BU2B's recent thread made me think back to this one. Bumping for the folks that have joined more recently or may have missed it.
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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62
Roll call of those of us stuck in for our spouse or whos spouse is still in!
by BU2B ini just wanted to get a feel for how many here have awakened to ttatt but are still carrying on some jw activities to pacify them and keep the peace.
also trying to hear from those who have left, but whose spouse has stayed in the wt and in the marriage.. for me it comes down to my own mental anguish.
i am mentally tortured by attending the meetings, yet i feel compelled to because my wife would kill me with her personality if i had her drag 2 small girls by herself there.
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The more people who leave the Witnesses, the more people will leave. True?
by ThomasCovenant inif more faders stopped fading and just stopped,.
would more of the many closet unbelieving attendees just stop too, creating a momentum?.
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OneEyedJoe
I saw or read something on sorta related a while back (I think it was a TED talk, but I can't find it) that discussed groups in which it is possible for everyone in the group to have serioius misgivings about whatever the group is doing, but everyone keeps it to themselves because there's a perception by all that everyone else is firmly in favor of the group. It's possible, at least in small pockets of the JW community, that this could be the state of affairs - everyone (or a large minority) going along because they think everyone else believes it. In such a pocket, a relatively small walk-out would have far-reaching effects.
That said, I don't think a grand appostate walk-out would severly criple the organization. Any positive feedback created would likely be isolated in small groups, and for everyone outside that group it would be easily explained away as a fluke, not part of a grander pattern. I've noticed in other threads that while 2/3rds of born-ins leave it seems that in many cases groups leave or stay together, for the most part. So there's many people who relate that all their friends from childhood are out, and many who say that everyone is still in.
This cult does seem to be dying a slow death in developed countries, though, so maybe in a few years such a walkout could happen and have a sweeping effect on the membership.
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Tv.jw.org - Average Jdub reaction? I'm getting NOTHING but Silence!
by 4thgen inhello all, as you know, when jw tv was announced, our board went wild.
many comments, much speculation and alot of negative feedback on the quality, etc.
well, what has me concerned is that i have not heard a peep from any of my connections left in kingdom-land.
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OneEyedJoe
yeah, so far I haven't heard a single word about it, other than the letter being read from the stage. Such a bummer too, because I've got that '144000 club' joke locked and loaded
Like a lot of the changes, these things seem to take a while to fully sink in. I mean jw.org has been around for a while now, but the frenzy with the pins and such has only just started in the last 6-8 months.
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January 15, 2015 watchtower 3 study articles about marriage.
by hoser incouples having problems and getting divorced must be a problem in the jehovahs witnesses.
the articles are definately an interesting read.
they give plenty of bad advise as usual.
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OneEyedJoe
Well, maybe divorce rates are not dropping for Jehovah's Witnesses. Indicators for divorce include young/teen marriage, and lower on the socioeconomic scale. Education makes a difference, too. College educated couples divorce less often.
Cult 101 - cause problems for adherents, then insist that any problems in their lives are because they are insufficiently devoted to the cult.
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Catholic Church Changing its Mind on Gay People
by fulltimestudent inmiracles still happen, eh?.
centuries of misrepresentation and persecution of gay people may be about to end, as far as the catholic church is concerned.. more than 200 bishops have been taking part in the synod since 5 october.
it was convened by pope francis to debate abortion, contraception, homosexuality and divorce.. monday's report, issued half-way through the two-week meeting, said:.
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OneEyedJoe
The JWs will love this. Just another thing to point to that proves that they're the only true religion (since, apparently, your choices are JW or catholic...)
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OneEyedJoe
When they read the announcement letter on Thursday, the 70-something cobe kept spelling out ARE-OH-KAY-YOU everytime roku was mentioned in the letter. Really illustrated how behind the average elder is, and reinforced that this is a lame attempt to capture the attention of the youth that are leaving in droves.
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Blondie's Comments You Will Not Hear at the 10-11-2014 WT Study (
by blondie inunited nations http://www.randytv.com/secret/unitednations.htm.
opening comments.
the word of god is alive and exerts power.heb.
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OneEyedJoe
Yep, they're essentially turning d2d work into a choose your own adventure game for the HH. If they play along, they're trapped into a limited number of paths, and the JW there is ready to say aha! gotcha! I have the answer from the bible!
The only way to win is not to play.
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New December KM with changes all over
by pixel inis not on the public website yet, but here it is, full more changes:.
to the 2015 school:.
bible highlights: brothers as- signed this part will have two min- utes to consider one interesting and practical scriptural point from the weekly bible reading.
