Posts by slimboyfat

I don’t remember anyone saying 70 changes but I do remember (vaguely) one of the GB describing a lengthy process for any change to be agreed and then announced. Ironically perhaps it was Tony Morris who said this, not sure. Or maybe Mark Sanderson or David Splane. I think David Splane was the one who made the weird comment about “we love this new teaching brothers” to some esoteric tweak they made. It’s so much more difficult to track down these phrases in the video era. (Though no doubt AI could easily search all the videos, and other useful features, shortly before they eliminate humans entirely.)

15

Slimboyfat: Why did you decide to write a topic on this site saying you were going back to the Jehovah's Witnesses?

by silentbuddha in

the topic concerning why the other user allows jw's by to eat is what prompted this thought in my mind.

maybe i am not remembering this correctly, but seem to remember a number of years ago that you decided to stop posting here and then all of a sudden you posted that this was an apostate website, you didn't want to be here, and that you were returning to jehovah.

( i may be slightly off, but it was something along those lines.. i am just wondering if you ever offered an explanation of why you did that?.

slimboyfat

One of the strangest encounters I had at a church was a man who had joined at least four different groups. He had been a JW, a Mormon, a Pentecostal, and he was at a Seventh-day Adventist Church when I met him. He said he left the JWs because they were anti-semitic, which I found surprising. He claimed he was at a Watchtower that was shamefully bashing Jews. He said the Mormons wanted his credit card details as soon as he got baptised and he never went back. And he said the Pentecostals were demonic.

Groups I’ve not yet visited that I’d like to visit:

Bible Students (if any can be found)

Salvation Army

Coptic

Orthodox

Lutheran

And I forgot on the above list that I visited the New Apostolic Church too, a strange cultic church that is strong in Germany and parts of Africa whose dubious claims to fame are that they supported the Nazis in the Third Reich and predicted the end of the world in the 1950s.

18

Toasting allowed - BIRTHDAYS will soon follow!

by BoogerMan in

"jehovah’s witnesses do not celebrate birthdays because we (the g.b.

) believe that such celebrations displease god.

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/birthdays/.

slimboyfat

Vidiot I looked it up and they still used the term “Babylonish practices” in the Isaiah books at the turn of the millennium.

81

Japan closes 638 Congregations!!!!! Why???

by Witness 007 in

japan since the 1970''s has had amazing publisher increases!

every year the number of witnesses shot up by many thousands.

this peaked in 1998, since then the number of witnesses and congregations has continued to drop!.

slimboyfat

Yes, congregation numbers show greater decline than publisher numbers, which is probably a fairer reflection of decline as experienced by JWs in Japan.

I wonder if the end of JW growth in Japan coincides with a broader disillusionment with American influence in Japanese culture in general. I don’t know much about Japan except that they experienced economic problems since the early 1990s and turned to a more nationalistic orientation as a result.

If Japan is experiences secularisation in any way similar to that in western countries in recent decades then the decline of JWs might be part of broader secularisation. Like in many western countries it may be the case that JWs are declining at a slower rate than other groups.

18

Toasting allowed - BIRTHDAYS will soon follow!

by BoogerMan in

"jehovah’s witnesses do not celebrate birthdays because we (the g.b.

) believe that such celebrations displease god.

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/birthdays/.

slimboyfat

It’s perhaps just an inference from the other changes that have been made rather than a specific rumour.

81

Japan closes 638 Congregations!!!!! Why???

by Witness 007 in

japan since the 1970''s has had amazing publisher increases!

every year the number of witnesses shot up by many thousands.

this peaked in 1998, since then the number of witnesses and congregations has continued to drop!.

slimboyfat

Every single census that has been compared with WT numbers finds more claiming to be JWs than the WT figures. This surely counts as some evidence at least that WT numbers are reliable. The same isn’t true for other groups such as the Mormons who claim far more members than censuses ever show.

Plus WT does publish declines when they happen, such as after 1975, and now in Japan as is the subject of this thread, as well as Poland and even in the United States itself declines are published.

That’s not to say there isn’t some inflation in what a “publisher” is over the years. That’s true too, but not enough to invalidate all the reported numbers to a significant degree. It’s a feature of all kind of statistics, including GDP and other accepted measures, not peculiar to JWs. And anyway, it’s the reason I advocate using the number of congregations as the best measure of growth over the long term.

So there is a lot of evidence that WT numbers are broadly reliable. The only counter argument seems to be scepticism about WT in general. That’s not a great argument for determining the reality of the situation, it’s just an attitude disguised as an argument.

18

Toasting allowed - BIRTHDAYS will soon follow!

by BoogerMan in

"jehovah’s witnesses do not celebrate birthdays because we (the g.b.

) believe that such celebrations displease god.

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/birthdays/.

slimboyfat

Proberly true.

They used to claim that putting away birthdays, Christmas, the cross and so on were all part of the Jesus-sanctioned reforms that removed Babylonish practices from God’s people during Rutherford’s presidency. I wonder if they’ll revise that concept or scrap it altogether.

22

Anyone explain the generation idea!

by Witness 007 in

i don't understand we went thru a phase where we down played the generation so now it's the generation that knew the 1914 generation???

is that correct?

how does that even work.

slimboyfat

How does it work? It doesn’t. It’s wild and it will melt your brain if you think about it too hard.