1950's WT Demonizing of Television (1990's Internet) (page 2)

talesin

blondie

Thank you. This explains a lot.

Will their little god of the living room shelter them from Jehovah?s wrath?

Now I know why I heard this phrase over and over and over while growing up. It was a constant fight in our house - my mother`s constant railing against the `little god of the living room` when my dad wanted to relax and watch a little TV. It was all about the Society`s (phhttttttt!) rules.

I was allowed to watch Disney, Disney, Disney, the Lawrence Welk Show and oh yes, the Canadians on the board will remember The Tommy Hunter Show and Don Messer`s Jubilee.

talesin

Taylor S.

It is tailor-made thinking, and the tailor of it is the Devil. Minds work, but in the way that a horse is led. Independent thinking is difficult, unpopular and even suspect. Thought conformity is the order of our day. To seek solitude for meditation is frowned upon as antisocial and neurotic

This statement had to be tongue in cheek. They couldn't type that with a straight face, I'm sure.

And this whole issue is clearly one that will not stand in today's era of cable and satellite TV. If I was a kid today, I'd rather deal with Jehovah's wrath than give up my HBO ....

minimus

GREAT POST!!!! As a kid, I was steered away from comic books and my mother actually threw away my transistor radio!! ANYTHING that can take time away from Watchtower pursuits is bad.

Honesty

Phreaks in the 50's

Phreaks today

Next thing they'll go after is my Palm Pilot

prophecor

The incessant drum beat that has gone on for years, mind numbing, fear inducing, the guilt tripping because of not investing time in the ministry, study so they can keep YOU on the treadmill of mindless endless moments in constant lockstep, asleep at the wheel, without any ability to pay attention to anything other than service, service, service, service, service.............

The energy that is exhibited from the past to the present is overwhelming and exhausting. I don't know how so many of you who've had to be subject to this kind of abusive indoctrination ever endured it without some sort of damage to your psyche.

Frightening.

jaffacake

A budding JW keeps telling me how important it is to control our thoughts. Trouble is he is not controlling his thoughts, thety are. Anyway, do Scriptures mention controlling or training out thoughts?

VM44

Anyone hear a JW call television "Satan's Eyeball"? I did. --VM44

Euphemism

The evening meal over, the family rush for their seats before the television screen, there to sit for hours, till bedtime.

This cracked me up. Obviously, they wrote it before TV dinners.

Elsewhere wrote:
wonder if they are talking about how the Beaver's mom and dad actually ***GASP*** slep in the same room in separate beds?????

Elsewhere... I think you are confusing 'immoderate' with 'immodest'. 'Immoderate' means 'lacking in balance or moderation'. So in WT lingo, 'immoderate' use means 'spending time watching TV when you ought to be studying the Watchtower.'

Ozzie wrote
weird isn't it that Bethel homes have (all) bedrooms equipped with TVs??!!

With cable, too! (At least here in the US.) Although one Bethelite told me that the reason they got cable on the Bethel TVs was to stop the 'brothers' from going to local bars to watch sports.

4JWY

Blondie ~

Thank you so much for all the quotes from the literature of the 50's.

As a youngster, when we finally got our first t.v., my father, newly converted dub, would constantly threaten to "take the axe" to the t.v. when we kids would be watching the limited amount of shows we watched consisting of "Lassie", "The Donna Reed Show" and " Wild Kingdom". I always wondered where he had acquired such an adamant view of television back in those early days!

I often wonder who my parents would have truly been, without the WTS determining their personalities.

1950's WT Demonizing of Television (1990's Internet)

Share this