Fred ... I think I cut you quite a bit of slack so please dont overdo it with the cutting comments.
Thanks
How much longer?
by JeffT 36 Replies latest jw friends
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ballistic
Si, I always thought you kept Fred around for the entertainment value???
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JeffT
A couple of added thoughts.
First every house has to have a cat, even if it coughs a hairball once in awhile. I had Fred's number about thirty seconds after I got here.
On a more serious note, and this has been noted elsewhere today, the preaching work has been reduced to a formality. They are no longer seeking converts they are trying to get in some time to put on their report that doesn't bend their consciences to far. I've gotten used to seeing dubs standing on street corners in downtown Seattle holding up their magazines and talking to each other. This is preaching the kingdom?
Surely it is a sign of rot at the core of their belief system. I don't really think that the WT is going to come crashing down some day soon. In fact I don't much care what happends to them. But I do think they the trickle is going to turn into a flood at some point, and the numbers will drop significantly.
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Gozz
BluesBrother,
your comments are noted. But; how do you define the commitment you speak about? How is it manifested, even by the written JW code? The other day, a brother told of time spen tin field service with an elder. They were on magazine runs. Brother Elder took the lead; he was greeting friends, bantering, shuffling; then it was time for coffee, then it started raining. He called a friend over for coffee, they banter and talk about everything. At the end, he recorded 2 hours plus 35 mins. They'd done less that 15 minutes of quality talk. There's little mistake about it, witnesses are doing less and less in field service, and even by their standards, that's a measure of commitment. The Org will last for many years; many, but the direction it's moving seems unmistakable, and those at the helm of affairs know it. There's something unsettling about it all; may be it's different where you live. There's something happening at the Watchtower; there's some controlled panic in the current conduct of business.
There are worse things. Why would JWs not do what is right without some form of minitoring. What I see with my generation is the willigness to play around rules, the dance at the border of reproof/disfellowshipping. There is a slackening that runs contrary to commitment.
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Fatal Error
Just a personal experience to support every word Gozz said...
We are currently going over the What does God..? brochure in my study, which usually lasts about 2 hours. I'll be chummy to start with, give 'em tea, and study for 1h1/2. Or at least that was what it was like for the first few chapters.
While we were covering two chapters each session at the start, now it's barely one, and not due to me asking less questions. They'll yack away to each other, go off on tangeants, and I have sat there silent to just see for how long they would forget about me. Turns out the record is over 25mns, sat in my home, drinking my tea, with me right in front of them, but chatting about minor aspects of their lives to each other.
Now I'm not complaining, I'm not exactely fussed about fazing out for a while, but this illustrates what Gozz is saying, they're not out to convert me, just to put their feet up, count the hours, and if I convert, well hey, that's swell.
On the other hand, the elder conducting the study came round on Thursday with the CO to give me a study, in the space of 1/2h we'd covered a whole chapter, and there was no slack time.
Just goes to show that even elders seem to be slacking off too, just keeping up appearances when the CO is in town...
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LeslieV
I think you will see people come and go. But many will be attracted to the kind of religion that is JWism.
Some JW's are all about power. If you have a power issue..especially if you are male it feeds this. Not that women don't have power issues but they are subservient to males at the KH.
This religion also attracks those that have issues or have experienced anykind of abuse in their lives. It sounds wonderful when you first hear it. Also when you first come into a KH you are usually welcomed and given special treatment, it isn't till later that all changes. The belief that some how God looked down from his lofty position and found you with the "right heart condition" makes ones with low self-esteem or self-worth fill privileged.
What is changing is the ability of some to look up some information on the org. That is why it is so bad to talk to apostates. Not allowed to think for yourself. When you can control through fear and isolation many individual will stay.
Just my thoughts.
Leslie -
blondie
In days long ago, Jehovah's Witnesses, or rather Bible Students, who were colporteurs, were required to spend so much time and place so much literature. They made a profit on the publications they placed. They were motivated all right, no literature placed and you starved.
There is no such motivation now except for pioneers, regular and auxiliary, there are no quotas. There is no monetary deprivation if you don't place literature because of the donation arrangement.
Proclaimers Book page 284
In April 1881 (when only a few hundred persons were attending meetings of the Bible Students), the Watch Tower published an article entitled “Wanted 1,000 Preachers.” This included an invitation to men and women who did not have dependent families to take up work as colporteur evangelists. Employing the language of Jesus’ parable at Matthew 20:1-16, the Watch Tower asked: “Who has a burning desire to go and labor in the Vineyard, and has been praying that the Lord would open the way”? Those who could give at least half of their time exclusively to the Lord’s work were encouraged to apply. To assist them with expenses of travel, food, clothing, and shelter, Zion’s Watch Tower Tract Society provided the early colporteurs with Bible literature for distribution, stated the modest contribution that could be asked for the literature, and invited the colporteurs to keep a portion of the funds thus received.
page 285
How did they care for their material needs? Anna Petersen (later Rømer), a full-time evangelizer in Denmark, recalled: “We got help from literature placements for the daily expenses, and our needs were not great.
page 286These full-time workers did not allow lack of money to prevent sheeplike people from obtaining Bible literature. Pioneers often traded for produce such as potatoes, butter, eggs, fresh and canned fruit, chickens, soap, and almost anything else.
