an appendix in the book contains some 120 questions along with hundreds of scriptural "proof texts" that the proselyte is then expected to study.
12 jesus commanded his followers to baptize new disciples in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.
the following quotation shows what the proselyte is expected to study just prior to baptism:.
Four sets of questions in twenety years. Amazing, since baptism has been going on since the beginning of the Christian experience. But we forget: all that was wrong.
Compare with: I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Surely that was written down somewhere...
scroll down to last few pages to see the drawings.... http://www.townofwarwick.org/wt_con/_appendix%20m_swppp%20&%20drawings.pdf.
among the ammenities are a sand volley ball court, two tennis courts and a full basketball court.... there's also parking garages and picnic areas for visitors.... by the way, not sure exactly what this is but you'll notice a shaded area labelled "undergound chamber"... interesting.... (i wonder if moving out to the middle of nowhere was intended to keep bethelites from sneaking out at night and going to the liquor store... just saying).
Damn! that hanger man story was funny. I had nothing that good while I was there.
if we are to accept that intelligence plays no part in wether or not we become duped into a cult, then the same rule must apply to those who wake up and make an exit.. so why am i so special?
i had basically the same experiences as my family and i am the only one out.
i don't claim to be some towering intelect, but even if i were it shouldn't matter.
It seems to me that the question is whether it is possible to be educated (about the things relevant to this decision) and honest and still be a JW.
I think that might be a sufficient question. I have not found any JW who both knows what he is talking about and is not a liar. Why would they be lying? A hundred reasons: they're invested, they have fmily, whatever. Sometimes they are lying to themselves, as well. But they are always lying: telling a thing they know to be untrue with the intent to deceive.
Or else they are stupid.
many people will scoff at the thought that the org will collapse.
i agree that it will never collapse but the crumbling has begun.
think about the following.....they have a serious lack of potential future leaders.
Sir82, I think the reconfiguration of congregations like I outlined may actually be pretty effective. We're talking about sort of a "flow" process, and those are sometimes very responsive to smallish changes. But, maybe not.
As for perks, your point is well-taken. But it seems to me you could give MS or Elders more of what they want, which is power, prestige, a feeling of being insiders, etc. I mean, how do you keep a corporation in line? Well, you pay the guys at the top a boatload of cash to keep all the underlings in a frenzy trying to hit the jackpot. Similar sort of thing here, maybe: reverse a little of the "post apostasy" tightening and paperwork and let Elders get back to running with a little more autonomy. I suggest the problem with too few MS is not that that particular job sucks (it has always sucked) but that the Elders' job isn't good enough.
many people will scoff at the thought that the org will collapse.
i agree that it will never collapse but the crumbling has begun.
think about the following.....they have a serious lack of potential future leaders.
Those are real problems, sir82, but by your own admission, they are not unprecedented (in terms of elder-MS ratio). And, anyway, the leadership of local congregations has always sucked, on average. But nothing here can't be solved by reducing congregation numbers by 20% or something: five congregations become four congregations, and you distribute the Elders and MS as appropriate. Problem solved.
Plus, there are all sorts of levers you can pull to get more MS and Elders: you can make the requirements lower, you can make the jobs easier, you can make the perks better. I guess I think it is a problem that they can manage just fine instead of some sort of harbinger.
many people will scoff at the thought that the org will collapse.
i agree that it will never collapse but the crumbling has begun.
think about the following.....they have a serious lack of potential future leaders.
"There are plenty of men who want more responsibility within their congregations"<----everything i read, hear, and see points to the opposite of this
Yeah, there may be fewer, but that's because the JWs are used to extraordinarily high levels of participation. Don't know what the numbers are, but a congregation of 120 or so might typically have 8-10 elders and a similar number of MS. Nobody else operates with that sort of ratio. They could easily absorb considerable reductions in the size of elder bodies.
And their efforts to come up with anything new are just reactionary and don't seem to be well planned. They flip-flopped on "generation" a couple of times until they decided on the current "generations" teaching... which even the faithful JWs are unable to understand. WT still hasn't updated Reasoning or Insight to reflect that change, so it might get further "refinement". They've abandonned the King of the North and destruction of false religion it would seem. Freddie could fill books with all sorts of "prophetic" speculation. Now they just recycle this month's magazines from last year's articles with a few word changes here and there, and top the magazine off with an article about some endangered plant or something.
Totally agree with you, Billy. But the "generation" changes are getting close to 20 years old now. The magazines are what they have been for quite some time, etc. They haven't seen their numbers reuced at all by all this. The best you can argue is that the rate of increase has fallen (or, adjusting for population growth or whatever, maybe it's gone a little negative).
Actually, the more I think of it, the stronger the org looks. In the face of the internet, profound doctrinal shifts, attempts by very high profile JWs to start splinter groups, and all the rest: no decreases in numbers. I really think talk about "beginning of the end" or "nails in the coffin" and all that are merely wishful thinking. Show me an actual decline, then we can talk.
john 10:16 - and i have other sheep, which are not of this fold; those also i must bring, and they will listen to my voice, and they will become one flock, one shepherd.. setting: jesus was talking to a blind man he had recently cured and the pharisees were listening in.
it sounds like he had a larger audience that likely included his apostles.so, who is "this fold" he was referring to and who are the "other sheep"?according to wts doctrine, the heavenly calling (covenant) had not been instituted yet.
we don't hear about that until the last supper.
Amazing to observe that you can't simply drop scripture on a drunken, lunatic, lawyer and come away with a coherent theology.
many people will scoff at the thought that the org will collapse.
i agree that it will never collapse but the crumbling has begun.
think about the following.....they have a serious lack of potential future leaders.
Sorry, I guess I'm a scoffer. The org has an excellent bench for future leadership, according to what they are looking to accomplish. There are plenty of men who want more responsibility within their congregations, especially when we remember that the congregations are kept very top-heavy by design. Comsolidate a few congregations and see how many excess Elders and MS you have.
The JWs would be more than happy to see the printing business go into even greater decline, since the markups on printing are not particulalry large anyhow. Smaller overhead, fewer workers (who are still costly to house and feed) equals no problem. It would be pretty easy to increase direct contributions from the congregations to the HQ, eliminating the priniting process (almost) entirely. 20 years from now, they will simply be preaching with tablets: you want the mag? no problem, just get an instant download or whatever.
And world conditions are always thought to be getting worse and worse -- everybody thinks the old days were better than now and there is always some crisis to get worked up over. Hell, look around.
Finally, the overlapping generation has bought them another 80 years, at least until they change it to something else. These guys aren't going anywhere, sorry to say.
Well, now the Flood didn't really happen, right? And who says Armageddon means people die? That's the JWs and other fundamentalist groups, right? So, we want to try to move away from a) a childish understanding of God and b) a childish response to the childish understanding. That's what I'm trying to say.
i was thinking the other day about the tower of babel ( like you do) somthing that always puzzled me about reading the account in our modern day times is that we have today buildings that would have been vastly taller than the tower of babel.
even if purely because the materials needed to build modern sky scrapers have to be light in order to acheive that height.
accient heavy bricks just wouldn't have done it.. just why was god so threatened by a building???
Very interesting. Thanks.
