Posts by slimboyfat

21

REVEALED: The number of Bethelites over the years

by darkspilver in

jw
friends

in response to this thread.

i've put forward the argument that i believe that the 'organization' is financially effectively bleeding itself dry - it is actually financially imploding.. i believe that over the last 45 or so years, in particular, it has evolved from a relatively 'lean machine' into what is now a huge unwieldy organization.

as an organization grows i would expect increased efficiency through by both economies of scale, and advances in technology.. how has the watchtower organization fared?....

slimboyfat

I find it amazing that they operated their worldwide publishing empire with fewer than 4000 branch employees in 1975, which must have been something of a peak in production, what with the blue Truth book, NWT in various aditions, Aid book, KIT, and numerous hardcover books in print, combined with the frenzy around the 6000 years.

Yet 40 years later they needed 26,000 employees at a time when book and magazine production was in steep decline. It shows how bloated the organisation had become.

Maybe when all the cutbacks are done they can shrink down to under 1000 bethelites worldwide?

By the way, are the sources for these figures listed anywhere?

45

Britain Branch to Cease Printing Sooner Than Expected

by The Searcher in

i've received the following news from a reliable and trusted source: .

the demise of printing literature in the u.k. is being brought forward by one year - to march 2018. graphic design and printing support will go too.

large numbers of "disposable" bethelites will now have to make their own way in the world, when their "mother" abandons them.

slimboyfat

Like others have said, production of physical books and magazines is down dramatically. The question is, what will they do when they've cut production by 90% or so? The last 10% production of books and magazines is going to cost a disproportionate amount to preserve. The variable costs (paper, ink and so on) are cut, but the fixed overheads remain. So when production reaches such a low, won't the temptation soon be to eliminate production altogether?

So I think they may halt printing altogether, publish online and contract a few items (Bibles and tracts) to outside printers.

At its peak the worldwide "bethel family" was, what 26,000 or something? How low can they go? Maybe a couple of thousand in 5 or so branches? United States, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, and Germany. A thousand in the United States and less than a hundred in each of the rest. Something like that?

68

Your Top Ten Favourite Movies?

by LoveUniHateExams in

just thought i'd start a thread about favourite movies.

mine, in no particular order, are .... alien - a great visual film.

the chest-bursting scene is still great to watch, no matter how many times i've seen the movie.

slimboyfat

Emerald Forest

Son of the Morning Star

Pan's Labyrinth

Cacoon

Bourne Identity

Batteries Not Included

Manhattan

Distant Drums

About Schmidt

Beetlejuice

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/184137/book-job-anti-humanist-zizeks-alternative-reading

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

I find it very easy to listen to Zizek. He has ten interesting ideas a minute. His take on the book of Job has fascinated me for years. I like it. But he is no expert on the Bible or theology. Leolaia pointed out that he may have misunderstood Job, which is not his own reading, but based on Chesterton. Plus he apparently confuses Origen with Tertullian during the interview.

https://www.chesterton.org/introduction-to-job/

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

He talks in more detail about the New Atheists in the full interview.

Maybe you think the two quotes from me are contradictory but I don't think so. Zizek seems to be saying that Jesus undermined the family to create a more egalitarian society, not that he made families more egalitarian.

Like I said above, undermining family can be a good or a bad thing, depending on context. And remembering that the idea of "family" is itself a fluid concept, meaning radically different things in 1) tribes 2) feudal societies 3) capitalist and 4) late capitalist societies, to name a few. There were ways in which capitalism undermined feudal conceptions of family which were both emancipatory and oppressive. Developments are rarely all good or bad. Hence the endless debates about the merits and demerits of the Thatcher revolution, or revolutionary Cuba, and so on.

So I don't subscribe to the idea that anything that undermines family is tyrannical. Sometimes that's true, of course. And sometimes family itself can be tyrannical. Reality is complicated and not easily, or wisely, reduced to fixed statements.

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

I don't know. I think Jesus was just saying that being his follower was more important than anything else. This, if followed, has dramatic social consequences, but these appear to be incidental rather than the the goal. So many lives altered, as with JWs, not as the main goal, but as a byproduct.

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

I don't think Zizek said anything about a more egalitarian family structure either. Zizek isn't a theologian, he's a philosopher and an atheist. And you haven't watched much of the interview, it seems. It's difficult to discuss a topic with someone who feels that ignorance of the topic is a virtue.

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

Capitalism, democracy and feminism have all been highly disruptive of family structures. The trouble with reality is that causes and effects are mixed in their desirability. As Dylan Thomas said: "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower, drives my green age, that blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer." The complicated and disturbing thing about the world is that the same things that bring good also bring destruction. Which is why ideology disappoints, whether that be Maoism, or capitalism or even democracy. Which in turn why Rortian pragmatism is so valuable, with its appreciation for irony and contingency.

36

God expresses his perplexity at his own creation

by slimboyfat in

just got to share this, zizek at his very best.

explaining how the traditional view of the ransom makes no sense and reverts christianity to paganism where god is subject to a superior notion of justice.

how the injunction from jesus to hate mother, father, brothers and sisters is really a call for a non-hierarchical society, of which the holy spirit is a symbol.

slimboyfat

Sometimes families can be a refuge from outside authorities (religious, secular, legal, educational, whatever). And sometimes vice versa. Sometimes a good family can save someone from a bad religious authority. And sometimes a religious authority can function as a refuge from a bad family environment. Life is complicated. There are of course many cases where becoming a JW has been a net benefit to a person's life. It's not all one or their other. On a more fundamental level I think Zizek is saying that the subversion of family structure opens the way for egalitarian and non-hierarchical forms of relationship. Incidentally our modern conception of sibling relationships may be egalitarian, but that was probably not the case among first century Jews who had a very strong sense of hierarchy, including primogeniture.