Why don't they just lie about the numbers?

by Sour Grapes 11 Replies latest jw friends

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  Sour Grapes

  Why doesn't the WTBTS just lie and increase the published amount of people who attend the Memorial? Who would know the difference? The same with the amount munching on the crackers and sipping the wine. Why show an increase which goes against what I have been taught my entire life. Who would know if they showed a small decline each year? If they would just decrease the amount by 100 per year they could have gone on for over 80 years and all of the old timers would have been dead. Perhaps they are showing increasing numbers for the anointed to change a doctrine in a couple of more years.

  Sour Grapes
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  sir82

  The WTS has a strange compulsion about accuracy in numbers. They feel it is "morally upright" to report things "honestly". So, even if inconvenient, they report the numbers as given to them*.
  

  Meanwhile, they feel no qualms about lying about child abuse, disfellowshipping, finances, etc.

  The Biblical term is "straining out the gnat and gulping down the camel".

  * They accurately report the numbers reported to them. But most JWs "cheat" on their time report, counting time they aren't "supposed to". Also, lots of elders just make up numbers for the report, thinking "I know Brother X must have been out in service last month, so even though he didn't turn in a report, I'll mark him down for 5 hours".
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  Marvin Shilmer

  Why doesn't the WTBTS just lie and increase the published amount of people who attend the Memorial? Who would know the difference? The same with the amount munching on the crackers and sipping the wine. Why show an increase which goes against what I have been taught my entire life. Who would know if they showed a small decline each year? If they would just decrease the amount by 100 per year they could have gone on for over 80 years and all of the old timers would have been dead. Perhaps they are showing increasing numbers for the anointed to change a doctrine in a couple of more years.

  Plausible deniability can only go so far to placate cognitive dissonance. Watchtower's upper-tier hierarchy is probably perfectly fine manipulating numbers to please themselves (effectively: mental masturbation). But this upper-tear depends on lots and lots of up-and-comer middle-tier worker bees to keep the engine of its religion business churning. These middle-tier workers have access to everything the upper-tier has access to, only in a more diversified fashion. Hence for Watchtower to intentionally misrepresent values as suggested, it would likely cause a huge schism.
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  under the radar

  They probably would consider doing that if they thought they could get away with it. They carefully parse their words in many other areas so as to deceive people, don't they? There were several examples of Watchtower representatives doing just that from last week's Australian Royal Commission hearings.

  But fudging hard numbers is problematic. Too many people would have to be complicit. Eventually, someone would leak the info and then it would blow up in their faces.

  I think they have too many other things to worry about right now to be concerned about incongruous teachings about Memorial partakers and the actual numbers. Most JW's won't even notice or question it.

  Besides, I believe they'll eventually concede that the 144,000 number given in Revelation is obviously a symbolic number. That would resolve the issue, especially since they have now relegated the vast majority of the "anointed" to having no special status above any other run-of-the-mill "sheep."
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  punkofnice

  
  
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  Village Idiot

  I wonder if the Governing Body even reads their own numbers. Someone below them must be mindlessly cranking them out without a second thought.
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  FayeDunaway

  I completely agree with sir82, and it reflects the mindset of JW philosophy ....be meticulously accurate about the little stuff, totally screw with the big stuff.
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  done4good

  FayeDunaway - I completely agree with sir82, and it reflects the mindset of JW philosophy ....be meticulously accurate about the little stuff, totally screw with the big stuff.

  That is what happens when one uses an ancient bronze age tribal assemblage of writings as a moral compass.

  d4g
  
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  John Aquila

  Why doesn't the WTBTS just lie and increase the published amount of people who attend the Memorial?

  
  How do we know they aren't lying about the amount of publishers they have now? What if in reality they only have 5 million publishers world wide and are fudging the yearly increase in publishers and Memorial attendance? They lie about everything, why not the increases in publishers every year? would it be far-fetch to believe they are lying about increases in publishers world wide?
  

  You just never know what's true anymore with the WT.

  
  
  
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  Tazemanian-devil

  Because they don't have a way to accurately predict how much longer the world has, it would be difficult to calculate a believable rate of decline. I suppose they could drop it by one or two every year, just to give themselves plenty of leeway. But eventually they'd have to drop the number below what is believable, because there are CO's and others who have an idea of how many there are in their area, and if someone did a rough calculation, they'd eventually see that there are in fact more claiming to be anointed than the society is showing.