When you're as wrong as often as the WTS is, you get to the point where the amount of software patches actually outnumber the original source code. :smirk:
Diddling, adjusting, changing Doctrines? Why not leave it alone?
by Terry 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Finkelstein
He exclaims with surprise at the faces of the sacrificial victims.
"They're smiling--why are they all smiling?" He screams.
Jws really don't know how the WTS has used and exploited them into sacrificed victims to uphold the organization, through their labor and money and to support themselves as its positioned leaders.
but they're smiling nevertheless.
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Terry
I know cognitive dissonance is ever present inside the Kingdom Hall.
However, I also know the nagging feeling "something just isn't right" is also there. The wall between the dissonances is only so high. When the bullshit gets above it, it slops over and awareness flashes. We tend to refer to that dawning awareness as "waking up."
It comes down to the same crisis moment an ADDICT faces. If they have lost everything and are at rock bottom inside the religion--the only way out is up and through the looking glass. An inevitability suddenly appears. When and how it will become real is a test of strength of character and basic raw courage.
To choose to make your world go away is the most difficult choice imaginable. The rational side of the mind is crippled by indoctrination. The emotional side of the mind is crippled by fear. The social side of the mind is blocked by potential loss of all your friends and JW family.
So what is left?
Reality=oxygen. How long can you hold your breath?
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OnTheWayOut
They say (they being the ex-JW community) there are two things driving doctrinal changes: money and the calendar.
As far as money goes, there is a variant on that reason- SELLING LITERATURE.
In the heyday of Freddy Franz, selling Watchtower literature was reason enough to keep changing the doctrine. If you want to sell new books every year, they have to offer something new within them sometimes.
Otherwise, doctrine is changed to make it easier to fleece the members with new thoughts on OBEY OBEY OBEY and the rest is calendar driven- the doctrine expires until they change it or write some new theories on how it doesn't expire.
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Vidiot
I think the fact that the Org has slowly-but-surely been compelled to move away from Fred Franz' End-Times script* would break my Dad's heart.
He grew up during the Cold War, and knew that shit backward and forward.
x
* The Revelation Climax book is long since out of print, and unavailable in digital form.
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Terry
I think they are moving toward eliminating "literature" as a source of income. The customers are the members themselves. Getting pledges to pay up works for the churches at large and the semi-TV ministry is crowd-funding of a different sort.
I saw the OLD JW's religion and I am alive to see the NEW JW religion. Folks, it just isn't the same religion.
It is a doppleganger.
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Phizzy
A good example of a religion that is "new", though older than the JW "religion", is the Christadelphians.
They have left their doctrines unchanged for about 150 years I think, ( it may be slightly less).
The funny thing is that they have taught for all this time much the same as JW's eventually taught, until the recent doctrinal madness in the JW Borg.
And if Jesus was going to choose a religion around 1919, the Christadelphians would have won hands down. Truly Neutral and Conscientious Objectors since the American Civil War, no Trinity, no Immortal Soul, and an Earthly Kingdom LONG before the WT/JW Borg caught up.
Yet they have constantly shrunk in size.
Maybe regularly having something new to chew on suits the baby minds of the public who fall for the JW tosh and similar nonsense.
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Vidiot
@ Phizzy...
Can you imagine how they might have turned out if Rutherford had been one of them, instead?
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Giordano
As far as schisms go there were three according to the early history of the WTBTS
A simplified chart of historical developments of major groups within Bible Students: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses
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Terry
What is interesting to me is how independent groups (which Russell preferred) can allow themselves to become co-opted by iron-willed leaders.
It could be that Faith is a lot like dating around. After awhile, all that independence becomes too predictable. Then, one day, you find "The One" who rings your bell and you want to settle down and cinch the deal.
Those Bible Student groups which split (schism) were already naysayers who were apostates from mainstream churches over the End Times chronology addictions. By insisting on remaining independent they more or less doomed themselves.
The tyrant, Judge Rutherford, immortalized those who stayed with him.
Which is worse? :)It is a no-win situation either way.
