so here's a real life experience you will get a kick out of.. our kh has about 90 publishers.
typical meeting attendance during a co visit is right at 100 or so.
the rest of the time, attendance is a dismal 50-60, sometimes 70 on a good week!.
Haha that's pretty good.
The whole thing about local needs talks on meeting attendance always irritated me too. Who in their right mind thinks that'll work? Of course, those talks aren't really for the people that aren't coming, they're for the people in the seats to stem the tide of people leaving, and to give them cause to feel better than the people who aren't there and thus apply the passive-aggressive judgement anytime they run into someone who's not showing up.
jwfacts show that publisher growth was 15% pre- 1975 and has decline to about 2%.
what prevents them from fudging the annual growth and keeping it at something more positive like 10%?.
"a great crowd that no man is able to number".
They have been (indirectly) fudging the numbers for a while now:
Their numbers are essentially meaningless for any purpose other than comparison year over year. Luckily they make changes in how they cheat the numbers slowly enough that they're still useful to some extent.
i am sort of new here, used a different username for a while but things got 'difficult' at home so i've since been lurking.... what i would be really interested to know, if you don't mind sharing, is what it was that triggered your doubts and initial research which led to awakening, was it a bad experience, injustice, changed doctrine?
for me, it was seeing mistreatment of young ones in the congregation, they're under so much pressure and as soon as they go even slightly astray they are shunned, either informally (as bad associations which pushes them further into the 'world') or formally - with elders dying to throw the book at them so they even lose their family.... ...then reading about child abuse issues in the press.... ...which led me to silentlambs.
...then jw facts, this forum and coc, wham!
George's post caused me to recall a few more of my doubts. Looking at my lists in hindsight, it's crazy how much it took to reach critical mass.
i am sort of new here, used a different username for a while but things got 'difficult' at home so i've since been lurking.... what i would be really interested to know, if you don't mind sharing, is what it was that triggered your doubts and initial research which led to awakening, was it a bad experience, injustice, changed doctrine?
for me, it was seeing mistreatment of young ones in the congregation, they're under so much pressure and as soon as they go even slightly astray they are shunned, either informally (as bad associations which pushes them further into the 'world') or formally - with elders dying to throw the book at them so they even lose their family.... ...then reading about child abuse issues in the press.... ...which led me to silentlambs.
...then jw facts, this forum and coc, wham!
For me it was about 15 year's worth of straws that eventually broke the camel's back. Early on I asked questions about lots of these but was just never satisfied with the answer I got (which only amplified my doubts). Later on I just stopped asking questions. Then the overlapping generation nonsense combined with a mention of 1975 not necessarily being all private speculation by the R/F led me to ask "how are we different than Harold Camping" and that's what finally pushed me over the edge.
Some of the key factors from memory, roughly in order:
Once it got to that point I started looking around online. The 607 thing didn't phase me too much (I wanted black and white proof one way or the other, and since 607 didn't happen in my lifetime I couldn't verify it either way) but when I found the flat-out lies in the creation book (Thanks jwfacts!) a switch flipped in my brain and I was mentally out.
So, for me, I would say that it was 100% doctrine that led me out of the cult. I decided long ago that if it was the truth then I would commit to it no matter what it entailed. I never felt mistreated while I was in, my only source of discomfort with the cult was that there was just too much that didn't make sense and couldn't be reconciled.
in the past i have read on this forum that the wt have a say in the "bedroom" of couples.
i thought that was a bit overkill at first, but recently i have come to conclusion that this is true.. the control administered by the wt cooperation on ones sex life is not on only intrusive, its damaging.
they control every aspect of ones thought and action, thus leading most down a path that said corporation wants them to tread.. this path is to get married young, and then eternal loyalty the the organisation.. so how can an organisation force you to get married young?.
Sex within a marriage is usually pushed down to the bottom of the pile importance to have a successful happy marriage
Aside from maybe 3-4 references to the scripture that says that wives and husbands must render each other their due, I don't think I've ever heard sex listed as something that was a part of a happy marriage in my entire life in the cult.
