Posts by slimboyfat

36

How long can this cult remain with only kids becoming members?

by Crazyguy in

it's become clear that very few from outside the religion are joining anymore.

if only the kids of the people that are already in are the one replacing the members as they die off and 50% let's say of the kids leave then how long can they realistically last before the downturn becomes obvious?.

slimboyfat

I think we may see actual decline within the next couple of years. Last year's worldwide growth was only 1.5% which must be one of the lowest growth figures ever.

A key indicator may be the age profile of JWs. I've only been to two meetings in the last three years but it struck me how old everyone is now at the Kingdom Hall. It's the same people just getting older. There is no new generation, or very few, coming up to replace them.

The results from the Pew Research Centre show JWs getting older between 2007 and 2014. It's a well studied phenomenon that an increasingly older age profile of religious groups and decline in numbers go hand in hand. And the increase in average age often precedes the decline phase and then proceeds in tandem with it. On this basis I think that JWs will soon begin to decline and that their average age will continue to increase at the same time.

What I think will be really interesting to watch is how JWs manage decline. How will they cope with it psychologically, considering they've long claimed that growth in members was the reason Jehovah is delaying Armageddon. How will they cope organisationally with closing congregations and consolidating. In fact they are already doing that. But the process of losing congregations may speed the decline further.

23

Who was the poster who predicted radical Watchtower change years ago?

by slimboyfat in

who was the poster, about 8 years ago, who came on the forum and claimed he had inside information that the gb were planning radical changes.

he said that in ten years time jws would be unrecognisable.

many were skeptical.

slimboyfat

Who was the poster, about 8 years ago, who came on the forum and claimed he had inside information that the GB were planning radical changes. He said that in ten years time JWs would be unrecognisable. Many were skeptical. I was skeptical. But I'd say, it turned out he was right. Don't know if he really had inside information or it was a coincidence. Who was he again? I think it was about 8 years ago because it as round about the time the book study was abolished. I think he was prophesying even before that happened. But ever since they dropped the book study it's been non-stop change. Change to doctrines, change to meetings, change magazines, changes to organisation structure, change to preaching, change to using Internet. Everything.

40

Now this is weird, ever heard of the "Mandela Effect" ??? What if... ?

by Greybeard in

jw
friends

now this is weird, ever heard of the "mandela effect" ???

i know how crazy it sounds but i got to tell you, this article about the governing body finally admitting the "faithful slave" was not divinely appointed by jesus in 1919 was epic to me.

like a mandela effect feeling.

slimboyfat

Surely you mean Looney Toons.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

slimboyfat

Yes I agree but that is totally different to looking for a belief system that promotes a way of life and world view that's satisfying even if untrue, as you stated I your OP.

I can absolutely see how what I wrote can be read in that way. I could be taken to be saying "even if what JWs teach is true it's not worth doing", or "even if what other religions teach is not true they may be worth joining anyway". But that is not what I am saying, and the difference is important. What I am saying is that the very concept of truth is problematic and needs to be gotten rid of in the conversation.

Imagine people intend to burn a woman to determine if she is a witch. I say to those people "don't do that, it's no way to treat someone, and besides it's no way to find out if she is a witch either". Early modern witch burners may be liable to misunderstand that objection as an admission that there is such a thing as a witch. They think I am just objecting to the method of discovery, rather than the concept, and the comment "no way to treat someone" they brush aside as irrelevant to determining the truth.

It's the same here. My main objection about evaluating religions on the basis of "truth" is that it is as flawed as evaluating a woman by burning her to see whether she is a witch. It's not just the methodology that is flawed, it is the whole idea. On top of that, the most important thing in the situation is how you treat the person/the practical results of pursuing a belief system. Concentration on concepts of witches and truth just badly misses the point!

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

slimboyfat

The real question here is why you are yet again asking about the shape of the planet on a thread that has got nothing to do with it.

The practical point I am making here is that there are better ways to judge a religion than if it's "true". This is a helpful pragmatic approach, but it is anathema to JWs just as it is to militant atheists, as they are two sides of the same coin. For them they would pursue the idea of "truth" even if it led them over a cliff. They are welcome if they wish, but it's not the point here.

