Just had a thought…

by Vidiot 65 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Balaamsass2

  The OP brings up some great points. When 3rd gen and I "checked out" and became "inactive" we kept our mouths shut. We wrote no letters, made no announcements, and moved to another circuit's territory. However, we had about 200 JW relatives in 3 states, Bethel and Gilead. 99% of them said nothing, we simply stopped getting calls and invites to dinners and reunions.

  However, ONE relative who had called frequently over the years was an early internet adopter (AOL) C.O.s daughter, Elder's wife, and grandmother. She called and informed me about the "Silent Lamb"/JW child molesting victim movement. She forwarded newspaper clippings of California Molesting cases to me. She asked if the Russel Pyramid existed, and then bought a couple of cross-country plane tickets to SEE and verify it! She was shocked and dismayed by the Generation change. It appeared she then became "JW light" and missed many meetings, service, etc. However, when we simply stopped attending, she made a big announcement to all the family that WE had become apostates!!! She created a lot of drama that the various "JWlite" members passed around. It seemed it was to direct attention away from themselves..." at least we are not apostates"!

  I had seen this type of attitude and comments before. One young JW had a real taste for the sisters :) and had been disfellowshiped repeatedly. Later over coffee, he exclaimed to me when I was an Elder, "I like sex, but at least I'm not an apostate".

  It is strange how JWs don't go on about Drug dealers, murderers, and rapists as they do about anyone who decides to check out of Hotel California. :)
• 

  Balaamsass2

  Last thing I remember
  I was running for the door
  I had to find the passage back
  To the place I was before
  "Relax, " said the night man
  "We are programmed to receive
  You can check out any time you like
  But you can never leave!"
  
• 

  Vidiot

  FFGost - “…Some of the most hysterically vicious comments I’ve ever heard were JWs ranting, sometimes at a meeting, sometimes in a private setting, about either gays or evolution… Just solely directed toward, as you noted, persons or concepts that very likely, on some level, they hoped were wrong but maybe weren’t.”

  It’s funny… concluding that evolution was true was, in retrospect, one of my first big wake-up moments.

  I just realized something in retrospect… I think seeing how threatened they were back then made me wonder if there wasn’t actually something to it…

  …i.e., I became a little more open to the possibility.

  By the time I realized that the WTS used all the same misquotes, logical fallacies, and semantic pretzel-twisting (the sleazy lawyer’s go-to grab bag of courtroom tactics when a case goes south) as “Worldly” creationists, I was primed.

  If you have to cheat to defend your beliefs, your beliefs don’t deserve to be defended.
• 

  TonusOH

  It only works if you refuse to look for other information. I was a good little JW while I was in, so my beliefs on evolution were informed by the WTS books, filled with quote mines and flagrant misinformation. When you know so little, it's pretty easy to 'refute' anything.
• 

  Teddnzo

  Yes when you

  sre fully indoctrinated you never even think about looking at something that realistically challenges what you have been told to be true.

  it’s a good lesson for everyone to reexamine everything
• 

  Vidiot

  A Reddit follow-up...

  ...this was one of the more interesting threads I came across recently, particularly the OP... I recommend reading it:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1ao9o36/how_leaks_actually_work_as_a_bethel_insider/

  A couple things further down particularly caught my attention, though (note: you might have to wade a bit to find 'em)...

  "...the Governing Body are expected to say that we are in the Great Tribulation as soon as the entire religion is forcibly shut down over the CSA scandals. That's the exit plan, the final cry of persecution, then they're done."

  He then refers to the so-called "hailstone" message...

  "...the GB are already accepting responsibility that their message will provoke governments to attack them and shut them down. Most PIMI JWs didn't notice this message in the Watchtower, the Governing Body has had this plan for years to wipe themselves out if all else 'fails'."

  And finally...

  "...scripturally, there is no indication of what starts the Great Tribulation. So it's an easy one for Watchtower to flip flop around."

  Am I reading these right?
  

  Is this guy actually alleging that despite the recent and impending attempts at (the appearance of) mainstream reform, the Org leadership is genuinely expecting to get backed into a corner over CSA and close up shop (insolvency via loss of charity-status, maybe?), then denounce the whole world in a manner that's so obnoxious the rest of humanity attacks the WT?

  Instead of "Babylon the Great" first?

  And if God doesn't miraculously bail them out, they'd rather the WTS actually be... erased?

  
  

  I've joked about scenarios like this, but it was never much more than a thought experiment.

  Anybody here think it's legit?
• 

  a watcher

  The 'hailstone' message sounds a bit like a 'Samson Option'.
• 

  NotFormer

  I can't see a Samsonesque self-sacrifice by the GB. One, they're strike me as being pretty cowardly. They're great at having others make sacrifices, but aren't that keen on doing it themselves. Two, I imagine they have comfortable living quarters and their regularly provided dinners are probably pretty good. Not to mention the added privileges like flying first class to be chauffeured to a convention where everyone hangs on their every word, five star hotel accommodation, etc. Also not to mention, the special envelopes handed to them by visitors to Bethel.

  Let's face it, they have it pretty good and they probably believe in their lifestyle more than they believe in their eschatology. They'll knuckle down and do what the government wants*, as long as they can keep the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.

  *Remember, they dropped the sacrosanct door to door work, their main distinction, at the merest hint that the government might have a problem with it, during the lockdowns.
• 

  markweatherill

  I wouldn't be surprised if the governing body was discovered to have been taken to heaven just as their great tribulation begins.

  I'd love to see them apprehended at the airport with one way tickets to a country that has no extradition treaty with the US.

  
  
• 

  joe134cd

  The Mormon church is going through a very similar thing. I heard a comment from a prominent lds podcaster John Delin ( I love that guy) that the Mormon doctrine as it presently stands is not sustainable long term. It needs repaid reform if it’s to survive long term.

  Interestingly I have actually attended a Christadelphian church. I was shocked, to learn, that I could used terms and doctrine, that I thought was specific to the JWs, and they knew exactly what I was talking about. Just for the record the JWs did not develop out of christadelphianisim but out of Millerite advetistisim.