Posts by FFGhost

122

1995 generation change

by Gorb in

jw
friends

now, many years later, i remember the 1995 generation change, very well.. since early youth, hearing my father explaining in field service the 2520 years.

it was his main theme in the field.. with the change my doubts started.

with some jw friends we did not trust the organization anymore.

FFGhost

1995 was pretty much the last gasp for a coherent set of doctrines. Not coincidentally, that was about 2 years after Fred Franz died and by then Henschel was well along the path of senility.

There was no "oracle" thereafter. The next de facto boss after Henchel was Jaracz, whose primary concern seemed to be keeping the "sheep" in line rather than tying up the frayed, loosening knots of JW theology. And it's only gotten worse.

For the past ~20 years, the WTS has been about virtually nothing beyond behavior control. Their latest books on Jeremiah & Ezekiel are not about prophecies and their meanings - it's all disconnected scriptural snippets culled from here and there that the WTS presents for the way they model preferred JW behavior: "look at how obedient Jeremiah was..,look at how zealous Ezekiel was....look at how meek and submissive they were...."

At this point, doctrine is absolutely and literally of utterly no consequence. TD brings up many good points about the incoherence of their doctrine, and the loose ends they've never tied up. Doesn't matter anymore. What matters is obedience and submission. The appearance of being a "good" JW. Accepting the hierarchy and not questioning anything. Behavior control.

Yes, the current generation teaching is laughably absurd. Yes, the "great crowd was identified in 1935" has massive "plot holes". They know it and don't care. What they do care about is, do you say you agree with it? If yes, great, you can stay in the "club". No? OK, fine, say goodbye to your family, friends, and the only life you've ever known.

15

Was anyone at Bethel on 9-11-01?

by snarf in

was anyone at bethel on 9-11 or know of anyone who was?

i was just wondering the reactions to the bethelites there on that day.

also, was bethel close enough to ground zero to have any effect on the publishing that day?

FFGhost

Do JWs think that they are the only nice people in the world ?

I know that was a rhetorical question, but yes, they really do think so.

Every - EVERY - experience about JW honesty (returning lost money, etc.) features the JW saying "I returned your wallet because I am a JW".

The implication being, that every non-JW in the world is greedy, every non-JW would have kept the money, etc.

29

If you think Watchtower is disappearing any time soon…

by Reservations in

you are sadly mistaken.. i hear people say it on here all the time, and dare i say his name *cough* lloyd evans *cough* has said it a number of times, that watchtower is running scared and watchtower is in decline….. we need to put in perspective the decrease from the 2020 report.

if we calculate a yearly -0.6 decrease over a 10 year period from 2020 figures it leaves us the grand total number of witnesses of:.

by 2030: - 7,933,479. by 2040: - 7,471,357. by 2050: - 7,036,154. i agree that this is a significant decrease, but let’s not kid ourselves, the wt organisation will still be alive and well even with an annual 0.6% loss.

FFGhost

There is a market for:

-- organizations that tell people who would rather not decide for themselves, what to do

-- organizations that peddle too-good-to-be-true solutions for problems to non-critical thinkers

-- organizations that allow small-minded people who would be (or are) failures in other aspects of life, to assert a measure of authority of others or meet some internally-contrived measure of "success"

The WTS is far from unique in catering to this market. If the WTS were to "disappear" tomorrow, the market would still be there. The vacuum would be filled nearly instantly by some other organization(s). All the "displaced" JWs who have one or more of the needs outlined above would be "gobbled up" by those other organizations within months.

The WTS is slowly, grudgingly, adapting to changing times. So long as they remain at least partially committed to rolling with societal changes, they will exist in some form or another. Almost certainly smaller, even less significant than they are now, but still there.

37

Sep. 2021 Broadcast: more money

by neat blue dog in

in the latest jw broadcast, anthony morris the turd gives a talk about donations.

to camouflage this, he starts and ends the talk by saying that isn't actually what he's doing.

first he starts with the usual disclaimer, 'wt has never begged for money like christendom and we never will', you know the drill.

FFGhost

"We are not leaders, but we are taking the lead."

"We are not asking for money, but please send us money."

11

Enduring watchtower study

by road to nowhere in

my studying consists of skimming the article.

this one starts with 2017 don't give up convention.

at the time i changed it to i give up.

FFGhost

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this issue (dated July 2021) is the first time the WTS has explicitly acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic in the WT magazine.

Paragraph 2 of yesterday's study article, as well as the QFR at the end of the magazine about how internet dating sites are a bad idea (what a surprise they reached that conclusion ) specifically mention COVID-19 and how it is affecting JWs.

Of course they've done countless video segments on it and there are dozens if not hundreds of pages in excruciatingly fine detail regarding the micromanagement of conducting meetings by Zoom, but printed references in their "flagship" journal have been, IIRC, completely non-existent up until now.

They are of course, in general, dreadfully reactionary and slow to act, but this seemed even slower than usual, to wait nearly 1.5 years to "officially" acknowledge, in the official magazine, how the pandemic is affecting the lives of their adherents.

