by jwfacts 56 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
They could easily come up with some new wacky explanation incorporating their idea about 'this generation'.
It could go something like this - since the number was going down until 2007 we can see this would have been the first and second overlapping group of anointed but now that it is rising from 2007 this must be the third overlapping group. So we know that Armageddon must be coming very soon because the number of the second group would naturally still be going down.
I can recall one memorial the elder giving the talk went into a lengthy explanation on to what it means to be one of the anointed. The reason was is that the previous year there was an increase in partakers and he wanted anyone that would partake fully aware of their decision. I don't know if this was a direction from the society or he took it on himself. The other reason was that at that time the society taught that was a sign of the end as not many of the 144,000 were to survive the big A. Times have changed.
I agree on the posters that said that a lot of them are mentally or emotionally imbalanced. The few memorial partakers I knew over the years, most of them were not right in the head and the other ones were a little delusional.
mental or emotional imbalance—might cause some to assume mistakenly that they have the heavenly calling.
Why would a just god crank up a system where there is room for error? To identify his chosen ones ?
My Mother started partaking around 1982 (she was in her mid-thirties at the time). She married a brother and soon after he was partaking. Soon, other people in the hall got "anointed-fever". I have not talked with them in years but I recently found out through the grapevine that my nephew and his Dad may be partaking in the next memorial. I'm starting to think there are high-levels of "midi-chlorians" in my family. ;-)
I have been out for 25 years but I am sure that the numbers are waaaaay higher than what they report. As already pointed out by posters, many partake in private and/or are "discounted" as "mentally ill/imbalanced", etc. I was an MS at the time and I remember given directions by the elders on who to count or not. Crazy.
Glad to be now be an atheist where I don't have to pretend to understand all of this nonsense.
This is one of those things that probably seemed like a good idea when they started it but gradually the numbers have gone the wrong way and now they are stuck with them because it will be very noticeable if they drop it and stop reporting the numbers (maybe jog people into thinking) but as things go on and on the numbers look worse and worse for their prophecy and their ability to control people.
In our KH almost half of the memorial talk was really telling you why you should *not* be partaking and if you felt like doing it you were really making a grave mistake.
It's a pity we don't have more info about the demographics of the partakers. Are they all new people? Maybe they are witnesses that have been in a long time and think "I've tried the great crowd thing and never got anywhere, maybe I'm old enough to be anointed, what the heck, I'lll give it a go!"
Maybe it's apostates all showing up for free wine and crackers (remember to bring your own cheese people!)
When I left the Org, which, by coincidence, was the very next Meeting after a Memorial, the numbers of partakers were already on the up.
Now they are getting close to double when I was in, 7 or so years ago. Of course, the number of attendees has gone up quite a bit.
But I am sure a good number of the new partakers must come from existing, active JW's.
Not all of these are mentally ill in the way the Org slanders them, I am sure.
The G.B. have a problem that is getting larger each year, and each year harder to explain away.
