I still have an old street magazine bag that says Watchtower 5 cents. I feel like making a scan of some old magazines and walking around their display holding up old titles.
scotoma
JoinedPosts by scotoma
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79
Role Reversal: Placing 1969 Awake with JW's Manning the New Portable Literature Displays
by snapdragon4 inin recent weeks the jw’s here in the uk have been setting up their new portable watchtower literature displays in my local town square on a saturday morning.
as they hadn’t knocked on my door for at least five years, and consequently feeling somewhat neglected, i thought that i would pay them a visit instead.. .
the first thing i needed to do was arrange my literature.
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Personality types and religious adherence
by EdenOne ini was going through the personality types of the briggs-myers test (take the free test here) and noticed how some types are naturally inclined to follow rules and expect order, while others are inclined towards feelings and emotional appeals, other are naturally inclined to help out others ... what do you think?
are there certain basic personality types that pre-dispose the individual to adhere to a certain type of religion ?.
eden.
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scotoma
The Myers-Briggs test isn't valued highly in academic circles. There are severe flaws in its construction. In spite of this it is very popular because it has a strong promotional organization behind it.
The most widely accepted personality inventory is the FFM or Five Factor Model. It rates people on 5 scales: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience.
People who are members of fundamentalists religions are positively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness and are negatively correlated with "openness to experience".
Traits of openness to experience:
Openness to experience – (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious). Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, curiosity, and variety of experience. Openness reflects the degree of intellectual curiosity, creativity and a preference for novelty and variety a person has. It is also described as the extent to which a person is imaginative or independent, and depicts a personal preference for a variety of activities over a strict routine. Some disagreement remains about how to interpret the openness factor, which is sometimes called "intellect" rather than openness to experience. (Wikipedia)
What this means is that as time goes on JW's will continue to resist change. The brightest and best will leave. When the organization began it tended to attract the people who were more open to an alternative to traditional religious dogma. But now that it is clear that JW's are definitely in the fundamentalists camp they can't attract the more creative types. Remember in the 60's that a lot of hippies came into the organization because of JW's antiwar views and anit-materialistic attitude. Because openness to experience is a highly heritable trait the children of these "hippies" have been repulsed by their parents religion and have drifted away. Whereas Russell appeared open to experience as evidenced by his imaginative excursions (pyrimidology, magic wheat, books channeled by spirit mediums) Rutheford was simply a crank and a dictator. Rutheford was followed by the typical "organization men" Knorr, Larson etc. With the death of Franz bizarre creativity has degraded to mindless "change" for the sake of change.
It is a sad situation. Even the Catholic Church, although rigid, tolerated the Jesuits to carry on their intellectual pursuits. Jehovah's Witnesses have become the worst kind of fundamentalists and take pride in allying themselves with the cruel early reformers that were kicked out of Great Britain and Europe.
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Another non-JW reacts to Sparlock video
by cedars inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ssv2nh0rc.
and two weeks ago i highlighted another video where sparlock helped an ex-mormon.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmesmlhydru.
though it still depresses me to think of all the young ones (including my own relatives) falling under the influence of this dangerous piece of propaganda, it's at least some small comfort that the sparlock video is backfiring so dramatically among thinking non-jws.. .
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scotoma
Reminds me a little of Stephanie Miller.
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Old out-of-touch JWs using antiquated terms
by sir82 inever notice how completely out of touch some (most?
) public speakers are?.
last week we had a speaker ramble on for fully 1/3, maybe 1/2, of his 30 minute talk on the evils of "rap music".. i don't believe the term "rap music" has been uttered by anyone under the age of 40 for at least 20-25 years.. this week we got another "older gentleman" warning us about the pervasive dangers of "internet chat rooms".. again - didn't "chat rooms" die out about the same time as dialing up to connect to aol?.
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scotoma
Better watch out for the lyrics of the "SONG of Solomon" while you're at it.
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The Objectors have Taken Over
by Marvin Shilmer inthe objectors have taken over.
today i published a new article underscoring how far removed current watchtower leadership is from yesteryears leaders.
what got a person disfellowshipped by watchtower in 1981 is embraced by its current top leadership.
