by bradford 44 Replies latest jw friends
Bradford: (Q) "I am not so sure a bigger awakening is going to happen anymore?"
The Rebel. (A) Each individual awakened person, is one more nail in the Watchtower coffin, so do not underestimate the POWER of our individual awakening.
My guess " Bradford" is that your post has been read by many on this " World Wide Web". My guess is " YOUR" post has been read by many witnesses around the world.
Don't underestimate the power your individual post has had on the witness community.
The Rebel.
there will be no mass exodus. There will be no sudden reform. The org will plod along as many other religions do. The best we can do is help those we come across as best we can, as it aounds like you did.
I tend to agree with Morpheus, but we can always hope something changes that. Is there a mass exodus from the Catholic Church? No, but the members are drifting away pretty steadily. It may not currently be the same with Watchtower, but when we look at the young ones leaving, there is great hope.
bradford - "'m not so sure a bigger awakening is going to happen anymore..."
Doesn't have to happen.
Internal apathy, passive resistance, and slow, steady membership hemorrhage will do the job just fine.
Nothing is going to change. Most of the people still Witnesses are those who want to be Witnesses.
It isn't like it was long ago when people were stone-cold afraid to leave. Less people need religion nowadays. But those in are mostly hard core.
I agree that a "mass awakening" is unlikely, let's face it, you have got to want to be in it to still be in it with all the stupidity of the last few years.
I do think though that here in the U.K any JW with a couple of sparking brain cells must be feeling extreme discomfort from Cognitive Dissonance.
All over the Media belief like that of JW's is not just questioned, but ridiculed mercilessly.
Chat shows, comedy shows and other kinds all poke fun at silly beliefs like Adam and Eve, Noah's Flood and even more personal things to do with belief, I heard one guy advise a believer to try "something that works, like Prayer" in a sarcastic way, to much tittering from the audience.
This kind of general atmosphere in society is corrosive to the simple minded belief that "we have the truth".
I think more will wake up than in the past, purely because they are out of step by such a long way with normal people.
Sweetheart, for most it is all they have. They've cut everyone else out of their lives at the bequest of control freaks. They have nothing and no one else.
It's like a woman married to an overly jealous husband. He has her dump all her friends and even family. If and when he becomes abusive, she has nowhere to go and no one to help her. She is isolated.
It's like a woman married to an overly jealous husband. He has her dump all her friends and even family. If and when he becomes abusive, she has nowhere to go and no one to help her. She is isolated.
An apt analogy. Settling for less than you are capable of is the dismal story of downtrodden humankind, of which JWs are just one small depressing example.
Mass exodus? No. Social evolution? Yes.
As society changes, it becomes very difficult for a 19th century religion and social construct to remain relevant. Slowly, apathy builds among the members. Likely they make no real change, (other than just attempting to live as normally as possible), until if and when something happens to either them personally or someone the care enough about personally.
Keep in mind human beings have strong social needs that are met by their association with the organization. Unless those needs can be met elsewhere, (really meaning that they are no longer being met by the organization), they will likely not leave, regardless of intelligence or approach to logical thought. This is why it usually takes a personal event to wake someone up, even after years of apathy.
The apathetic are increasing in number however, and have been for many years, especially since the mid-1990s. These folks are a ticking time bomb, (individually, not collectively), and will leave as soon as it becomes socially feasible to do so.
d4g
As society changes, it becomes very difficult for a 19th century religion and social construct to remain relevant. Slowly, apathy builds among the members.
Yes reliable finding of what happens when a conservative end-times group ages and members have spent entire lifetimes waiting for the promised end.
Example of a group that did not modernize: Christadelphians - still steeped in the 19th-Century mentality.
Example of groups that have progressively modernized: Latter-Day Saints, 7th-Day Adventists.
