Posts by yaddayadda

13

anyone seen the new Spider Man movie?

by veradico in

jw
friends

the movie is full of action, gymnastic feats of superhuman dexterity and strength, humor, interesting characters, etc.

all one could ask from a comic turned into a movie.

the ending will leave one with a bad impression.

yaddayadda

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/spiderman_3/

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

All those persons who attend the memorial but don't commit to the organisation, what is holding them back? Most of them don't commit because they don't want all the pressure and responsibility that goes with being a JW, such as the pressure to attend all the meetings, the pressure to go door-to-door and report your time, the pressure to join the TMS and give talks, and because they are bugged by certain fanatical policies and teachings, such as shunning, no birthdays/Christmas, etc.

The Society is sitting on a goldmine with all these memorial attendees who are just sitting on the fence. It's been this way for years and years. Millions of persons who attend the memorial each year (and a few other meetings) but won't do anything else. They are attracted to the JW message but don't want to commit for the reasons mentioned above (because they are not stupid enough too).

All the Society needs to do is remove/amend the distasteful policies and teachings that are keeping these people away. Make it easier for them to join. It's their best immediate strategy.

They need to innovate. They have nearly exhausted the scale of their market - They are in every country in the world yet publisher growth is now definitely slowing down, being only a few years away (10-15 at the most) from going into the red. Their strategy must now be on the products (scope), no longer on the scale. They have to improve the recipe and rebrand some products to make them more palatable.

The GB - as nothing more than a religionised Board of Directors dominated by legal, financial, managerial considerations rather than genuine, humble concern for alignment with scriptural truth above all else - will show its true colours very soon and start compromising on its fanatical, hardline policies and teachings. It HAS to in order to meet its prime goals: money, publisher stats, growth - all remaining in the black.

4

Can you be HALF a witness?

by RollerDave in

i have an ex (my 1st), who is still a true believer in spite of her penchant for smoking, drinking, sleeping around and whooping it up with the lowest of lowlifes she can find.. (yes, moxie, i know you are reading this.

you're a beeyatch and claim to be proud of it, so stop smirking and sign up if you want to refute the above!).

she is one of those people who accept it as "the truth" mostly from the outside even though such acceptance means they better put butter and jelly in their pockets 'cuz they're gonna be toast in the big a.. she has a plan tho, she intends to 'get in' by pretending to comply long enough to get baptized, but still do pretty much as she pleases!.

yaddayadda

She may get away with it for a while, but not for long. JW's are great at two things: gossiping and judging. They have an uncanny knack for sniffing out double-lifers in the congregation and treating them coldly. They live for dirty laundry.

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

yaddayadda

I think you are right Mary. But I would also add a prime goal is to keep publisher numbers increasing, no matter how small the annual percentage. Those are the dominant motivating forces behind the GB's actions. It is all about control and money and statistical growth rather than being 100% concerned about teaching pure scriptural truth. So their vision, their mission statement and overriding objectives, are flawed, corrupted, right from the off.

The problem is that the money is drying up. All indications are that they are running into cashflow problems and are desperately rationalising in order to cut costs (laying off Bethel workers, cutting back magazine production, selling Brooklyn properties).

So why is the money drying up? Because the 'consumers' are much more savvy about the 'product' they are buying into. People get onto the internet and check out what they are 'buying' into. The internet exposes many of the 'products' (teachings and policies) to be way past their use by date. They are stale, defective, out-of-date. So the once loyal consumer turns away and the prospective new consumer never buys in. Hence the statistical/publisher growth is slowly drying up.

What to do about this? Easy. Simply get rid of the rubbish products that are turning away the consumers! Dump them from the product line. Dump the shunning, dump the blood policy, dump the fanatical prohibition on birthdays, etc, etc. Scrap them or drastically overhaul them.

Problem! Dumping all these crap 'products' creates a dilemma, a conflict: the GB lose some control.

So the GB's objectives, money and control and publisher growth, are in conflict with each other. In order to keep all their control they cannot afford to dump any teachings (products), however, unless they do so then the money and consumers will shrivel up. It is clearly happening; the trend is there for all to see.

