sitting through my annual visit to a kingdom hall tonight
LOL... me too. Memorial season is the one time of year where family go out of their way to coerce me to go. Instead of creating fights and resentment, I go. Some years I get out of it, some years, not so much. But, it's one hour. Big Deal.
I pay attention more to the Memorial talk now, than I ever did when I was 'in'. And when you actually pay attention and use critical thinking, you realize just how illogical the whole thing is. It don't make a lick of sense.
The talk seems to veer further and further away from Jesus each year. Very little was actually said about him, other than the sacrifice he made for me and you. Hell, Adam got as much attention as Jesus. And then a large portion of the talk is about who partakes and why you don't. An equally large portion is geared to making you look forward to paradise, as a distraction from actually thinking through the illogic of it all.
Here's one thing that stood out to me - they didn't announce how many partook last year. In fact, they said very little about the actual class of partakers, other than trying to explain how they know they're of the anointed. Maybe because I know about the definition change of the Faithful and Discreet Slave it jumped out at me, but it seemed like the first step in devaluing the anointed remnant as a special class. This kind of ties into the 'two hopes' thing mentioned by others. Instead of a F&DS class that has heavenly hope and is of special importance, they're bringing the anointed (no longer the F&DS) down to our level, except they have a heavenly hope as opposed to everyone else's earthly one. Two hopes, equal significance. Only the GB, as the F&DS class, are looked to as having special significance.
In years past, they used to read a lot from the actual gospels, explaining how Jesus' last days ended and his talk with his apostles and his last prayer with them. Not anymore. They only read one or two scriptures from Luke and the rest is from 1 Corinthians and Isaiah...that's right Isaiah...and the 144,000 one in Revelation (how they do jump around).
I don't know 'bout y'all - but I thought the memorial of someone's death was about, you know, the one that died. Not the JW Memorial of Jesus' death. It's a bait and switch. Get you in on the premise of one thing and then turn it around to something else.
In short - it's a cult.
