The Watchtower's Real Crisis

by JeffT 74 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  scratchme1010

  I think the Society's leadership is just plain out of ideas.
  

  I'm not sure if "running out of ideas" is the right way of characterize it. I think it's catching up with them the fact that they are just not believers of innovation. They insist in using the same model that they originally implemented whee they started in the 19th century, expecting to obtain the same results.

  I posted this in another post, but this is what I believe now (and I admit, I was wrong when I express that they were in fact ok financially because of their real estate deals):

  • Unlike most-to-all other groups (religious and non-religious), the WT has this ridiculous archaic idea/model of making a lot of money out of people who they themselves discourage from making money. In the past, when in USA people could still make a living from unskilled labor or from some simple trade, that may have worked. Not so today. Yet, they still insist in having their people live with the minimum necessary. That's quite different from what other institutions (some of which even offer scholarships) do. To other institutions, their people are their biggest investment and asset. "It's OK to be a Doctor in my church, especially since I impose you give 10% of your gross income to it"; that's a better model than the ridiculous "Don't study, don't make money and it's ok to contribute when/if you can since Jehovah will provide" model.
  • When it comes to the WT reputation, it keeps crumbling. Constantly there are not only new lawsuits against the WT, congregations or JWs directly, but people are a lot more aware of the ones that have happened in the past. Lawsuits is only one of the many ways in which their reputation is crumbling. There are now quite a lot of ex-JWs out there, that they just cannot silence. There's no way that they can continue applying mental patches to people, especially those who start listening to them. And now with the ease of communication that technology brings, people can very easily get the full/better story and many sides of things that people and the media say about them, so they can make better informed decisions. Speaking of technology...
  • They are just horrible at managing technology. Their approach to the Internet alone has proven to be disastrous, again, trying to apply the same nonsense they tried with radio way back when, with TV way back when, with CB radio way back when. Those idiots just don't learn their lesson. If you look at the people who compose the head of that organization, you can see how technology dumb they are, that in combination with them attempting at making every single decision to suit them and their best interest, which seems to be obsessive around controlling the lives of their followers. That's how they end up mismanaging technology and advances.
  • Another idiotic approach has to do with their insane neglect and mistreatment of children. They do not consider children for anything they do, including the things that they talk about (and how) in their meetings and literature. Just look at their "Book of Bible Stories". Why does that matter? Because children grow traumatized and just leave as soon as they can. Furthermore, the treatment and approach to children comes from way back when they started, when in USA there were laws to protect animals, but not one law to protect children. Layers had to build a case that animal protection laws applied to abused children too. That's the school where they come from.
    

  They are over a century outdated in their mindset and approach to managing their organization.
  
• 

  WTWizard

  No ideas? No problem, since this is a damnation working. Push poverty a certain number of times (that reduces in numerology to 6), you get people programmed in their souls to generate poverty. Once that is done, move on to their health. Move on to make their lives a drudgery. Move on to sexuality. Move on to ensuring that people are never going to do anything with their lives. Once that is done, wait until Saturn aspects something and repeat.

  As they keep recycling these ideas in their endless damnation workings, the problems are not coming up with new ideas (though some people see the ideas as stale). It is timing the existing ones to maximize the stagnation and to prime them into supporting global slavery. While most people are told not to use astrology, they do use it at the top--making sure washtowel articles are studied at the times when the planets are lined up to do the most damage. They do poverty workings while Saturn is dominant and Venus and the Sun are poorly aspected. They do stagnation workings during bad Venus or Sun/Saturn or Mars aspects, or even Pluto. They do health workings when Mars and Pluto (or Neptune) are lined up to ruin people's health--and the moon is used to time the first of these articles. Never do they write up these articles during Mercury retrograde or when the moon is void of course (though they might finish one they started, write subsequent articles to continue a series, or actually study an article at such times). And believe me, they know what they are doing better than any of us.
  
• 

  Fisherman

  belief in the organisation's invincibility - despite all evidence to the contrary.

