minimus: interesting list but we would not know what the differences are so if you don't mind elaborate please.
It's your OP, as I said above, the link below has all the links for the changes since 2000
In the last 20 years How Many Changes Have Occurred in Watchtower Beliefs?
by minimus 38 Replies latest jw friends
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darkspilver
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minimus
Thank you I didn't see that link !
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minimus
Wow what a great list including citations!
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Ding
I wonder why they feel the need to make so many changes on obscure matters that no one cares about.
And why do they document them for public consumption?
Are they proud of their "new light" or are they trying to minimize the major changes they are making in doctrine and make them seem like routine adjustments?
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sir82
Dozens if not hundreds of changes.
And yet through it all, the one central doctrine, the MOST important doctrine, bar none, has not wavered one millimeter.
What is that "central doctrine", you ask?
Is it "God's name is Jehovah"? Is it "there is no immortal soul"? Is it "there is no hellfire"? Is it "God is not a trinity"?
NO! Of course not!
The central, dominant, most important, never to be changed in all JW history, is this:
The governing body speaks for God, and demands your total acceptance of that fact and your complete obedience. Obeying them is exactly equivalent to obeying God, and disobeying them is exactly equivalent to disobeying God. Failure to obey the governing body in all aspects of their choosing will eventually lead to your violent, painful, and everlasting slaughter by God himself.
Everything - EVERYTHING - else is negotiable.
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Ding
So what is it that keeps JWs convinced they're in the truth when so many changes to "the truth" are being made?
Is it the WT's central doctrine set out above by Sir82?:
The governing body speaks for God, and demands your total acceptance of that fact and your complete obedience. Obeying them is exactly equivalent to obeying God, and disobeying them is exactly equivalent to disobeying God. Failure to obey the governing body in all aspects of their choosing will eventually lead to your violent, painful, and everlasting slaughter by God himself.
If so, why are they so convinced that it's true?
-- Constant repetition?
-- Constant fear that it might be true?
-- Fear of being DFd and losing friends and family?
-- Other?
Why do some of us break free from this while so many others never do?
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sir82
Why do some of us break free from this while so many others never do?
Figuring things out on your own is hard work.
It is much easier to delegate decision-making to someone else.
JWs fill a market need - but they hardly have a monopoly on the market for appeasing the gullible, the lazy, the ignorant, those wounded from abuse and/or low self-esteem....
Some people don't want to figure it out on their own. Others can't, due to emotional or mental limitations.
For the true-believer JWs, even if the WTS were to fold up shop and close down 100% tomorrow, within a month 90% or more of the (now ex-) JWs would become Mormons or Baptists or Evangelicals or Pentecostals or Moonies or [fill in the blank]. As noted, JWs are far far far removed from having a monopoly on the market niche they help fill.
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sparrowdown
When the changes are altogether it's quite an impressive list of "scratch thats" but when you're in there the changes are introduced in such a way that you don't really notice anything changing drastically.
They are careful to keep the prescription for spiritual health stable and predictable.
Pray more, study more, witness more, give more, do more etc, and while your focused on this "formula" they change the furniture around on you.The last few years have been continual adjusting to the way they do things with no sign of the changes stopping anytime soon.
Round and round and round they go where they stop nobody knows - cept the GB of course.
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DesirousOfChange
Will those who were destroyed in Sodom & Gomorrah be resurrected?
Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. . . . .
(That's right! They've bounced back and forth on this EIGHT freaking times! Twice within the same service year.)
How many "changes" do you count for that?
Doc
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careful
Thanks for the list darkspilver. Some of these have nothing to do with scripture and seem more like procedural changes (drinking or not before field service; men's appointments; alternative service). Quite a bit of it is their supposed understanding of parables and/or prophecy, which, as they have admitted can't be understood until it's over (truly self-contradictory with their trying to do so anyway), but if you or someone else would briefly explain some of them, I'd appreciate it.
What's changed about one's own blood?
What changed about the transfiguration vision?
What did they change about early Christians' observance of the Mosaic Law?
Are they now accepting tribal marriages?
Thanks in advance.