Posts by slimboyfat

86

2018 JWBroadcasting "Higher education is useless" video CLIP

by Not_Culty in

sept 2018. https://vimeo.com/288327363.

slimboyfat

Oh my goodness that was awful.

You can see their logic however. They undoubtedly receive countless reports from COs that young JWs who go to college leave the truth en masse. Since they believe that staying in the truth is the most important thing, they draw the reasonable conclusion that attending university is a moral danger. And so they issue these increasingly shrill warnings. The logic is sound. It’s the presmises that are flawed.

But have they also considered that their warnings against education are part of the problem? Because now, any JW who goes to collage, knows that he is being disobedient. He is being pushed into leaving the truth just by making the initial move because of the Watchtlwer rhetoric. If Watchtower was completely positive and supportive of higher education, would as many young people leave the truth? They obviously think more would leave the truth if more went to university. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Most Mormons go to college for example, yet a high number of those emerge from education with their (nonless) idiosyncratic beliefs intact.

Fred Franz was half way through his degree when he gave up and joined Watchtower. I can’t help but wonder, if he had got that Watchtower tract in the post a year or two later, when he had competed his degree, might his attitude and the attitude of JWs to education have been different?

58

Developments in the India Branch

by MaxPayne in

the following letter was read in the congregation today.

it's for all the congregations in india.

i have pasted it as it was.

slimboyfat

Thanks for the further information. I was already aware that Bibles are produced in Japan and magazines in Germany, so this stacks up. It does appear to be real.

So what is going on here? Is Watchtower not really in financial trouble?

I think this letter is further evidence that Watchtower is in trouble.

Because, if Watchtower is short of money, what does it do with a branch like India where funds cannot simply be removed? I guess the logical answer is: sell them more literature, and promote growth using funds within the country in order to increase the number of JWs consuming that literature. Thus the weird situation where they are building more, distributing more literature, and hiring special pioneers in India, while they are doing the complete opposite elsewhere. (This theory does depend on the idea that Watchtower is able to charge the India branch for the cost of the imported literature. Can this be verified?)

Them saying that they have the funds to cover more literature, remote translation, and more special pioneers, but not enough funds for a smaller branch just sounds dodgy. But I guess JWs will accept it.

Around about 1999 or 2000 there was a lot of talk online about disruption/corruption/chaos in the India branch. And again a few months ago there was a similar story. I wonder how that ties in with the new changes.

I have always found it interesting that JWs have been relatively unsuccessful in spreading their message in India. They are much more numerous in the Philippines, for example. Plus other denominations such as the Seventh Day Adventists have many more members in India than JWs. SDAs have something like 1,500,000 members in India compared to only 50,000 JWs. I wonder if there is some reason JWs have been poor at gaining converts in India.

I guess the GB may also really believe in their mandate to promote the message to all languages possible, and they see India as prime location for promoting growth among lots of smaller language groups.

58

Developments in the India Branch

by MaxPayne in

the following letter was read in the congregation today.

it's for all the congregations in india.

i have pasted it as it was.

slimboyfat

They promised hundreds of new KHs in the US too... right before they halted construction and started selling off KHs.

If this letter is genuine, I think they are flat out lying. I don’t believe they intend to build many KHs, print more literature, and I especially don’t believe they intend to financially support greater numbers of special pioneers.

I do believe this is becoming their modus operandi for requesting greater donations however.

Or the letter is fake.

p.s. what did they mean when they say they don’t print their own literature. Do they pay a commercial company, or do their ship it from another branch?

41

(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us?

by Solzhenitsyn in

as a "deep pimo" i can say that there is a confirmed re-branding.

the coordinators committee formed a focus group from service and teaching committees.

the results of that group roughly three+ years ago, with gb approval, trickled down to the other committees and eventually into what we have been seeing before our eyes in the org and local congs.. pick an organizational level and see the shift.

slimboyfat

In terms of words of content I would be surprised if they published in 2018 as much as 10% of the material published in 2000 or earlier.

41

(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us?

by Solzhenitsyn in

as a "deep pimo" i can say that there is a confirmed re-branding.

the coordinators committee formed a focus group from service and teaching committees.

the results of that group roughly three+ years ago, with gb approval, trickled down to the other committees and eventually into what we have been seeing before our eyes in the org and local congs.. pick an organizational level and see the shift.

slimboyfat

But do they still write? They’ve cut the yearbooks, the annual book and brochure releases, and they’ve cut the public Watchtower and Awake back to almost nothing.

