The watchtower know it is hemorrhaging young blood. The may 1st 04 article Youths, are you building your future? Is amazingly vague and tolerant. I seems to imply that if you are not baptized just hang around anyway, and try to be moral. Meanwhile they guilt trip the other kids into the party line of pioneering and discourages materialism. Also it does not harp about baptism impling that the WTS most youths like my sister will go to the meetings for years and many not "Join" until they are settled down.
The first bomb shell is appease the soiled doves.
Those of you who are young likely see things differently. You may have problems handing the emotional and physical changes of youth. At school you may face strong peer pressure. You may have to put up a determined effort to resist drug abuser, alcohol addiction, and immorality.
Okay note may and resist vs abstain.
No doubt you regularly attend Christian Meetings, and listen to program parts. Also, you honor your father and your mother by being present at the family bible study. That is fine.
Okay in this part they don?t say the teens should do this they commend them for doing it. Then they ask them to do more but I am sure you knew that would be tacked on.
Every thing else is laughably rhetorical.
Perhaps you feel that since you attend Christian Meetings, and are active with the congregation, you are strong enough to handle a violent movie or a music album with good tunes but questionable lyrics. Maybe you feel that there will be no bad results if you take a quick look at a pornographic Web site on the internet.
Now it instead of falsely labeling the horrors that will happen they jump to Paulinism.
The apostle Paul tells you that you are wrong!
Wow that?s ground breaking Paul telling me about music albums violent movies and cyber porn! Paul must have lived in the late 90?s! Oh wait nope.
He says ?Bad association spoils useful habits?
1 Corinthians 15
33 But don't fool yourselves. Don't let yourselves be poisoned by this anti-resurrection loose talk. "Bad company ruins good manners."
Note the message bible. It ads to the sentence granted but it does a good job because it puts this in context with the rest of 1 cor 15. I also this may be a quote from a play. Anyone seen Thais
Sadly many promising young Christians have had their good habits spoiled by unwise associations. Be determined then to shun such associations. If you do so you will follow Paul?s councils. ?Quit being fashioned after this system of things?.
Notice it never says what they did. Never say what was spoiled. It also makes this an IF. This is all Paul worship BTW. Since they never said anything about Jehovah or Jesus. Just Paul.
Also the throw this line down
However, training for that career might severely limit the time you can spend serving Jehovah.
The rest of 17 is filled with more probe rhetorical statements starting with the word if.
18 the bridge famine and children with bloated bellies with the preaching to spiritually starving people next door?
True most of those suffering from this spiritual starvation are not ?conscious of their spiritual need.?
This is impossible because they visible signs of starvation would be aware to all.
Yet some youths in Christian families have shown a desired to be like the spiritually starving people around them. Likely, such young ones think that youths in the world are carefree, enjoying life, They forget those youths are alienated from Jehovah. They forget to the bad effects of spiritual starvation.
Note the big jump they should say something like dying in Armageddon but they choose stuff out of the air that a result of materialism.
Some of these are unwanted teen pregnancies and the physical and emotional effects of immorality, smoking drunkenness, and drug abuse. Spiritual starvation alls for rebellious spirit an underlying hopelessness and a lack of direction in life.
Any cats catch they made up a subjective vague term and gave it side effects of other things not associated with the term. The replace immorality with spiritual starvation just because SS sounds dreadful.
It short the watchtower is trying to hit the guilt response of those going astray. The never blame any of the teens for anything but try to bait them with out showing a reward. They hope the kingdom halls have more peer presser than the public schools and that knocking on doors will be enoforced by the secret police. The reason has probally something to do with the sheep goats thing of 1995. They can't damn anyone for not doing anything anymore. SInce you can't say who will be destoyied or assure salvation to anyone you are stuck trying to make dumb people feel guilty while not chasing them away with condemnation.