No, it's not a vast conspiracy for the Governing Body to get rich.
It's about power and control, but not personal power and control. The Watchtower Society is a living, nigh-sentient entity unto itself. The individual people caught up in the movement aren't any more important to the whole than individual cells are to your body. The entire Governing Body could die in a plane accident tomorrow morning; and nothing would change, not a single thing. A few Witnesses would shed a few tears and a year from now the organization would look exactly the same as it does today.
The organization is rich, yes; and getting richer every day. I don't see how anybody can deny that, when looking at their massive, publicly visible real estate and stock holdings. Yes, the printing arm operates at a loss, but assemblies and kingdom hall builds more than make up for those losses. But no individual members are rich, not at the bottom and not at the top. The Governing Body members wear the same JC Penny's suits that the random publisher hacks do. When your body gets fat, do your skin cells individually get fat? No, they don't. There are just more of them.
Here's another scenario for you. What if the entire Governing Body had a collective change of heart and decided to reverse course and publicly decry the last 150 years of lies?
They'd be disfellowshipped, all of them. And the hybrid, nigh-sentient, unstoppable organization would go on just the same way it always has. It's specifically literally designed in such a way that it is self-sustaining.
You can't kill it and neither can anybody else. Exits from the Society are personal and individual. That's the only way it happens. If the Society dies, it will be a slow senescence, a dying much like that of old age. Many people believe this process is well on its way, and maybe that will bring you hope, if you wish for such a thing, but really that's just not comforting to me, or a hollow comfort at best.
The Society Isn't about Money. The Governing Body isn't the Illuminati.
by under_believer 32 Replies latest jw friends
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under_believer
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OUTLAW
If you have no money,but have axcess to everything money will buy you,are you poor?...OUTLAW
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avidbiblereader
I agree with you it would probably go on, Ron White said it best "you cant fix stupid"
abr
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Junction-Guy
Can you name any other organization like the WT, that cant be stopped? You say it cant be killed by anyone, is there any other organization around that has this much protection? And if so, where do they get their protection? I cant think of any other billion dollar corporation that exists that someone in some fashion doesnt benefit from the money. All churches and secular organizations give their money somewhere either to the poor, their stockholders, themselves, fat cat preachers, the money goes somewhere. This is the only organization I know of that the money just disappears into a black hole.
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AlmostAtheist
>>The Watchtower Society is a living, nigh-sentient entity unto itself.
Yep, you nailed it. And a heartless bastard, at that.
Dave
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under_believer
OUTLAW, I am assuming you're referring to the Governing Body members.
They get a lot of creature worship, and they can travel all over, and they have free healthcare, but they don't have access to everything money can buy. They don't have opulent mansions, rich food, nice clothes, a great television set, high-class hookers, Lamborghinis with leather seats, and iPod Nanos. These guys live in rooms about as nice as you'd get at a Motel 6 for their entire lives. They also work pretty damned hard for what they DO get.
I'm not defending the governing body, but they're not rich dude. -
under_believer
J-Guy, the money doesn't disappear into a black hole. It's sitting right out where everyone can see. They are constantly investing--loaning to KH builds (the interest of which which are a huge source of income), building 30 story buildings in New York City, making gigantic complexes in Patterson, NY, buying pieces of printing equipment worth millions of dollars, etc.
There's really no secret. What you see is what you get. And what you see is HUGE--I don't know why people need for some dark secret money hole to exist when what's right out on the surface is scandalous enough.
OH and the source of their protection is also obvious enough--they use the laws of the free countries of the world in a clever way. They lawyer up. They take it straight to the Supreme Court and they win most of the time. Again, there's no big secret--they and some others like the Scientologists have realized that if you call yourself a religion and drape yourself in ritual and scripture, you can get away with all kinds of stuff. Also the design of the Society is decentralized, like a cancer. You can't kill invasive, metastatic cancer buy cutting out one or two tumors, you have to irradiate and provide chemicals. Same with the Society. New York City could fall into the sea tomorrow and they'd still exist, they're like a hydra. -
Green Chille
Maybe what we all want to see is....Jesus to come down and tell them to their face they were wrong about everything.
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garybuss
Prove the Governing Body is legally connected to any of the 100+ corporations under the Watch Tower of Pennsylvania. Anybody?
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under_believer
GaryBuss, prove that the Governing Body is important to Jehovah's Witnesses, or the Society in general. They're a red herring--they don't matter. Like I said, run this thought experiment in your mind: kill the entire Governing Body off in a scenario. What happens? NOTHING HAPPENS. Joe Publisher keeps right on going door to door and placing the Botchtower and Asleep magazines, knowing that Armageddon is next fricking week.
Their assets, those 100+ companies, are just as diversified and decentralized as the organization itself. One of them goes belly up, big deal. HALF of them get seized by space aliens who took over the FBI tomorrow, no big deal. The Society will keep going.
Let's try this one on for size: The entire governing body turns out to be evil Satan worshipers, and they leave tomorrow and buy an island in the Caribbean, taking a billion of money with them. What happens? NOTHING HAPPENS. What's left of the Society would pick itself back up, maybe make a couple more legal entities, and go right on running assemblies, financing kingdom hall builds, and pooping on people who have a real conscience and speak up.
I am liking the cancer analogy more and more every minute.