u/constant_trouble

Sorry I'm late to the party. This past week's WT study was pretty ridiculous. Watchtower spends 14/17 paragraphs insisting nobody should judge your "personal" choices about education, beards, medical treatment, and so on... right up until paragraph 15. Where the article says elders must not make rules or go "beyond the things that are written" in the Bible, and in the next breath adds *"*And by extension, they do not go beyond the Bible-based counsel that is written in our publications." Wait, what?

"Extension" slipped right in there. So the logic goes...

P1: Elders must not go beyond what is written in the Bible.

P2: By Watchtower's own "extension," they must also not go beyond what is written in Watchtower's publications.

P3: Watchtower publications are not scripture, and Watchtower itself denies being inspired or infallible.

C: Therefore you're required to treat fallible, uninspired, revisable human writing as functionally equal to scripture- while the organization simultaneously denies it has that authority at all.

It gets sillier. Full breakdown 👇🏼

Respect the Decisions of Others—Unless Watchtower Has Already Made Them for You

This weekend's WT study is all about placing firewalls to ensure that someone who "chooses to" go to school, comes back to the Watchtower. One thing that stands out from this study article that should stare at every believer in the face is:

Watchtower's rule for other religions is the opposite of its rule for you.

The study article tells Witness students to "guard" their thinking and strengthen their convictions before hearing objections, to distrust outside influence, and treat leaving the organization as spiritual "retreat." And in the same breath, Watchtower gives outsiders the opposite rule — examine your religion, follow the evidence, and leave if it's false.

P1. Anyone in a false religion should follow the evidence and leave it.

P2. A Witness is instructed to resist ideas, evidence, and relationships when they threaten continued loyalty to Watchtower.

P3. The same epistemic standard should apply to everyone.

C. Therefore, if Watchtower might be false, a Witness is told both to follow the evidence out and to resist the evidence that could lead them out.

Leave — but do not leave.

Apply the method universally:

P1. A reliable method for finding truth should distinguish true beliefs from false ones.
P2. Watchtower’s method is to reinforce inherited conclusions, distrust outsiders, rely on in-house material, keep close friends inside, and treat doubt as danger.
P3. Applied consistently, that method would make a Mormon more certain of Mormonism, a Catholic more certain of Catholicism, and a Muslim more certain of Islam.
P4. Those religions make mutually contradictory claims.
C. Therefore, the method cannot reliably identify truth. It manufactures certainty and retention.

The same pattern shows up in the article's burnout advice:

education, sleep, work, and exercise may all be reduced,

but meetings, ministry, and study stay priority. How is this called "balanced" when it's a hierarchy with the winner chosen in advance?

Full article breakdown including the bicycle analogy that collapses the moment you ask whether the rider is allowed to stop and check the map:

College Won't Steal Your Faith. Evidence Might

Anyone else notice the two rules / double standard running side by side in this one, or growing up as a Witness?

The line I hear most from believing JWs: “Look at inflation. ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius,’ just like Revelation said. We’re obviously in the last days.”

For years I didn’t have an answer that shut down the silliness easily. I do now. And it doesn’t cost a single Watchtower teaching.

Step one: Grant every premise.
The White Horse is Christ; he began ruling in 1914; the other riders followed; the wars and inflation and disease are the visible evidence the horsemen are riding. Conceded.

Step two: Point out that Revelation is a sequence, not a grab bag. White, red, black, pale. The Black Horse, famine / inflated prices, rides third.

Something rides first, and on Watchtower’s reading that first rider is Christ, arriving in 1914. Invisibly.

Now read how the NWT describes that arrival:
“If people say to you, ‘Look! He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; ‘Look! He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.” (Matt. 24:26)

“For just as the lightning comes out of the east and shines over to the west, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Matt. 24:27)

“They will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matt. 24:30)

“Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him.” (Rev. 1:7)

Lined up, the imagery keeps pointing one direction: a public, visible arrival. Revealed, not concealed.

Now here’s where a PIMI (believer) pushes back: “those aren’t all the same event. The clouds verses, 24:30 and Revelation 1:7, describe the future manifestation at Armageddon, when the presence finally becomes obvious to everyone. The 1914 presence is the invisible one, discerned only by the sign. Two phases. No contradiction.”

Grant that too. Send the clouds verses to Armageddon.

You still can’t move 24:27. That’s the one verse carrying the word the whole doctrine hangs on — parousia, “presence,” the 1914 word. It can’t be the future Armageddon manifestation without unpinning 1914 itself. By their own sorting, 24:27 describes the invisible 1914 presence — and describes it as lightning thrown east to west.

If the fallback is that “lightning” only means the sign was discernible to the alert, read the verse right before it. Don’t believe anyone who points and says “Look! Here he is.” Lightning is the one thing nobody has to point out to you. Reading it as “visible only once the Governing Body explained inflation to you decades later” makes the image mean its opposite.

