CT
It is my intention to bring the best of my thoughts to the fore on this, and I appreciate very much the sentiments you have expressed. However, in your latest response, I note a slight change in tone from your original question: It seemed to me that you went from whether or not it is possible to whether it should be done. In other words:
Does the WTBTS merit complete abandonement and destruction due to its lies, hypocrisies, etc? Of course.
Is it possible?
It appears to me that your arguments for whether or not the WTBTS is culpable and merits being put down are worthy and correct:
But if I read you correctly, you are going after the government sanctioned religious corporation. Lets focus on the United States corps. Europe has in times past banned JW's, so I will allow that it is possible for those corps to be disbanded. It should also be noted that, if it were to happen again, the unintended consequence would be a "stouting up" of the believers. In short, JW's would still be around, and when circumstances would change, (they always do) then they would form again.
To speak directly to your preferred method of breaking up the WTBTS
That would leave #2 Government, regulations and negative public opinion.
Again, I have to ask, when has the United States government ever shut down a religion with a 50 state presence, corporations over 100 years old, tradition, (yes, even though JW's are a punch line, you can't be the butt of joke unless you are somewhat on the radar)?
The fact is, of all the fringe groups and cults in existence, the WTBTS is the most bulletproof in the United States. They were the ones whom the government tried to ban in the 1940's. Supreme Court decisions have affirmed their right to exist. Other cults in their shadow may exist, but I would opine that Jehovah's Witnesses are the first American cult to succesfully argue for their legal existence.
Thus, I would have to disagree with government and regulation as a way to bring them down.
As far as negative public opinion, don't they already have it? Where does anyone speak well of JW's? Sure, they are "nice". We talk of JW's at work, and we read in the pages of newspapers how "happy" everyone is at the DC's. Ok.
It is also well known that they don't allow blood transfusions. Bad pub. What does it mean?
JW's, like Mormons and Scientologists are cults. They are also very sophistacated PR machines. They are aware of their weirdness, which makes them insidious, but also relatively bulletproof. It's the cults that really believe in their bullshit that are going down. Remember the Branch Dividians?
The GB, far from being insistent in their integrity, have done everything to survive, and if that means change to the extent they can, they will. From Rutherfords offer to take out offensive passages of the 7th volume of Studies in the Scriptures, they have compromised where they needed to ensure their existence. Rest assurred, that will continue.
The fact is, we have a moral responsibility as former JW's to point out what this cult is all about. To the extent that information becomes more easily available, the further down towards irrelevance the WTBTS will become.
Because at best, I think that is where the aim should be at the moment. In the lack of immenent doom, irrelevance is what we need to aim for. The GB is already planning for this. They know their last bastion of wealth is their Brooklyn properties. They are marginalizing themselves. They need a certain amount of $$ to run the operation, and they are planning on diminishing returns. They aren't planning on growth, and they aren't planning on things staying the same.
I would say, as Besty has trademarked, this is an endtime cult without an endtime. They are fleshing out the next part of their existence, and I have a strong feeling that in 20 years, we won't recognize what they have become. They are shedding dates, and their ridiculous "prophecies" with types and antitypes. They have to do this.
They will evolve. Their key scripture is, to paraphrase, 'The light gets brighter'. Their light of course, is nothing more then a flashlight, their journey stops from time to time to reload the batteries. Like any flashlight, it only illuminates in dark places what is directly in front of their nose. Thus, they will continue to stumble in the dark, eventually, they will run out of batterires, and/or air.
And because they are in the dark, off the radar, known only when they knock on doors, no one will notice when that happens. You can't kill something that is already dead.
Some movements die a violent death, and the rest, natural causes. JW's will die of natural causes. They have a rather large parasite problem, of which, I count myself happy to be among the parasites causing their pain and problems... :)