  SBF, I posted about this some threads back. JW are conviced that wt is invincible subject to their religious faith, not based on the reality of Pharaoh's advancing army, but that's not what we are talking about, at least not me, in the related threads on the topics you started that continues to be a relevant subject on this thread. A lot of unsubstantiated views have been posted by posters about their feelings about wt invincibility which can be likened to JW faith of wt invincibility. But that's not what we are talking about here : " I feel wt is going to do this." The evidence shows a financial crisis and the doctrine of crying wolf for 103 years. That's the evidence. How much longer can wt continue to cry wolf with nothing happening after 103 years! And what's the business model, as you mention, for making money to pay the bills and fund the movement besides the donation boxes? Selling off assets and cutting expenses is not a business model. We can divert the topic into a religious discussion as some posters are saying that they feel wt next move is but with no evidence to show challenging yours. Evidence shows the hounds are at the door.
• 

  konceptual99

  100% agree Jeff.

  They have a massive issue in that nothing is panning out in the way they expected. Time goes on and the world keeps turning. 1914 and the generation has become a joke even amongst the faithful. They cannot make any statement that has any meaning about TKOTN since they know they don't have a clue. Predictions about the outworking of events leading to the big A and things like Gog of Magog are woolly and predicated on future events that can always be alluded to but never firmly established with concrete certainty. The figures they publish show the exact opposite in terms of indicators that were used to imply the nearness of the end 20, 30, 40+ years ago. Sustained large increases in certain fields have slowed, in some places reversed.

  The doctrine and predictions are as unsatisfying when peeled back as everything they have ever criticised Christendom for and I think they know it. They seem to have accepted that the only route to sustaining some kind of base is to lock in the born-ins and try and offset yearly losses through some organic growth but mainly by getting kids to get baptised.
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  slimboyfat

  EyesOpen, publishing produced huge revenues for Watchtower until the 1990s. Broadcasting produces no revenue, all it does is cost money.

  Saying that broadcasting has replaced publishing as Watchtower's business model is a bit like saying I've replaced my job at the factory with regular visits to the cafe during the afternoon instead. Pleasant while it lasts, no doubt, but it's not making any money, and the money will soon run out.

  Interested to know when snipers like careful will show us, where's the beef?
• 

  konceptual99

  Virtually everything over the past few years has been distraction.

  Rebranding, carts, meeting changes, organisational changes, restructuring, Warwick, Chelmsford, South Africa, the Silver Sword, broadcasting etc. etc.

  The only major doctrinal point addressed in recent history has been the overlapping generation and that has been a classic exercise in trying to sell the impossible.

  They have offered nothing in the meat of the scriptures and how world events are reflecting a progression towards Armageddon for YEARS.

  The fluff and guff continues with the change to the WT & Awake. It's just meaningless and more and more people are working it out.
• 

  waton

  The only major doctrinal point addressed in recent history has been the overlapping generation and that has been a classic exercise in trying to sell the impossible.

  They have offered nothing in the meat of the scriptures

  k99: Right, and by making the generation anointed, directly contradicted "Jesus" words of the generation "not passing until all occurs"..
• 

  konceptual99

  Yup - I'd forgotten the F&DS only being the GB as a recent change.
• 

  Onager

  Morpheus, I think you have different definition of failure and collapse than you are assuming Slimboyfat has. I think that if you asked SBF if there will be people who identify as Jehovah's Witnesses in 50 years time then they would say yes.

  It's the monolithic organisation that faces imminent demise and the fact that there'll always be some fanatics who cling to the wreckage and claim that it's still a working ship is irrelevant.

  I think there will be many splinters, all proclaiming that only they are the true JW's, in fact I think you can see signs of that now. I have relatives that are against all blood products and I know JW's that would accept fractions. Some accept what they call Micro evolution (don't get me started) and those that reject any form of evolution. They're already not listening to "Mother" and choosing their own beliefs and this will just accelerate when the society, as a corporation, collapses.

  (I made a lot of assumptions about other posters in this post. I hope I didn't get it too wrong).
  
• 

  waton

  konceptual99: I was not referring to the dethroning of the Apostles, but the pre-Armageddon rapture of the partakers.