Essentially everything said about sex in the cult is negative - STDs, unwanted pregnancy, ruined relationships/friendships, your marriage won't last if you have sex first, even if you do get married after you have sex you'll always regret not saving yourself, and on and on and on. In such an environment, is it surprising that there's rarely a healthy view of sex to be found?
Another way that they lead the youth into the trap of early marriage is by restricting dating to only those who are actively seeking marriage. For one thing, this immediately puts marriage in the discussion at the very beginning of a relationship - it's always in the mind and it seems inevitable. For another, when you're feeling those feelings of giddiness and everything that comes with new love for the first time when you're 18-20, it seems inevitable that you're going to think that it's more significant than it is. What's more is that you're going to be less trained in controlling yourself in that situation. If children are allowed to date in a more casual environment from an earlier age where they don't have nearly decade-old pent up sexual urges, it seems like they'd be more likely to have a healthy view of the life cycle of a relationship and not jump in with both feet just because they're horny and it's nice to be liked by another person.
we've all read, heard and have seen in the videos where jw's and their leaders talk about the "huge" growth that is taking place.
they've talked about how many kh they needed, branches etc... .
our co last visit he mentioned how quickly the organization is speeding up and the huge growth they are seeing.
There are honestly so many options. It all depends on how desperate they get. I could really seem them doing another donation slip except asking you to link your card so it's pulled monthly. You can already do that on JW.orgbut I feel this could be something that once you agree, they add it to JW.org and it's tracked.
Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal, but the last CO visit I attended (about 7 months back) he was pushing this feature of JW.org. "It just makes everything so much easier! You never have to wonder 'Did I donate yet this month?' - it's all done for you automatically!" When you stop and think that this is being said by a guy who doesn't actually donate money to the cult it becomes somewhat comical that he was saying it like it was some big stressor in his life.
Another thought - the auto-donate doesn't actually give you a way to donate money to the local KH, does it? It seems to me that they're trying to make it easier to donate to "mother" but let more and more forget to donate to the local expenses, thereby off-loading the begging for money onto the local elders. Then when there's a local needs talk about needing money, it will be about local expenses and all the good little JWs will say "Well I don't like that they're asking for money, but that's just the local congregation - the organization as a whole is still good and doesn't solicit money like christendom"
i worked a different shift.
i knew the people i worked with, but not as well as i could have.. anyway, religion comes up.
one guy mentions in front of another that i wrote a book about my religious experience.
Unbelievable. So he can't imagine why anyone would refrain from murder unless they feared God and eternal torment in hell. it sounds like he is the one with problems.
From the sound of it, he should be less worried about killing someone to claim an advantage than would be an atheist. An atheist would have to live with the memory of taking the life of another, whereas he could just assume he sent someone to heaven and Jesus would forgive him.
for some background, i am still in.
still an elder.
very much awake.
if there are problems then jehovah will reveal them in time
What if he is revealing it? There are examples in the bible of god's organization going astray (mostly bad kings) but most of the time it resulted in the deaths of thousands that were just trying to follow along and remain loyal to god's organization. So it's not something to be unsure of or take lightly.
i worked a different shift.
i knew the people i worked with, but not as well as i could have.. anyway, religion comes up.
one guy mentions in front of another that i wrote a book about my religious experience.
So he can do just whatever the hell he wants to and Jesus will forgive him, but you're the one without morals? I just don't even know what to do with someone who couldn't see the irony there. It sounds like his definition of morality is just to feel guilty about the stuff you do, not actually bother to be a decent person. Anyone that takes a course of action with the expectation that they'll be forgiven for it is about the bottom of the barrel as far as morality goes.
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that an atheist (at least a thinking atheist, not necessarily those that are atheist by convenience) would be more moral than a theist - atheists have no expectation in some sky daddy that'll come along and make things right, so we need to try to get it right ourselves. Theists assume that if they make a mess of things because it's easier/fun sky daddy will come in and fix it and forgive them.
have you noticed the article entitled "watch your associations in these last days" in the new august 2015 study watchtower?.
unless i'm reading it wrong, or somehow misinterpreting it, it is saying that we should be kind to intentional breakers of god's laws inside and outside the congregation, including fornicators, but that we must not be close associates with them.. are they already preparing for a shift in their disfellowshipping practices?.
here are the relevant paragraphs:.