122

1995 generation change

by Gorb in

jw
friends

now, many years later, i remember the 1995 generation change, very well.. since early youth, hearing my father explaining in field service the 2520 years.

it was his main theme in the field.. with the change my doubts started.

with some jw friends we did not trust the organization anymore.

FFGhost

They didn't have to change it! There are still at least 50 people worldwide born before 1914 (actually, probably several hundred):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_living_people

4

"Seven nations more populous than you are"

by FFGhost in

i wrote this up a few months ago:.

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5087628499091456/camp-israel-problem-pooping.

this other little nugget from deuteronomy caught my eye as well:.

FFGhost

I wrote this up a few months ago:

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5087628499091456/camp-israel-problem-pooping

This other little nugget from Deuteronomy caught my eye as well:

Deuteronomy 7:1 (NWT):

When Jehovah your God brings you into the land you are about to enter and take possession of, he will also clear away populous nations from before you: the Hitʹtites, the Girʹga·shites, the Amʹor·ites, the Caʹnaan·ites, the Perʹiz·zites, the Hiʹvites, and the Jebʹu·sites, seven nations more populous and mightier than you are

I commented in the above-cited thread about how the WTS dogmatically asserts that the number of Israelite nomads, at the time of their conquest of the promised land, was 3 million.

Here, in this verse, Jehovah promises to "clear away" these 7 nations, "more populous than you are".

So, assuming I do better at math in this thread than in the previous one, and assuming that "more populous" is the bare minimum, we'll assign a population of 3,000,001 to each of those 7 nations.

That means that, in the land of Canaan, roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, there were, at a bare minimum, 24 million people either living or camping there (3 million Israelites and at least 21,000,007 other guys).

Hmm, I wonder how populations of Europe / Asia Middle East from 3500 (WTS chronology) years ago compare to today?

Must be pretty significantly higher, right? 3500 years ago, there were about 500,000 people living in Greece, now there are 10 million plus. 3500 years ago, there were about 2-3 million people living in Egypt, today there are 100 million plus.

So, let pull out my Google-ator here...population of Israel, Jordan, and Palestine in 2021...is ~24 million.

So, since as the WTS asserts, every word of the Bible is "God-breathed" and is absolute, literal, verifiable, true history, the population of the "promised land" has.....remained identical to what it was 3500 years ago.

Or....

Now bear with me here...could it be....

That the Bible doesn't really contain absolutely truthful, literal, absolute history?

Nah, that can't be it. The population must be the same today as it was 3500 years ago.

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

FFGhost

This reminds me, I want to do a companion piece on the Israelite trek, regarding the nations they defeated.

*** Coming soon ***

37

Sep. 2021 Broadcast: more money

by neat blue dog in

in the latest jw broadcast, anthony morris the turd gives a talk about donations.

to camouflage this, he starts and ends the talk by saying that isn't actually what he's doing.

first he starts with the usual disclaimer, 'wt has never begged for money like christendom and we never will', you know the drill.

FFGhost

That was such a bizarre presentation.

He seemed to be stepping on eggshells, tip-toeing about so as to not give the whiff of a hint of a trace of possibly maybe making some wealthy JW feel bad for not donating - "it's all a personal decision".

In the next breath, he says that the poorest of the poor JWs should be contributing to the WTS. He didn't much care about them feeling guilty for not donating their last 12 cents to the WTS.

It was a muddled message, to say the least. "We need money. If you're wealthy, it's a personal decision, maybe think about donating, if it's not too inconvenient. If you're poor, give give give give give."

I get the impression that someone gives him a topic to develop and present but his addled brain can't form complete or coherent thoughts to communicate. Surely other people notice it as well, but who's going to give counsel to any GB member, let alone the surliest one?

7

What does the fact that WT baptism numbers are still high in the pandemic tell us?

by Vanderhoven7 in

i thought jiles grey response to this question was interesting:.

"i think that it demonstrates just how ineffective the jehovah’s witnesses’ door to door evangelising is.. in 2019 there were 303,866 people baptised.

this was during a year when the preaching work was in full swing.. in 2020 there were 241,994 people baptised.

FFGhost

As noted above, probably most of the dunkees are kids of JWs. That certainly is the case in wealthier western lands.

The 241,994 figure is for the "2020 service year" (September 2019 - August 2020). That was 6-7 months pre-pandemic, so you'd expect the numbers to have been pretty "normally" for over half the year.

In addition, there were still a bunch of "Bible studies" in the pipeline to get baptized, especially in poorer countries where people still respond. From initial call to final dunking will always take many months, probably not unusual for it to take a couple of years.

The entire "2021 service year" (September 2020 - August 2021) was conducted in full-blown pandemic.

Absolute 0 door to door, absolute 0 cart witnessing. 100% phone calls and letters.

The numbers for the 2021 service year ought to be ready in 3-4 months. I would be willing to bet large quantities of candy corn that the number of baptisms reported will be much much lower than even the low number for the 2020 service year - maybe even under 200,000.

And if pandemic restrictions continue for a large chunk, or even all, of the 2022 service year (already started), the number reported will drop again - even more.