The topic of this thread is mostly directed towards Jehovah's Witnesses who still have some ability to think. This topic is important to those JWs who may have some doubts about their religion, no matter how small they might be.
I'm going to make perhaps, a rather startling assertion and instead of presenting all of my arguments for it, will invite others to contribute their own arguments.
If a person was to ask a number of Jehovah's Witnesses what was the single most important part of their religion, a variety of answers would be given, and without question, all of them would be wrong.
To put it another way, if one had the power to take away just ONE thing from the Watchtower religion that would render it impotent and foundering like a beached whale, what would that one thing be?
Now I know many of you are thinking the answer is, "take away the teaching that the GB speaks for God and dubs will bolt like cockroaches at night when the kitchen light is turned on." Well, that IS the fundamental WT doctrine, but I don't think that's the most significant answer. The Watchtower religion would still be practiced and many things would not change.
So here is my assertion: take away all Watchtower litter-a-chure and the ability or desire of WTS leaders to produce it and the Watchtower religion would have virtually NOTHING LEFT!
Think about it. This is a religion that lives or dies on Watchtower publications. I put forward that EVERY part of Watchtower life would be reduced to nothing if Jehovah's Witnesses no longer had Watchtower literature in their lives.
There would be no evening Book Study. What kind of meeting would the former Sunday Watchtower study be without JW literature? The Kingdom Ministry School used to have only 5 minutes of Bible reading and 55 minutes of other stuff. How would the other 55 minutes of that time then be used? What about the Service Meeting? What about all the field service arrangements? What would the various Circuit and District Assemblies have to offer dubs if there were no more books, tracks and pamphlets offered?
Just what would dubs have to TALK about if all they had were their Bibles? The WTS could continue to promote their idiotic 1914, 1918, 1919 doctrines and all of their other "Bible-based" fantasy doctrines that only bring glory to themselves, but with only the Bible as a proof reference for those doctrines, they would be in deep doo-doo.
Jehovah's Witnesses have no charity programs, no youth-oriented programs, no counseling programs and no programs organized for Bible study only. Their entire being and life purpose is devoted to Watchtower literature. Watchtower literature defines their lives and shapes their lives and virtually all major decisions in their lives.
Without litter-a-chure Jehovah's Witness life would be so radically changed it boggles my mind. There would be no literature servants and accounting at headquarters would be reduced by several orders of magnitude. Watchtower factories and distribution systems would be irrelevant. Bethel would be a shadow of its former self.
But MOST IMPORTANTLY, dubs would be left to themselves and their Bibles and would quickly realize their former social lives with each other is irrelevant and even non-existent without Watchtower literature in the equation. They would no longer have hardly anything to talk about. They would be totally lost.
Eventually though, they might stumble across this scripture and read it with new eyes:
*** Rbi8 Ecclesiastes 12:11-12 ***
11 The words of the wise ones are like oxgoads, and just like nails driven in are those indulging in collections [of sentences]; they have been given from one shepherd. 12 As regards anything besides these, my son, take a warning: To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion [to them] is wearisome to the flesh.
The Watchtower society is truly a Religious Printing Corporation. It was that way from the very start, and that is THE significant difference between Jehovah's Witnesses and other Christian religions. Where did Jesus give them the authority to base their entire religion and their claim to exclusive authority from God through their use of a Printing Empire?
Just WHERE in the Bible can JWs justify that their religion MUST be true because they live and die on massive doses of Watchtower books and magazines?
What else would be different about dub life in my scenario? How could the religion even begin to function without their precious publications?
Does anyone disagree that the JW faith and JW life would be NOTHING if their religious masters ended their printing empire?
Farkel