by schnell 41 Replies latest jw experiences
what the rank and file do will they start to travel longer distances or just not go.
Also, do they really think "newly interested ones" will travel longer distances to get to the nearest Kingdom Hall? Or is this an acknowledgement that the number of "newly interested ones" has significantly dropped off anyway?
I'm of the feeling that these guys on the GB are so delusional that they just might by their own vainglorious stupidity sink the whole printing empire by means of idiotic business decisions. It could come in a decade or two.
I think some splinter groups might form but quickly fizzle out due to lack of interest because of poorly developed sermons and no ridged enforcement of corporation policies. My estimate is in about 40 years all traces of the WT empire will be gone as in they disappear into nothingness.
What makes you think they will collapse?
What makes you think they will collapse?
Hope, and observation of the society thinning everything out and stagnating and being shown for what they are to millions of young people online (the antigay cartoon made it to 9gag) and begging for money on JW Broadcast.
Also, this very year, they've made promises that they cannot take back about the great tribulation. Those bunker videos at the worst convention ever weren't for nothing. It wasn't just a delusional man talking at the podium. It was a lot more visual than that, and it didn't just stay at the convention. All of it went online for the whole world to see. If I wanted to, I could repeatedly upload that footage to sites like 9gag just to keep it in young people's mind.
The organization is incestuous as it is at this point, as the vast majority of current JWs and new baptisms are born in. But as they talk to their friends, all the other kids have to do is Google it. They've peaked.
What's more, I'm actually worried.
At some point, witnesses have to retire. Pensions all over the world and social security in the USA included are not secure. Although the details and politics are debated and disputed, in only a few decades, social security will be insolvent. Millions of people are in for a massive reality check.
I agree, things are changing. If not a collapse, call it a decline, but it's a recipe for transformation, reformation, or schism.
Or indeed, maybe I'll just wake up.
Also, this very year, they've made promises that they cannot take back about the great tribulation.
Watchtower has an explanation for everything..
...............................................................
A)..We never said that.
B)..We have New Light..
C)..Your causing division in the congregation..
YOU COULD BE DISFELLOWSHIPPED..
Heh. Cool, so they didn't say we're all going to be in bunkers and basements soon.
Give it 5 years and dig those videos right up again when they talk about this system wrapping up.
A more realistic scenario is that numbers will be fairly stagnant for a number of years, with some growth in poorer catholic countries and countries with high population growth (eg Africa), but in Western countries the average age of the rank and file member will continue to rise.
My speculation/hope from then would be the following:
In a decade or so, after a few years of stagnation, the baby boomers will start to die off, and decline will be visible to even the most ardent. Some ardent believes might think it means, "we must be so close", but as each year brings in further stagnation and decline, that would wear off.
In the meantime, Watchtower would be too preoccupied with financial issues and financial survival to manage the situation. With no clear leader, it may oscillate between being a little more liberal and being more hard-line. With the network of Kingdom Halls becoming more sparse, not all dubs will be able to attend their bi-weekly brainwashing session, or socialise exclusively with fellow dubs. This would make shunning more difficult and less effective as well.
A further decade along, the Borg would be in a clear downward trajectory. I would probably continue on for another 100 years or so, with a "quadruple-somersaulting double-overlapping pike-position generation" concept, before fading into oblivion.
Anyway, that is my hope.
I find it very interesting that, with all the weird shit that's been coming town the pipe in recent years, there seem to be a lot more XJWs (with a few exceptions) willing to entertain the possibility of the Org's "collapse".
Brokeback WT - "I'm of the feeling that these guys on the GB are so delusional that they just might by their own vainglorious stupidity sink the whole printing empire by means of idiotic business decisions."
This is a hard one to argue with.
Collapse or adapt? I think the evidence shows the latter. Seldom, if ever, do belief systems collapse - they transform and yes, transforming risks alienating at least some diehard members,
But in this current secularization of wider society, it is probably unlikely there could ever be enough momentum for any "group" to breakaway from the organization and pose a significant threat to the viability of the organization - although it does not stop assorted individuals from speaking as if certain developments could 'bring it down.'
