The failure of the End to arrive on their timetable and the increasingly ludicrous excuses for its non-eventuation, the embarassment of defending the increasingly indefensible -- 1914 -- will deepen their insularity and strip them of whatever credibility they have left. IMO their long-term survival depends on some movement towards the mainstream and away from the lunatic fringes; instead their intransigence is driving them in quite the opposite direction.
What crisis will set the W.T on a new path?
by acolytes 58 Replies latest jw friends
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Vidiot
punkofnice - "I wouldn't put it past them with their 'rule or ruin' policy that if the washtowel is going down they wouldn't enforce mass suicide."
We're already sort of seeing it; they're tightening up on all sorts of policies across the board, which can't help but weed out the rest of the fence-sitters, apostate-sympathizers, and other assorted riffraff; pruning the plant for ideological purity.
Prune too much, though, and you kill the plant; a slow suicide of the WTS itself, if not necessarily the R&F.
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MeanMrMustard
@Farkel: Agreed. If shunning was removed (or not respected), it would all fall apart..
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wobble
That is why we need to attack the shunning in any way we can, every chance we get to bring the Media's attention to it, we should:
"Advertise, Advertise, Advertise the WT and its meaness !"
Here in Europe we are hoping that Court cases, showing that pressure to shun family members is forced on JW's by coercion, i.e threat of their being DF'd themselves for not shunning, and it is not their own conscienscious choice, will highlight an aspect that is against the Human Rights legislation in force in Europe.
Once the WT cannot force families to shun their loved ones, the DF'ing tactic loses its teeth.
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punkofnice
WOBBLE = it is not their own conscienscious choice,
Good point, it's not really THIER choice. They delude themselves that it is but it's just the cult tactic of 'Milleu Control' amongst other things!
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highdose
i'm afarid i disagree about the shunning idea. We know that WTBS just LOVE courts and goverments telling them not to do things. If this happened the shunning issue would become one of those "unwritten" laws that they are so fond of. And no i can't see WTBS giving up shunning on their own... its the one hold they have over their flock.
I am of the opinion that the WTBS is already in a crisis that will continue. But it will be a slow burn and will come from the inside. 1) armargeddon just not coming at all... 2) the fact that they are not allowing their members to educate themselves or their children, this will ultimatly create a R&F that are uneducated and unable to sell as a result, and also a R&F that do not earn enough money to keep the WTBS going. The R&F who disobey and get an education will very likely leave, and it is also highly unlikely that educated outsiders will want to join.
This is happening already as the main people who are joining are: poor people from the third world and those mentaly unstable misfits of the community normaly on welfare.
It will be a slow burn, one that has already started and it will take many generations ( over lapping or otherwise)
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yadda yadda 2
The ONLY thing that willl set them on a 'new path' (depending what you mean by that), is if they abandon any of their core teachings, eg, no trinity, no immortal soul, no hell, etc. If the leadership did that, the organisation would suffer something similar to what Herbert Armstrong's former religion suffered when he died and the new leaders reverted to orthodox dogma.
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acolytes
Yadda Yadda... I think the core teachings such as trinity, no immortal soul ect will not set the witnesses on a new path any more than the failure of the 1914doctrine (its not important)
In sales only 7% of the sale is dependent on the words discribing the product.
I believe the watchtower product is not the doctrine.
I started this thread to find an answer to my question "What crisis will set the W.T on a new path?" and i think the answer is a % of many points. Iam now convinced individuals (apostates) make up that %.
Acolytes
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acolytes
Farkel....great comment.
On previouse posts i have attacked your way of corresponding with other posters. Thats because i have learnt to much from you to ignor you.(Besides your red hair,big ears and tounge sticking out what do you expect)
Acolytes