konceptual9911 hours ago11 hours ago
Except many Witnesses are tighter than a gnat's chuff
ha-ha.. not heard that for years '99----pure Albert Steptoe. sadly totally lost on most readers here.
Question for SBF
by Fisherman 192 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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konceptual99
Glad to bring a little joy stan :)
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_Morpheus
TD, i agree in theory that mormons FEEL better and probably FEEL like they get a return of some sort for their tithe... but that will be irrelevant in dubbies going along. FOG dosent ask for a return. Cults only take, they never give. Its again a matter of overthinking. Dubbies convince normal average people to work fulltime and dedicate 70 hours a month to the recruiting work... their members will do whatever they tell them. It wont be called a tithe bit thats what it will be....
as for ‘oh a letter wont make people pay up’... incorrect sir. I never once saw a CA fall short of the manitory donation. I never once saw a DC fall short. And after the branch and co addressed the short fall to my old congregation they caught up. The branch dosent care WHO makes up the shortfall, be it the elders or little ole sis has a nest egg or little sophoas ice cream money. Somebody will caugh up. All it takes is a sideways look.
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Fisherman
Dubbies convince normal average people to work fulltime and dedicate 70 hours a month to the recruiting work...
Where does it payoff in cash for wt? For Mormons, they extract money before a person even joins. For Jw someone could join and not give a penny in 29 years. From 1990 free donations till now JWs have doubled in number while donations have gone down.
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_Morpheus
Lol way to miss the point fisherman. I never said pioneering made the org money. It was a comparison, a way to show that the org gas huge controll and ablity to influance its members. I was pointing out that they convince thousands of people to spend 70 hours a month, with no return, in cult recruiting. Thats in addition to whatever work hours they work to support themselves and whatever obligations life throws at them. My point is was and remains, the cult convinces people to do lots of things all the time that are opposed to their self interest. Its foolish and short sighted to think that the dubbies wouldnt tithe simply because there was no tangible return
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TD
Morpheus,
Its foolish and short sighted to think that the dubbies wouldnt tithe simply because there was no tangible return
If I'm understanding correctly, you don't believe there would need to be any "teeth" in the arrangement? (Assuming of course, the JW's ever did such a thing.....)
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_Morpheus
Assuming they did.... no, no “teeth” as such. By that i mean no more than the mormons use. It would never be a df’ing offense but it would disqualify them from “privileges” , plenty of cult guilt and obligation etc
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Fisherman
I never said pioneering made the org money.
It made money before 1990. Where did the cash to buy real estate come from. WT having billions? Cults are about money so that cult leaders can live it up and cult leaders are mostly not true believers. And cult leaders send out their followers to bring money to line their pockets like the moonies of the 70's. Wt leaders were once lowly pubs for 30 40 years and worked themselves up and are true believers and it's no picnic being gb, etc, Too much work and no payoff for all the work.They didn't just appear out of nowhere like cult leaders do. How is wt a cult? It's just a religion with rules for membership. Mormons and Jews and Gypsies shun too. Influencing members does not make an entity a cult. But that is not relevant.
The only teeth is conscience. An awareness that everyone should donate. That is the way the ball is rolling. We will see the results. But donations will always be voluntary and personal between JW and God.
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WeatherLover
I heard an interesting tidbit at the meeting last night. One of the elders and his family got a private tour of the accounts department at Warwick because they're related to someone who works there. I can't be sure that he remembered correctly, but he said that Canada, Germany, UK, and US have a surplus in donations, Brazil has just enough in donations to cover their expenses, and all of the other countries are short.
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slimboyfat
Sounds plausible. But I wonder if he meant this year alone, or over a longer period. The financial information publicly available in the UK indicates they have a reasonable cushion of funds at the moment and income covers expenses. It also indicates a high level of spending recent years. It will be interesting to see how this develops in the next few years. Income in Britain from "literature production" (presumably sales of literature to other branches) has been declining rapidly. (Apparently this is how they count it - one branch pays another branch for literature) The United States, United Kingdom and Germany have all been mass exporters of Watchtower literature in the past. As this declines their surpluses may decline. It's all very complicated, but there is information out there that is worth investigating. There must be interested people with the skills to analyse these things.
It's worth bearing in mind that the US, UK, Germany and Brazil combined account for about a quarter of JW membership. If most other countries have a deficit that's not a great position to be in. You might even call it unsustainable.