How much do you think the internet has hurt JW growth?

HereIgo

The internet is what helped bring me and so many others out of this evil Organization or at least confirmed our doubts. I have to say, I have seen quite a few YouTube videos recently of ex JW's secretly recording their interactions inside of different congregations, halls, etc and see how empty the halls are! So many people comment on how the attendance is so low, far more emptier than when I was in 6 years ago, even on a weekday meeting. Of course congregation size obviously varies by location, but still, there does seem to be a trend in lower attendance. Thoughts?

smiddy3

I have been out for over 24 years and if what you say is true and i personally think it is true respecting the internet`s

role in awakening more and more people up to the TTATT then it`s a bloody good thing.

I`m glad the Internet helped you Hereigo ,I certainly learned a lot more about the JW religion after I exited, thanks to the internet;

According to all reports the peak of increase in JW`s is well and truly over and the bulk of baptisms is internal and not converts in the field.

So we can expect to hear from the GB soon that the end is just around the corner because "The love of the greater number has cooled off"

They will milk that for all its worth and then find something else to hoodwink the gullible JW`s.still believing in men.

karter

The internet is their worst nightmare come true.

Karter.

Half banana

I had an elderly but hearty couple call at my door a year or so back. The woman had been a JW since the 1930s, a real trooper.

I explained to them what I had learned about their religion including the UN fiasco. The woman asked where the information came from and I told her the internet.

"The internet!" she scoffed and shook her head and nearly spat her dentures out, she was as cross as a cross thing could possibly be!

Long live internet freedom of information!

Giordano

In my day....... the late 1950's and early 1960's........ we had no internet nor information in the library about the JW construct. Plenty of pioneers, servants and missionaries. Dedicated brothers and sisters but not a spark of reality.

It took me three years to come to an understanding that the 'truth' had no basis in reality. Today with jwfacts.com it would have taken me a weekend to understand TTATT.

Thankfully My wife and I got out in our young to mid twenties. So yes the internet is now a wall that provides everyone all of the facts that we didn't have available back in that day. Use it wisely and you too will be set free from the ignorance of the WTBT$

joe134cd

For me personally I would still be sitting inside the walls of the KH if it wasn't for the internet. If it wasn't for the support from ex members through social networking I think I would be more likely to return as well.

I have to wonder how long it will be before things get so out of hand that they are forced to copy the mormon example. The mormon church just wrote a series of essays on their Web site stating it's sordid past and history.

sinboi

But not every JW will check out sites that goes against the org. These are apostates sites written by those who have sinned against J and were disfellowshipped. Checking on these sites would be sinning against the spirit. This was what a bro told me.

Even after I have DA'd, I don't dare to check on these sites. If it wasn't that some bros and sis shunned me like I have leprosy that I started to visit ex JW sites.

Do you know how I feel after I DA'd? I'm worried and confused. Did I do the right thing? Is the end coming soon and I will be killed? My parents don't talk to me. I can see that they still love me but they need to shun me. Luckily they didn't chase me out of the house. They still give me allowances for school. I just need someone to talk to. JWs shunned me. I wanted to talk to my parents but I can't. Worldly friends don't understand a damn thing. The only ppl I can turn to is ex-JWs.

ToesUp

Telling people not to look at the internet is like telling an Elders not to look at porn. You know most look at the evil apostate sites. It's just hard to get them to admit out loud that they have been duped. No one likes to admit they have been duped and lied to. We had to come to terms with it but most just bury their head in the sand and move on. The beautiful thing about it is, once you see it you can't unsee it! Yeah....long live the internet!!!!

All you have to do is Google Jehovah's witnesses and a boat load of juicy info comes up.

scratchme1010

One of their most used tricks to maintain people controlled and to keep ex-JWs feeling like crap, was to isolating and limiting access to both information about doctrine and about the lives of people who leave.

The Internet has posed a giant challenge to the WT in that sense. Aside from people having easier access to information regarding all the nonsense that they teach, the thing that has hurt them the most is ex-JWs being able to unite, compare notes, form groups, and provide a consistent message about what the WT really is.

Without the Internet (for example), many people would have never heard about the case of the Australian Royal Commission and their institutional child abuse. More than finding discrepancies in their teachings, the Internet has provided a more realistic picture of who they are.

Also, people who may be thinking on joining them have the opportunity of hearing the entire story before making a decision.

At first they tried to stop people from using the Internet, then they started talking about the "dangers of the Internet". It was inevitable that they had to embrace it, but they came in late to the game. That is the result of having older non-technology oriented people in their GB.

So yes, the Internet is one of the WT's biggest nightmares. Still is.

Pete Zahut

I talked to a woman in her 50's at a literature cart parked outside our office building two weeks ago.

I explained to her that I used to be a lifelong JW and former Bethelite blah blah blah

She asked me warmly if I ever thought of coming back but I told her that I had experienced a number of back to back, bad life changing JW experiences that made me realize that I needed to listen to the gut feelings about the religion that I've had since childhood.

I explained that my Father's death from not taking a Blood Transfusion and then a year or so later having the GB allow blood fractions, started me wondering what else they could be wrong about and what else they might change.

I told her that I used to produce 6,000 books a day when I was at Bethel and none of those books is in use now because the information in them was wrong.

Me: In the door to door work, most people refused to take one of those books when they were offered to them and most of those who did take them, didn't become a Jehovah's Witness. Could it be that they recognized that the information in them wasn't right ? If so, I hope Jehovah won't hold it against me for having participated in turning people away from him with false information."

I told her my JW story and I could see that she was moved by it. I told her that I've since learned so many things about the organization that I should have known before getting baptized when I was 17years old but that was in 1974 and 1975 was right around the corner. They told me that if I was of an age of understanding and wasn't baptized, I wouldn't survive Armageddon.

I told her that I had many relatives who were baptized as kids but now were cut off from their families because they chose not to be JW's when the got in thier 20's and 30's. Some of them have children who've never met their JW grandparents because they are being shunned by them.The expression on her face told me that she knew these things were true.

She said the society never printed anything in the literature saying that Armageddon would come in 1975 and asked me where I learned all this information. I told her that I used the societies own literature from the past to prove much of it but there are many many places on line that one can hear the experiences of other current and former JW's and can find out things that are happening or have happened in the organization that the average JW doesn't know about or has forgotten . (ie, 1975, child molestation lawsuits, closing of branch offices, UN, Malawi etc)

Her: Oh well....I never believe anything from the Internet....anyone can make up lies or alter the literature.

Me: What about the complimentary things you hear about JW's on the Internet....I'm guessing you believe those things though....am I right?

She didn't like this and turned and went back to her literature cart.

Me: The Society only prints the things they want you to know about or things that support their current beliefs. Instead of wondering how imperfect men could possibly always be so right about everything, like most JW's you've been taught to fear anyone who says anything less than complimentary about the organization and that they are from Satan. This is why you are able to be so dismissive about what happened to me. You've as much as said that I'm lying to you.

Me: There's good reason for them not wanting you to look them up on the Internet but it's all out there but it will take having something happen to you personally, before you stop dismissing your doubts and really look into things.

She turned away with a stony expression on her face and looked off into the distance and the woman she was with was looking down at her shoes, so I walked off. Now when I see her as I come and go from our office building on Thursdays she suddenly looks the other way.

Little by little people are daring to look into things on the Internet but most older ones are still too scared to look behind the curtain.

How much do you think the internet has hurt JW growth?

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