sabastious – “I think that the Watchtower is a designed missile aimed at destroying the free world.”
More like a small, leaky lifeboat that mistakenly believes it’s an ark; plus they’re too minor in the world scene to be able to destroy… well… anything, really.
I don’t blame you for feeling that way, though.
sabastious – “I don't think it was designed for the long haul or otherwise they WOULD have sought out powerful friends like you say.”
You’re dead right on this one.
It’s one of the major paradoxes of all apocalyptic millennialist religions; in order for any group to truly survive, it needs to formulate long-term plans, but the WTS absolutely has to behave short-term (as though the End is right around the corner), otherwise they undermine their own credibility to anyone with half a brain.
sabastious – “What they do is make freedom of religion and free speech look bad on a world scale (they could have Al Qaeda links or other anti-free speech/religion extremist groups).”
All fundys make freedom of religion and freedom of speech “look bad”. Quite effectively. It works against them in the long run, though.
I’m pretty sure the WTS doesn’t have any “worldy” extremist or terrorist ties, BTW. High control groups usually view anybody on the outside with suspicion and subtle (or not-so-subtle) disdain.
sabastious – “They want religion to be under attack because it solidifies the programming in their members giving them immense power.”
Yes, I think they do; it plays well to the collective persecution complex of the R&F.
sabastious – “… they have been saying it will happen for so long, all their members are waiting to be put in concentration camps so they won't care what happens.”
Maybe, maybe not.
Their eschatology has explicitly stated that global persecution of JWs will be the final endgame of the Great Tribulation (not the opening salvo), and Fred Franz’s End Times script is still essentially viewed as WT canon, but that might be a minor point.
As someone on this board once pointed out (Outlaw, I think), today’s JWs are pretty soft; they’re not the martyrs, spiritual warriors, and heavy-hitting Biblical scholars of the WTS’s Golden Age…
Even in the unlikely event of mass JW internment for whatever reason, do you honestly think the average Witness-on-the-street would walk calmly and confidently into that in this day and age?
sabastious – “The Watchtower, IMO, have been purposefully allowing and perpetuating atrocities within their ranks and are inching towards a preplanned directive.”
I’m pretty sure the GB aren’t a bunch of mustache-twirling comic-book supervillains; they don’t need to plot nefariously to advance an agenda. What's more, it isn’t necessary to attribute malicious intent to something can be explained by simple incompetence or character flaws.
What is certain is that the WTS is an authoritarian high control group.
As such, the dysfunctional and antisocial tendencies of the WTS are inevitable and unavoidable aspects of that fundamental defining characteristic. Once the group started down that path under Rutherford, the outcome was pretty much set; Jaracz simply pounded the last nail home.
sabastious – “The Western World needs to band together and redefine religion and then do away with any who don't make the cut.”
That’s already happening, I think; simply a product of 21st Century society’s natural evolution.
Any kind of organized mass movement is probably unnecessary (maybe even counterproductive) at this point.