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david_10
I don't think that the society is going to topple anytime soon, but there is no denying that that they have their work cut out for them. The kids are leaving, the money isn't coming in like it used to, the force of the internet is getting stronger every day.....it all adds up and the GB is feeling the heat. But still, they have assets totaling in the billions, and that can buy a lot of time. But for the life of me, one thing that I can't figure out what they're going to do about is the 1914 problem. In another 15 years or so, it's going to be obvious to everyone that their cornerstone teaching has been a huge mistake, and I don't see any way of explaining it away. With 1799, 1925, 1975 they ignored it and just stopped talking about it and everyone gradually forgot. But I don't think that they can get away with that strategy in this situation. What are they going to do? Comment AlanF, dmouse, anyone....?
David
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dmouse
Yes, the legacy of 1914 and ‘all that’ is one of the trickiest issues that the WBTS has to face.
And face it they must. Dates are immovable, and if you set one it comes back sooner or later to bite your arse.
Eventually 1914 will seem as far in the past as 1799 does today, and will have absolutely no credibility, even among the Witnesses.
We can be certain that this issue HAS been discussed at the highest levels. Since the leadership know that they are not the real truth, they are free to cynically manipulate ‘light’ so that truth changes depending upon the weather. But they must do it slowly, otherwise the R&F might be startled.
Do we have any clues about how they intend to handle this problem?
Yes, we do.
It appears that the main strategy will be a shift from ‘chronology’ to ‘events’
The Watchtower of September the 15th, 1998, in the article ‘Times and Seasons in Jehovah’s Hands’ on page 14 this statement is made: (italics mine)
Events – Not Time Calculations
So, it seems that the plan is to downgrade the importance of 1914 in general until it is no longer important enough to matter…then it will be quietly discarded, forgotten about amongst the dusty remains of previous failed doctrines.
18 Although chronology apparently helped the Jewish people to have a general idea of when the Messiah was due to appear, subsequent events show that that it did not help to convince most of them of Jesus’ Messiahship. Less than a year before his death, Jesus asked his disciples: “Who are the crowds saying that I am?” They replied: “John the Baptist; but others, Elijah, and still others, that one of the ancient prophets has arisen.” (Luke 9:18,19) We have no record that Jesus ever quoted the prophecy of the symbolic weeks to prove that he was the Messiah. But on one occasion, he said: “I have the witness greater than that of John, for the very works that my Father assigned me to accomplish, the works themselves that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father dispatched me.” (John 5:36) Rather than any revealed chronology , Jesus’ preaching, his miracles, and the events surrounding his death (the miraculous darkness, the rending of the temple curtain and the earthquake) testified that he was the Messiah sent by God.19 Similarly, after the death of Jesus, the early Christians were given no means to calculate the coming end of the Jewish system of things….Christians were beyond the chronological milestones of Daniel chapter 9. For them, events, not chronology, would indicate that the Jewish system must shortly end.
20 Like Noah, Moses, and first century Christians in Judea, we today can confidently leave the times and seasons in Jehovah’s hands. Our conviction that we are living in the time of the end and that our deliverence is drawing near depends, not merely on chronological computation, but on real-life events in fulfilment of Bible prophecies.
Page 16,
Paragraph 2:
True, a prophecy put Christains in a state of expectation before Christ was invested with Kingdom power in 1914. But the “sign” that Christ gave of his presence and of the conclusion of the system of things featured events. Such events – wars, food shortages, earthquakes, pestilences, increased lawlessness, persecution of Christians, and the worldwide preaching of the good news of the Kingdom – serve as the major proof that we are now living during Christ’s presence in Kingly power.Dean.
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Gozz
LeslieV,
There is also something else. Why is it that seemingly intelligent people have been sucked into the JW religion? Sure there are a lot of people who've suffered abuse there, a lot of people who get some kick from being 'special', or made so at the KH: the love bombing, the attention, everything. But the JW religion also attracts people who seem to be searching for meaning, people who have questions about the bible, those raised by Christian parents and have found holes in the explanations offered by the Church; they begin to ask questions, and Witnesses seem to have all the answers. Where I lived, there is a disproportionate number of bright students at the university who're witnesses. They seem to find some kindred spirits amongst the witnesses. Druing my study, my conductor and I and others would visit libraries and do 'research'. It all looked real. But none of these have been exposed to outside information. And access to the Internet is expensive. My thinking is, like the manner of most 'cults', you don't really understand what JW is all about until you're in. And apostates, those who have broken free form Watchtower chains, and willing to help, should devise some other methods in addition to the iNet offensive.
Metraton: Anybody who is anybody in this book publishing company are criminals by the standards of most of the rest of the world.
True. The other day, I spoke with Ciro Aucilino of (Brooklyn?) Bethel. I told him I'm a brother trying to find out information about the Society and the UN, and the talk he gave, the one in which he was drawing strings around the September 11 attacks, the one on the Internet (on Randy's site). He was almost screaming at first. He wanted to know how I got his number (I couldn't tell I got it from this site; I think it was AlanF who supplied the number). Then he didn't want to answer the questions but admitted: yes he worked with Lloyd Barry; and the UN, it's like "magazines on a rack" (he kept repeating this expression)..."magazines on a rack", like at the kingdom hall. I got the impression he was trying to shake me off, then he started lying. I asked pointed questions, and this man, a brother sitting at Bethel, JW holy land, was lying away. It was more than something criminal; outright lying has become part of theocratic war strategy. I was then thinking; there are regular people out there who would keep quiet rather than tell a lie, and here, he was telling a lie about what was common knowledge, then giving me a talk about integrity and apostates. And he's an official of the watchtower; I wonder how many lies he would have told; it seemed to be business as usual.