Terry,
I get the logic. But, who gets the payoff? yes, there are billions of dollars in assets but who is using them? Does the governing body get off on just knowing they have amassed this fortune?
Jehovah's INEFFECTIVE Witness...(Why no TV ministry???)
by Terry 55 Replies latest jw friends
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LDH
Statistically, (using the Watchtower's own figures) it takes 1000's of hours of door to door preaching to create one convert!
Don't forget, the JW love to create self-fulfilling prophecy about things that are important only to themselves!
If someone is willing to preach for 1000's of hours, then "Narrow is the door leading to life, and few are the ones finding it."
Nobody converts? "The love of the greater number has cooled off."
The disillusion doubt, leave and then are shunned? "I came to divide. Brother against Brother." (Just one reason I didn't like Jesus very much)
Terry, I don't for one minute think they want to put this bull-shit on TV to be torn apart by the thinking. Case in point--they have restricted the distribution of their precious literature. They limit access. They want only 'true believers' to have access. You can't get a mailed subscription, have to pick them up from the hall. You can't order a bound volume on a 1-800 number, you have to go to your local congregation service counter. They do this to limit as much as possible the spread of their bullshit to the 'true' believers.
It's like Amway. They distribute to their downline.
Lisa
Same Shit, Different Day.
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Terry
But I'm a bit skeptical of the conclusions. It raises other questions. If the WTBTS is out for all the cash it can lay its hands on, why have a religion that leaves such a bad taste? Why not be more mainstream about it? Why not allow birthdays or Christmas? Why DF people? Surely you could recruit more people into a more mainstream religion. More people means more donations and more money
Psychology enters into this in a profound way that cannot be minimized.
People are drawn to organized groups out of different personality complexities. Just as abusers are led to victims and vice verse the psychology of human need has many aspects. Such as..........
To be a potential JW you must be able to have your ego annihilated and a group identity substituted in its place which represents a SUPERIOR understanding of the world at large. This is a weird form of megalomania and self-abasement!
Further, only an "at odds with the world" belief system holds the potential for complete control by a group of "interpreters". The more insular the grip of control; the more necessary it is for there to be a black and white reason for it.
It is the non-mainstream interpretation of END TIMES which allows JW's to remain______________apart____________from the rest of the community of faith and simultaneously make the faith of others something to be renounced as worthless and ridiculous.
Further, the built-in martyrdom of humbug beliefs (blood transfusions, flag salute, political neutrality, cross of Jesus, etc) allows a means of expressing HOW STRONG you are in your compliance with the groupthink ideology.
The more you set yourself up as "different" the more SPECIAL you become (while simultaneously losing your own identity as a real person)!
Becoming mainstream would dilute this psychology into something that cannot appeal to people of such a mental disposition any more than an abusive man would find a more self-sufficient partner a better fit for his power needs.
This is a religion of specific psychiatric tastes. It requires a peculiar sort of neurotic scheme in the personality of those who will become a part of it and a defender of its insanity in the face of constant reproofs of its genuine claims to supernatural authenticity.
The neurotic does not crave normality. The neurotic requires an exotic stage in which to act out the peculiarities which afflict the disabled mind.
T.
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Terry
I get the logic. But, who gets the payoff? yes, there are billions of dollars in assets but who is using them? Does the governing body get off on just knowing they have amassed this fortune?
It is not difficult for a person to hide a fortune when the books are closed to prying eyes!
Nobody can sue the Governing Body or the Board of Directors of a non-profit religious group such as this to make them show where the bodies are buried, so to speak.
Who goes where and does what with how much is something we do not and cannot know for certain.
Don't rule it out.
T.
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Terry
Terry, I don't for one minute think they want to put this bull-shit on TV to be torn apart by the thinking. Case in point--they have restricted the distribution of their precious literature. They limit access. They want only 'true believers' to have access. You can't get a mailed subscription, have to pick them up from the hall. You can't order a bound volume on a 1-800 number, you have to go to your local congregation service counter. They do this to limit as much as possible the spread of their bullshit to the 'true' believers.
It's like Amway. They distribute to their downline.
Important point! Thanks.
There are insurance companies that advertise for salesmen. Do they really want to hire a salesman? No. They will sell insurance to the people answering the ad for employment because it will demonstrate their "belief" in the company.
Car dealerships advertise for salesmen. Do the really want to hire salesmen? No. They will promise great commission rewards if so many cars are sold within a time frame. This impossible number isn't met and the guy is fired. Who keeps the commission? Why, the car dealership!
There are many companies structured to eat their own and live off the entrails.
You point this out quite well.
JW's aren't really about making new converts. They are about something else entirely. Only a trickle down effect produces what is loosely called "results".
T.
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lonelysheep
Case in point--they have restricted the distribution of their precious literature. They limit access. They want only 'true believers' to have access.
Gee, that seems like something only cults do.
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jojochan
The neurotic does not crave normality. The neurotic requires an exotic stage in which to act out the peculiarities which afflict the disabled mind.
That is deep and scary. I have read examples of that all too often.And in their mind they are right about doing that.
jojochan.
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Terry
NEUROTIC
A psychological problem develops when neuroses begin to interfere with, but not significantly impair, normal fuctioning, and thus cause the individual anxiety. Frequently, the coping mechanisms enlisted to help "ward off" the anxiety only exacerbate the situation, causing more distress. It has even been defined in terms of this coping strategy, as a "symbolic behavior in defense against excessive psychobiologic pain...," which, "...is self-perpetuating because symbolic satisfactions cannot fulfill real needs." (Janov 1998)
Some neuroses may be rooted in ego defense mechanisms, but the two concepts are not synonymous. Defense mechanisms are a normal way of developing and maintaining a consistent sense of self (an ego) while only those thought and behavior patterns that produce difficulties in living should be termed neuroses.
source: wikipedia
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upside/down
It's like Amway. They distribute to their downline
Precious...and TRUE!!!
u/d(of the I was such a sucker class)
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garybuss
Interesting thread Terry,
The goal is not to spread the message, the goal is to expand the medium. The Watch Tower started out as a book and magazine printing business, now it's a book printing, event sponsoring, and real estate development business. Book printing was a perfect medium to go worldwide with. It produces a tangible product. The product is very labor intensive both to produce and to distribute. The distributors are the printers, the consumers, and the sales people. Clever!
If they were in the TV or radio business, that would have been much harder to turn into a mega billion dollar corporation. Radio and TV tend to generate air waves. Air waves don't lend themselves to mass door to door marketing.
The big problem now, is the message contained in the books produced, is easily seen as flawed because of repeated recent failures of predictions made. Large core failures. Now we're midstream in another failure, that is the total failure of the blood doctrine. We lost the 1914 generation and blood avoidance in 5 years. Now the Society argues AGAINST 1914 and FOR blood use.