Apostate organizations, will they take down the religion?

by spiritwalker 25 Replies latest jw friends

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  DanTheMan

  Former Witnesses are often in a inner mental battle of trying to convince themselves that the organization is really what the world already knows.

  I don't know that "the world already knows" about JW's, I find that most people are quite ignorant about JW's, and really don't give them any thought at all.

  I also am not aware of any highly organized, goal-oriented apostate groups, with the possible exception of silent lambs, but even there the main goal is to change the looney WT pedophile policy, not bring the whole thing down.

  I personally don't desire a dramatic "taking down" of the WT. Too many JW's couldn't handle Mama being taken from them. The WT is doing a "slow fade" into complete non-relevance and near-zero growth in western countries, that is good enough for me.

  sis in distress, did you copy and paste one of JT's posts there?
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  [email protected]

  The Watchtower Society's leaders over Jehovah's Witnesses are the apostates. Some ex-JWs are not atheists or members of other dangerous cults. For example click to read this about the Church of Jehovah.
  

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/churchofjehovah
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  sis in distress

  sounds like another splinter off the old tree to me
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  muleskinner

  I think the Jehovah's Witnesses will fall though it will hardly be noticed by any other than the individuals involved when it does. I do wish that like the Shakers they had at least made some good furniture before they go. The books they make don't count, the old ones are no longer relevant after a few years and even the current Witnesses don't read their new books unless forced to in groups. If they could have written good books that you kind of got hooked on reading, wow. With the turnover they have what a market they would have created! Nope, all we got was crap. You can't even sell it at a yardsale. If only they had used those buildings to make high quality furniture, then they would have had a legacy and you could at least have been less ashamed to have been associated with the cult and maybe kept something from it you could use. Muleskinner
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  spiritwalker

  sounds like another splinter off the old tree to me

  I agree and I am glad that poster said what they did. It did proove what I was saying, that there are organizations among former Witnesses that think they will bring down the WT.
• 

  Amazing

  Hi Spirit,

  There are no apostate organizations that I am aware of, and no one really wants to take down the Watchtower organization. Rather, the Watchtower Society is doing a fine job of burying themselves. Some former JWs, with the support of many former JWs and others, are seeking justice in certain cases, such as physical abuse of children, custododial interference, sexual molestation, wrongful death due to misleading JWs about the true medical nature of blood, and harm to businesses and relationships due to shunning. By seeking justice, the monetary damages might cause the multi-billion Watchtower publishing corportation to lose it assets. If that brings down the Watchtower religion, then we know for sure their god was not their false little jehovah, but instead the Almighty Dollar!
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  Soledad

  I'm not so sure if I agree with your post sw. you seem to suggest that "apostate" movements are powerless, but yet, what great event in religious history hasn't started with either one or a group of persons defying the conventions of their time? and if you say that it isn't worth it for a victim of molestation to step forward in the hopes of preventing more abuse at the hands of pedophiles, well, I would say you're really insensitive, and you should know better. at the very least, the Org should and will change their policies regarding child abuse, thanks to the "apostates." while the average joe schmo doesn't care much about the WT, the average JW does care about his/her reputation as a member of the Witnesses, and will do whatever to uphold that fake clean and wholesome image he/she so desperately needs to preserve.
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  kgfreeperson

  The point that spiritwalker makes that intrigues me is that non-JWs already view JWs as cultists and therefore already anticipate "cultist" problems. So shocking revelations are hardly shocking. I'd never thought of that before and I think it is a very good point. The Watchtower teaches that the world sees Jehovah's Witnesses as clean and pure and all that. But the world just see's Jehovah's Witnesses as, at best, a little odd, and at worst, a high-control cult.
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  Lady Lee

  In my experiences of speaking out publically few people recognize the JWs to be a cult. Mostly they just think they are odd as kgfreeperson said.

  I usually make my 1 hour presentation and never tell them what group I was with. I have never once had them guess the correct group and they are always shocked that those nice but annoying people are from a cult

  The only ones who might be suspicious are those who know someone who is a JW
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  spiritwalker

  The point that spiritwalker makes that intrigues me is that non-JWs already view JWs as cultists and therefore already anticipate "cultist" problems.

  It took awhile for that to sink in with me too. You always heard about those experiences and quotes of people saying such good things about us. Yet in that, like I mentioned before, we never heard of those people becoming Witnesses. Most people just saw us as that little odd religion, or cult, and tried not to offend us. Yet, many did not want to ask us questions or to get to deep in discussion. As they knew our religion, much like all cults, was very into converting people and asking meant opening the door to preaching. While Lady Lee mentioned that she does not find many people who feel this way. I must state that I have meet more people who see the religion as a cult, then those who saw it as a odd religion. Heck, some churches use the Witness religion in talks as an example of dangerous cults. I know of several local churches that do this locally.