Witnesses review books on Amazon.com

by sixsixsixtynine 31 Replies latest jw experiences

  • daystar
    daystar

    6669, I took a brief look at the link you posted to the watchtower.org site and something hit me.

    "the Witnesses have deep regard for people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds."

    I can recall statements such as this made oh so very frequently in the literature. "The Witnesses" behave this way, "Witnesses" do this, or don't do that. When I try to place myself in the mindframe I was in when I attended meetings, I recall understanding that this was saying something to me other than what it said. The statement quoted above would seem to an outsider to say that there is evidence that Witnesses as a whole "have deep regard for people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds". However, a current Witness, perhaps only subconsciously, interprets that same line as a command that in order to be a good Witness, you must portray this characteristic.

    In the third paragraph:

    At the same time, the Witnesses recognize the right of others to worship in harmony with the dictates of their conscience.

    Ok, to an outsider who knows nothing of the org, that seems to imply that there is an air of tolerance towards other religions. Of course, JWs and ex-JWs know this to be utterly untrue. To a Witness, sure, we recognize the right of others to worship in other ways. But if you do, you're going to die a horrible death in Armageddon. It's such a subtle method for control that I still sometimes have a hard time pinpointing exactly where some of the specific control bits arose from. This is also why I think it's so difficult to get a currently indoctrinated JW to see all of this.

  • sixsixsixtynine
    sixsixsixtynine
    At the same time, the Witnesses recognize the right of others to worship in harmony with the dictates of their conscience.

    Yeah, what a joke. The next line should be "Of course we don't actually respect the way they worship, and we believe that God will destroy them unless they worship the way we do, and even if you do worship like us, you never know for sure, he might kill you anyway......"

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