Do you truly WANT the Watchtower to collapse? If so why?

by nicolaou 51 Replies latest jw friends

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul

    R6Laser,

    I'm surprised you can breath at such a high altitude.

    I've gone back and read many of your posts, and if you think you are free of bitterness you are kidding yourself. Sure, it isn't directed at the WTS, but you certainly have a lot of it for the majority of posters here.

    Is our quest to destroy the WTS a danger to you? If not, why do you care what others choose? I thought you were advocating against such concern. Isn't your concern over my choice a little hypocritical of you? Just a little, at least?

  • sir82
    sir82

    My biggest fear would be, what happens if the WT collapses suddenly? Some massive lawsuit drains them of a large chunk of funds, or they do a "WWCG" type of apology & rescind most of their teachings...

    There are a large number of people just kind of hanging in there for family reasons and/or the social aspects, but I think the majority are "true believers". Their whole life is wrapped up in the JW world-view being right. I think if that were taken away "overnight", there would be massive amounts of suicides, homicides, and just overall going-off-the-deep-end stuff.

  • Dansk
    Dansk

    LOL at Lawrence:

    I'll pick up an extra chandelier for you at the disposal sale, and you won't have to wait 100 + years.

    But you know what you can do with your chandelier! Happy pile pushing!!

    Ian

  • AuldSoul
    AuldSoul

    sir82,

    I understand that concern. But the true believers are spending their lives trying to get others to spend their lives promoting lies and empty promises. They have already sacrificed their lives on the altar of Jehovah.

    Plus, I don't know how you would go about determining the percentages of hangers-on versus true believers. That would require an environment where true opinions would not be met with severe sanctions. For instance, in the eyes of most in your congregation are you a hanger-on or a true believer? And yet...

    Respectfully,
    AuldSoul

  • Frank75
    Frank75

    Hey you guys we all need to chill!

    I understand totally r6lazer's point. However I choose to do what I can to help any who are sensing something is not right. I also accept that there is little I can do unless they come to me. Otherwise, we will always be looked on with great suspicion. As we all know it is frustrating when we are labeled like that but also know the WT pours considerable time and resources into painting us into this corner.

    Unlike Auld Soul, my wife who came from a very "deeply entrenched" witness family and tradition had no problem leaving with me. When I decided to leave she said she wanted to leave years ago but stayed for me. She despised the total lack of love and had been fed up for some time. I am sure that if Auld Soul plays his cards right, she will use her God given reasoning ability and her love for her husband to snap out of it. If not, there is nothing much that any of us could have done for her.

    The dubs may spilt up into smaller groups, they may take on a different persona, they may drop some of the quackery, but we can all rest assured that in some way, shape or form it will be around for a long time. I wonder if a collapse is coming too, but end up pinching myself with the understanding that if and when it falls the people will either A) start up or follow another B) 10 more cults just as brain dead will take its place.

    Unfortunately what r6laser said is true, most dubs allow themselves to be swept up in it. Like the people in the emperors new clothes. They have eyes to see, and a brain to think. They want it to be true so they "choose to" believe a lie.

    (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12) 9 But the lawless one’s presence is according to the operation of Satan with every powerful work and lying signs and portents 10 and with every unrighteous deception for those who are perishing, as a retribution because they did not accept the love of the truth that they might be saved. 11 So that is why God lets an operation of error go to them, that they may get to believing the lie,12 in order that they all may be judged because they did not believe the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness.

    The same was true with the Israelites who chose to have a king. They wanted someone to rule over them. That is exactly what they got.

    I know it sounds mean to say it, but even though I don't like it, the same dynamic still exists among humans who need the identity that belonging to something gives them.

    Even when I was a dub I remember people complaining about how nosy the elders were, and that they should bud out. How invariably those same people went running to the elders when they wanted help with a problem, then turn around and invited them back into their lives and then got pissed again when they wouldn't leave! The same ones would also run to the elders to snitch and tattle on others they had issues with in the congregation knowing full well what an intrusion and imposition would be put upon them. The so-called peace loving Dubs use the WT, Bible and especially the elders to war with one another and also seek revenge.