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scotoma
Marvin,
The simple act of juxtapositioning those two articles is delightfully incriminating.
You've got to just "love this teaching".
"In the abundance of words there does not fail to be transgression." Proverbs 10:19
Let's see. 128 pages per month for 12 months = 1536 pages per year. Times at least 120 years = 184,320 pages of Watchtower, Golden Age, Consolation, Awake to say nothing about the Informants, Tracts, KM's, Bound books. They've said enough to put them away forever. The pages are stuck together with blood. The blood of those who have tried to build their lives on that whirlwind of paper.
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Tech49 on DC: Experiences are not truthful
by Tech49 ini was sent a link to a homemade video from our summer district convention, not the one i attended, but the next weekend.
it was a video of a local brother, relating his "experience" of "trusting in jehovah", and how he was blessed.. it was just about 1 short minute long.
ms harper showed it to me first, she wanted to get my comment on it before she said a word.. background: we both know this brother, he is about our age, so we know the "real" story.. anyways, his story goes like this: this experience goes back about 10 years (jeez, we must be really searching for the experiences now!).
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scotoma
I remember a Circuit Overseer we had in the 1960's. I think the name was Wengert. My parents had them over for a meal. My sister asked how they met. It turned out she was a JW and he was in the military. She married him even though he wasn't a JW. Later he became a JW. They pioneered and ended up in the Circuit Work.
I love it when people do the wrong things and it turns out positive.
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DC: apostates are the Anti-Christ
by under_believer inthe more you know, i guess.. also, they used a metaphor likening them to known sex offenders.
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good times over here in day 2. .
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scotoma
Apostates are trying to get some of the attention the Governing Body gets and that ain't right.
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Is "Old Light" really called independent thinking?
by I_love_Jeff inwhen "old light" becomes "new light" sometime down the line the "new light" will eventually become old.
i do realize the superiors use passages (aka word magic) to explain such a big change.
what would be the difference between holy spirit revelation vs. man's opinion in this particular situation?
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scotoma
It is a very revealing question.
If you accept the idea that Holy Spirit is guiding the organization you have to believe that the men in charge can't get their receivers to tune in properly.
Or you have to believe that holy spirit is operating erratically at a very low wattage.
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The godless commit less crime, have longer marriages and are more highly educated than almost any other group in America
by DJS inteam,.
the following is a letter to the editor from this morning's local newspaper.
i haven't vetted any of this, and i don't know the writer of it.
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scotoma
Only 6% of scientists are republican.
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Richard Dawkins gave me an RT!
by cedars invery unexpected, but appreciated nonetheless.... .
a link to this article has now gone out to 750,000 followers!
http://wp.me/p1twxj-pe.
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scotoma
Unfortunately, the exemplar Jesus Christ used abusive terms when speaking about the motives of the Pharisees.
He called them liars, off-spring of vipers, etc. and by doing so he returned evil for evil.
Wasn't it enough that he used logic to attack the practices of the Pharisees? Did he have to go for the jugular.
What's contemptible is that the Watchtower never even confronts the arguments of "apostates". Instead, it resorts to the labeling fallacy to
avoid having to defend their own irrational conclusions.
They use "theocracy" as an excuse to act in totalitarian ways.
The only reason Jesus could have had for riddiculing the religious leaders is to assure himself of martyrdom.
It is a human tendency to name-call when a discussion gets heated. But, I would give a free pass to the group that is not in power. I don't justify name calling but there is something to the idea of "speaking truth to power" as it appears Jesus was doing.
The Watchtower organization is totally in power. Their role is more like the religious leaders of Jesus' day. The Scribes and Pharisees had the power to kill opposers and would not hesitate to use it. Likewise, the Watchtower society has the power to symbolically kill "apostates" and they don't hesitate to use it. The Watchtower organization doesn't risk anything by name calling whereas "Apostates" martyr themselves when they speak out against the Watchtower. The Watchtower , by name calling show that their power isn't enough to keep people from abandoning their system. The Watchtower is afraid of losing their priveleged position just like the Scribes and Pharisees.