The only written content they still regularly produce is the Study Watchtower. Will even that last? Maybe they’ll replace it with a half hour Watchtower video, followed by review questions. Sounds ridiculous, but it’s the way they’re going.

41

(How) Will The Slow and Subtle WT Internal Shift Affect Us?

by Solzhenitsyn in

as a "deep pimo" i can say that there is a confirmed re-branding.

the coordinators committee formed a focus group from service and teaching committees.

the results of that group roughly three+ years ago, with gb approval, trickled down to the other committees and eventually into what we have been seeing before our eyes in the org and local congs.. pick an organizational level and see the shift.

slimboyfat

I think they’re going to stop publishing the numbers sooner or later, which means stopping collecting numbers too. So it would make sense to begin adjusting the focus away from numbers, but probably toward organisational loyalty and reliable reputation, rather than good all round character.

But I just don’t think JWs without books makes any sense. It won’t fly. Publishing and studying texts is essentially what it is to be a JW. It’s like trying to have a bat without wings.

We are witnessing, not the transformation of the organisation, but rather its collpase.

68

District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?

by ShirleyW in

jw
friends

i haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.

i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.

why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.

slimboyfat

Where are the figures from?

I guess conventions don’t make as much these days since they stopped releases.

Plus it probably costs quite a bit to heat, air condition, maintain and repair assembly halls. They’re getting increasingly desperate, and the cutbacks they make tend also to reduce donations. It’s a vicious circle. Can they avert disaster?

68

District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?

by ShirleyW in

jw
friends

i haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.

i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.

why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.

slimboyfat

Latest cutback attempt to avert collapse. Will it succeed or collapse continue?

40

DECEMBER 2018 WATCHTOWER STUDY ARTICLE...Many loyal Christians have remained with an unbelieving mate under very trying circumstances.

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

december 2018 study article :.

honor “what god has yoked together”.

17 admittedly, there have been instances where an “unbelieving husband” seems to prove that he is not “agreeable to staying with her.” he might be extremely physically abusive, even to the point that she feels that her health or life is in danger.

slimboyfat

Amazing that someone can write this in 2018.

And as someone else mentioned, completely disconnected to actual JW practice. Many JWs get legal divorces simply because they didn’t like each other. Then it becomes a waiting game to see who meets someone else first, and the other can then look for a partner without sanction. Such petty rules.

23

Stroup's "The Jehovah's Witnesses."

by em1913 in

a book that doesn't get a lot of talk these days is herbert h. stroup's 1945 study "the jehovah's witnesses.

" which is too bad, because in the field of jw studies it pretty much stands on its own as a serious, scholarly look at the rutherford era of the movement -- one written with no theological or doctrinal axes to grind, but rather with the impartial eye of a professional sociologist.. stroup received no cooperation whatever from brooklyn in writing this book, but he spent a great deal of time among rank-and-file witnesses of the late 1930s and early 1940s, attending their meetings, joining them in field service, and eating at their homes, and what emerges is a picture of an overwhelmingly working-class movement which overlapped in its hopes and ultimate goals the ambitions of other radical social movements of the 1930s.

the witnesses were not marching in labor parades or participating in sit-down strikes or engaging in other forms of street-level radicalism, but stroup finds that, in their individual views on the social and economic structures of the time, they were largely in harmony with those who were, even in spite of their religion's supposed disavowal of politics, and he sees them as much as a political movement in that sense as a religious one.

slimboyfat

However socially conservative JW social attitudes may be, it’s worth noting that the Pew survey finds that, while most JWs a neutral, of those who express a preference, JWs lean to the Democrats by a margin of more than 2 to 1.

http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/party-affiliation/

It’s not surprising really when you consider that JWs comprise a far larger proportion of black people and Hispanics than the population in general, groups which are traditional Democratic supporters.

Plus JW social conservativism is of a peculiar sort. Superficially their views on marriage, sex, gay rights and abortion may resemble the religious right. But the significant difference is that JWs have no expectation or particular desire to make society conform to their teachings on these issues.

Farier taxes, social justice, health and education provision are more immediate priorities.