Anyone who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness can empathize with the scenario of two children struggling to hold their attention at a kingdom hall meeting. And this is exactly the predicament in which Watchtower’s model cartoon children, Caleb and Sophia, find themselves in the latest “Become Jehovah’s Friend” episode – released earlier this month.

So what does the Governing Body want to say to any children who find themselves bored or distracted at a meeting they have been dragged to by their indoctrinated parents? It’s simple, really: “Pay attention, or die.” That grim message comes across loud and clear in the latest installment of Watchtower’s child propaganda series.

In the newly-released “Lesson 15,” entitled “Pay Attention at the Meetings,” young Caleb and Sophia find themselves reprimanded for playing with a toy car (Caleb) and falling asleep (Sophia) by their parents.

In a subsequent discussion around the dinner table, the children’s parents discuss the serious ramifications of failing to pay attention during a meeting. “Imagine if Noah didn’t pay attention when Jehovah explained how to build the ark?” muses Caleb’s father.

A cartoon segment then shows Noah and his family idling around during God’s instructions for building a vessel that the laws of physics say could never have been seaworthy to avoid a global deluge that archeology, geology and biology testify never happened. (If you find anything I’ve said in this paragraph offensive, please watch this video.)

The result? Noah and his family are shown scurrying into the finished ark when the flood is imminent, only for it to comically collapse under the weight of the first drop of water. The whole family is then shown disappearing under the flood waters with startled looks on their faces.

“That’s not what happened, dad!” protests Caleb. “You are right,” says his dad. “He paid attention, and it saved his life. Paying attention at the meetings can help save YOUR life!”

After this not-so-veiled threat, Caleb and Sophia are shown at the next meeting paying rapt attention, apparently buoyed by the knowledge that failure to do so will result in them being slaughtered.

I personally found this video even more hideous than the notorious Sparlock episode – one of the first “lessons” in this ghastly series. Why?

At least in the Sparlock episode the threats made against Caleb by his mother for playing with a wizard toy were slightly more opaque. If he didn’t throw his toy away, Caleb would make Jehovah “sad” and grow old and shriveled like Adam and Eve. But in this latest video, the threats made against Caleb and his sister to coerce them into conformity are all too dire and explicit.

How any parent can watch this video and find threats of death at the hands of the Almighty an appropriate, healthy tool for shaping the attitudes and behavior of their children is beyond me.

I am reminded of the words of Richard Dawkins: “There is no such thing as a Christian child: only a child of Christian parents.” Children are not born religious – they need to have it pummeled into them by parents who were very likely themselves instilled with a specific religion dependent on their own parents or culture.

In the case of Witness children, the modus operandi for indoctrination is not merely gentle persuasion and cheerful recommendations but outright threats and blackmail – all endorsed and prescribed by the Governing Body themselves.

The one useful element of this video is that it openly exposes to any non-JW onlooker what the Witness religion is really all about: “Follow us or die.”

I have only recently made a video on this very subject, as it is my hope that more people will be mindful of the true, grisly nature of the Witness message when they are set upon with enchanting images of paradise, pandas and fruit baskets.

Grab a shovel and start exploring this imaginary utopia recommended to you in Watchtower literature, and you will soon discover that these rolling hillsides, bounteous pastures and idyllic homes have been built on the bodies of billions of people who have been massacred for the crime of not wanting to be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Sparing the next generation from having their lives molded by such a grotesque vision of the future is not merely advisable – it is an obligation.

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