Why JW Enemies Will Fail? - A Consultant's Analysis

by reason 44 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Leolaia

  I noticed you weren't interested in the point I made, and now I see why. *rolling eyes*
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  Stefanie

  I already know I am evil. But thanks for reminding me.
• 

  TD

  Reason,

  Your analysis is interesting, but speaking as a third party intimately familiar with JW's, (The spouse of an active JW) it seems rather one-sided.

  Bargaining power of customers (the members) The 'switching cost' is to high. If a member leaves the WTS, he/she will suffer from being disfellowshiped and loose friends and family.

  The "switching cost" is indeed high, but assuming that the member in question is thinking of leaving, this is offset by the cost of doing nothing. Once a member becomes disillusioned with the JW's, the third grade reading level, shameless self aggrandizing and extremely poor reasoning commonly manifest in Witness publications literally renders such a member physically ill by the end of every meeting. Ex-members have related here and elsewhere how the mere sound of one of your "Kingdom Melodies" could induce nausea and in extreme cases, panic attacks. Eventually, the cost of doing nothing more than exceeds the swithching cost.

  Bargaining power of suppliers (the apostates and other denominations)
  The apostates don't really have a tangible product to substitute the WTS product. All they can do is try to prove the WTS is wrong, that's about it.

  I believe you wrongly assess and mischaracterize who and what "apostates" are. These, by and large are simply individuals who have "been there" and for various reasons, want to help. (e.g. Active JW's who went through the emotional turmoil of leaving.) You may disagree with "apostates," you may want nothing to do with either them or their "help," you may well think that such "help" is not only uneccessary, but deletarious in the long run and that's fine. But the point is, "apostates" make no attempt to tell you what to do with your life.

  The "tangible product" if indeed there is one, is a gift from God that no human can bestow: --- Freedom. I know this is difficult for an active JW to fathom, but t here are literally as many different satisfying solutions to how an individual will realocate the time, energy and resources comsumed by the JW organization as there are people. Some of those solutions involve religion and some do not.

  New entrants into the market
  There are no new religions around to match the WTS product.

  Here you not only seem to promote the "Where shall we go" fallacy promulgated by the JW's, you couple this with a purely subjective assessment of your own. (And remove any lingering shadow of doubt regarding your own personal religioius affliation.)

  First of all, an equivalent or for that matter, even a similar replacement for the JW organization is not necessary as an "alternative product." Many, upon leaving the JW organization do so with the idea that Christianity is best expressed individually or through loose-knit groups.

  For exiting JW's, who already believe that "true Christianity" was fragmented and without a clear identity for over 90% of its existence, (e.g. From soon after the Apostles died clear up until the late 19th century) this is not a difficult concept at all.

  Second, w hat does or doesn't comprise a suitable "match" for the JW "product" can and does vary widely by individual. That there is no such match is strictly your opinion and while you have as much right to it as your fellow, it obviously wouldn't entitle you to speak for him.

  Substitute products and services
  Substitutes products (hellfire, immortality of the soul, trinity). JWs have learned to reject these doctrines. It is hard to deprogram them to embrace it again.

  This is simply a variant of the above fallacy and creates as a result, a needless bifucaration. There is no need for an exiting JW to join any other church and even if he or she does, there is no need to join one that teaches doctines unpalatable to the individual in question. Perhaps that's why some of your ex-members gravitate to your (more pleasant) doctrinal first-cousins, the Bible Students.

  
  Existing competitors
  Roman Catholic Church, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Salvation Army. JWs are programmed to view them as false religions. It is hard to deprogram them to embrace it again.

  This yet again promotes the idea that an organizational replacement is required. And yet again, most exiting JW's do so with a very pronounced anti-organizational attitude. Your most direct competition is therefore, not another religion but freedom from the relentless and thankless treadmill of your own religion.

  
  OTHER FACTORS

  Marketing
  Zealous evangelizing of the JWs will only enable them to recuit more members as time goes by.

  This is not to belittle your evangelizing efforts which are quite sincere, I'm sure. However your methods are extremely inefficient and steadily becoming more so -- something on the order of several thousand hours per baptism and climbing. Knocking on doors today is not only irritating, it immediately puts the occupant on the defensive. This is not the 1930's anymore and for better or for worse, there are so many forms of entertainment available within the home that human gregariousness no longer seems to extend to strangers like it once did.

  
  Medicine on their side
  For the blood issue, alternatives are coming up and the field of medicine is now buying the idea of bloodless surgery.

  Medicine is not on your side. You are horribly misinformed. Although JW's do reasonably well in scheduled surgery, (The most favorable study done in regard to your tranfusion medicine taboo only showed a 1% increase in mortality) there are many other conditions related to both pathology and trauma that require the use of blood products. There are, for example no substitutes for platelets and none on the forseeable horizon. While the need for red cells is predicted to begin dropping in the near future, the opposite is true with platelets. The need will climb sharply in next 25 years of so.

  
  Past mistakes of interpretation
  The JW GB are now vocal in their admission of the past mistakes they did. After all, they are only humans.

  The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses is anything but vocal regarding past mistakes --- so much so that most active JW's are scarcely aware of them. What you suggest would probably be the most effective means of taking the wind out of the sails of JW critics, but it never quite seems to come to fruition in a meaningful way.

