u/pimohell9254

he knows that the pieces fit

There was barely any time to say anything interesting. This was my intro, and it ate up a minute and a half:

>How do we know what we know? Seems obvious right? Our life experiences, combined with the information we have acquired from accurate, reliable sources have accumulated to provide us with the knowledge we now possess

>
>Yet therein lie the assumptions — accurate, reliable. How do we determine what sources are accurate and reliable? Who, implicitly, is defining that for us? If we are not on guard against misinformation we are liable to have our own beliefs, opinions and thoughts coloured, influenced and manipulated by forces much larger than us.

>
>Hence we present the following video

After the video played everybody clapped. It was the most surreal thing; I couldn't have laid on the irony thicker if I tried. But we were already running short on time so I cut it short: "Well, we have questions to ask, so let's do that"

I barely had time for an answer per question, so by the time we got to the "Ask Yourself" point I just reiterated that "confirmation bias is a real and serious concern". Then passed it on to the chairman.

I was out of the house on a lesson with a student (I'm a freelance STEM tutor) when I get a text from my mom: "I found a really big book in the laundry basket". fuck I thought I kept it in my car. I just responded "put it in my room".

when I got home she said, "we'll talk about the book tomorrow morning". dad was already home, too late to cause a scene. "have you heard of it?" "oh, I know exactly what that book is".

I didn't say much. I just picked up my phone and showed her Pr 18:17: "the first to state his case seems right, until the other party comes and cross-examines him". she just rolled her eyes and dismissed the book as "old news".

she's known I had doubts for a long time. this morning I had basically confirmed that "I just don't believe it's the truth anymore". but we were "working through it". and then she found the fucking book.

idk what's gonna happen. pray for me, if you still believe in any of that. myself, idk what I believe anymore. just one thing for certain, that this is not "the truth".

There's not really much to say here, or even to refute. Russian persecution of the Witnesses is real, it is unjustified, and it plays right into the hands of the GB. Nothing in the post is factually inaccurate or even misleading in the slightest.

Ofc, we all know that the function of this propaganda is to heighten fear in members, reinforce the us-vs-them mentality that animates them, and present the Witnesses as a small, vulnerable, innocent religious group to outsiders. Keep outsiders sympathetic, keep members in line.

But how do you explain that to someone already sympathetic to their cause? Everyone knows that every organization promotes messaging that serves its rhetorical goals. You're not gonna win brownie points for pointing that out. The question is whether those rhetorical goals are legitimate. And again, for someone already sympathetic to their cause, deconstructing those narratives will be an uphill battle