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OneEyedJoe
Am I being thick or does this not mean that only those favoured few with tablets will have the song before them, if they have downloaded it?
The singing could be a tad wek that night.. Another step in freezing out those without the hi tech equipment
Either that, or they'll have to print out the new songs from the website. In any event, they must have some access to tech in order to keep up.
I think it's a test to see if they get any push-back. They've already 'encouraged' people to print out the first chapter of the 'gods love' book when we started studying it not too long ago. That must've gone well enough and now they're pushing a little harder...instead of just having slightly out-of-date information if you don't print it yourself, you won't have the songs at all. Next they'll have entire publications that are online-only.
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One Day assembly in Arizona- $17,000 !!
by AndDontCallMeShirley ini heard from a reliable source that a one-day assembly in arizona last weekend had a "cost" to the publishers of $17,000.. predictably, the elders were nice enough to obligate the attendees to a $6,000 donation to wt before the assembly "costs" (i.e.
"rent/extortion) were even met.
$11,000 rent plus $6000 in extra "donations".
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OneEyedJoe
Not sure how it became such an issue, but I've had pizzas at restaurants that cook in a 900 degree wood-fired brick oven, and a full-size pizza only took 70 seconds. It seems completely reasonable that a smaller one, perhaps with a little bit thinner crust or fewer toppings might only need 30ish seconds. Maybe a bit longer, but certainly the difference isn't enough to call BS on the idea that they might have such an oven at one bethel or another...
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Growth From jw.org?
by EmptyInside inwell,according to my mother,lots of bible studies and newly interested ones because of the promotion of the website.
it is just growing,lol.. i have no clue.
it's funny their spin on things.
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OneEyedJoe
I'm not phased as much about the credit card terminals. 97% of American currency only exists in digital form. Employers began refusing to issue paychecks a few years ago, only paying you on a debit card or direct deposit. People have now grown up having never written or handled a check. It was inevitable. I predict they will start accepting Paypal and Bitcoin next.
I personally wouldn't have been phased by the credit card machines at assemblies and conventions IF I hadn't heard hundreds of times how greedy the churches of christendom were, and the presence of ATMs in some of their churches was presented as primary evidence of this. Actually, as a kid, I remember thinking to myself "is that really that bad? They're not forcing anyone to contribute, just making it more convenient for those that will anyway." But, no, again and again it was stressed that putting those machines in the church was akin to having the money changers in the temple. It put the emphasis on money, not on god and was often the very first thing that you see when you walk in.
What's the first thing you see when you walk into a convention/assembly hall now? A sister gaurding over a credit card machine. It's not so much the credit card machines, it's the hypocricy behind it. That was a big part of my resolving never to donate again, even while still asleep to TTATT.
Now, back on the main topic of the thread -
Since the WTS seems to be primarily emulating the Mormons these days (especially with jw.org clearly being inspired by lds.org) are there any meaningful growth stats to show how lds.org may have helped/hurt the mormons? Since they're a few years ahead with all that, that might provide some indication as to what effect jw.org will have. I did a couple searches, but wasn't able to find much information and don't have time to dive in too deep right now.
Personally, I think JW.org is primarily a tool to keep the R/F busy and keep up the facade of progress. There's constant mention that JW.org may be the fullfillment of Jesus' words that the good news will be preached in the entire inhabitted earth before the end. Obviously there's some significant holes in that logic, but since it's clearly designed to appeal to the 1st world, those in the 1st world take the internet foregranted and assume that it's available everywhere.
The statistics generated from the website are also great for their boasting of "Jehovah certainly is speeding up the work!" but comparing statistics generated from a website with real-world preaching stats is clearly flawed. I suspect a fair portion of the bible study requests are fake, or they'll lose interest by the time someone actually comes by. Of the ones that are 'real' I suspect a number are from ones that have some familiarity with the JWs, and are just looking for some basic information about the cult and will eventually lose interest. Many are probably immigrants looking for an easy way to learn the local language, and will drop the study once they've gotten what they need. Of those that are actually brought in by the web site, I suspect most will be of poor "quality" - poor, mentally unstable folks who will contribute only to the further dumbing-down of the cult, which will continue to help push thinking people out of the cult.
All in all, I'd bet jw.org will be a wash as far as generating growth, but it may be temporarily successful in distracting from the fact that it's 2014 and the WTS has yet to have a single prediction come true.