Posted on 02/16/2015 2:14:40 PM PST by Colofornian
A Jehovah's Witness promotional cartoon has been slammed for appearing to threaten children who don't pay attention in church with death.
Viewers have dubbed the controversial animated clip, posted to YouTube by JW.org, as "stupid," "dumb" and "mind control."
It begins with two youngsters attending a service with their parents.
A little boy plays with his car, while his sister almost falls asleep. Both are then told off for not focusing on what the preacher is saying.
The family arrives home and, as they sit down to eat, their mom asks what they learned at church.
"No sleeping at the meeting," replies the girl. Her sibling then grumpily adds, "No playing at the meeting."
Their father then explains exactly why they should pay attention. "Imagine if Noah didn't pay attention when Jehovah explained how to build the Ark," he says.
The cartoon cuts to Noah playing on a video game and not listening to God's instructions before the sky goes dark and rain begins to fall.
He runs into a building which falls apart. The screen fills with water and the game floats by with "Game Over" written on it.
The cartoon cuts back to the family, where the little boy is protesting that the story is wrong.
"That's right," his father tells him, adding, "Noah paid attention and it saved his life. Paying attention at the meetings can help save your life, too."
[SNIP]
Commenters said that the clip appeared to threaten the children with going to church.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Having been raised by a hard core JW family, we were always required to sit still for up to two hours as toddlers.
As an adult who has formally left (not something too many do, due to the harsh shunning edicts) I WILL say the only good thing about it is that we were taught to behave at an early age in public. Something that is SORELY lacking today with modern, child worshipping, coddling “parenting.”
Same for me, I willingly walked away around the age of 24-25. I gained beautiful public speaking skills as well as acceptable public decorum. As for the cult-like, so-called “truth,” I found that elsewhere.
Trying hard to find what’s wrong with this and failing. Parents today are so busy with their life their children become amoral savages as adults.
The example given is meant to shake the child up by implication. The threat is subtle. Leave these people alone. Some folks would become ‘outraged’ at any attempt to control or strongly influence a child’s behavior. Most kids need to be taught what it means to be civilized. This is not abusive, so let’s stay out of their business.
I remember when I was about 13 years old, there was this VERY religious black woman that worked at my school. One day, we kids had a conversation with her and she mentioned that her church service started from 6 in the morning and went until 12 at night. (hard to believe, I know).
I remember saying “That’s like 18 hours! Don’t your kids get bored???”
She yelled back “I don’t care if they get bored! They gonna sit there an lissen to the Word of God!”
I was in my early forties and my children were grown. Yes my oldest daughter holds the biggest grudge but I didn’t raise them ANYWHERE NEAR as strict as my parents did.
Both my children did well in school, were respectful to adults and were obedient. Something that is admirable in this day and age.
My parents who are now in their eighties are shunning me to this day.
What’s wrong with threatening them with eternal torture?
They threat but won’t do it, unlike the screaming bearded subhuman savages.
I became Catholic 4 years ago and cant tell either of my parents because I fear the same thing...their both in their 80s as well and I fear losing what little relationship we have. I continually pray for the strength to clue them in but fall short. We live in different states so it’s easy to do. Neither really practice the JW faith but they are still die-hards.
I had a friend who was Russian Orthodox, she told me they went to church for something like 4 or 6 hours and stood the whole time!
My sister’s inlaws are JW and they are shunning their daughter who chose to marry outside the faith. The man she married is a strong Christian as well but oh my not a JW. I find the shunning sinful and where in the Bible does it suggest you turn on your chidren, but love them.
I wanted to wait and see a little of the responses to this thread before I posted my opinion on this.
IMO, the JWs have a WHOLE LOT more that they should be critiqued about...especially by the New York Daily News (given that the Watchtower is HQ'd in Brooklyn)...
What I find interesting is that here you have a secular newspaper that doesn't likely believe in an account of a universal flood --
--let alone Noah's involvement in it --
--yet this newspaper --
-- when it wants to --
-- treats it all as a real historical event and a REAL threat of a death message to kids...
Can you say h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-i-c-a-l?
You should see what happens in Protestant churches when someone lets their cellphone go off during service.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2_c81Nnsc0
this should be rich . . . . .
A cult is occult - JWs, Mormons, People’s Church, Catholics. Makes no difference. Those who lie about Christ or worship anyone/anything but Christ are in a cult.
If Freepers spent less time slamming each other’s religion and more time focused on the politics the site is about, perhaps there could be some real planning and change.
Jim, there used to be a way to exclude religion from one’s stream, can I make that happen still. Have not been able to do it so far.
does that mean I would miss these formus?
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