OneEyedJoe

Joined

• started 34 topics
• posted 2,930 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by OneEyedJoe

• 
  77

  In The Name of Love, Need Your Opinion

  by thankyou in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  i'm non-jw.. been following this forum.

  most of you folks have been through hell, but are still loving souls.

  i'm reeeally impressed and glad to be here.. my question is at the end of this.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  What say you/folks?
  

  It's a cult.

  Seriously. Don't get sucked in this way, you're better than that. Why else would they need to use social pressure like this in order to get you to join up (if you don't "progress spiritually" and get baptized into the cult, she'll drop you again) if it's a legitimate religion? This is how cults work - they prey on someone who's in an emotionally or mentally weakened state (heartbreak is a very common one) and they provide social support while slowly pressuring you to conform to the group. Please research this cult further (jwfacts.com is a great resource) and information about cults in general (freedomofmind.com is very useful here) before you even consider beginning a study. Please please please do not become another victim of this cult.
• 
  20

  Have the Governing Body caught themselves out in a lie?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  all sorts of suspected deception going on surrounding the cutbacks and the reasons for them.

  but hard to pin down a direct falsehood.

  sure, they initially said they were reducing the magazines so the brothers had less to read, then later said it was to save money.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  While I suspect you're entirely correct, there's enough other explanations that you won't get a JW to accept that it was a lie. They could've been caught off guard by some large expense at warwick or elsewhere, or their projections could've been way off. I am, however, having trouble coming up with an explanation that doesn't at the very least make them incompetent. Certainly all this shows that they're neither faithful nor discrete.
• 
  31

  Sometimes I think Jehovah's Witnesses overuse the word "historic"

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  at the beginning of the may broadcast stephen lett said this was a historic broadcast.

  he explained that every member of the governing body had hosted a show and they were starting over again.

  that was all the explanation he gave.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Just like the historic convention in ohio that fulfilled prophecy. It's all just an appeal to the ego of JWs. Puff them up with false significance and it gives them further to fall should they ever doubt. The more of their self worth they can get them to invest in their association with the cult, the less likely they'll be to risk losing it by examining their doubts.
• 
  77

  In The Name of Love, Need Your Opinion

  by thankyou in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  i'm non-jw.. been following this forum.

  most of you folks have been through hell, but are still loving souls.

  i'm reeeally impressed and glad to be here.. my question is at the end of this.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Yes, please please please do yourself the favor of not bothering with her. She's already tried to get rid of you and maybe you'll win her over short-term but more than likely even if you start dating someone will find out and the other cult members will turn up the pressure on her to drop you. It will be constant and unless she doesn't believe in the cult or is willing to live without contact with her family ever again, she will most likely submit to the pressure.

  I don't believe the nonsense that there's one person out there for everyone. You can find another girl that will be just as compatible and you'll feel just as strongly about that won't be in a cult. Just move on. I absolutely promise you that your life will be better if you do. There is no doubt in my mind.

  I want to tell you to call on thanksgiving, because that'll likely make her pull away more which would be in your best interests. You have the right to decide for yourself, so I'll just say she'll probably not appreciate the call. Even if you don't mention thanksgiving, the correlation will probably be obvious and will only serve to remind her that you're not a cultist and she is, and she's strongly discouraged from having any dealings with you (romantic or otherwise) because you are "worldly" and "bad association." To her and her family and other cultists you are going to be viewed as an instrument of Satan, trying to draw her away from god. Reminding her of that is unlikely to help you with her.
• 
  7

  Seems like the perfect holiday for j-dubs

  by rebel8 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  if this article is correct, (american) thanksgiving's origins have several things j-dubs love.

  the xian god.

  genocide of nonbelievers that included men, women and children alike.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Just one problem - it might let them have some small connection with non-JWs. Gotta keep the virtual cult compound walls in place!
• 
  4

  Former witness in local newspaper

  by Saltheart Foamfollower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this article is a follow up to a recent case which was discussed here.. http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/former-jehovah-s-witness-says-church-s-policies-don-t-help-abuse-victims-1-7588106.

  sf.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Gotta love all the publicity they're getting. It's almost like they've set out specifically to disprove the saying "there's no such thing as bad publicity."
• 
  10

  The Shocking Origins Of...

  by freemindfade in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i can't deal with this crap witnesses plaster on social media (facebook).

  "the shocking origins of christmas!

  " first off no one cares, leave the people alone.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Not only that, but it seems that most JWs are under the impression that "worldly" people don't realize that the bible doesn't say to put up a tree and lights or that Jesus was born on the 25th. I've found that not to be the case. I once got all self righteous on someone because I knew that christmas was pagan and she said "Yeah, I know it wasn't Jesus' birthday but it's just a nice time for family to get together and enjoy some pretty things and presents and think about christ. What's wrong with that?" The response shocked me because I was only prepared for her to bow before my superior bible knowledge.
• 
  17

  WT history repeating?

  by WasOnceBlind in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i war reading an interesting research article about charles taze russell and all of his financial dealings.

  this caught my eye:.

  charles taze russell and the watchtower society were in deep business distress after the "busted" october 1914 prophecy failure, and particularly after the "busted" october 1915 prophecy failure.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  Hrm....yes that's interesting!! let's just hope the WT doesn't take on an even nastier, more controlling form again, as it did under Rutherford!
  

