If they ditch 1914, they'll have to ditch the Gentile Times prophecy, and the Last Days in general, but JWs without eschatology have no reason to exist. An alternative would be to just move End of Gentile Times to another date. They could for example accept the historical consensus about the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BC; that would give them 20 years of breathing time, and pass the hot potato to the next generation of GB; this sounds cynical enough for the GB to adopt. The problem, though, would be that every WT magazine has constantly fired against the historical date of 587 BC in favor of their baseless 607 BC. Changing that would be a huge flip-flop, but it wouldn't be news.
Posts by Syme
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282How Will They End 1914 Teaching?
by EmptyInside ini'm sure this has been discussed, but 1914 has to go away.
instead of, the overlapping generation teaching, they should have just ditched 1914. .
they should have done that a long time ago with 1975. it's the last of the teachings in the charles taze russell era.. i'm thinking they just will stop talking about it, and it will be out of the mind of the rank and file loyal witnesses .
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Elders are no longer teachers
by eyeslice inback in the day when i was a young witness lad, you very much got the impression that at least the training as theocratic teachers was good.. even the bible reading back then had a short introduction and conclusion.
you had to research and prepare your own ministry school talks and then perhaps you would graduate to a half of a 55 minute public talk.
then later if you were a book study conductor, you got to decide which scriptures to read and highlight.
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Syme
The elders' only remaining role, teaching having been effectively abolished and preaching having been reduced to giving out business cards and standing still next to carts, is to keep sending the cash flow (mainly this), and deal with anyone that is not a complete automaton.
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2022 WTS Numbers
by blondie in2022 grand totals.
branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 86. .
number of lands reporting: 239. .
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Syme
- The number of baptized continues collapsing: good
- The partakers still going up despite the best efforts of the GB: good, makes them look ridiculous
- The annual growth is consistently below 1% since 2019: good
- The pioneers continue to go up: neutral. It means those that remain are more prone to talibanization. Who cares.
- Memorial attendance down. With the exception of the first year of the pandemic (2020), it hasn't been that low since 2013.
All in all, it hasn't been a bad year! More blessings to come!
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Did it ever become unbearable to attend another Kingdom Hall meeting?
by RULES & REGULATIONS init's becoming unbearable for me to attend another meeting.
i dread coming to the weekly sunday public talk and watchtower study.
the talks are ''repeats'' of a ''repeat.
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Syme
For me, it became reeeeally unbearable when I heard a talk about the Flood, having read about evolution, and the arguments made were so stupid.. that I just couldn't take it anymore.
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How many preaching hours are real
by Hellothere inhow much of the preaching hours in yearly report you think are real?
they always have high numbers preaching hours.
probably increase every decade.
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Syme
Let me tell you a story:
A young pioneer couple was travelling by car to go to their place of vacation.
Every hour or so they passed a toll booth station.
They gave the unfortunate toll booth worker a leaflet or something.
They counted the whole trip as preaching. 6 or 7 hours.
They talked about it like it was something really smart that they had come up with, and something to be proud of.
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JW's are the SAME as other Christians....
by BoogerMan in...they condemn/attack those whose beliefs/opinions/interpretations of scriptures differ from theirs.. various scriptures reveal to christians that the judging of mankind will be done by christ jesus: .
john 5:22,28,29, acts 10:42, acts 17:31, romans 14:9, 2 cor.
5:10, 2 tim.
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Syme
JWs are not the *same* as other Christians, they are *worse* than other Christians,
both dogmatically - they contain the most dogmatical errors by far than any other Christian religion or denomination (it's like one collected all the possible errors from every denomination and brought them together into one sect),
and conduct-wise - their conduct is most un-Christianlike (shunning and refusal of blood transfusions being the most outstanding examples, the complete opposite of Christian love and behaviour).
In fact, they can hardly be named Christians from an theological point of view, since they reject the divinity of Jesus and do not worship Jesus as the Bible clearly orders.
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So I was at a jw wedding and guess what!
by nowwhat? inthe major topic of conversation was that almost all do not want to go back to the meetings and field service!
and we are talking very zealous and active witnesses!
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Syme
Of course they'd not want to return to physical meetings. With zoom they save a sh*tload of money on gas, they don't have to go out in the cold and rain, they can do other stuff while attending the meeting...
The interesting thing is, all the aforementioned things didn't bother any jw pre Covid, because they were not just used to it, that was their way of life. But now...? The restarting of all these activities, and sacrifices, will bother some, I believe.
Have you ever noticed how angry truck drivers get when a driver in front of them goes too slowly? Why do they get angry? Because they have inertia. And because the inertia of a truck is huge, if he's forced to slow down, it will take him some time to return to cruise speed again.
That's what's going to happen with jdubs when they'll have to restart going to meetings. They will get back eventually, but they will feel the difference. And some will get frustrated.
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2021-November-18--Pioneers!
by Atlantis in2021-11-18--pioneers.
click the image to make it larger.. .
https://postimg.cc/4nydmk0j.
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Syme
When I was regular pioneer I never managed to reach the hours requirement.. So apparently, it wasn't me, I was just unlucky I hadn't been caught up in a pandemic. -
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The "Regular Pioneer" title has now become a total joke
by pistolpete inwe just had our co visit a few weeks ago.
apparently, he was encouraging all who could to regular pioneer, to at least try it out for a year.
because of this, we had a few people in our hall become one.. so this weekend we were on zoom service, and the sister that was just appointed was talking about it.
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Syme
Pioneer was always a joke, a no-entity office, unless you were a male on the course for CO-grade career. Essentially it had all the requirements of ms/elder (plus the hours) but with no actual privileges.
I really don't know how they justify keep this 'rank' in the post-Covid era.
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Research question
by JeffT ini'm doing a little background research for a novel.
what is the craziest thing you heard a witness say was demonized, and what did they do about it?.
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Syme
Wow, great topic-trip down memory lane. Alright, prepare to enter THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
-In my country, couples traditionally have some sort of wedding crowns put on them by the priest during the religious wedding ceremony. So, a such couple of relatives who had later converted to jws, accommodated one day my mother and her sister to their home, days after their baptisms. Both my mother and aunt supposedly witnessed demonic attacks during the night. Pain chests, unable to breath etc. I suppose it was some sort of night-terror or something; but they curiously witnessed it both, at least allegedly. Anyway, they searched the next day for anything in the house that could have had demonic influence, and they determined that the only such item left from the days before jw conversion would have been the wedding crowns. After they got rid of it, they supposedly weren't 'attacked' again.
-A magic charm my grandfather was given at his wedding day. He was told that if he destroyed that talisman he would die. He was not a jw then. Back in that day, rural villages were filled with superstition and amateur charmers. According to him, that charm caused him great physical pains and corroded his marriage. 20 to 25 years forward, when we was Bible studying, when they reached the part in the book about getting rid of any charms and stuff, he was afraid to destroy it. With the help of his teacher, they tried first to burn it, but it wouldn't burn. In the end, they managed to break it to pieces. After that, his pains ended supposedly.