    Many of us used to do the same things.

    Lastly the structure provided by religion in general and the tighter structure of Cults is what some people feel that they need. That is the main reason why groups such as the dubs will continue to exist and exert influence on such people. Many of these people will likely reject freedom offered by us Apostates just as a zoo raised animal taken to the wild will many times not want to leave the safety and comfort of their cage. Preferring the cage to the unknown is not unique to captive wild animals.

    Hopefully our experiences can help the precious few who want to be free to get to that freedom with their sanity still intact

    Frank75

  • Junction-Guy
    Junction-Guy

    Yes, I would love to see it utterly collapse under the weight of its own lies. you can call it revenge, a warped sense of justice or whatever, but this religion damages children in so many different ways. I cant forget about it all, and I choose not to. People have mentioned that if it ever fail there would be suicides, well folks there are already lots of people committing suicide over this religion. Im not sure whether the WT Society will crumble in my lifetime, but I sure I hope I live long enough to see it.

    Dave

  • yaddayadda
    yaddayadda

    I don't want them to totally collapse (and I don't they they ever will) because I think many of their teachings are true. I would just like to see a whole raft of policy changes made and wrong interpretations dropped.

  • sammielee24
    sammielee24
    Because that's what it basically boils down to, you letting them do what they want with your

    On a very base level you are right, but we as humans don't exist on the most basic of levels. Our emotions, experiences, our environment, our ability and capabilities - they all have much to do with who we are and how we react in some way. Your statement oversimplifies the reasoning behind a persons inability and/or unwillingness to leave a cult and their willingness to follow that type of leadership. Children growing up in families where they never come first, may not even comprehend that they can have a life outside the organization because all they know is service to the watchtower. Fear and threat of dying. Fear of the world. Guilt. Desire for a better life - Witnesses are forced to repress so much that leads to normal, logical thinking. If the Watchtower were to fold tomorrow, I think anyone who needed that sort of guidance in their lives would find it elsewhere. I think people have every right to be angry and bitter about having sacrificed their lives to an organization based on lies, manipulation, disrespect and selfishness - I could only hope that it wouldn't take over their life to the point they were unable to enjoy the beauty of life on the outside. sammieswife.

  • TheListener
    TheListener

    I'm not bitter. My wife and other adult family members can choose for themselves. It would be an informed choice if they'd listen to opposing viewpoints, but ignorance is their choice too.

    HOWEVER,

    I have children. They are not witnesses because of a personal decision. They are witnesses because of someone else's personal decision.

    I do not want them to be witnesses. My wife does.

    Who is right?

    I have a vested interest in hoping that the Society ceases to exist.

    I work hard at dismantling every single teaching that I feel is incorrect or harmful to my children.

    Bitter? Hardly. A warrior on the front lines battling for the very life of his children each and every day. Absolutely.

  • Borgia
    Borgia

    IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

    He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

    He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

    He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

    He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

    He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

    He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

    He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

    He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

    For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

    For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

    For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

    For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

    For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

    For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

    For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

    For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

    For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

    He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

    He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

    He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

    He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

    He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

    In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

    Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

    We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

    I am sure that to some degree the signers of this important document have had some experience with the above described.......to me it is evident that a system that surpresses freedom has no right in its own to exist. It will come to an end. The issue is always: who are willing to fight for what they perceive as their right and themost important questions are: WHEN? and WHERE? And in what way.

    When a group of people is not strong enough to counter an attack in full battle mode, it may resort to other tactics: scorged earth and guerilla. History has shown these to be very discouraging for a regular army.

    However, some form of coordination is needed to be succesfull.

    The establishment of the US signified in no way a deathblow to the Empire. Instead that empire was to grow in power. The Great War proved to be a war in which the Empire overextended itself. Subsequent demise was and still is inevitable.

    Given the above, all you Americans out here, and others who hold freedom in high esteem, should want to wish and work for the demise of the WBTS and other cult type organisations whether they wear a religious, political, sportlike or whatever other type of mask. The point is not the demise itself, which would be the focus of a grudge and vengeance, the point is a higher moral standard based on freedom.

    Cheers

    Borgia

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