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.
Yeah I predicted the end of Circuit Overseers a decade ago. Sure I'm going to take credit for it when it finally happens.
Actually in the case of my prediction I reckon they probably were going to abolish COs, but someone at bethel read my thread, passed it on to the GB, and they reversed the decision at the last minute as part of an evil ploy to make me appear less prescient than I am.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/criticism_of_jehovah%27s_witnesses.
contents.
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What I find interesting about that list is how secular the criticisms are. Online opposition to JWs sure has changed. When I first arrived on the Internet the most discussed topics about JWs tended to be: is Jesus your mediator, Trinity, John 1:1, Jehovah in the NT, Greber Bible, faith or works and so on. Sure blood and shunning were discussed too, but mediator and Trinty topics were more prominent. Now these theological disputes are relegated almost to an afterthought. I think it's indicative of change both in JWs and society in general. We are more secular as a whole and JWs concentrate a lot less on doctrine themselves these days.
A glaring omission from the list is Watchtower treatment of gay people. No doubt this will be added to the list as the issue gains salience.
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.
That rings a bell, but I thought it was much longer ago. Strange. Maybe there was another similar one. Was it the brother who also said he was involved in developing the new song book?
Look forward to hearing from you careful!
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?.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Surely you mean Looney Toons.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