  If it means that they lose 75% of their membership like what happened between 1914 and 1925, I think that's a bargain I'd be OK with. They'd never recover like they did the first time in this day and age.
• 
  44

  Decrease of numbers in Jehovah's Witnesses via Deaths, DFings, or Turning Inactive

  by flipper in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i'm sure a good number of us saw the chart that i believe the poster splash put on another thread of figures since 1990 regarding how many baptized and % of increase each year .

  i started analyzing it ( and i know some referred to it briefly on the other thread ) and guessing of reasons the % of increase didn't match the number of newly baptized.

  and of course common sense tells us that either jw's leave the cult each year through death, fading into inactivity, or getting dfed.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  There is no correlation between publishers and baptisms.
  

  IMO this is too strongly worded. There's definitely a correlation, it's just that the number of baptisms will lag behind the number of new publishers. Looking at a single year the numbers don't mean that much to one another, but looking over a longer period I think one can fairly accurately estimate the number leaving. The number leaving might not always include those who were baptized at some point, but if someone becomes a publisher and then leaves I think we can still count it as a win for team TTATT.

  I was under the impression that the "peak publisher" total was taken from any given month showing the highest publishers reporting. It would explain special campaign months where irregular publishers and even some inactive publishers are encouraged to engage in the campaign and report time for the month. That month would generate thousands more publishers in the ministry and would be used as the "peak publisher" mark reported in the yearbook
  

  The last two Augusts have been good examples of this. I think typically they'll do some sort of reminder that it's the end of the service year and ask for any late reports to be turned in (thus concentrating the late reports in a single month to generate a false peak vs allowing them to come in whenever which would average out) but they definitely did that this year. Then in 2014 they had the big JW.org campaign in august. I think the reason for this campaign was primarily to allow them to post a significant increase in 2014 (which it did, the increase in publishers for 2014 was between 25% and 90% higher than the years prior) because they were concerned that any drop in numbers as a result of the arrival of 2014 would be detrimental to them. I think they're paying for it this year, though, because they can only artificially inflate the numbers like that so much before they reach a ceiling.

  What percentage of active publishers are not (yet) baptized?
  

  I'd estimate this at ~10% at most. In recent years it may well have gone down as the average age of baptism seems to have gone down.
• 
  74

  Jehovah's Witnesses May Have Peaked in Membership at 8 Million (+/-)

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't have all the details of their new "service year" numbers, but i have read enough on jwn to state my opinion pretty strongly.. memorial attendance for 2015 was down.while they kept saying they were going to build a bunch of new kingdom halls, and everybody is still in recovery from watchtower taking all the local money away, they say pretty much that there isn't enough money to build new kingdom halls.putting gb members on the videos at jw .

  org has allowed people to really put a face and personality to these guys and remove the mystery of how they should be such deeply spiritual serious men.

  instead they see silly thoughts about tight pants and, really everything that comes out of lett's mouth is delivered ultra-goofy, along with the money reports.. the gb lost credibility a little more with every new light that shone down, with the strangest one being "overlapping generation.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OneEyedJoe

  I wonder if they will ever make 9 million ?

  In theory, they should within a few years, but it seems to me that the decline has started for real, so the Thread Title should be an accurate prediction.

  I suspect we'll have a pretty good idea in about a year. Going by past performance, they should hit 9 million in about 4-5 years, but if they have another year like 2015, I'd say it'll take them closer to a decade, which gives them plenty of time to have enough problems to start to see proper stagnation/decline.

  Since it seems feasible that they're peaking, what do we think will happen when the numbers drop back down to the 7 million bracket? When they officially hit 8 million I think it got a passing mention in a WT article (something like "with over 8 million kingdom evangalizers....") I think everybody locally noticed and a few in the congregation got somewhat excited.

  When genuine decline sets in and becomes obvious to the masses (assuming they continue reporting the numbers) what happens? I think they might've gotten a little unlucky that they're at the bottom of the 8 million bracket because it won't take much loss in membership for people to notice. They might ignore a drop from 7.9 million to 7.5 million thinking that they simply misremembered the details, but knew it was somewhere in the ~7 million range. A drop from 8.25 million to 7.9 million, while smaller, is much more likely to be noticed.

  It seems to me that they may be poised for a short-term feedback loop of people leaving. Those with doubts and the fence-sitters or those who are only in for family may see the noticeable decline as a turning of the tide. The decline itself could well cause many to leave, creating further decline. It wouldn't last forever, but I can see them losing maybe a million in membership in a 4-5 year period due to something like this.

  This is probably on the optimistic side but it seems plausible to me. Fear of something like this is why I expect the GB to turn attention away from reporting numbers (or at least away from reporting all the numbers) in a short while. They'll probably go to highlights that can be more easily manipulated (new peak in pioneers, but don't mention that the hours required to pioneer have dropped precipitously) and stop the full yearly reporting. The good news is that the GB seems to be entirely reactive and in wishful thinking mode, so I think we'll probably see at least one or two years' numbers showing decline before they actually realize the pattern and change how things are reported. That would also give them a little time to lay the groundwork (perhaps a study article on David's taking the census, etc) so that it doesn't come as too much of a shock from an organization that's always been obsessed with numbers.