If you keep insisting some linguistic statements are closer to reality than others, maybe you can also tell me which Beethoven Symphony is closer to North Berwick, or which Kingdom Song best fits the river Tay.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

slimboyfat

Yes that's exactly what I believe Xanthippe, but on top of that (listen again carefully) the whole idea of objective truth, the correspondence theory of truth, is bound up with outdated notions of escaping the real world into a world of perfect forms. We are moving beyond that to a more pragmatic engagement with our world that asks, not, how is the world really, in itself, but rather how can we construct the world in the best way to fit our objectives.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

slimboyfat

Really Cofty? How much closer? I can say Glasgow is closer than Edinburgh. It's a reasonable statement to make, and I can clarify that it is 40 miles closer or 55 minutes closer by car.

So if it is actually true that statement 1 is "closer" to reality than statement 2 can you tell me how much "closer"? Ten miles closer? Three minutes closer? Five decibels closer?

If you can't tell me how much closer in any sensible scientific language, then you really need to ask yourself what you mean by "closer" in this context.

Is it closer in the sense that one piece of music is closer to fitting a scene than another? Then we are in the realm of making aesthetic judgements not objective statements about reality.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

slimboyfat

We can use language to describe and communicate something that is close enough to reality for all practical purposes.

This statement misunderstands the relationship between language and reality. Language is not a window onto reality. No statement is closer to reality than any other. In this respect language is more like music than mathematics. For example we may feel that a certain piece of music better captures a landscape or a situation than another piece of music does. And we could discuss which piece of music fits the scene or situation better and give reasons one way or the other. Reasons that include reference to tone, melody, pace, emotion, length, circumstance of production, or whatever. But if someone was to join the conversation and insist that one piece of music was "objectively" closer to describing the reality of the scene or the situation than the other, we would immediately realise that the person has completely misunderstood the nature of music, the nature of reality, and the relation between the two.

It is similarly wrongheaded to insist that certain linguistic utterances are "close" to reality. Statements should be judged for their practical, ethical, and aesthetic qualities. Appeals to their "proximity" to reality make as much sense as measuring the metric distance between stupidity and ignorance.

Cofty it occurs to me that the problem here may in part be that you've never read about structural linguistics. You decry people who reject evolution without reading about it. Before ridiculing non-realist conceptions of language maybe you should make some time to understand the theoretical basis of the ideas your are criticising first. In particular the nature of the sign, composed of signifier and signified. Then how the relation between the two is arbitrary and (this is the poststructuralist insight) inevitably slippery and subject to deference/difference. That's what Derrida is all about, by the way, in a single sentence, on my reading anyway. Not obscurantist or empty, rather straightforward and profound.

37

A question JWs almost never ask, but should

by slimboyfat in

it occurs to me, if i was starting from scratch choosing a religion or belief system to join, there's one good question i should like answered first:.

does this religion promote a way of life and view of the world that would be satisfying even if not a single word of its doctrines are true?

if jws honestly answered that question i doubt many would say it's a good choice.

slimboyfat

Why Xanthippe? I absolutely do mean that the practical effects of a belief system matter much more than any supposed "truth" value, or correspomdance to reality. This video, I've shared a number of times, is an excellent description of the situation that I agree with.

https://youtu.be/cyx0rNyxFrk

I belive there's a real world out there, of course. What I doubt is the ability of us humans ever to finally capture that reality in language. I belive in the reality of the external world. What I disbelieve is the correspondance theory of truth.

So the question: does this religion promote a view of the world and way of life I am happy to experience without regard for any considerations of the 'transcendent'.

Is infinitely more relevant and important than the dumb question: are the things this religion teaches about the world true in the sense of corresponding to physical reality?

3

Using the Search on This Forum

by BluesBrother in

i often look at the search button to see if a topic has been posted, but all the replies seem in random date order with many very old , and not running in order.. can anybody give any tips for finding recent threads, if they have been posted?.

thanks.

slimboyfat

Advanced Google search using this website at the domain.

https://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search?hl=en