The GB must surely be aware that their prime objectives are in serious conflict. They can no longer enjoy all three - money, control, and growth. Something has to give.

If the rumour is true that some GB members recently called for a change to the shunning policy then this is very telling in terms of what the future strategy of the GB will be:- change the product mix. Dump or drastically re-invent some dodgy teachings (the defective, out-of-date products) that are ruining the Company brand, or new customers will continue to dry up and the existing, loyal customers will leave in greater droves. It's simply good business sense, and that's what the GB is all about: good business.

Strategic prediction: expect a lot of 'new light' (revamped products) to be coming out in the next few years.

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

yaddayadda

Greendawn, you are getting to the heart of it, but I don't think they need to change their entire body of doctrine at all. They have very solid, scripturally defensible positions in relation to their rejection of the trinity, immortal soul, hell, etc.

The issue is: where do they draw the line on what doctrines (products) are 'safe' and don't need overhauling, and which products are defective and need 'recalling'.

What is the best process to carry out such a task?

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

yaddayadda

Some great thoughts are coming out, thanks.

Thought scenario: Imagine that the GB have admitted to themselves that the organisation is going off track and something seems to have gone wrong. They have hired you as a consultant (but you are also a believing JW) to analyse what is going wrong with the organisation. What questions would you ask? What would you (respectfully) report back to them?

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

yaddayadda

(removed - double post)

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

yaddayadda

(I've added to my original post quite a bit, so apologies for those who posted before that).

Sir82, although its true that the organisation squelches independent thought, I don't agree that those who make it onto to the GB are persons who have been so 'squelched' that they are incapable of having a new idea. Ray Franz relates in his books a number of examples where senior Watchtower persons often came up with new ideas that were presented to the GB (some quite bizarre, eg, the 1980 'sputnik' proposal to move the start of 'this generation' to 1957! - Crisis of Conscience p. 218-220). Ray also related that from time to time senior Branch personnel sent letters to the GB proposing changes to certain policies, eg, the number of meetings, military service, etc. Fred Franz himself, as the 'oracle' of the organisation, came up with many new ideas through his many chimerical interpretations.

Since the GB appears to have evolved into nothing more than a group of senior executives running a gigantic global publishing corporation, lets examine their corporate strategy from a business-model perspective:

Since 1995 there has been practically zero 'new light' when it comes to their body of teachings/interpretations. The culture appears to have degenerated very much into a 'maintain status quo '. They seem to be saying: "we have given up on tweaking our body of teachings. We have given up on our product mix. We are only concerned about dealing with the scale of the organisation (ie, it's size, entering new markets, etc) and marketing (changing colours, styles, freqency of publications) rather than the product itself (the truthfulness of the teachings)."

But the GB have got it all back to front. The purpose of the leaders of any religious organisation should be to teach scriptural truth, to continously improve their teachings, ie, to improve the quality of the products, NOT just to improve the scale and glossiness of the business. In fact, they are failing on both fronts because their market is shrinking in the western world, (hence the cashflow problems). Why has this happened? Because some of their products (their false teachings) are of such poor quality that they are enough to deter any potential buyer. Buyers now have access to rich sources of information about any product/service they are thinking of buying (though the internet). When a company has a bad, defective product and the public become aware of this, purchases on all products takes a big hit. The company must recall defective products and improve them ("new and improved recipe"). Yet the Society appears to have no mechanisms in place to do this! It appears to be blithely unconcerned to test and improve the quality of its products. There is no process to test deeply entrenched assumptions and premises. There is no quality control system for their products!

The GB are obviously brainwashed men, but they are not stupid. They are merely captives of their own concept. But despite this, it is apparent, as sincere as some of them no doubt are, that they have been collared by lawyers and financiers who have warped their vision. Posters who note that they are obsessed with money and control are absolutely correct. The vision and mission statement of the GB, their prime objective above everything else, should be: To teach the truth from God's word the Bible!! ("Let God be true though every man be proved a liar"). Sadly, the GB seems to have concluded that they cannot be teaching the truth any better, that the quality of their product line is beyond improvement. They appear incapable or unwilling to look at the ingredients, either through flaws in their own internal structure and processes, or because of deliberate intransigence.

