The last refuge of a cult

by undercover 12 Replies latest jw friends

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  undercover

  The WTS struggles to survive in the 21st century, what with the Internet, social media, instant communication, instant video, instant music, instant porn, er, not that I'd know anything about that last one... but anyhoo...

  As they struggle to keep the young ones indoctrinated, they've finally realized that sitting in WT meetings four days a week, and knocking  on doors at least once a week is not appealing to millennials, and with all the new technology at their fingertips, it doesn't take but a couple of clicks of a mouse to find enough disturbing info on the WTS to encourage them to fade away.

  So what to do?  Well, if you can't beat em, join em.  After years of demonizing the Internet, televangelists, showboating religious leaders, and discouraging anything that could lead a person to question their authority, they finally figured out they can't beat em.  So, they joined em.  JW TV on the Interwebs, featuring GB members giving talks...ala televangelist style.  A new JW logo designed to make people proud to wear the logo.  CGI videos of children obeying Jehovah the GB, and now YouTube style videos of singing carts.  

  They've lost the 30somethings and 20somethings.  They have to reinvent themselves in order to keep little kids indoctrinated, without thinking or doubting.  So they have started these new trends that us oldsters have trouble believing, because in our day, just watching TV or listening to music was frowned on.  When kids are playing games on smartphones and tablets before they can walk, you damn well better change your position on technology if you want even a gnat's chance in hell at retaining the youth when they hit their teens.

  On one hand, it's an admittance of defeat...that the old ways don't work and are dead, but on the other, it's a diabolical plot to reinvent, and keep running, a dangerous mind control cult.
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  WingCommander

  My son is 10 years old.  He's never set foot into a Kingdumb Hall. 

  If that isn't a testament to how I was raised and a gigantic F U to the WatchTower, than I don't know what is! 
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  OnTheWayOut

  I hope it is the last refuge of a cult.  I hope that desperation doesn't work.  Likely, it won't.  I think that they would retain a huge portion of the membership until they die no matter what idiotic things they do, but they really seemed to go down a complete path of idiocy.  They want to retain and recruit with the re-branding and it's so strange that it makes the loyal members question it.  And it's so strange to young ones in the information age that it's recruiting value and retention of born-ins just won't work. 
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  DesirousOfChange

  The last refuge of the WTS is going to be undeveloped nations where people lack the ability to check them out on the internet. They need to keep the Western nations involved as much as possible, because that's where the money is available, at least for now.

  Doc
  
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  SAHS

  I think that the temptation is becoming too great for the GB to just say the heck with it and embrace the total rebranding of the religion business with a view to strengthening its niche in the lucrative new Sesame-Street-like, novelty-gift-shop cyber-evangelical market. After all, they’re all about attention getting and narcissistic glory, and they’re always up for cashing in whatever is going at the time. Blue “JW.org” fuzzy dice for the rearview mirror anyone?
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  stuckinarut2

  And, The oldsters will NOT allow themselves to have doubts and reservations about the new changes, because they are constantly bombarded with talks and articles about "follow with absolute obedience / however strange it may seem etc"....

  The guilt any oldster would feel for even second guessing this new direction of the org is priceless in the GB hands! 

   So the GB have manipulated every age bracket!
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  goingthruthemotions

  I would love to see the CULT implode....I am so done with this cult....whether or not my wife ever opens her eyes. i am done....i am so sick of it.

  
  

  
  
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  All for show

  Don't forget, the 20/30 something's are the ones raising the young kids and next JW generation.  This younger generation is really in for it, the parents, all well within my age group - all with young ones, think Caleb and Sophia are great because they don't have to parent!  They ignore their kids so they can chat on their phone or post photos on Instagram. Even biblicious JW young parents will have a hard time with their kids, who can live up to a cartoon character? Those kids will end up hating it like most born ins.  The cartoons are so short it's more annoying than it's worth to most young parents anyway. That's a common complaint, also, mentioning how no one at bethel is dealing with the daily struggles of parenting. Most young parents say it's ridiculous...even the new magazine on discipline has some hot. 'Please give me parenting advice person with no child, no one ever said' 

  WTS is a day late and a dollar short. 
• 

  WTWizard

  Just another way of dummy blocking the religion.  Make it appealing on the surface to people that are way underage, and then clamp down hard when they turn 12 or 13.  The fun and games are shallow.  Putting music in the carts is akin to the phonograph records they used to use.  Playing videos on electronic devices (which is going to cost the witlesses in data prices), or even allowing electronic devices at the boasting sessions, is only a facade.

  But, when they come down hard on sex, that is where many are going to regret getting baptized.  Men who are not assistant hounders by the time they turn 23 are denied marriage, and I am watching for them to expound on that during the coming Grand Boasting Session.  No excuses such as "I didn't get baptized until I was 24 or 25", "They deliberately passed me by until after I turned 23", "I moved and was not re-appointed for a time", or similar reasons accepted.  You were not continuously an assistant hounder or higher from the day you turned 23 on, you are not eligible for marriage and you have no business even looking at the "sisters" at all.  Never mind you had been married (either because you were in the world married, or you married before this rule took effect) and your spouse died.  If there is even one yoctosecond gap in your service at least as an assistant hounder from age 23 on, no sex for you--unless you are already married.

  They also never mention who is paying for all this.  Putting big TVs in the buildings costs them money.  These electronic devices cost money, and data costs money.  At the same time, the jokehovians are supposed to cut way back in their work so they can waste more time behind those stupid carts.  Whatever money they have is supposed to support the damnation of the whole human race.  Not to mention paying with work.  Beyond door to door, who do they suppose is doing the work and paying for these stupid Israel missions?  Based on Neptune going into the bad degree of 9 Pisces, right in America's second house of finances, on April 18, they are going to miss the last call for silver and gold--after wasting a monster box worth of silver on this mission.  Then they are going to be destitute as the dollar becomes toilet paper.  And then what are they going to donate?  Silver and gold that they need to go into debt to get?

  If attrition and the smackdown on sex doesn't get them, I hope the dollar becoming toilet paper is their final undoing.  While they might have plenty of toilet papers now, I probably have more silver than they do--probably more silver in my collection than in the whole circuit put together.  Given that they frown so hard on investment or collection silver (and want people to be in perennial debt), it doesn't take that much.  I suspect that the washtowel holdings will amount to less than a tub of silver, which can be had for about what they are going to waste on the Grand Boasting Session.  And hopefully, this will bring them down because they instantly become destitute.  After all, you can't push this rubbish (or go in field circus) when you are destitute.
  
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  Phizzy

  They know they have retention problems that have increased, and that recruitment is way down.

  They hope the re-branding will help to retain some, and I am sure it will, any feeling the Jehovah's Org is moving forward is enough to keep many, many R&F happily jogging along.

  Where they big mistake is, IMHO, that the re-branding will help in any significant way with recruitment. It  simply will not draw in sufficient suckers to counteract the huge outflow in the nations where they make money.

  They will manage to survive many more decades though by Property dealing, unless the Wizzies predictions, above, stop the Property business dead.