I agree 1995 was the turning point for JWs. It was the autumn of that year when the Watchtower announced they were giving up of the generation prediction, and the Awake! dropped its generation purpose statement too. They have never recovered from the loss of confidence following that failure, or come up with a reasonable excuse, or a viable alternative for insisting the end must be near.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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Remember 1992?
by Tobyjones262 inanyone remember 1992?
i can remember i was in the cult.
times were changing at a rapid pace.
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I wish all Witness men were like this ...
by vienne inmy intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.
my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.
why aren't more witness men like this?
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slimboyfat
You say that the people complaining are “both male”, but their maleness doesn’t in itself make their objections gender based, does it?
Do these emails actually object to your input on the basis of your gender, rather than being a non-Witness and somewhat critical of the Watchtower Society?
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I wish all Witness men were like this ...
by vienne inmy intro essay for the new book caused all sorts of off blog controversy.
my writing partner, a retired educator and a witness, responded.
why aren't more witness men like this?
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slimboyfat
The interesting issue here is the extent to which baptised versus non-baptised researchers can freely investigate and write Watchtower history. I have no idea why this is framed as an issue of gender, which frankly seems like a red herring.
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G.B.Are they Manipulative Lying S.O.B.`s / Not Genuine in their Beliefs ?
by smiddy3 ini raise this question for many reasons really ,thinking back on their past history and how they have responded to past failures .that they explain away as human imperfections.. on the one hand they claim to be gods spokesperson on earth .the only true religion god is using to dispense his truths at the proper time.
and that members of the gb are the f&ds class assigned to do this.. or do they deliberately manipulate witnesses vulnerability about world events ,disasters ,earthquakes etc ,to prey on those fears about the gt /armageddon.. that they are constantly warned about .
and that it is impending.. producing videos that show how jw`s will be persecuted round up and imprisoned simply for being a jw .on a worldwide scale .. the bunker video ?.
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slimboyfat
I only have to consider my own mind at different times to realise how complicated a question this is. Who is a true believer? Who really has no doubts? In some ways the nature of true belief is to have doubts. Because to take anything seriously involves thinking about it deeply.
Which perhaps raises another question. Are there any on the GB who don’t take it seriously? I don’t think there are real signs of that. (Compare some TV evangelists where the signs are rather obvious) There do seem to be genuine signs of mental fatigue from a couple of members, in particular I think of Loesch and Herd. They no longer appear as confident or enthusiastic as they once did. Their early exuberant support of the organisation and its mission may have mellowed into some form of accommodation rather than outright cynicism.
They all have personal lives, and health issues, and families, and mundane organisational issues and other things that occupy their minds. I would not be surprised if big picture questions about truth and the nature of the religion they oversee is mostly crowded out by other concerns.
One thing I’ve become increasingly aware of is the ability of people to avoid thinking about things that, from the outside, it seems should be a serious concern. People on the whole are not terribly reflective, especially if reflection would interfere with getting on with life in a way they find immediately comfortable.
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Are the younger generation taking on roles in the Cong?
by purrpurr ini notice that several of the congs i've been to seem to have a majority of the male roles performed by older men.
very few young men are wanting to be ms or elders etc.
it also seems like very few young people are being pioneers either.. would you agree with this?
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slimboyfat
What younger generation? What I see is mostly people who joined around the 1970s who are now in their 60s or 70s. Their children and grandchildren have 80% upwards left, nowhere to be seen, apart from the odd memorial.
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THIS IS IT Tony Morris Identifies King of Norht
by scotoma inthis is the announcement we have heard “about” but now it has been released to the whole world.
its in the 2nd of a three part serries about the jw annual meeting (oct 2018).
to minute 52. .
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slimboyfat
Morris said Russia’s King-of-the-North “allies” cooperated with them in the biggest war games since the Soviet Union. According to this article it was China that joined Russia in war games in 2018.
