could the teaching that jesus is michael the archangel, be soon to be discarded?
first of all, watchtower is big on image and this is one of those teachings that paint the jw religion as being rather kooky and heretical.
secondly, this teaching is not an original watchtower teaching but one they inherited from their second adventist ancestry.
Just an anecdote in support of Island Man.
Until my wife became a "return to Jehovah", I thought JWism was just another quaint fundamentalist Christian religion. When I heard the "Jesus is Michael" thing, it definitely made me think that JWs were just a bunch of silly nutters. This was well before the ARC, and before I had stumbled on sites such as this, or found out the bOrg was a cult.
it's biggest problems are associated with its lack of genuine love and concern for the rank& file.
the average person doesn't need a food critic to tell them their hamburger is shit, in the same manner the average person can discern kindness and love.
gbs fake love and concern is evident in the way head office deals with victims of sexual abuse by jw clergy.
Looks like you are right, joe134cd. I read the wrong numbers somewhere.
it's biggest problems are associated with its lack of genuine love and concern for the rank& file.
the average person doesn't need a food critic to tell them their hamburger is shit, in the same manner the average person can discern kindness and love.
gbs fake love and concern is evident in the way head office deals with victims of sexual abuse by jw clergy.
JWs biggest problem is not doctrinal issues
Absolutely!
if you compare ex-JW reddit to ex-Mormon reddit and ex-sda reddit, you will notice that ex-JW reddit has nearly TEN times the number of subscribers as the other two COMBINED.
Why? Well each religion has dubious hidden history, and each religion has flawed theological doctrines that are unbiblical and wrong on close examination. I what makes JWs stand out is the appalling way it treats its adherents. Mormons and SDA do shun, but as far as I can make out, the shunning is not as regimented, absolute or enforced. SDA have also ceased excommunicating people about 20 years ago. Also, neither Mormons nor SDA kill adherents with arbitrary rules about permissible medical procedures. Mormons and SDA encourage education. And from memory, stats from the Aust Royal Commission, child abuse rates are half the rate, or lower, in the other 2 religions. What I am trying to point out is that those other two religions do make an effort to look after their adherents. The bOrg on the other hand has a history and culture of treating its adherents like dirt.
I suspect that 95% of the reason sites like this exist is because of the way the bOrg treats people, not the bOrg's flawed theology.
As I remember it, Rosebud was the name written on the side of the sled (ie the name of a favourite toy) that Kane used to play on before he was sent away from his parents.
every picture i have seen at him at beth shirim and other private places are with a bottle of alcohol.. while for me personally i couldn't care less anymore.... for jw's this is low moral character.
so i'm an going to guess he was a functioning alcoholic... how did that work with his closest workers?
was he gay too?
Some details on Rutherford personal life and personal behavior are set out in the old threads below:
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/154191/rutherford-exposed-story-berta-bonnie-redux
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/239384/rutherfords-smear-campaign-must-read
just like after decades of memorial partakers declining and now reversed.
this information age might reverse the trend of jw membership.
.
I am looking forward to seeing the published numbers this year. I expect to see either zero growth or negative 1% for virtually every European country, USA, Canada, Aust, NZ, etc. This may seem unremarkable now, but even 2 years ago, it would have sounded overly optimistic (or pessimistic depending on your p.o.v.).
They will probably still get growth in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Phlippines etc, unfortunately. It will be interesting to see how much.
i really liked this kind of articles when back in borg, because they address the issues i was most concerned about.
or at least i thought that they address, because they don't.
i marked all the deceptive techniques and logical manipulations they use as a mental exercise and would like to share with you.
To quote from the cartoon series your avatar is from; "Good job, Bob!"
I particularly like the reference to increasing cybercrime.
so recently, after having a conversation with a jehovah's witness, i started wondering about how jws define the term "apostate.
" officially, every elder would tell you that an apostate is one who leaves the jehovah's witness faith.
but did anyone else notice that this is not how they use the word colloquially—that they're sort of dishonest about it?.
If you look up "apostasy" on Wikipedia, and scroll down, you will see a separate subsection for Jehovah's Witnesses.
In dictionaries, the word is usually defined along the lines of a renunciation of one's reliigion (or principles or cause etc), but most Christians, if they use it at all, tend to restrict the term to those who abandon faith in God altogether, not those who change religious denomination, or those who dispute individual teachings or leaders within a denomination.
time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.
rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.
here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.
Hi konceptual, my response and anecdote about the old couple was in response to Ruby's question. I didn't see your comment before posting mine. I had a perception that people move less in the UK but I have never spent a long period there, so I don't actually know the extent of it.
Anyway, this is all a side-track.
Ruby, I doubt that JWs are in less debt, compared to what they earn, but I don't know. I also doubt that financial strain is a primary explanation for the "return to Jehovahs", but that is a topic for another day.
Edit: I wrote the above before seeing the last two posts.
time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.
rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.
here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.
