Posts by OneEyedJoe

16

JW.org and recruitment

by Illuminated in

do you believe the marketing of jay w org will convert more people or help inactive ones remain indoctrinated?

bohm hit the nail on the head. The website won't snag anyone who's looking at it cold. It might help a little in cases where JWs meet someone preaching, and they go do a web search afterwards, since they may just find jw.org and only go there.

The only case where I can see it having any significant impact is in cases where someone has some personal exposure to JWs outside of the ministry. They may get curious and look up the website and if they're sufficiently impressionable and sufficiently disenfranchised with whatever religion they were raised in, they might get caught up in the cult. This is probably the main way they get recruits anyway though - acquaintances of JWs, not the d2d preaching.

25

'Tracing All Things With Accuracy' - How the Watchtower Society's Writing Department never makes a mistake

by jwleaks in

from the 2011 yearbook of jehovah's witnesses.. source: 'tracing all things with accuracy'.

tracing all things with accuracy.

jesus said that the faithful slave would be discreet in giving the domestics their food at the proper time.

OneEyedJoe

Or you may have read about the incident involving Sir Isaac Newton and a model of the solar system. Reportedly, a visiting atheist asked: “Who made it?” When Newton answered, “Nobody!” the atheist replied, “You must think I am a fool!” Newton is then said to have told the atheist that his puny imitation of the much grander solar system proves that there has to be a designer or maker. As appealing as this account may be, historical sources, as well as Newton scholars and biographers, cannot provide evidence that this conversation really occurred. Interestingly, the earliest references to this incident appeared in the early 1800’s using, not Newton’s name, but the name of German scholar Athanasius Kircher. Consequently, our Writing Department no longer uses this account in our publications.

Wait, did they just admit that they don't actually bother to check things out before they print it? They just said that they "no longer" use the account, not that they never did. I've heard the story used in meetings quite a lot, so I'm sure that it came from them at some point. So while the article is supposed to inspire confidence in their accuracy, it really is an admission that they print things that are inaccurate and don't stop using it until their caught (if at all).

18

Propaganda vs Bible study

by Clambake in

is it just me or is the wts increasingly just becoming more about watchtower propaganda.

every week it seems to be about killing your children over blood transfusions or worshipping the magical men in brooklyn or the loving provision of shunning or the magical power of the elders or some brother in far off land who is in jail because he cant stop handling out magazines he doesnt understand to people who dont want them.

try and get a jw to explain the gospels or the book of the romans and what was significant about the book of acts...........................no clue.

OneEyedJoe

They're definitely dumbing things down, but that's been going on for several years. I don't know if there's any way they could increase their propaganda, though. That's always been a mainstay of the cult. There have been times that I've thought the propaganda was ramping up, but I think that's mainly because my view of the cult has changed so drastically relatively recently when I woke up. I definitely pay more attention to the BS propaganda these days, whereas before I ignored it because it made me too uncomfortable.

They won't get rid of the bible. If they did that they'd probably lose a good portion of non born-in recruits that they're getting. The bible is the bait in their bait and switch, so it's pretty necessary.

They have effectively neutered the bible, though. The latest "translation" has words brazenly (haha) inserted/changed without bothering to indicate it. Their app sorts search results for scriptures by frequency of use, so the inconvenient scriptures that they don't use end up all the way at the bottom. The best thing, though, is their clever use of .epub literature and pushing tablets for study. Now JWs don't bother to look up scriptures in context, they just tap the link to the scripture and it brings up the cited scripture and no more. Now that it's easier to read just the cited scriptures, JWs will be less likely to get curious and read the context.

19

Explaining away the increase in anointed

by lurkernomore in

so i was just informed by my wife that her grandmother (who's also out) has been told by a 'sister' from her old hall that during their most recent circuit visit the co said something along the lines of:.

isn't it faith strengthening that the number of anointed is falling in relation to the increase in publishers?

!.

OneEyedJoe

Regarding the OP, there's no such thing as number of anointed in relation to anyone else. In relation to? Seriously, where do they get this stuff? Oh, yeah... high control group.... got to explain away the unexplainable.

There's so much wrong with the statement that the # of annointed is falling in relation to the increase in publishers. First, it doesn't really make sense. Second, the only reasonable measure of the increase to use as a comparison is percentage:

From 2013 to 2014:

Average publishers grew by ~2.2%. Peak publishers grew by ~3%. In contrast, the partakers grew by 6.9%, more than double the increase in peak publishers (which we all know is a flawed statistic already) and more than triple the increase seen in average publishers, which is the more useful statistic. Sure, in absolute terms there were more new publishers than new partakers, but that's an absurd way to compare the growth of two different groups when one group is over 500 times larger than the other to start with.

19

Explaining away the increase in anointed

by lurkernomore in

so i was just informed by my wife that her grandmother (who's also out) has been told by a 'sister' from her old hall that during their most recent circuit visit the co said something along the lines of:.

isn't it faith strengthening that the number of anointed is falling in relation to the increase in publishers?

