Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- jehovah_s_witnesses [2026/03/03 12:37] – ultracomfy
+++ jehovah_s_witnesses [2026/08/17 09:18] (current) – ultracomfy
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 ====== Inner Workings ======
+++++ Quick Profile |
+^ Head of Faith ^ Text ^ Meaning          ^
+|Spiritual|The physical world and the spiritual world are not alike. We must ensure the spiritual world has it's own leader, to guide us and to protect our faith from being profaned by physical desires.|The head of faith is a medium to the spiritual. Their word is what god told them, so they have near-executive control over the religion. This is only constrained by how much the religion allows its believers to stray from official doctrine.|
+**The Watchtower**, some white guys in a building in Warwick, NY State
+^ Category ^ Name ^ Text          ^
+|Theism|Monotheist|Only one god is worshipped. Other so-called 'gods' are at best empty idols, and at worst attempts by some malign deceiver to tempt the faithful away from proper worship of [High God].|
+|View on Gender|Male Dominated|Men are stronger and better equipped to lead us in this harsh and unforgiving world, so we shall entrust them with governing our society.|
+|Religious Attitude|Fundamentalist|Our faith is the one true faith, our word the one true word. Any deviation from the [Religious Text] is inherently blasphemous.|
+|Pilgrimage Attitude|Forbidden|The presence of [High God] can be felt everywhere and the notion that certain places are more divine than others is nothing short of heresy.|
+|Marriage|Monogamous|Marriage is a sacred bond between two individuals. Attempting to form such a bond with multiple people at once is sacrilege.|
+|Divorce|Must be Approved|While the bonds of marriage should not be taken lightly, extenuating circumstances can sometimes make divorce a necessity.((In religions with a gender preference, this is often used to make divorce harder or impossible for the party of the not-preferred gender.))|
+|Bastardry|No Legitimization|The bonds of marriage are sacrosanct, and children born outside of wedlock will always be illegitimate.|
+|Funerary Tradition|Bewailing Funeral|The soul has begun its long journey to [afterlife name] and we will never see them again in the living world. It is imperative that all who knew the dead gather and offer their grief in a public show of bewailment. This both honors the dead and cleanses our souls of the grief felt by their departure.|
+^ Crime ^ Doctrine ^ Text          ^
+|Same-Sex Relations|Crime|The sinful desires of sodomites are a danger to society itself, so they shall be punished and locked away for their transgressions.|
+|Adultery((In religions with a gender preference, the preferred gender will typically be favored in this. They will often only get shunned instead of being considered a criminal.))|Crime|It is a crime for one to engage in intercourse outside of marriage, and they shall be punished accordingly.|
+|Deviancy|Shunned|There are some sexual practices which are simply abnormal and strange. It stands to reason that people with those desires are equally abnormal and strange.|
+|Witchcraft|Crime|Only the divine have the right to work miracles on this earth. Any who make profane attempts to do the same shall be punished for their hubris and arrogance.|
+^ Clerical Doctrine ^ Doctrine ^ Text
+|Clerical Function|Control|The priest derives its authority from the divine, and that still applies here on Earth.|
+|Clerical Gender|Only Men|Only men can shoulder the great responsibility of serving as priests of our faith.|
+|Clerical Marriage|Disallowed|Becoming a priest means devoting one's life to the divine. It is inherently unfaithful to consider taking a mortal spouse in addition to that.|
+^ Tenet ^ Text          ^
+|Communion|Our rituals are not merely symbolic — they invoke the very presence of the divine itself. Those who cannot or do not join us in their practice cannot be true believers.|
+|Literalism|Our holy texts clearly state divine intent, and human interpretation is of limited value.|
+|Sanctioned False Conversions(("Spiritual Warfare"))|If your life is threatened, it is acceptable to confess a false faith, as long as you keep the truth in your heart.|
+|Sanctity of Nature|The natural world is the creation of the divine, and we are merely guests in it. We must respect and honor every tree, every animal, and even the ground itself.|
+|Unrelenting Faith|Our convictions are strong, and we will gladly fight and die for our faith. No matter how badly the odds are stacked against us, we shall not surrender.|
+|Dharmic Pacifism|We are all part of the cosmic order. Violence against anything is violence against everything, oneself included.|
+++++
 Witnesses will, as much as possible, withhold from each other whatever they could use to get out of there. One of the strongest weapons //here// is education, as school degrees are an extremely strong starting position to work with (financial independence!). Obviously this will vary on the individual, but in general JW are instructed to maximize their time spent focusing on "spiritual stuff". Children are not sent to school, if possible, and in countries where there are compulsory school laws they will find whatever is the least degree of education that still, from a legal perspective, qualifies as "school". In the US of A, for example, this could mean virtual school courses by JW for JW, teaching anything but definitely NOT propaganda and indoctrination. If you're lucky and don't get homeschooled then you may be sent to public schools ("the dark, pesky caves of Satan himself!") but your education efforts will be pro-actively sabotaged by your parents - they may be intentionally lax about actually sending/getting their children to school, may force them to do spiritual stuff all day to stop them from doing homework or learning for tests, cut them off from the internet or learning resources for whatever excuse they can come up with and much, much more - all the way up to the point where, for the child, learning becomes utterly unsustainable. They may be "going to school", but are intentionally set up for failure by sabotaging whatever their parents can to prevent actual results((Not that school itself, as is, is already often overwhelming enough for many people.)). There again, making friends at a public school is strictly frowned upon and will get you shunned by fellow witnesses if discovered.