Is it me or has the WTS gotten worse?

by Lady Lee 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Lady Lee

  I've been out of the JWs for the last 20 years. I remember when...

  • The WTS prided its self on having KHs that were humble, practical and were't a showy display
  • The WTS was as militant as they are now.
  • The elders weren't as cruel to their own
  • The WTS wasn't always puttong their hands in the R&F's pocket and demanding money.
  • The conventions actually cared about the needs of the R&F by providing food and not making a bunch of rules about where they could eat and what they could put under the seat.

  Am I remembering things differently? Has the society gotten worse? From some of the posts I've read over the last couple of weeks my jaw has just dropped at the lack of love and the outright cruelty inflicted on those who have left or were DFed. Every time I think something was so immoral and the worst someone else comes along and my jaw is on the floor again.

  It was bad before but OMG now it is downright nasty

  So it there are any posters who have continued to go to meetings over the last 20 years...

  • have you noticed the org is not what it used to be?
  • that it is stricter?
  • more rigid?
  • more rule orientated?
• 

  Smiles_Smiles

  It's not just you. I was raised in it 1972-87. Got out while a teenager. Went back 1996-2002. It was much worse. Money hungry, more hypicritical, VERY controlling. Way more then I remembered.

  Now I am out for good. I have closer.

  Smiles_Smiles
• 

  Finally-Free

  The WTS was bad enough when I joined in 1983 but much worse when I left 20 years later. Today the Watchtower corporation is God, and Jehovah is merely a name that is used to separate the cultists from "worldly people". If a god exists whose name is Jehovah, he must keep his mouth shut and bow before the Watchtower's mighty legal department. He has become less than insignificant in their eyes - barely tolerated.

  It's not unexpected. That's what happens when you give a little power to people who are, for the most part, uneducated and stupid. It goes to their heads and they abuse it. It will continue to get worse.

  W
• 

  TopHat

  Yes, I have noticed....I can remember when they served HOT FOOD at the conventions in Yankee Stadium...Loved the Chille now you have to bring your own....that's why I left...hahaha just joking.
• 

  TopHat

  BTW what does R&F and FDS stand for?
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  ackack

  It has prolly lost some of its joy. I don't know if its more controlling per se. I've heard a lot of stories from the "old days" and it sounded to me as though one congregation servant could really set the tone for what could and couldn't go on.

  In sense, it seems to have gotten more drab. No food at assemblies, very little special or new. No real new light. Ambigious blood doctrine. Book study is studying the same ol' over and over. Perhaps I'm just not old enough to really compare it properly.

  I guess, a better question would be, what metrics would you use to say its gotten better or worse? Just some ideas on that line.

  • Are there more rules? Probably not. We have lost a lot of crazy rules/opinions (can i play chess? can i use a pinata?) but the effect of having set those rules in the past is a kind of living memory of them. Many still remember and frown on those who don't follow.
  • Are people happier? Probably not. A lot of resentment around failed expectations. Too many comments about how they didn't expect to get old in the system. Increase in articles on the ressurection.
  • Is the WTBS becoming less dogmatic? I'm not sure. Thats a tough question.

  There seems a failure to try something new, do something new. But at this rate I think we'll start to a) see decline in numbers overall b) lies in the stats :)

  ackack
• 

  IP_SEC

  R&F and FDS stand for?

  
  

  
  R&F=Rank and File

  FDS=Faithful Discreet Slave

  I remember when they actually talked the pair o dice much more in the meetings. Now its, Sell, Sell, Sell. You arent doing enough. bla bla bla bla bla
• 

  metatron

  In certain ways, they are worse. In particular, they used to be a reactionary sect - that has gradually declined into a mind

  control cult.

  Look at the Service meeting - "they used to be interesting!" as my dear Witness mother used to say. This and other meetings

  had real relevance to the subculture of Witness life, but it's all gone sterile and repetitive, since the End they hoped for hasn't come.

  They don't bother to respond to challenges to their faith the way they used to , as shown by the absence of any sort of "Evolution"

  book. They are breaking down the structure of their little subculture ( no subscriptions, no food at assemblies, printing moved

  out of Brooklyn, etc) but still expect total obedience. It's absurd.

  metatron
• 

  Forscher

  It has. That's part of Why I don't go any more.
  
  As somebody noted, there always has been some controlling etc., but things are more rigid and paranoid than they were when I started going in the early 70s.
  
  Forscher
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  horrible life

  and what they could put under the seat .

  What does this mean?

  And somebody said on another thread, about not chewing gum at the assembly. Why?

  I need answers to these 2 questions, and I'm off to the Big D, and I do mean Dallas, to see the Elvis Butter Sculpture. Thank you HL