Some of them have a lifestyle they preserve for themsleves!

3rd 4th generation families have a whole family outfit built on its foundation and even business/ work environments they now have complete control over!

A lot to sacrifice for throwing in the towel of delusion! 

I dunno, here are a few possibs

Evil rises to the top to dominate (power is intoxicating)  Who here wouldnt have millions of people doing exactly what they say on a whim?

The really dont know any better.

Someone besides them is pulling the strings behind the curtain.

Its just an out of control machine and they are too afraid to turn it off or jump off themselves

They really, really think the great and fear inspiring day of Joe hovah is near.

There is no evidence of masonic influence over the JWs.

Nothing concrete no. Circumstantially it makes sense that a small group (illuminati or however you want to label them) in power would use larger groups to control masses of people. This can be applied no just to the JWs but to all religion, politics, and commerce.

I believe they face the same terror that we did, all who have moved on from their teachings.

Their whole lives revolve around the ritual of meetings, preaching and hangin' out with people who believe the same.

To revoke their beliefs is to face death of the ego, basically a form of madness, as they would need to reform their whole persona.

It's fear of admitting their lives have been in vain (and change) that creates their blindness just like most thinking witnesses.

If "I" were in the position -- like on the Governing Body? They can only change things through a 2/3 vote. One person cannot change things there. They've left plenty of wromg things in place for too long, and they continue to do so. Up until the 1970s they didn't allow community service for its members who conscientiously objected to military service. So a lot of its young men spent years unnecessarily rotting in jails. They didn't fix their affiliation with the United Nations (as a non-governmental organization) until it was exposed on this website and in the UK newspaper "The Guardian". They still haven't fixed the corrupt "two witness" rule as applied to child molestors in the organization, leading to thousands of known molestors having a safe haven in the organization. There are many more examples.

The GB and others in the upstair rooms of that organization remind me of the panhandler on the corner of the street

wearing old clothing and looking pathetic asking for a handout.  You feel sorry for him because he holds up a sign

saying: "Hungry, please help."  Then at the end of the day, he walks around the corner where no on sees him and

drives off in his brand new Mercedes!  Who knew!?  No one can possibly know how many side

corporations there are that service Mother's needs, under whose family name they are listed, or even where the bank

accounts are being held.  There is absolutely no transparancy in an organization like that that is shielded by freedom

of religion.  Who is going to audit them?....the IRS?

Oracle -

 the intelligent and socially normally population of the JW ranks are all coming out - slowly but surely...the great Exodus is well on its way.

I find this to be the amusing part and the most interesting.  Even tho I still consider myself a newbie to JWD I have seen a growth of newbies forming on this site everyday.

Oompa - you crack me up!

Have fun!

Quirky1 

This may be the topic of an old thread but, if the G.B. and WTS don't have good motives, what is the point of the whole religion?

I have wondered this myself.

Of course, few witneses really know about the history of the religion. Few know that Russell was influenced by Egyptology, the prevailing popular ideology of the mid to late 1800's, and that he got the year 1914 from measuring a pyramid, calling it "God's great stone witness." Few know that Rutherford had a palatial house built in San Diego, deeded it to "ancient worthies" who were soon to be resurrected, and stayed in it during the winter, driving one of his two sixteen cylinder cadillacs.

Ray Franz described meetings of the governing body. One I found interesting was concerning how several years ago (I think in the 80's) they determined the appropriateness of certain sex acts among married people. It seems there was a case in South America concerning a woman wanting to know if she was scripturally free to remarry. Her husband had had sex with animals, and also anal intercourse with a woman. The governing body talked about this for a while. Franz reported that no prayer was said before determination of any outcome, nor were scriptures studied to examine the issue. They stated that while degrading, the woman was not free to remarry because the sex could produce no offspring. The woman, who would not take her husband back, because she could not remain with a man who'd had sex with an animal, remarried and was disfellowshipped for adultery.

Later, the GB decided to look into the issue further. They stated that any anal or oral sex was like a prostiture, and should not be done. Many married couples decided to confess to elders that they had engaged in this type of sex. This caused many embarassing sessions in the "back room" and some were disfellowshipped.

Later, of course, the "new light" was reversed. But how many marriages did this destroy? How much humiliation to many?

How many more situations could we describe? The WTS being a non-governmental associate of the UN? The generation changes? The 1935 changes with ever increasing numbers of annointed? New governing body members much younger? The nethinim? (that one seems to have gone away)  Changes in blood doctrine-no whole but O.K. in components?

Yes, I have wondered about the whole thing many times. It seems at this point it is just self-perpetuating.........