepared for it to be much later. We need to prepare ourselves for the real world, against that it could be more than 20 years in coming, so we do not fall short because of sprinting too soon."

  It would be better for them to go at a sustainable pace that can be maintained indefinitely. True, if the end was tomorrow, it would be safe to sell out and pious-sneer. However, if the end was going to be 100 years from now, you would still need to prepare for retirement, and plan on having at least some fun in the meantime. No use to go all out, run yourself into the ground, and then find you have another 98 years left. Not to mention, what happens if a disaster (financial Armageddon, which could come as soon as the next banking crash starts) happens--how many of them will even be around after that.

  Yes, prepare. But, prepare as if it could be many years coming. One should never go into debt for an organization that keeps pounding poverty-is-a-virtue messages and that has a long track record of being wrong. If the religion was viable, people should donate within (not beyond) their means--the leaders need to trust in joke-hova to provide people with the easy means to donate comfortably, not push people to give beyond their means. And, for most of them, they don't even get to keep the "silver and gold" prize of everlasting life.
  
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  Vidiot

  What WTWizard said.

  x

  IMO, it's very telling that the Org is taking the complete opposite of all those perfectly sensible measures.

  If it were some other corporation, I'd be inclined to think that they were aware - on some level - that the jig was almost up*, and were pushing for one last "everything-must-go" campaign before it all crashed and burned.

  x

  * Like, for example, the corporation's Legal Department had concluded that - due to set-in-stone yet fundamentally flawed policies, they were going to lose - and lose big time - to the courts and tax institutions.