So if the third horseman proves the sequence is unfolding, where’s the visible first rider who started it? Inflation has causes — war, trade, supply chains, money printing. What it isn’t is proof that Christ arrived invisibly and nobody noticed. So…

No, Inflation and Higher Gas Prices Aren’t a Sign That Armageddon Is Near

This weekend’s WT study reads like a controlling and desperate boyfriend whose girlfriend gets the opportunity of a lifetime in another city. He can’t forbid her outright, so he manufactures every reason not to go: the people there are bad, living away is dangerous, the hours will wreck her, the money won’t add up, and remember so-and-so who moved and regretted it? Then the kicker: “Of course, it’s your decision.”

Watchtower runs the same play on higher education this week. They call it a “personal decision.” Then they spend eighteen paragraphs poisoning it with fear, guilt, and suspicion.

So which is it?
Either the choice is genuinely personal and no one gets to judge it or
it’s materialistic, spiritually dangerous, and disloyal, and fair game. It can’t be both in the same breath.

“You’re free to go, but here’s every reason a good person would stay” isn’t freedom. It’s control with plausible deniability.
Full breakdown — including the contradiction they can’t logic their way out of 👉🏼 Higher Education Is Now a “Personal Decision” — After We Ruined Your Chances

They say it like it settles the argument. Proof that belief is what makes people good.

I’ve never been able to hear it that way. What I hear is someone telling me that the only thing between them and walking out on their marriage mate is a pair of eyes they believe are on them. Followed by, the itemized list of what they’d do — who they’d sleep with, what they’d take, who they’d stop caring about.

That isn’t evidence of virtue. It’s evidence of surveillance.

I didn’t have language for this until I ran into a quote from Seneca:
“Nothing is noble if it’s done unwillingly or under compulsion. Every noble deed is voluntary.”

Not less noble. Not noble with an asterisk. Nothing.

That’s a hard line to sit with, because I did a lot of objectively good things in there. Meetings. Service. Cleaning the hall. Talks. Showing up when showing up was inconvenient. I would like very much to say those things were mine.

But strip out the threat, the surveillance, the social cost - the family you’d lose, the friends who’d stop calling, the standing you spent decades building. What’s still standing?

Nobody warns you that the answer doesn’t get easier after you leave either. The opposite of being told what to do is not doing whatever you want.
That’s the same appetite those witnesses were confessing to, just off the leash. A different master with worse manners.

So the question got harder, not easier. Not what am I required to do. That one has an answer, and someone will gladly print it for you. But who do I freely choose to become, which has no publication, no elder, and no answer key.

I wrote the longer version of this here 👉🏼 Chosen virtue builds character. Compelled virtue builds compliance.

How many of you heard some version of that car group line? And did it sound like faith to you at the time?

This week’s midweek meeting runs a four-minute talk on free will — “What Does the Bible Say About Free Will?”

The argument is simple: God respects your freedom because you can obey him or reject him. Doesn’t a mugger give you options too? Wallet or your life.

The existence of alternatives does not make the choice free from coercion.

Watchtower says God wants love given freely, then attaches death to the wrong answer and calls the result a gift.

So here’s the contradiction:
P: Threatening catastrophic harm to secure compliance is coercive.

Not-P: Threatening catastrophic harm to secure compliance is not coercive when God does it.

Either “obey or die” exerts coercive pressure, or it does not.
If it does, God’s offer is not free.

If it does not, then the mugger respected your freedom too.

Deuteronomy chapters 28 and 30 destroy their argument. Full article here 👉🏼 “Obey or die” is still coercion, even when God says it

At what point does a threat stop preserving freedom and start controlling it?

This week’s WT study calls conscience personal and God-given, then spends the rest of the article explaining that a conscience is only “well-trained” when it lands on Watchtower conclusions.

Either a Witness can study, pray, and honestly reach a different conclusion than Watchtower,
or
they can’t. There is no third option.

If they can, then Watchtower’s “Bible principles” are advice and not Jehovah’s binding will. And the whole framing collapses.

If they can’t, then the conscience was never doing the deciding in the first place. Watchtower was. And you just internalized the answer.

You can’t have both a personal conscience and a predetermined one.

Full rebuttal 👉🏼 Conscience or Control

This week’s Watchtower says Jehovah treats you “not as young children, but as mature adults.” It trains you to use “Bible principles” to monitor your thoughts, speech, entertainment, sex life, reading, associations, and conscience.

No written rule? No problem. Just stretch a “principle” until it reaches whatever Watchtower wants controlled.

Thing about a rule is that it's printed. You can look it up, quote it back, ask where it says that.

A principle though, is nothing more than smoke. Can’t pin it down. Can’t prove it isn’t there. And somehow it always ends up meaning what Watchtower says it means.

Logically,

If Witnesses are treated as mature adults, they should be free to apply principles differently without punishment from the organization.

But they aren’t. Differ, and you can face counsel, loss of privileges, marking, “removing,” , shunning or fear of not surviving "Armageddon".

So in practice, Witnesses are not treated as mature adults. They are managed children told the monitoring is “freedom.”

That's not the only absurdity in the article. The biggest (IMO) is in paragraph 10.

The article says we can understand Jehovah’s thinking by asking why he gave a law and how he would feel about “similar conduct.”

So apply that method to the parts they skip.

If “do not murder” reveals Jehovah’s mind, what principle do we learn from Jehovah commanding the slaughter of the Amalekites and their little children?