  How many JW's for example can even begin to enumerate the number of reversals that have been made regarding the blood issue? Can you?

  Management styleAs the management is changing and getting younger in terms of age, old 'beaucratic traditional culture' is slowly changing to a more relax management style.

  For observers such as myself, the opposite seems to be true. Your religion really appears to be entering a cyclic clamp-down, at least insofar as doctrine is concerned. Once again, they are becoming more vocal and strident on views they would be better off to allow to slowly die. Just to take one completely harmless example; How many intelligent JW's really believe that God created the lion to eat straw? Reasoning people within the JW's are going to have an aggravating 5 years or so and a cynical individual might conclude that this is the whole point.
• 

  cyber-sista

  REASON

  Assuming the WTS is a business and the product is the JW association and teachings. Why will apostates fail to compete with the WTS? Let us examine them one by one.

  Assuming the WTS is a business???

  How about a wealthy real estate investment corporation and book publishing company which dupes its members into working for them free of charge using high control manipultating methods such as threats?

  Examples:

  If you don't obey the WT Org you will lose your friends and family and your life. If you remain in the WT Org and you are not successful in recruiting your family members and old friends the God you worship will kill them dead and kill you too if you have any feelings for them. This I was told continously during the 20 plus year of my duration in the Org., though I didn't recognize that this is what was really being said until it was spelled out clearly for me by the elders in my congo, a creepy circuit overseer and untimantly the society who defended the whole lot of them.

  Your analysis felt cold hearted to me and much like the Organization of the WT bible and tract corporation. The love they preach is conditonal and based on your performance for the Org. If you can no longer perform you are tossed out with the trash. This is not the kind of love Jesus preached about, but this was the type of behavior he condemned the Pharasees for.

  The end
• 

  XQsThaiPoes

  Just to take one completely harmless example; How many intelligent JW's really believe that God created the lion to eat straw? Reasoning people within the JW's are going to have an aggravating 5 years or so and a cynical individual might conclude that this is the whole point.
  

  I posted

  *** w69 9/1 p. 543 Questions from Readers ***

  It is true that hundreds or even thousands of problem cases might be brought up, ones that apparently indicate that animals always killed one another, that this is necessary for the "balance of nature."

  It is a lil known fact the WTS conceded on animals eating meat. LOL I guess you are showing how cynical I am because that?s how I feel. They want to want to scare you off so you don't gum up the works. Hence why their nonsense is always "a test of faith".

  Imagine if a lawyer had to practice surgery with out training. If you question them the lawyer say "Yes I acknowledge I know nothing about medicine, but I am one of the best lawyers in the country. If you don't have this surgery you are going to die, but if you ask a surgeon for surgery it means you are offending my credibility as a lawyer and disaffectioning my clients tantamount to slander and character defamation. I can sue you for that I may not win but you will be so tired of fighting a good lawyer like me you'll go broke. So in good faith extend the olive branch and let me operate on you."
• 

  iiz2cool

  Why will apostates fail to compete with the WTS?

  You make the mistake of assuming that those who leave Jehovah's Witnesses have a desire to compete with the Watchtower Society. We don't! Neither do we seek to impose our viewpoint on others. We, unlike Jehovah's Witnesses, believe in freedom of thought.

  Jehovah's Witnesses claim to follow the bible, yet the type of control they try to exert over their members is unscriptural. It's not their place to tell people not to have beards or moustaches, not to drive 2 door cars, not to wear bright ties, not to go to college, not to pursue a decent career, etc., while they themselves protect child rapists, secretly whore with the UN while condemning it to their members, and deceive many with lies. And these are the very same things they condemn other religions for.

  No, we do not try to compete with the Watchtower, for we, unlike the Watchtower, have no desire to enslave and abuse our fellowman. We, unlike the Watchtower, still have some morals and ethics.

  In my time away from the Watchtower, I don't claim to have found any religious "truth", but after 20 years as a JW I know for a certainty that they don't have it!

  Walter
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  Flash

  Very funny, I like your analogy.

  Although, I have to disagree with this:

  Management style
  As the management is changing and getting younger in terms of age, old 'beaucratic traditional culture' is slowly changing to a more relax management style.

  A more relax management style? I haven't seen it.

  But your 'Consultant's Analysis' is funny anyway.
• 

  Faraon

  REASON,
  

  The kind of comments i get on this forum just shows the quality of people you are. The WTS is right when it describes you people. Now i know. You can't find the truth here. Not among you.

  There is no such a thing as "the truth", or a single truth.

  We have different ways of thinking in this forum and we can express them. Can you do that in a KH?

  You must really have a loose screw if you thought that you could come to a clearly anti JW site, start preaching to people about a religion that has blackmailed them to remain in it, broken their families, or killed some because of their doctrines, and receive a welcome mat.

  Even people who have not personally been hurt by the WT close their door to their representatives. Do you really think that we would welcome their supporters?

  If you really do market analyses you should've first investigated the target territory. I pity the fool who hires you.

  Faraon.
• 

  Leolaia

  cyber-sista....Yes, thank you for supporting my point! JWs are employees, not customers in the analogy.... They are customers in the sense of Amway salesmen needing to buy their own product....
• 

  Carmel

  ...no new religion out there that offers a better product....

  Better read my profile!

  carmel of the "better product" class