Scientist Rama Singh Responds To Watchtower.

http://jwalumni.org/2015/01/17/rama-singh-awake/

Excerpt From A Talk By Governing Body Member Anthony Morris At Rome Bethel.

WHAT HAPPENS When A Lawyer Starts His OWN RELIGION?

 By Terry Walstrom(JWN)

First, Pastor Russell had joined Adventist bible students in their enthusiam for End Times chronologies.
Next, Russell teamed up with leading Adventist thinkers like George Storrs and Barbour to publish these chronologies and apologies.
Finally, Russell used his private wealth to cut and paste ideas from all over the religious map into his own peculiar name-brand version of Adventism which included pyramidology.
Local congregations kept autonomy. Russell would have it no other way. But, Russell had died in 1916.

Judge Rutherford crept in to wrest control of the Watchtower for himself and begin a new agenda which would transform local congregations of bible students into a cult of mind-controlled salesmen serving a religion of Business Organization.

This is what happened.
Rutherford's key strategy succeeded in wresting a personality cult (Pastor Russell) away from "creature worship" and transforming it into a business concern or Organization which could claim and demand loyalty in terms of statistical productivity (preaching and book sales.)
If you produce you get more responsibility. If your productivity wanes, you get fired. (Disfellowshipped.)

ORGANIZATION to Jehovah's Witnesses is serving a faceless corporation headed by God himself who keeps them on permanent probation whereby they may be fired (destroyed at Armageddon) if they don't keep their productivity at maximum and loyalty as unquestionable.

The transformation was dramatic and sinister, taking these former Adventists from being cast-off apostates of mainstream christian churches to followers of a charismatic ex-clothing store owner and, finally, captives of a man hellbent on creating a cult of complete and utter mind control.
Under Adventism, after the failures of William Miller's predictions and other johnny-come-lately end times guessers, sincere christians with a knack for believing seemingly ironclad chronologies found themselves in local congregations with autonomy beyond the control of any central authority.
Indeed, Pastor Russell would have it no other way! He himself experienced an evolution of sorts from Presbyterian to Congregationalist to Adventist and, finally, inventor of his own domain.
Russell would brook no central organization! Like the other Adventists who followed his writings, the Pastor identified the Roman Catholic Church with the "whore of Babylon" and would have no authoritarian organization such as it was invading his christian freedom.
But, Russell died and J.F.Rutherford squeezed himself in gradually to Russell's shoes under Russell's teachings...just long enough to secure himself and begin changing everything he could lay his hands on!

In 1932, Rutherford finally did away with the local, elected elders. For a time, many elders had been opposed to the growing emphasis on the preaching and book-selling work that took up more and more of the movement’s focus. Even though Rutherford had weakened their positions by centrally appointing special ‘service directors’ responsible for magazine sale, in theory a congregation was still independent and chose its own pastors, or elders. The main articles in The Watch Tower for August 15 and September 1, 1932 should put an end to that. The elders were for a time replaced by a special service committee still elected locally, but in 1938 this arrangement was also replaced by one in which the leadership were centrally appointed. While the JWs reestablished a form of elder arrangement again in the early 1970s, these were – and are – centrally appointed.

When the Bible Students group began to form around Russell and his teachings, Russell made clear his opposition to creating any Central Governing Body.
Each congregation of Bible Students, Millennial Dawn fellows or Russellites elected their elders and leaders locally by vote and not by appeal to Russell.
This continued until 1938!

Russell died in 1916 and J.F.Rutherford commenced a long range effort of consolidating power under himself alone as leader.
Rutherford's scheme for control was in three parts.

1.Get himself elected to the Board of Directors and make other administrators mere puppets and rubber stamp committees.
2.Appoint traveling "service directors" as organizers, sales trainers and magazine promoters. (Much like later Circuit Servants.)
3.Replacing local election and control with a centrally appointed leadership and elder arrangement.

Russell's faithful followers were united in hatred for the Roman Catholic church and its central authority and organization. Previously, as Adventists, they had railed against the RC church as "the whore of Babylon".
For J.F.Rutherford to go against Russell's view of central authority and "organization" he had to overcome a huge built-in abhorrence in the local congregations.

This began in earnest in 1938 (the year before WWII commenced in Europe.)
Rutherford’s control of the headquarters and publishing arm had been undisputed since the early 1920s at latest. Now he also had a direct control into the lives of every Jehovah’s Witness. Rutherford decided what they should learn at the meetings – less devotional and more commercial than ever – and what they should sell and say.

