Do Not Be Misled. They're Not That Bright.

by metatron 13 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  metatron

  Once upon a time, I can remember GB member Gangas asking prepared questions at the lunch table - to show how smart he supposedly

  was. I can remember Knorr not keeping track of critical needs supporting Bible production - and boring all of us with his windy, cold hearted

  judgements at breakfast. I remember how they bought a huge printing press - that cranked out graphics too crude to ever be useful.

  I used to actually believe that the organization was led by God - because the men in charge couldn't be bright enough to

  create such success. The mistake I made was failing to notice how eagerly all Witnesses deceive themselves and cooperate with whatever

  coverup the Society finds is necessary.

  Now, take a hard look at recent events. GB member Herd says the Governing Body argues interminably - about a simple convention

  theme. J.R. Brown gets tricked into an embarrasing interview - after explicit warning about it appears on the internet. They suddenly

  'wake up' to the threat of porn. ( well, duh!) They lie to European officials about blood - and then laugh about it behind closed doors.

  and so on.

  These guys probably do make plans a few years in advance, but don't overestimate them. Do they have any advanced education?

  Extensive business experience? Freedom from bias and narrow minded judgement? the ability to comprend that women can know

  or lead just as well as they can? Have various brothers, acting as consultants, been depressed by what they find at Bethel in depth

  of intellect? Do recent publications manifest any depth of knowledge about science, history, evolution, ancient Greek, or , yes,

  even the Bible itself? When called on the phone about any controversy, do they commonly have no logical answer?

  They're a lot dumber - and more blind than you may think. They love 'simplification' partly because they are simple-minded, even

  collectively. The eagerness of Witnesses to almost hypnotically suspend logical reasoning is what keeps it all going.

  How else can you get 6 million people to fanatically obey calls that "Deliverance is at Hand" - after 120 years of solidly false

  expectations?

  My fervent hope is that they either make some egregious mistake ( don't laugh, in Rutherford's day they almost literally nailed one of his

  screeds to church doors everywhere because of one nutjob) or they simply lose interest and let it all fade away, while they enjoy the

  assets of the Society. In that, Godspeed.

  metatron
• 

  Undecided

  
  If they are as dumb as they seem how did they accumlate so much property and followers? They were smarter than me for several decades until I just got tired of all the requirements and quit. Of course being smarter than me wasn't too hard for them.

  Ken P.
• 

  candidlynuts

  the governing body may not be that bright..so it makes you wonder who is leading the wtbs now? they have some kind of business advisors, hence the many different "corporations".. they are downsizing.. they are selling some real estate and building more in high profile , high price areas of new york. there is someone smart there leading the money!
• 

  SirNose586

  "the governing body may not be that bright..so it makes you wonder who is leading the wtbs now? they have some kind of business advisors, hence the many different "corporations".. they are downsizing.. they are selling some real estate and building more in high profile , high price areas of new york. there is someone smart there leading the money!"
  --candidlynuts
  Sure there is, it's the WTS's lawyers and accountants. How else can they rigidly define terms and play rhetorical hockey with obvious Biblical statements every Watchtower study? Why else would they be splitting up into a bunch of corporations, but to protect their assets and contain damage from a lawsuit? Make no mistake, there are brains behind the outfit. If there weren't, it would've fizzled out long ago...
• 

  Seeker4

  I met very, very few creative thinkers among the Witness leaders im my 30-plus years as a JW, and I tend to agree with Met's analysis.
  Those who rise to the top among the Witnesses are usually hard working company men. Especially among the COs and DOs you see very few really good minds. Innovation and creativiity are never accepted from the bottom up - and very little of that comes from the top down. i met several GB members over the years, and they were to a man dull and intellectually sluggish, to say the least, with perhaps the exception of Fred Franz, who in retrospect was a religious wack job.
  Ken, what gives the message it's power, and we've all felt that, is the hope it gives of not dying. Most of the friends agree that there are WTS teachings that don't make much sense - but they don't want to risk losing out on everlasting life by questioning God's anointed slave - no matter how dumb it acts.
  I really don't feel they've had such incredible growth. The Pentacostal movement is just about the same age as JWs, and according to a couple of recent reports on them, they have an estimated 500 million members, essentially 100 times the growth of the JWs in the same period.
  The GB's incredibly poor response to the threat it has from the Internet is an example of the lack at the top. The Net is taking out tens of thousands, and they respond by a resolution at a DC?? WTF??
  S4
• 

  daniel-p

  It didn't take to long at Bethel for me to figure out that there was to be no creative solution-making on the job. If i had a better idea or a way to be more productive, save time and/or money, etc, it didn't matter. It varies depending on who your overseer is, but at the time my overseer was a 30-year-old lifetime Bethelite who actually drooled continually and had no manegerial skills whatsoever. His idea of "oversight" was to walk around with his hands clasped behind his back, looking over everyone's shoulders, standing in the corner chuckling at whatever his sidekick (assistant overseer) was talking about, and eating food.

  The ones who really ran the show were the ones just below the asst. overseer - who actually showed up at work early and cared about what they were doing. They didn't have any power to change things, so they would try to organize weekly meetings with everyone in the department in order to express needed changes to the overseers. Of course, the overseers had no idea of the processes or work involved, so it was just more frustration for everyone. People would bring in Dilbert cartoons and would scratch out the characters heads and draw in the head of the overseer - which of course caused riotous hilarity among the lower ranks.

  It was just a perfect example of bureaucratic management, where control is more important than creative solution-making. Bethel began to resemble a growing trend in the secular corporate world: where a person working for decades within a company would not be allowed to move up to upper management no matter how effective they were. Those in upper management were brought from other departments and valued for their loyalty and un-questioning implementation of policy rather than their competance. The only thing different between them and the world, is that they still refer to a "Personnel" department instead of "Human Resources." But in time, even that is sure to change, as they have a higher turn over among younger and younger workers and get rid of the older laibilities.

  Their business model looks good on paper, like everyone's does, but many of the decisions made between the middle and upper-level management lack common sense, and only reflect a growing paranoia of disloyalty. So instead of trying to win loyalty back, they get rid of those who are in the best position to question policy, the middle-weights. Now they bring more and more 19-year-olds, where 99% were raised in the organization and have a lot of strength to spend before they figure out the reality of their dedication and get dissalusioned.
• 

  greendawn

  They certainly haven't excelled in anything good above all they haven't produced any stable doctrinal truths or outstanding religious thinkers as one would expect from God's only chosen ones.
  
  On the other hand they have excelled in the ability to cunningly deceive and exploit millions of people.
• 

  metatron

  No great skill in lying to people is needed as long as the people are so obsequiously willing to be stupid. Witnesses excel at this.

  metatron
• 

  cruzanheart

  "It's not lying. It's a gift for fiction." William H. Macy's character from "State and Main," a truly hilarious movie.

  Nina
• 

  darth frosty

  it is the classic trickle down theory. I remember one time serving the pioneers in pio school, and during clean-up I suggested a vastly quicker way to get the tables cleared and cleaned. This pig headed brother (and I mean that literally) said 'we have specific instructions from the slave on the clean-up process that we follow'?!? we're not talkin about seating or conducting a meeting, we're just cleaning a table of dirty pl;ates knives and forks.

  Blind alegience to incompatent old men has dumbed some six million people for the worst.