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Is Being a “Manly Man” a Bad Thing?
by minimus inso much is said regarding men , in a negative way.
shaving commercials are now lecturing us as to how bad we really are.
men should be less masculine.
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slimboyfat
I don’t know where this is all headed.
On a basic level I agree with gender and sexual equality. But at the same time I do wonder if society can function if it hollows out the distinct roles of men and women? I’m not so sure. It’s a very strange world we seem to be heading into, in lots of ways.
It could be it’s a problem without a solution. If we are committed to equality and we also want healthy functioning societies. It could be these goals are incompatible, unfortunately. Then what do we do?
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Reinstatement
by Pinky inwhat questions do the elders ask you when you are in your meeting requesting to get reinstated ?.
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slimboyfat
Something to be careful about:
I know brother who got DFed and went through the reinstatement process just to speak to family and for no other reason. He had to attend meetings for about a year and fake genuine obedience to Watchtower to get reinstated. When he was reinstated he didn’t attend another meeting! The elders were so angry that they had been “duped” that they watched this brother for years and got him DFed years later (when he had moved to a different town) for something else.
So if you get reinstated just for family it’s probably best not to rub it in their faces. At least attend the odd meeting afterward and fade. All depending on your ultimate goal, of course, but it’s worth bearing in mind that elders can be vindictive if they think you have “played the system” as they would see it.
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Does any other denomination change Doctrines as often as JW's?
by TerryWalstrom inwould i err in stating most religions and denominations have set doctrines?and yet, the watchtower's version/rendition of christianity is riven with contradictions which stem from changing predictions, policies, doctrines, and interpretations seemingly adrift from foundation or principle.wouldn't you think the constant upheaval, sifting, churn, and reorganization bespeaks whim, mood, uncertainty, and wilful speculation more than divine guidance?there's something endemically jittery and insecure about this religion which i would opine has more than a little to do with unstable mental affect than mere whimsy.what's your take on this?.
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slimboyfat
There is a huge variety of opinion among Seventh Day Adventists on the authority and relevance of the writings of Ellen White. Some hold it up almost like scripture and others don’t look to it at all, with every shade in between. I think the overall trend is away from adherence to Ellen White among Adventists.
By comparison there is little disagreement among JWs about the role and place of Charles Russell, to the extent that JWs are interested in the topic, they tend to accept whatever the latest Watchtower says on the subject. Which incidentally appears to be that Russell was not part of the faithful slave ans doesn’t have any clear role in Bible prophecy.
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Does any other denomination change Doctrines as often as JW's?
by TerryWalstrom inwould i err in stating most religions and denominations have set doctrines?and yet, the watchtower's version/rendition of christianity is riven with contradictions which stem from changing predictions, policies, doctrines, and interpretations seemingly adrift from foundation or principle.wouldn't you think the constant upheaval, sifting, churn, and reorganization bespeaks whim, mood, uncertainty, and wilful speculation more than divine guidance?there's something endemically jittery and insecure about this religion which i would opine has more than a little to do with unstable mental affect than mere whimsy.what's your take on this?.
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slimboyfat
I think a major reason JWs make so many changes is a function of the huge number of dogmatic positions they take, over issues where they really don’t need to take dogmatic positions. It’s just part of JW culture now, to expect, and to receive, official judgements on minute points of Bible interpretation and life issues.
Take Matt 13:32 for example. As I recall the birds in this verse in Watchtower literature used to be agents of Satan. Whereas the latest Watchtower references insist that these birds are in fact rightly disposed humans.
On the other hand I once attended a Christadelphian Bible Study where the speaker suggested that the birds of this verse indicated a corrupting influence, whereas others in the ekklesia said they understood the birds as positive, and indicating the growth of the kingdom. There was open disagreement about the exact meaning, and no need for a dogmatic position to be adopted.
On minor issues like this, most churches simply don’t take a dogmatic position in the first place, so the issue of flip flops doesn’t arise.
So a major reason why JWs have so many flip flops is because they make so many dogmatic pronouncements on so many minor issues.