slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  36

  The secret 10 year plan to save the watchtower .

  by gavindlt in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://youtu.be/pszy22hzj8o.

  new light?.

  https://www.dadseekingtruth.com/.

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  slimboyfat

  Here’s a past discussion.

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/218141/rise-rise-paul-gillies

  If he was 57 12 years ago that makes him nearly 70. I’d say there’s little chance of them appointing a 70 year old. He’s missed his chance.
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  36

  The secret 10 year plan to save the watchtower .

  by gavindlt in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://youtu.be/pszy22hzj8o.

  new light?.

  https://www.dadseekingtruth.com/.

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  slimboyfat

  We’ve been discussing Paul Gillies’ ambitions on this site for years. He was perhaps disappointed that he wasn’t appointed with the latest two who were promoted to the GB. He is older than the new GB members (late 60s?) so it’s now beginning to get a bit late for him to secure a spot on the GB.
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  36

  The secret 10 year plan to save the watchtower .

  by gavindlt in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  https://youtu.be/pszy22hzj8o.

  new light?.

  https://www.dadseekingtruth.com/.

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  slimboyfat

  If they drop shunning I think they’ll do it gradually in a way that doesn’t involve any great climbdown. They’ll just suggest that a little more contact with disfellowshipped people is reasonable, then a bit later talk about “reaching out” to people who’ve left the faith for whatever reason, and before you know it the days of hard shunning will be over. The change might then be papered over by a mixture of saying the light/truth gets brighter/clearer, Jehovah is merciful, it’s a new “provision”, and so on, plus downplaying how harsh shunning used to be in the past. That’s how they could get radical change on shunning over a period of a decade or so without having to effect a big climbdown or explicitly admit their previous policy was wrong or inhumane. I don’t think they need any outside advice on how to go about that, because they’ve managed similar changes on their own, for example when they watered down their opposition to ‘alternative service’ in the 1990s, which was a huge change for those affected but didn’t involve any mea culpa on the part of the GB.

  I don’t think they’d tie in any change with jubilees or cities of refuge or anything like that because 1) they have abandoned the typology involved in such applications of scripture in recent years and 2) an explicit amnesty could imply a fault with the previous practice when they are not in the habit of admitting fault and don’t find it necessary when making even big changes anyway.
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  43

  How do JWs know that less than 150,000 Christians existed before the 20th Century?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  according to watchtower, only anointed christians existed between the first and 20th centuries.

  the great crowd of other sheep only began forming after the 20th century started.. how do they support this conclusion?

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  slimboyfat

  TonusOH, not much different than the claim that most of the 2 billion who currently claim to be Christians are mistaken. If you’re inclined to accept or reject one you’re already inclined to accept or reject the other.

  Vanderhoven7 it is Stark who argued that the figures in Acts are unreliable, not me.

  What Stark’s projection shows is that it’s perfectly possible that Christianity got off to a slow start in the first century and yet nevertheless became the majority religion by the mid 4th century. The line could easily have been steeper in the first decade and then slower after that, which would be compatible both with the figures in Acts and the implication of Watcthower teaching that there were fewer than say 70,000 Christians in the first century.

  Remember Watchtower is not claiming that history can prove their idealised numbers are correct. It’s opponents of JWs who imply that their numbers are historically not possible. I think Stark’s projection shows that they are possible because growth from small numbers compounds slowly at first but gains momentum over time.
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  43

  How do JWs know that less than 150,000 Christians existed before the 20th Century?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  according to watchtower, only anointed christians existed between the first and 20th centuries.

  the great crowd of other sheep only began forming after the 20th century started.. how do they support this conclusion?

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  slimboyfat

  According to sociologist Rodney Stark there may have been as few as 40,000 Christians by mid second century when JWs believe the great apostasy was well under way. So their numbers would fit neatly with this model, allowing for 40,000 early Christians and 100,000 faithful wheat among the weeds over the centuries, and during the last days.

  
  
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  9

  Does The WT President Still Have Any Power?

  by NotFormer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in rutherford's day, it was absolute.

  knorr and franz had strong influence, even though the gb had voted themselves into a role of significance.

  being a corporation, the wt will still have a president.

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  slimboyfat

  The latest WT says that Harold Corkern is president of the New York corporation, not Pennsylvania. It’s the president of the Pennsylvania corporation that was traditionally more significant, no?
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  9

  Does The WT President Still Have Any Power?

  by NotFormer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in rutherford's day, it was absolute.

  knorr and franz had strong influence, even though the gb had voted themselves into a role of significance.

  being a corporation, the wt will still have a president.

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  slimboyfat

  According to Wikipedia Ciranko is still president.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_Tower_Bible_and_Tract_Society_of_Pennsylvania
  
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  9

  Does The WT President Still Have Any Power?

  by NotFormer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in rutherford's day, it was absolute.

  knorr and franz had strong influence, even though the gb had voted themselves into a role of significance.

  being a corporation, the wt will still have a president.

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  slimboyfat

  About as much power as the real, senile president these days, I’d say.

  Joking aside, who is the Watchtower president now?
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  71

  Lloyd Evans Patreoff Pool March 2024

  by DerekMoors in

  1. social
  2. humour

  for those still interested in lloyd's fall from grace, i made up a chart of my own.

  april 2023 is when he put out his "things are bad" tin cup begging video, and he got a small surge to 592 on the 13th of that month.

  i'm also using his all-time peak of 897 from november 2022.. for march, we're gonna say a modest -15, putting him at 352. i'm also curious as to when he might hit 300 and then 200. if he keeps up with an average of -20 every month, he'll be at less than 190 before the end of this year.. happy guessing everyone..

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  slimboyfat

  I think the plan was to lure vulnerable women to the hotel property in the pretence of offering “recovery” but in reality offering something else. At least that probably won’t come to pass as he envisioned. He also went to pick up female Ukrainians from the border at the start of the war. It’s as if he’s drawn to vulnerable females in general for some reason.
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  16

  Accepting blood transfusions. By which instrument it ceased to be a disfellowshipping offense to become cause for disassociation?

  by EdenOne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  ok, i know the story of how it went, with the deal they reached with the bulgarian government, etc.

  i know.. what i need to know is if there is an internal document that redefines willingly taking blood as a disfellowshipping offense into a cause for disassociation.

  a letter from the branch?

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  slimboyfat

  Having said that, I think the practice of JW elders on the ground has softened markedly in recent decades. I know from experience there was a very light touch from elders around “assistance” to avoid blood, and also a degree of respect for privacy. I don’t know if that’s a result of direct instructions or just the approach of local elders, but I suspect that, as with many things in JW culture, the attitude of ordinary JW has become less hardline, or more apathetic to the blood teaching, to put it in more negative terms. The days of kidnapping children from hospitals and spying on fellow believers and leaking medical documents by JW hospital workers are all long gone.

  The GB may never come out and reverse the blood ban but they do seem to be loosening the grip on enforcement. People who take blood seem more likely to be viewed as having made a mistake due to weakness, and need shepherding, rather than automatically DAed. This is my impression anyway, I’d be interested to know if others have observed this. The situation where they would still take a tough stance is probably where somebody takes blood and makes it known to others in the congregation they think they are doing the right thing. In that case they’d probably get DAed or DFed more for apostasy than for taking blood as such.