I would love to see some really serious, constructive discussion on this, even though most on this forum feel the GB is hopelessly corrupted, reform is impossible and dismiss the organisation out of hand.

53

What is driving change at WTS? What is the GB? Has it failed the flock?

by yaddayadda in

i have been wondering a lot about this lately.

what drives changes to policy and interpretations?

what processes are in place, if any?

yaddayadda

I have been wondering a lot about this lately.

What drives changes to policy and interpretations? What processes are in place, if any? Is it just individual members of the GB who come up with pet theories and randomly present them to the GB for a vote? Or does the GB set up projects and working teams to analyse certain teachings and interpretations that they feel might need to be re-examined and tweaked? Or is the GB merely reacting to reports coming in from the Bethels around the world on trends? Or all of the above?

It seems to me that there is no real mechanism in place at the Watchtower Society to keep testing and researching their own interpretations on certain matters. Any changes appear to be completely reactionary. They seem to be only concerned with adapting to the environment around them, particularly pressures from the external legal/political environment (eg, making going to a polling booth a 'conscience matter' in some lands, tweaking the blood policy, joining the UN) and the march of time (eg, 1995 'generation' change). Mounting financial pressures have also led to certain changes, notably in the frequency and extent of how the Awake and Watchtower are published (the change to the latter being effective from Jan '08).

It seems to me that there is almost a complete lack of sincere desire and will to proactively examine their interpretations and teachings. The GB appears to be nothing more than a kind of Corporate Board concerned only to deal with issues of global corporate strategy. In terms of actually bringing the organisation's teachings more closely into harmony with the scriptures and caring for the flock, it is evident that there is complete complacency and cocksureness on their part. The culture for healthy change at the doctrinal level appears practically nonexistent, or severely crippled, stultified. Why is this?

The question is: what actually is the GB? What is role, it's purpose, it's objectives? Ray Franz's book are about all we have in trying to assess what goes on behind the smoke and mirrors in the GB boardroom. From those books it appears that the GB is mainly concerned with flying around the world meeting with Branch heavyweights, giving talks at DC's, examining initiatives and strategies for growth, building projects, expansion, and occasionally dealing with difficult questions that have come from one of the Branches, largely on some grey area about judicial/disfellowshipping matter. There doesn't seem to be any process in place whatsoever to research and unearth new ideas concerning the accuracy or otherwise of their interpretations on the debateable teachings that are turning many people away, for example, the shunning policy (although there is a rumour that some of the GB have recently sought change on this), the flawed 'two-witness' rule re child abuse accusations, letting babies and children die for want of a blood transfusion, unscriptural disfellowshippings for things like merely smoking, their erroneous chronology/1914, etc. Any new proposals on these matters seems to derive from individuals only, either on the GB or Branch overseers, completely randomly. The individual submits his pet theory or 'new light' to the GB, who, according to Ray Franz, don't research the proposal thoroughly but are content to vote on it after some brief discussion in the boardroom that is largely dominated by two or three strong personalities.

The decision making processes at the Watchtower Society and the role of the GB are clearly in need of a total overhaul. The GB appears to have evolved into nothing more than a corporate strategy board, hopelessly trapped in a business-model paradigm, blinded to its own flaws and weaknesses. It is clearly failing to address the needs of its flock and is not at all concerned with humbly correcting its glaring errors and harmful, unchristian teachings and interpretations that have stumbled millions of persons. It is obsessed with statistics and unity at all costs. The GB has failed in its mandate to care for Christ's interests on earth.

3

Watchtowe Will Acquiesce and Conform to Segregation

by zack in

the "illuminators" book, the one that pioneers receive at their pioneer service school, and with which i was handsomely blessed by "god's loving.

organization", contains a section on ceaser's laws and their relationship to "god's" people.

one fascinating gem, which was a revelation at the time to me,.

yaddayadda

Need proof please. Can you produce a scan of the particular section in the 'Illuminators' book you refer to?