Coming to a knowledge of the Truth, Progressive Disclosure?

by Fatfreek 4 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Fatfreek

  I found the following definition interesting:

  Progressive Disclosure, A technique for hiding the complexity of an interface by presenting the user with the primary or common options or choices at the topmost level, and then revealing more advanced or complex options ...
  msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/dnwue/html/gloss.asp

  Does the WT use this technique as well when bringing new ones along?

  If they do, is it proper?

  For example, does the publisher reveal all the missed date predictions on his/her first call? Or is it better to wait till the hooks are in a little deeper?
  Fats
• 

  moggy lover

  I feel rather the WTS encourages, to a degree, the concept of selective disclosure - revealing to the over inquisitive only that which is considered to be necessary for him/her to know. Any contrary view being either summararily dismissed or discredited.

  Remember that there is an inherent irony in the WT system. Wanting to be seen as a free and open society, they are in fact hermetically sealed to all but the most trusted accolytes. The WTS neither encourages nor cultivates close scrutiny, and those who probe beyond the tolerable limits of their standing in the movement are pressured, not too gently to back off. Vague niceties, and a demand for doctrinal cohesion, are employed too forestall any further inquiry.

  If the soft approach, couched in such phrases like "wait on jehovah" does not appear to work, the newcomer will find that his stay in the movement is very temporal.

  In other words he's out on his arse.

  Cheers .
• 

  Gill

  If the WTBTS were to ever disclose the truth about itself it would not only immeadiately lose all newcomers but the majority of its old timers as well.

  No disclosure is the best policy. If it must 'disclose' its mistakes it's done in a very double speak manner.
• 

  Terry

  
  It is my considered opinion that the Watchtower Society, as an entity, has no self-awareness at all.

  Think of a really ugly person, for example, who looks in a mirror. Does this person see "ugly"?

  No. They find a way to angle themselves just so to bring out something presentable to themselves free of context and standards. We all, in fact, see only what we choose to see--for, that is all it is useful to behold.

  Objectivity is illusory and fleeting.

  An organization is just tiny minds plugged in to tiny jobs. The worker-ant mentality of the components in Watchtowerland is free of the melancholy burden of the self-aware. Busy busy busy is all one needs to "know".

  Being a cog in a machine can be liberating. The "self" becomes enmeshed in activity and "purpose" without necessity to scrutinize or otherwise examine oneself to fault. Value is administered according to tasks done.

  At the very top of the black tower in the innermost bowels of the New World Society of Jehovah's Christian Witnesses it is very much a mundane workaday treadmill of make-work. Without Fred Franz in his diabolical laboratory of Alchemy and Imaginings no creative process takes place at all anymore. There remains only drones, pencil pushers and bureaucrats at the helm of a mighty ship tacking to and fro (avoiding old light on the shoals).

  Since this religion has no TRUTH, per se, it relies on forward motion instead. All hands on deck..All hands on deck..!! They are in search of Ahab's White Whale (Armageddon) and damned little else. The gold coin has been nailed to the mast (everlasting life) and the glint of it captivates the imagination of every crewman aboard.

  Since they've nothing to reveal (anymore) they've much to cover up or else the crew grows restless and surly.

  Fear keeps everybody towing the line.

  The Watchtower is now about obeying the Captain and staying afraid.

  (edited to add: I'm reminded of L.Ron Hubbard's last days onboard the SeaOrg vessel with no shores in sight tyrannizing his crew and faithful followers as he slowly became quite lurid and insane. It was all about obedience and supression toward the end.)
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  Fatfreek

  I've learned much on this thread. I suspected, at first, the Society may be using Progressive Disclosure. This gives them far more credit than they deserve. Selective Disclosure could be closer to the truth as they reveal certain teaching reversals because of certain political pressure. Then comes Terry's beautiful description of the WT's true innards -- the nuts and bolts as they work today.

  A good day for me is when I've learned.

  Fats