It's a slow motion train wreck of a train loaded with people, a very long train, and they will all crash, traincar by traincar, in slow motion, and they will all see the traincar ahead of them crash, and they will all have time to get out of their own traincar if they wanted to, but they will not, and their traincar will crash, and they will be no more, and the train will keep coming, and crashing, and there's not much any one person can do about it. This is a function of the human species. A certain percentage of the human species will have the bad luck to get born in, get stuck in a mental, emotional, spiritual ditch at the wrong time, make eye contact, swallow the hook of fake smiles, ignore the red flags from doorstep to podium to swimming pool. I would candidly say that x% of humanity is just plain stupid, and they naturally fall into this potential well of JW promises. But that's not it. I would absolutely say that x% of humanity are more dependent on their social lives and connections than they are on the freedom to think and speak and act as they would. This slow motion train wreck will continue before your eyes for at least another century if not more. There is simply not enough instant communication between n^n humans to avert this social dependency. Millions of newborns into this cult will die in this cult of old age and natural causes.
Any proof that more JW's are leaving in greater numbers then before?
by Crazyguy 29 Replies latest jw friends
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besty
The leadership has to cultivate and maintain a sense of urgency and a reason for being in such a consuming religion. Running an end of the world cult without a date is more tricky than it looks.
My personal thought is they did a Microsoft and missed the Internet first time round, it bit them in the ass and now they are trying to use the Internet to reshape their approach - the Mormons have done it already.
This new phase of jw.org promotion and the sell-off from Brooklyn and move upstate has become the major management distraction, the GB deluding themselves into feeling that they are accomplishing 'something', anything tangible - in the absence of the end of the world as we know it.
The 1980 crisis at Brooklyn was 1975 +5 years for the disappointment to fester. I expect 2014 +5 years once they have been installed in their country club for a few years to be significant. The crazy can then really start to flow.
Here's my other prediction - the jw.org promotion works better than they could have hoped for and lots of new JW's sign up. Lets say they are back at 10% annual growth for a few years. But these new signups are not hardcore. They are internet JW's. Thats how they got there. The revolving door might just start spinning a lot faster.
Note - join my religion, at least I have a date in mine. :-)
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DeWandelaar
Since they are encouraging very young kids to get baptised means they are quite affraid that the ammount of members will significantly drop in the near future if these do not get baptised.
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steve2
And as with the internet-savvy Mormons, the Witnesses will boast of the vast range of interest via the net, and as regards 'activating' that interest into door knockers, they'll largely fail. Still, it's always been a numbers game - and always will be. Expect increased focus on JW.org hits trumpeted loucly and less focus on average numbers of publishers.
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Vidiot
besty - "Running an end of the world cult without a date is more tricky than it looks."
Damn near impossible, actually.
Historically, End-Time religions have to date-set from time to time in order to motivate the membership. Problem is, the WTS is long past the sell-by date for that tactic to work without completely undermining their own credibility.
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Vidiot
rmt1 - "This slow motion train wreck will continue before your eyes for at least another century if not more."
Oh, I don't know.
One of the more unprecedented phenomena of the Information Age is the (relatively) breakneck speed at which social evolution now takes place...
...and one of the fundament aspects of evolution is that organisms (in this case, social organisms like the WTS and other heirarchal authoritarian groups) that are unwilling or unable to keep up with a rapidly changing environment are doomed to extinction.
So, I suppose a pertinent question is this: just how effective does one really believe the WTS is at adapting to the rapidly changing, information-saturated, Wikileaks-level-transparency-craving social environment of the 21st Century?
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steve2
Excellent observations Vidiot - gone are the days when it took decades to "set up" organizations and their death-knells were drawn out affairs. In the information age, unless organizations adapt, they are gone by lunchtime. The Watchtower has had a belated realization about the absolute need to get with the internet - rather than to endlessly slam it as evil.
But it may be too late in the larger scheme of things:
The Watchtowers foray into the dissemination of information via the internet will produce more "noise" than action - for if they can attract interest without door-knocking it will demonstrate that door-knocking is not as vital as it once was - and it then becomes even harder to motivate the rank and file to get out and door-knock. God knows that in recent years in Western countries, door-knockers have had to slog longer and harder to produce each convert. Catch the JWs out on the street and you'll know what I mean: Sluggish and shuffling they meander from empty house to empty house and congregate outside on the street for protracted huddles - oh, and scurry off to cafes to break the tedium. This is not preaching; this is slouching on the job - and it belies their belief that the end is perilously close. Yeah, right.
Besides, by promoting the use of jw.org, they inadvertently tred a tight rope: jw.org is a key stroke or two away from sites that expose the Watchtower for what it is: A slick house of cards desperately trying to look rock solid.
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westiebilly11
a keystroke away from truth...exactly...the gb cannot control inquisitiveness and accidental discovery of facts and things that they'd rather the masses didn't know about..........and it could happen in a relatively short timeframe too....one match is all it takes to burn a forest of lies...
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rmt1
Primary claim: A bunker's worth of coteries, courtiers, fawners and sychophants will stick by the GB beyond this century.
Secondary claim: Watch the number of GB go down in scale with the JW population.
First order term of my prediction: field strength of Stockholm cocktail of binding energy that keeps non-stupid people* bound to a cult _VS_ field strength of the lure of forbidden mouse clicks.
Turnover point in graph: Something on the order of enforced multi-layer multi-redundant social networks that triangulate and checkmate every last detail of a person's life would be minimum conditions to break through the last binding energy of the inner layer of the Outer Party. (Philosophically I am utterly against such an enforcement.)
I invite my own failed prediction. May the odds be ever in favor of yours.
*"conscious class"? I don't know its usage.