Jehovah's Witnesses and college

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Hi everybody,
I watch content on youtube from people who have escaped fringe religions and sects. Some escaped from the Jehovah's Witnesses. One time recently one former JW person made interesting observation about their beliefs on higher education like college.The JW dont seem to hold higher education in high regard so few of them go off to college. Historically religious groups who valued education but did not want to compromise their values started their own institutions of higher learning.

For example I am church of Christ and it seems like there is a good number of church of Christ educational institutions including universities.Well that youtuber said the JW's did not pivot and adapt the same way as many other Christian groups did.I asked meta ai and it said there is no college affiliated with the Jehovah's Witnesses.This combined with the lack of educational focus in the JWs has led to most Jehovah Witnesses not having the strongest educational background.

This lack of education in the membership has led to the Jehovah Witness's being one of the poorest if not the poorest Christian group by annual income.This has led to a lack of donations from the faithful according to that youtuber so the JW Governing Body has shifted to being a tax-free non-profit real estate and construction company.I heard that the Kingdom Halls are often built with volunteer labor from the members themselves.I have heard that the JW's pressure their members to go into trade school so they work construction for them for free later on.This is just what I heard.

Research from 2016:



https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads ... us-groups/



https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads ... us-groups/

Interesting that the Jehovah's Witnesses didn't believe in high education, but would often show up at my university trying to recruit students.

I am refraining from going on a tangent, but them obtaining higher education would enable the members to realize that they are in a cult.

Yep, religious folks regularly show up on college campuses in an effort to win coverts.I guess it's because college students tend to skew either atheist or at least flexible on religion.

Interesting. Two of my immediate neighbours are Jehovah's Witnesses. I always wondered what they were doing out here in the sticks, since they seem more 'towny' types to me. They keep their gardens super tidy, everything is straight lines and sanitised - the kind of gardens wild animals hate. My garden must look completely uncared for to them.

But then I realised that these houses are relatively cheap to rent, so it may be financial. There's another JW house in the next cluster of buildings.

But both the ones near me seem to be doing well financially. They both seem to own their own businesses - trade type businesses. They always present well, nice clothes and stuff. And they have much nicer cars than me!

Is there a reason a religion would need to have its own educational institutions? Do they teach different things? As a Church of Christ member would you be deterred from attending a regular university?

I've also seen videos on YouTube made by an ex-JW and I really don't care how poor their cult is or whatever. I do feel bad for the kids being brought up and brainwashed in this cult. Seriously, they can't even eat a birthday cupcake because it will make Jehovah "sad". They're not allowed do virtually anything that's normal for kids to do.

Although I don't entirely disagree with their apocalyptic beliefs. Climate change, political and social unrest, nukes, mpox, covid. I just don't believe they're going to go to this magical Disney-ish paradise when we all die.

No, they would go after foreign exchange students.

I’m a former JW. I think knowledge is the biggest threat to their belief system. The retention rate is really low now thanks to the internet. (People are learning that their beliefs don’t hold up to basic scrutiny, and more importantly, they are learning about stuff like the organization’s pervasive problems with child abuse/child abuse coverups.)

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads ... n-the-u-s/

The organization is against higher education because they don’t want you learning about evolution, attaining critical thinking ability in philosophy classes (etc.), or associating with nonJWs. They are against the notion of having a career. Members are supposed to be focusing on God/God’s Kingdom.

Most of them are okay with the idea of learning a trade/getting a two year degree, but the purpose is to enable them to have the means to devote more time to preaching and other religious activities. Obviously, a minority get a bachelor’s degree, but it’s majorly frowned upon. They have anti-education sermons on a fairly regular basis. Well, they did when I was still in it.

JWs don’t live for the present but for the New System/Paradise - basically their notion of Heaven. According to their theology, Heaven is where God, Jesus, angels, and a minority of believers will go (144,000 of them) while most God-approved folks will be resurrected on a paradisaic Earth.

The college years tend to be some of the times where someone is most likely to join a cult.

Well in the case of the churches of Christ many parents send their kids to church of Christ colleges so they wind up church of Christ instead of being none.

But here is the trippy part of it....A lot of church of Christ parents will send all their kids to just one church of Christ college over doctrine like whether one is more liberal or middle of the road or conservative or super conservative or institutional vs non institutional.There is only one non institutional college in the whole church of Christ so the non institutional kids a lot of times go there.Families fight and argue about what college is acceptable for their kids to go to.

The church of Christ colleges are way different than secular colleges because I think a lot of them may have daily chapel and bible classes.But really a big reason why kids go off to church of Christ colleges is so they can find a spouse.I went to secular colleges and universities for my college degrees.

I never experienced any backlash from the church for going to a secular school although I have heard on youtube that some churches "forget" to get their secular college students care-packages or whatever.Churches and families will fight so much over which college to go to and it becomes a salvation issue for their family and kid.Thats enough of tha.I may do a whole another thread about it at some point.But I do somewhat regret going to a secular college and wish I would of gone to a church of Christ college because I could be married with kids by now but I just wanted to drink at the time.

Last edited by Texasmoneyman300 on 24 Aug 2024, 1:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

I would hate so much if I was banned from celebrating birthdays under threat of shunning.I cant think of any other more cruel religious rules for kids than that.Well maybe I can but that one would just take the cake for me.Pun intended lol.

Last edited by Texasmoneyman300 on 24 Aug 2024, 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ya I would hate that rule as a kid.

Ya I would hate that rule as a kid.

Oh okay that is interesting.

Thats interesting Twilight Princess.I remember watching a documentary about the Mormons and I am really surprised and shocked that more of them have not left the LDS church although I have heard they are now a minority in their homeland of Utah...I have heard that a minority of Witnesses go to college and professional school to be engineers and doctors and lawyers so they can work for the Watchtower Society for free.But they have to be really strong in their faith because they would be going to secular colleges or colleges of a different religion.What about those Witnesses who believe trades are sinful?Would they just be stuck working a McJob or be a waiter working for min wage their whole life or maybe a manager at McDonald's or Walmart?

Yeah, a lot of them work in construction or in some sort of labor type jobs like cleaning. Working for fellow JWs in such businesses is popular. Many of them don’t think they’ll be doing that their entire lives because they believe that Armageddon and the New System will come at any time. My dad had a full scholarship, but instead of going to college, he got construction and factory jobs which haven’t been good for his health and haven’t contributed to much happiness, not that there’s anything wrong with such jobs; my dad just had other interests.

Here’s a video of a former Governing Body member on higher education. The cuts are a bit weird because it didn’t play the entire sermon due, in part, to copyright concerns, but it’s worth a listen.



https://youtu.be/xMG0lc_6NiI?si=HWDvujhGxRWjaS72

In the first 3 minutes of the following video, this GB member encourages folks to turn down scholarships and go into full-time service (i.e. working for the organization in some capacity as a volunteer, especially preaching):



https://youtu.be/nLPyIdFV3wE?si=u4Ql4amhRlRNUdqn