by kneehighmiah 73 Replies latest jw friends
Yes, indeed 'expectation postponed makes the heart grow sick' - Prov 13:12
The organisation is SICK. JW's are SICK and tired of waiting, waiting, waiting, for the World Headquarters presumptous prophets old boys club pompous, pratful and pitiful prognostications to come true. Now the proud, pompous prat Watchtower prophets are begging for JW's to hang in there and keep attending the CONventions and donating. We'll I say 'f*ck you, I've had a gutsful!"
It amuses me to hear the phrases that people come up with to get nearer and nearer to armageddon.
"We're on the cusp"
"in the last seconds of this old system"
"at the end of the end, the last days of the last days"
"We were round the corner, now we're at the door"
They are fabulous!
One brother said to me "it's so close we can smell it!".
I told him "I can certainly smell something!"
Splash
Marking....the gal leading my wife's study a couple of years said we are on the doorstep....gag!
Heard it all before. The WTBTS won't "implode" , any more than similar groups like the Mormons ( which are run much more successfully. ) Once a religion reaches a critical mass , then it basically can linger for hundreds of years before splintering.
Most JWs are just in it for social reasons - it is essentially a large glorified social club. How many times have we heard "the system can't go on for much longer" from JWs? And how "depressed & troubled the friends are." I've heard it for 40 years. My father told me that the person who studied with him said that we are in the last 16th of an inch of the toenails of Daniel's image and that we would never see the 1960's in the present system. That was almost 60 years ago.
Barring a "black swan" event ( eg major GB apostasy , schism , high up financial or sexual scandal ) it will suffer a painfully slow decline in the West & a slightly less painfully slow increase in the traditionally Christian countries of the 3rd world.
Dozy,
Agree
i dont know why the wts didnt re-locate its headquarters to nigeria. lots of cheap land and labour there. it would be right at home in the land of the international scam.
Don't think in 10 years it will be the end of the Watchtower Organization, but it will be substantially smaller. First, it was the end time prophecies that expired, then the slowly staged emphasis & worship of the Governing Body and new light doctrinal changes that had no biblical support, nor made any sense at all. (over-lapping generation, GB only is the F&DS) Finally, the internet has exposed all the Watchtower Society's lies & dirty secrets to the point where it is now seen as a cult religion by most.
The JW leadership has two options to try to hold this religion together. (1) Come up with an end time theology that is more in-line with pre-1995 beliefs (this generation, F&DS, UN, King of N&S, Babylon the Great, etc. Big mess to clean up here, but they can blame apostacy on someone within, and proclaim a cleansing of the temple. etc.) They also need another Armaggedon date that will give the current JW's a sense of urgency again and also possilbly scare faders back into the fold. (2) Keep changed beliefs and things the way they are, but just loosen the reins, be less cultish, and become more mainstream.
DJS:
You make some good points. Even though I doubt they will "end" anytime soon, I think they must substantially change in order to just survive. As you stated: "They've been bleeding the best and brightest for decades, and a religion that only attracts the dysfunctional members of society, which is the Borg, can't thrive.." Truer words were never spoken.
The religion made a monumental error in attracting too many people with serious issues in the last decade or so.
I am sure this was done to fill the empty seats of the "best and brightest" who have wisely FLED this religion. The only problem is that these new people (some of whom are dangerously disturbed) are certainly a drain on the congregations everywhere. They probably got the wrong impression that the JW religion is a charitable organization. This situation only COMPOUNDS the problem that the Jehovah's Witness religion was already crawling with irresponsible people!!! I met loads of them.
So, this newer influx of people with serious issues only swelled the ranks of irresponsible people already there. What do you imagine the consequences of all this will be??? Surely they are imagining they are going to target responsible working people left in the religion. To add insult to injury: [READ: thread about them "retiring" elderly COs/DOs later in 2014].
Time for more people to get the hell out of this mess of a religion!
It amuses me to hear the phrases that people come up with to get nearer and nearer to armageddon.
You forgot:
"It's closer than the inside of your eyelids!"
"It's imminent!" (best said with a low, spooky voice and raised eyebrows)
Jws differ from Mormons in a key area that will lead to their collapse. Mormons allow their members to make something of their lives. Play pro sports, even run for president. Just as economic collapse brought down many totalitarian regimes, the lack of opportunity will kill JWs. You can't keep telling people to wait until the new system to live their life. JWs today have something the old JWs didn't. Perspective. We can look back in time and see that the message has been repeated for 100 years. People with grey hair postponed their entire lives. We can see this. And we don't want that to be us. Doomsday cults have a limited lifespan. Even Ecclesiastes says expectation postponed is making the heart sick. read Langston Hughes dream deferred poem. That's why Mormons will stick around and we won't.