If Bible laws reveal timeless divine thinking, what principle is behind God allowing owning other human beings from surrounding nations (slavery)? Polygamy? Concubines (sex slaves)? A father selling his daughter into slavery?

If every Bible law reveals Jehovah’s timeless thinking, then laws permitting slavery, concubinage, polygamy, and genocide reveal Jehovah’s thinking too.

But those laws/actions reveal a moral mind comfortable with human ownership, sexual ownership, and child-killing.

Watchtower obviously won’t say that out loud.

Watchtower has to either drop the claim that Bible laws reveal Jehovah’s timeless thinking, or admit the ugly parts reveal him too.

Fulll breakdown here: Full Rebuttal here

Question for anyone still in, recently out, or fading. Did paragraph 10’s “how would Jehovah feel about similar conduct?” method ever make you apply it to the Amalekites, slavery, or the Flood? Did it help wake you up?

Original. And my submission in the comments.

Add some details

This week’s Watchtower study article sounds like good advice at first glance. Be best friends with your mate. Spend time together. Repair what is damaged. Love is patient. Pray together. Jehovah can help.

And yet, somehow, they still find a sneaky way to stay in your marriage.

The article is built on this logic:
P1. Marriage is the closest human friendship.

P2. Friendship requires trust, honesty, affection, time, joy, and emotional intimacy.

P3. Your mate’s well-being and happiness should outrank everyone and everything except Jehovah.

P4. Marriage should be repaired and preserved when damaged.

P5. Jehovah’s organization provides the proper help to strengthen and mend marriage.

P6. Jehovah must come first, and Watchtower defines what Jehovah wants.

Now the contradiction:
If marriage is the closest human friendship, then your mate’s actual well-being, honesty, and safety should be central.

But if Jehovah (aka the bOrg) comes first, then your mate’s well-being can be overridden whenever they frame an issue as “loyalty to Jehovah.”

So Watchtower affirms both:
P: Your mate is your closest human friend and highest human priority.

Not-P: Your mate can be overruled by organizational demands labeled as loyalty to Jehovah.

The article can be reduced too:
Your spouse is second. Watchtower controls who is first.

When a marriage is struggling, notice what the article does not say: Get licensed therapy. Make a safety plan. Talk to someone independent. Protect yourself. Name abuse clearly. Leave if you are unsafe.

Instead, it says:
Do not be quick to separate. Use our publications. Watch our videos. Talk to our elders. Rely on Jehovah.

In other words: When the marriage breaks, report to the institution (that might be breaking you).

The second contradiction worth pointing out is the “headship as friendship” contradiction. Are friends equals? Or does one friend have authority over the other?

The article says a husband and wife should be the closest of friends. Then it asks whether a sister will accept a brother’s authority as head “despite his imperfections.”

A friend does not have built-in authority over another friend. A friend does not get jurisdiction because of gender. A friend does not say, “I am imperfect, but you must accept my authority (queue Kenny) anyway.”

Watchtower again wants both:
P: Marriage is the closest human friendship.
Not-P: Marriage is a hierarchy where one spouse has authority over the other.

Friendship is reciprocal. Headship is hierarchical.

They can dress it up as “loving headship,” but if the authority is real, the friendship is not equal. And if the authority is not real, then headship adds nothing except religious branding.

😵‍💫

Full breakdown 👉🏼 Full WT Rebuttal

This weekend’s Watchtower accidentally gives us the test for their own comfort theology…
then fails it fourteen paragraphs later.

Paragraph 2 defines true comfort by outcome: “Regardless of the type of help that friend gives, true comfort produces the same outcome—the one suffering is built up and strengthened.”

Paragraph 16 admits the approved comforters may do the opposite: “they might say or do something that makes you feel worse, not better,” and if that happens, the burden shifts to the hurt person: be patient, forgive them, focus on their good motives.

Wait…what? Let’s logic through this:

P1. Watchtower says true comfort builds up and strengthens the suffering person.

P2. Making a suffering person feel worse does not build up or strengthen that person.

C1. Therefore, making a suffering person feel worse is not true comfort by Watchtower’s own definition.

P3. Watchtower says approved comforters may make you feel worse, but you should still treat their attempt charitably because they meant well.

C2. Therefore, a believer must affirm both: “true comfort is measured by whether the sufferer is strengthened” and “approved comfort can still count as comfort even when the sufferer is made worse.”

This is wild! You shouldn’t have to affirm contradictions. Link below with the full rebuttal. There plenty of these 👇🏼

The God of All Comfort (Conditions Apply)

We quoted Jeremiah 10:23 a thousand times and rarely finished the paragraph.

Watchtower reads it as though Jeremiah stopped mid-prayer, looked up from his grief, and announced a doctrine of modern political neutrality.

Vs 24 says "Correct me, O Jehovah, with judgment, but not in your anger, that you may not reduce me to nothing."

The verse says humans depend on God.
Watchtower makes it say humans must stay politically neutral.

That is a dogma that went looking for a verse, grabbed the first one walking by, and stopped reading before the prayer was done.

Full article 👇🏼

The Prayer Turned Into Policy