!.

OneEyedJoe

The whole anointed partakers thing is so weird when viewed objectively. Not necessarily the doctrine (in my view, there's weirder doctrine in mainstream christianity) but the obsession with tracking it. It causes otherwise normal (as normal as a jw can be, I guess) people to look at some stat that says 14k people partook, and they instantly thing "why don't they just die!"

When I was a pre-teen and we were going through the revelation book, when we got to the part about the 144k and that there would still be some left when the GT started (this being when the 144k was "evidently" sealed in 1935) I found myself wondering what if someone were to track them all down and kill them. Could we force god to bring armageddon sooner? This person would be doing a great kindness to all the JWs who were so eager for the end. Presuming that this person would be killed at armageddon, wouldn't this be a selfless act? Now, I'll admit that I've always thought about rather morbid things like this, but I've gotta think that if your religion's doctrine makes a kid think about killing 10,000 people, there might be something wrong with it.

44

Re: Art Skills Needed at Bethel

by suavojr in

jw
friends

all they want is some spiritually-qualified publishers blind individuals who believe they are god's mouthpiece on earth.

no wonder their artwork is so poor.. .

christian congregation of jehovahs witnesses2821 route 22, patterson, ny 12563-2237 phone: (845) 306-11001/8/15-e usjanuary 8, 2015to all congregations in the united states branch territoryre: art skills needed at betheldear brothers:the beautiful illustrations in our printed publications and on jw.org serve as teaching aidsthat emphasize spiritual truths from the bible.

OneEyedJoe

I think the message is:

If you were so prideful and arrogant that you pursued education in order to attain worldly riches (against our explicit recommendations) then the least you could do to assuage your guilt would be to cough up some free labor.

Hypocrits.

82

Awake January 2015: How did life begin? - More misquotes

by Designer Stubble in

[quote]some might assume that a scientifically-minded person would pick evolution and that a religious person would pick creation.

but not always.. rama singh, professor of biology at canadas mcmaster university, says: the opposition to evolution goes beyond religious fundamentalism and includes a great many people from educated sections of the population.[/quote].

end-of-quote in awake.

OneEyedJoe

Bumping to add the link that notsurewheretogo posted on another thread:

http://jwalumni.org/2015/01/17/rama-singh-awake/

His letter asking the WTS to print an apology is pretty good. The only thing I wish for was that he wouldn't have mentioned ex-jws in it. I'm trying to decide whether or not to show it to my wife (Im already planning on showing her the misquotes this week) because I don't want her to come back with the typical character assassination that comes when an ex-jw is mentioned.

35

New BOE letter: Re: Survey on Use of Printed Publications

by pixel in

to all bodies of elders in the united states branch territory re: survey on use of printed publications .

dear brothers: .

the branch office is working on arrangements for the 2015 regional conventions.

OneEyedJoe

(I actually had a fear before signing up that this website was secretly run by the society to root out doubters and undercover apostates. I'm such a moron.)

You weren't too far off-base there - the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) was an anti-cult organization until members of Scientology successfully sued them, drove them to bankruptcy, then bought them. Now the website appears to be an anti-cult organization but they use it to recruit people who are leaving other cults and to report people who have begun to investigate their cult. I wouldn't put it past the WTS to eventually try the same trick.

A printing company that doesn't print anything.

A real-estate development company mascaraing as a printing company disguised as a religion.

I guess I'll state that my wife and I both prefer hard-copies, then we'll see how many extras I can take and trash.

35

New BOE letter: Re: Survey on Use of Printed Publications

by pixel in

to all bodies of elders in the united states branch territory re: survey on use of printed publications .

dear brothers: .

the branch office is working on arrangements for the 2015 regional conventions.

OneEyedJoe

So which should I do? Request a physical copy to cost them marginally more, or go electronic and get as many hard copies as I can?

Maybe this year I'll go around and get copies from all the different folks handing them out, then throw 'em away in the bathrooms.

15

Awesome movie: "THE GIVER". This is a MUST WATCH for witnesses and those breaking free from the WT!!!

by stuckinarut2 in

jw
friends

you have to watch the movie "the giver"!

it is simply an awesome movie for every thinking witness, or those trying to break free from the org's hold on us.. i wont give away too much, but the concept of the film is mind blowing!

utopia vs reality etc... conformity vs individuality and humanity... etc.

OneEyedJoe

Read the book in school, and watched the movie recently. I agree that for those of us that are dealing with a spouse that's still in, this is a great moving to watch at home and make thought-provoking comments. My strategy was to point out all the clear signs of extreme levels of control that are also present in JW world, and ridicule the characters for their failure to recognize them.

I thought the movie did a very good job of staying faithful to the spirit of the book. As is typical much of the back story was left out, but for having a limited amount of time they did quite a good job. I don't remember all the minor story lines in the book, so there might've been some deviation there, but nothing that affected the overall plot. For someone that usually comes away with the tired cliche of "the book was so much better" I was pretty satisfied with the movie.