Rutherford also told JWs that ‘character building’; emphasis on personal Christian qualities, virtue and morality was quite unimportant and indeed a form of ‘creature worship.’ It is very illustrative to look up the word ‘adultery’ in the Watch Tower Publications Index 1930-1985.
(Here you will not find a single reference to sexual adultery anywhere in the WTS literature before 1947. Later, in the 1950s, and until this day, articles denouncing all sorts of sexual sins flourished. In Rutherford’s vernacular, the word ‘adultery’ was reserved for his opponents’ religious sins.)
Under Rutherford a crackdown on controlling the personal behavior of local congregations began after the embarrassment of 1925 failed to produce a resurrection of "ancient worthies" as Rutherford had predicted.
Rutherford's obsessive preoccupation with tightening the screws on every person involved in his empire ratcheted up from 1926 onward commencing with the eradication of birthday celebrations (denounced as pagan).
******* ****** ********

Birthdays and practically all religious celebrations were condemned as of ‘pagan origin.’ The Bible Students celebrated Christmas for the last time in 1926 (Proclaimers 200; Yearbook 1975, 147-9). The cross, until then an almost universal symbol for Christianity, was rejected as a pagan symbol. The Watchtower Society has since then insisted that Jesus was executed on an upright ‘torture stake’ without a crossbeam.

Rutherford could bend non-ambiguous scriptures into corkscrews in order to enforce his personal interpretation of how things should be done.

This trend towards a growing alienation & hostility towards the world culminated in Rutherford’s reinterpretation of Romans chapter 13, published in The Watchtower, June 1 and June 15, 1929. Here Rutherford insisted that the "higher authorities" to which Christians should subject could not be the earthly authorities. These "higher authorities," he argued, had to be God and Christ. This only increased the Bible Student’s hostility towards the secular state, which was now openly denounced as demonic (Penton 1985, 65).

Clearly and forcefully J.F.Rutherford had taken a small group of Adventist bible students enamoured of Pastor Russell's chronology and pyramidology and compacted them into a mind-control cult obsessed with proper behavior and adherence to rules, regulations and quirky interpretations from a central authority.
Under Rutherford, the almost "universal salvation" beliefs and teachings of Pastor Russell darkened into a vicious and vindictive ideology of blood and destruction.

Perhaps the most striking turnaround in JW doctrine in this period was Rutherford’s view of salvation compared to Russell’s. Russell was very close to teaching universal salvation and was not at all eager to condemn people to destruction (the existence of hell, we remember, he dismissed). Rutherford, perhaps partly due to the persecution he had experienced in the war years, should take a much stricter view of salvation. Gradually he came to argue that only Jehovah’s Witnesses had any real chance of surviving Armageddon, Jehovah’s war against Satan and – in effect – mankind. A part of this was Rutherford’s new doctrine about "The Vindication of Jehovah’s Name," still a central tenet of JW beliefs. Unlike Russell, who held that the redemption was the central doctrine, Rutherford preached that God’s vindication, by wiping out his enemies Old Testament-style in a large battle, was more important than individual salvation.

Between Rutherford and his crony C.J.Woodworth, the Watchtower and the Golden Age (Awake!) began publishing anti-medical anti-science articles fomenting radical faddist notions and downright crackpot denunciations.

(There was a limit, however. Woodworth, the eccentric editor of The Golden Age, found that limit when he, in 1935, tried to persuade Rutherford and the JW community to abandon pagan month and day names. Rutherford harshly censured and ridiculed Woodworth in front of the whole ‘Bethel family,’ a spectacle that shocked many who may nevertheless have agreed with the sanity of Rutherford’s decision to not force such a radical change (Penton 1985, 66-7).

Woodworth was second only to Rutherford as an important influence on the JWs in this period.
One oddity about him was his burning hatred for medical professionals. He considered the compulsory vaccination programs a Satanic and commercial conspiracy to weaken Christians by introducing animalistic tissue into their veins, and he even rejected the germ theory of disease, preferring strange ‘electronic’ and ‘radio’ based apparatus instead. Actually, the Watchtower Society at one time marketed and sold alternative ‘medicine’ through The Golden Age. The only part of these ideas that remain in the JW organization and culture is the blood prohibition – which still gives the movement tragic headlines in the press worldwide – and perhaps a tendency among JWs today to be preoccupied with homeopathy and other ‘alternative’ quasi-medical procedures.

The downward spiral of madness, cult control, anti-science and hatred of other religions mark the Jehovah's Witnesses of this period as followers of lunatics who, themselves, were anti-social misfits hellbent on putting their thumb in the eye of every OTHER authority on earth!

Further, the doctrinal changes Rutherford ordered were often based on whim, personal animus and pressure from reality threatening to disprove the Judge's theology.

For example:
Under Russell the 144,000 little flock were glorified resurrected Christians who went to heaven along with non-glorified Great Crowd Christians who also went to heaven.
Rutherford saw his membership figures climbing beyond 60,000 and threatening to exceed 144,000.
This would be embarrassing. Consequently, a doctrinal change or "new light" emerged making the Great Crowd an earthly group of Jehovah's Witnesses distinct in kind and nature from the heavenly anointed.

