by micheal 30 Replies latest jw friends
It will probably still exist but will either be a milder more mainstream religion (with more followers) or else a smaller band of hard-liners.
I agree and I feel/think that the year 2014 will be a 'significant' date for them - just because it's exactly 100 years since the crucial date in their theology.
Cheers, Ozzie
Freedom means not having to wear a tie.
What has happened in the last 20 years: 1983-2003--1914 generation has been dismantled, the sheep and goats weren't being separated and not until a future time, alternative service is okay now, voting is okay under certain circumstances, being associated with the UN was okay until they were caught, child abusers in the WTS are being revealed, the WTS has been rearranged in many corporations headed up by nonanointed JWs, and the Internet has the WTS worried. What will 2003-2023 bring? Who would have imagined any of those events in 1983?
Blondie
It's so nice to be here Codeblue!!!
The lack of christian love shown by Jehovah's Witnesses is also obvious when they don't talk to or even greet those who are disfellowshipped and disassociated from the congregation. I am still going to the their meetings but I strongly feel it very discouraging not to be heartily welcomed. Should Jesus Christ, the great inviter to all kind of loaded down people, accept such a satanically behaviour of his true followers? No, he should not! (See Matthew 11:28-30; Romans 12:17; 15:7)
Benny Sikter, Sweden
I believe they will be around: many of the members have too much emotional (and in some cases financial) investment in them. I think, however, by that time many/most of the older, die hard traditional JWs will be replaced by newer, "hipper?" lol members. As a consequence, I think many of their rigid traditional stands will have been relaxed.
In order to survive someone in tact, they'll always have some target window/date to step up the urgency of preaching. The WTS knows that if members felt there was too much time before the "end," there'd be no incentive to live the narrow JW life.
Will the JWs be around in 20 years? Without a doubt. There's still Bible Students around that still follow C.T. Russell. And if they still believe that stuff, I'm sure there's JWs who will still hang on, no matter what.
The JWs seem to thrive on distress where they can offer a magic solution. They did a great job in post WW2 war-torn Europe. They do great in the third world. It seems this world is headed for more uncertain times. The US economy is bad. We have the threat of terrorism hanging over us and, what's more, it's got religious overtones that could be spun into fulfillment of prophecy. This is exactly the type of thing that makes people ripe for the picking for JWs.
There is also new blood at the top. Every past administration has brought a new focus and doctrinal changes. The generation thing didn't happen until Milton Henschel took over and Fred Franz was dead. (or have I got my timing off?) Well, when the last of the governing body is gone, expect more changes. I expect the younger ones see that things like 1914 are ridiculous and will stop supporting it and eventually drop it. Likewise possibly for blood and other doctrines.
The JWs do so well with changes. A few people get fed up and leave, but the majority stay. The JWs are very effective at changing course and getting people to follow along and eventually forget they had even changed course.
The internet is a great tool for harm against them. But the more they change, the less critics have to criticize. When I have something to say about them, it's the JWs of pre-1990, not the JWs of 2023. How valid will my criticisms still be?
And I've heard ideas tossed about before that may even take away the internet threat. If reports can be believed, the Scientologists had secret software installed that blocked anti-Scientology websites. With JWs, they could probably release such a thing publicly and the JWs will welcome it as their "mother" trying to protect them from Satan.
So, I see them surviving by dropping a lot of baggage doctrine and becoming a bit more mainstream, taking a harder line towards filtering critics, and political and economic stress wouldn't hurt either.
Great topic. Welcome Benny & Code Blue I think the WTS will be here in 20 years and that blood transfusions will become a conscience matter and amazingly the R&F will get dub amnesia and bask in the new light. Never mind the fact that hundreds if not thousands have died due to their stupidity. Blood transfusions will go the way of organ transplants and the newly dunked JWs will have no clue about the ban on blood unless they have the courage to do their own research. The WTS will be a watered down version of what we have today, they will change in order to grow 'cause the numbers is all the WTS cares about. - V Sky
I personally think that the WTS will be around in 20 years, but that it will be barely distinguishable from any other mainline religion.
Some JWs have already begun to shift focus from an absolute end to "this" system and a beginning of the "new" system, and are starting to express the opinion that the "new system" is already here, but in a limited way within the JW organization. It has also been opined that Armageddon actually started in 1914, and is an ongoing process.
Although this particular JW is obviously "going ahead of Jehovah," she just might have a good thing going here. If the Society began new-lighting this stuff within the next few years, they could solve the 1914 conundrum as well as keep the salespeople going at a good rate. After all, the WTS is, first and foremost, a publishing company, and they need to keep pushing that literature.
The words of Carl Sagan are so True
carl sagan
Doctrines that make no predictions are less compelling than those which make correct
predictions; they are in turn more successful than doctrines that make false predictions.
But not always. One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would
end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and --
while the events of that year were
certainly of some importance -- the world does not, at least so far as I can see, seem
to have ended.
There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of
such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, "Oh, did we say '1914'?
So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation.
Hope you weren't inconvenienced
in any way." But they did not. They could have said, "Well, the world *would* have ended,
except we prayed very hard and interceded with God and He spared the Earth." Instead, they
did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world *had* in fact ended in
1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout.
It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any
adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are
subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof.
The fact that
religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of
their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness
of the believers.
But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the
core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
There does seem to be a real appeal to believing the unbelievable as a proof of devotion.
