I am starting to think there are more faders in the US than actual people that believe.
Do you think the USA has hit critical fader mass ?
by 5go 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
IP_SEC
There are prolly as many if not more xjws than there are active jws. Not including the faders.
Many are df'd and still believe it is the Truth though
-
avidbiblereader
You can fool some of the people some of the time but you cant' fool all of the people all of the time.
abr
-
hillbilly
Just my opinion.... I stopped dealing with the JW community in the mid 90's after years of tapering activity. I was involved since 1970 and grew up in it.
The town I grew up in has about 80 on Sunday ...still does. Factor in that we had a lot of new ones baptized in the 70's and most quit, that town would have a negative growth statistic.
When I lived in Sout Florida during the 80's most of the growth was simply folks moving from the East Coast and Midwest.... And those folk's kids were bailing out en masse.
This town I am in now ...the parking lot is no fuller now than it was 8 years ago. Most of the kids have quit from what I hear.
All stats presented on this forum show the WT in negative growth... I figure just a real hard-core group of die hards will be around in 20 years and they will get weirder as time goes on.
~Hill
-
Woodsman
I haven't gone in over three years but I think I'm still included in a bookstudy. I was wondering if they still only count members who are active in the ministry? Anybody know?
-
5go
I have notice that in my hall. There are plenty of people in my book study on paper but only five show up. Including the one brother that lives there.
-
garybuss
The Witnesses have long used a style of promotion and rejection. Successful groups use a style of attraction and acceptance.
Rutherford capitalized on the free press he got from preposterous claims like millions will be immortal and from promoting bad behaviors and socially separating practices like the draft dodging, public disrespect for flags, and the outrageous practice of suggesting to complete strangers that their personal religious thoughts are not sufficient.
I'm surprised the current Witness group has any new recruits or any members at all now that the history, past error riddled publications, and dishonest practices like the Tacoma Dome parking scandal are easily and privately accessible. The only tool the Society has left is the underlying superstitious nature of the Witness people and the Witness people's willingness to remain uninformed based on their own policy of contempt prior to investigation.
I read the Koran once and I asked my Witness dad what he thought if it. He said it's wrong. I asked, which part? and he said all of it. I asked him if he had read it, and he said no. I asked him if he hadn't read it, how did he know it's wrong? He said it HAS to be wrong because the Bible is right. I asked him, which Bible? and he got pissed off. This is what I mean.
He can't reject the Koran based on it's own content, and on some level he knows this, and he's aware that if he rejected the Koran on it's own content, then he'd have to apply the same principles that he applied to the Koran to the Bible.
I believe many Witnesses hold their own level of consciousness to an artificially low level. I think the stress caused by having an obligation to hold two beliefs correct while those two beliefs are in conflict, takes it's toll. For example, the directions that it's a sin to take blood treatment, and it's okay to take all blood fractions. Or the idea that the Governing Body is to be believed while accepting they are fallible and prone to error.
Another thing I discovered when I made an advertised effort to contact local ex-Witnesses, is ex-Witnesses are mostly invisible. Many are still believers and VERY superstitious and very afraid. Many see the Witness experience as nothing they are very anxious to visit any time soon.