source - march 2021 announcements - - https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5085868283920384/2021-march-147-english-german-announcements-reminders.
this is a sobering reminder of what happened some 40 years ago when raymond franz and others were literally kicked out from the jehovah's witnesses for having pre-arranged private spiritual discussions.lesson: paragraph 7 is another example of the i and t in dr. steven hassan's bite model of the 21st century cult - information and thought control at its best!!!!
"my gosh, there must be a lot of independent meetings these days.
Anony Mous - “I wonder if this is why they stopped the book study meetings…”
No, that was because too many incidents of child abuse were taking place in the bookstudy environment, and their charity-status-slash-tax-exemption ran the risk of coming under review as an indirect result.
To head it off before that could happen, they simply eliminated the environment.
this topic i digress about why the watchtower relaxing the rules of disfellowship is essential for its survival.
many things i'm going to say are not my ideas, some are, the point is, i'm condensing everything in a logical and concise way.. the first thing we have to keep in mind is that the wt's main objective in instituting disfellowship has always been not to lose members because of the damage that a dissident could do, or to avoid gaining new members because of the bad reputation of a confessed sinner in the his/her region.
in the end, the more active members, the more money to the coffers.. in this case of disfellowship due to apostasy, to avoid any spark, texts were sought out of context that even prohibited saying "hi".
@ TheScientist…
“Camouflaged dissent”… I like that.
this topic i digress about why the watchtower relaxing the rules of disfellowship is essential for its survival.
many things i'm going to say are not my ideas, some are, the point is, i'm condensing everything in a logical and concise way.. the first thing we have to keep in mind is that the wt's main objective in instituting disfellowship has always been not to lose members because of the damage that a dissident could do, or to avoid gaining new members because of the bad reputation of a confessed sinner in the his/her region.
in the end, the more active members, the more money to the coffers.. in this case of disfellowship due to apostasy, to avoid any spark, texts were sought out of context that even prohibited saying "hi".
JW GoneBad - “The WTBTS has been in survival mode for quite some time…”
This.
Virtually every action they’ve taken in the past three decades has been reactive…
…defending against threats to its survival, whilst trying to shore up a claim of legitimacy and primacy which, if it had been true, would’ve been all the defense it ever actually needed.
had lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.
of one of australia's best universities.
he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.
Meh.
As long as some dumbass doesn’t name it “Skynet”, we should be fine.
an elder with half a brain (and they must exist 🧐) is going to see the writing on the wall with the way the wt is manoeuvring them into taking the fall over csa cases.
can an elder in good standing step down with no consequences, official or social?.
NotFormer - “…It sounds like the whole org is built around kicking people out; just letting people walk doesn't seem like an option in anyone's eyes…”
Yeah, no way anything like that could ever come back and bite you in the ass…
😏
on the watchtower website it says that most of the work that will be done fishkill will be out sourced to non jws .i thought that jws always used to build everything them selves.
this might explain what happend to ramapo they put an appeal out for free labour and people said no .
Pretty sure it was originally meant to be a bolthole if shit went sideways.
Joke’s on them, though…
…Argentina and the US have a mutual extradition treaty.
😏
this topic i digress about why the watchtower relaxing the rules of disfellowship is essential for its survival.
many things i'm going to say are not my ideas, some are, the point is, i'm condensing everything in a logical and concise way.. the first thing we have to keep in mind is that the wt's main objective in instituting disfellowship has always been not to lose members because of the damage that a dissident could do, or to avoid gaining new members because of the bad reputation of a confessed sinner in the his/her region.
in the end, the more active members, the more money to the coffers.. in this case of disfellowship due to apostasy, to avoid any spark, texts were sought out of context that even prohibited saying "hi".
NotFormer - “…the GB need to get straight in their heads the difference between sin and crime…”
It was never about that.
Downplaying its severity was a means to an end…
…a strategy to more easily keep the problem internal and confidential, in order to prevent secular authorities - and even more importantly, the rank-and-file - from fully grasping the true scope of the problem.
on the watchtower website it says that most of the work that will be done fishkill will be out sourced to non jws .i thought that jws always used to build everything them selves.
this might explain what happend to ramapo they put an appeal out for free labour and people said no .
They’re running out of qualified guys who’ll “ reach out”, and construction standards are growing ever stricter (for good reason, IMO).
how many can you think of.... they speak for god.. it would seem presumptuous to say they speak for god,.
they are neither inspired nor infallible.. they are god's only channel for issuing truth here on earth.
they won't be apologising for any errors/falsehoods they have promoted in the past that fail.. congregation members must be quick and apologise for their errors to avoid harsh discipline/disfellowshipping.. when they change a major belief/doctrine you must not complain or criticise them.
Ray Franz mentioned seeing that attitude in COC, and being bothered by it.
I think it’s pretty obvious by now that the Org insists on that policy specifically because they’re objectively wrong.
this topic i digress about why the watchtower relaxing the rules of disfellowship is essential for its survival.
many things i'm going to say are not my ideas, some are, the point is, i'm condensing everything in a logical and concise way.. the first thing we have to keep in mind is that the wt's main objective in instituting disfellowship has always been not to lose members because of the damage that a dissident could do, or to avoid gaining new members because of the bad reputation of a confessed sinner in the his/her region.
in the end, the more active members, the more money to the coffers.. in this case of disfellowship due to apostasy, to avoid any spark, texts were sought out of context that even prohibited saying "hi".
re. Beth’s post…
There’s a good chance you’re right.
It is possible, though, that the GB doesn’t fully grasp this, and DFing (or, really, the threat of it) is being held onto more as a tool to deal with dissenters than a means of keeping PIMOs from leaving.
I don’t think they realized just how many PIMOs there actually were until Covid made it so much easier for so many of them to fade.
I could be wrong.
