Is Today's Jehovah's Witness Religion The Same As It Was When You Were A Member?

by minimus 49 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  clarity

  In the 60's it was different but not really any "better"

  Same delusion, but maybe slightly less brain washed ...

  >

  And as Cofty says ....>

  JWs no longer know or care what they believe, its all about blind obedience.

  >

  We cared about the rules and doctrine ...not even reading other magazines

  or watching the"bad" TV shows...

  >

  It is true, jws don't really know what they are supposed to believe,

  and what is more amazing they don't care! A brother even said it right to my face ...

  "even if they are wrong, I wouldn't leave!"

  clarity
• 

  Terry

  The Watchtower Religion is a continual replacement policy organization.

  The TRUTH is a series of ongoing guesses, opinions, assertions and hypothesis which prove to be consistently incorrect.

  This prompts the necesssity of replacing those guesses, opinions, assertions and hypotheses with more of the same. (Equally incorrect.)

  The fact is surprising when you consider the poor labeling. None of the guesses are submitted to the public as guesses. None of the opinions

  published in the Watchtower are identified as opinions. Assertions come across as authorized divine behests.

  It is this sense of ENTITLEMENT TO ERR which really takes getting use to!

  The rank and file JW is fully expected and required to swallow whole any notion, whim, madcap caprice or arbitrary dictum passed off as a

  telegram of Truth from On High.

  I'll tell you what IS the same as it use to be: the hubris behind the phony mask of "prophecy" which isn't prophetic and the counterfeit confidence

  in specific things attached to no actual incidences in reality!
• 

  dog is god

  Havent been to a meeting in at least 12 years. I have no idea what they do there now. Nor do I care. I wasted too many years on them as it is. Although interesting enough I had a dream last night. I was talking to a male gay couple that were j's. They said they did not have sex but was finding it harder to stay in the cong. Then a woman walked up and said her daughter was being molested by an elder. I told her to call the police. Suddenly an elder whom I used to know entered the scene and talked to the three of them. I told him he had no power or imput into anyones lives. He took them to an elders meeting and when he came out he told me that I was apostate and was now disfellowshipped. So I was the scapegoat for the whole deal. Weird, huh?
• 

  minimus

  Jws have no zeal or fire. They are like step ford families going thru the motions.
• 

  EmptyInside

  Well,even as a recent Witness,I see things dumbed down. They call it simplified. Many are losing their zeal. But,the ones that are hardcore appear to be getting more extreme.

  I just remember when I was younger,that congregations seemed to be closer and did more fun things together. Of course,that isn't to say there were not problems then.

  One thing I also notice from the platform,the elders stick pretty closely to the material that is being discussed. I remember from my home congregation some would go off on left field, giving their personal opinions from the platform.

  And I don't remember hearing references to the faithful slave as much,never in prayers. It seemed more focus was on Jehovah and Jesus.
• 

  minimus

  I I always heard that the fds was always being prayed for. Not Jehovah or Christ.
• 

  Quendi

  I attended my first meeting in 1968 and my last in 2010, so I think I have a good perspective on what has been happening in the organization over these last forty-odd years. The religion has certainly undergone a metamorphosis--and not for the better. When I attended my first meeting, the countdown to 1975 had everyone I knew excited and zealous. Participation in the field service didn't have to be coerced. And the "faithful and discreet slave" was rarely mentioned. Instead, the talk was about leading the kind of lives that would please Jehovah and being a footstep follower of Jesus Christ. Doing that would enable us to survive the end of the world. And reading and understanding the Bible was also very important. WTS publications had a high place, don't get me wrong, but they did not have primacy over or even equality with the Bible back then. That's not to say that things were wonderful because they certainly weren't. But people had a focus in their lives as Witnesses that lit a fire in their bellies and kept them going.

  Now, more than thirty-five years after the 1975 debacle, I have to agree with those who say the religion isn't the same. I wouldn't call it a shell of its former self as much as to say that its metamorphosis has resulted in an "adult" form that hardly resembles its egg, larval and pupal stages. Rutherford wouldn't recognize the religion today, and neither would Knorr or even Fred Franz. And the trajectory has certainly been downward with the emphasis being so much on conformity, obedience, service and shunning. The few Witnesses I talk to now are in survival mode. They talk about hanging on until either Armageddon or their own deaths. It is a sad thing to see, especially when I compare today's situation with the way things once were.

  Quendi
• 

  minimus

  No zeal whatsoever.
• 

  OUTLAW

  No zeal whatsoever.

  But..

  Lots of JW Clapping Seals..

  WBT$ GB Member Anthony Morris..

  Just Farted..

  

  .......................... ...OUTLAW
• 

  Berengaria

  From what I see here, which is all I know of it anymore really, it is different. When I was young it seemed we were far less "a part of this world" than what it seems like now.