Now, in 1935, Rutherford changed this doctrine and started to teach that the members of the ‘Great Multitude class were all followers of the Watchtower movement, but they would be saved to live eternally on paradise Earth. It was the duty of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, then, to preach to all people and ‘harvest’ this ‘Great Multitude class.’ That there was any possible salvation outside the Watchtower movement was thus finally denied. Somewhat later, the term ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ should come to include this secondary class as well.

What does this signal? The CULT was fully formed as an "Only JW's will survive Armageddon" group of True Believers!

Pastor Russell took personal pride in self-financing his preoccupation of publishing due to his private fortunate. Rutherford, however, had no such money at hand.
Rutherford schemed to control local congregations and turn the membership into salesmen collecting funds from householders and passersby through peddling his books (of which there was an unending stream.)
Thus, the worldwide evangelizing work began in earnest as a way for Rutherford to establish cash flow and make his megalomanical empire financially sound.

Russell’s productivity of publications was no match for Rutherford’s. The first major bestseller, The Finished Mystery, was marketed as Russell’s posthumous book. Already in 1920 Rutherford managed to create his own first major international bestseller, the booklet Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Already the next year came The Harp of God, a book that would eventually reach a circulation of 5,819,037 copies in 22 languages.

As a lawyer steeped in legalism and terminology, Rutherford chose the name witnesses to construe a testimony in a Universal court on behalf of Jehovah. But, his worldwide witnessing was for cash which began flowing into the coffers of his enterprise with himself in sole control.
Rutherford's key strategy succeeded in wresting a personality cult (Pastor Russell) away from "creature worship" and transforming it into a business concern or Organization which could claim and demand loyalty in terms of statistical productivity (preaching and book sales.)
If you produce you get more responsibility. If your productivity wanes, you get fired. (Disfellowshipped.)

ORGANIZATION to Jehovah's Witnesses is serving a faceless corporation headed by God himself who keeps them on permanent probation whereby they may be fired (destroyed at Armageddon) if they don't keep their productivity at maximum and loyalty as unquestionable.

( The above information is distilled from the Master's Thesis of Jan S. Haugland http://home.broadpark.no/~jhauglan/rutherford.htm )

7 Million Jehovah's Witnesses Wasting 10 Hours Every Month.

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

What IF...
What IF Jehovah's Witnesses spent their 70 million hours on something BETTER than cartoon theology distribution?

Would this world be better served by:

1.Feeding the hungry?
2.Visiting the sick?
3.Providing for the elderly?
4.Attending to widows and orphans?
5.Building hospitals?
6.Creating women's shelters?
7.Volunteering as a "Big Brother" or "Big Sister"?
8.Comforting those afflicted by natural disasters?
9.Helping the addicted break their addictions?
10.Creating a food bank?

BUT NO--- 70 MILLION PRECIOUS HOURS THAT COULD MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE is squandered on trivia, posturing theological blather and end of the world ranting instead!

IF JW'S AREN'T PART OF THE SOLUTION........
...............................THEY MUST BE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

Trivia About The History Of The Beloved Governing Body.

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

The very first legal Governing Body of (Jehovah's Witnesses) Bible Students were seven persons which included Pastor C.T.Russell, his wife Maria, and his controversial ward, Rose Ball.

Five men and two women. These seven persons were also the Directors of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. This group set policies and practices for the rest of the religious followers of Pastor Russell. Until the 1970's this group was always composed of the Board of Directors. Afterward, in 1971, the Governing Body enlarged to eleven men appointed by Society President Nathan Knorr.

The presiding chairman rotated annually in alphabetical order.
The purpose of this body expanded to include not only the "present understanding" of theology of Jehovah's Witnesses, but the establishment of a body of rules and policies of ever-increasing minutia in regards to behavior on the part of the membership world wide.

By 1976 the Governing Body grew to dominate oversight of six committees which carried the entire load of administration for the international religious practices of Kingdom Halls. Until that change, the President of the Society was the autonomous administrator.

In the year 2000 the Board of Directors no longer automatically constituted the Governing Body. At that time a complete changeover occurred in delegating administration away from the President and Board to outside corporate heads. The President of the Society was no longer even a member of the Governing Body. The membership began with seven and has fluctuated to nine, twelve and even eighteen persons over the years.

Today the corporate heads, who are Governing Body members, recommend policies, appointments and changes to suit their needs. Of the six overseeing committees, non-anointed secretaries and assistants may join in the meetings as helpers.

Originally, Pastor Russell and his wife, Maria, were the "twain" who constituted the "faithful and discreet slave". Russell broke away from his wife to become the sole "slave" through whom it was asserted Jehovah's Truth was revealed. The Watchtower magazine and the books penned by Pastor Russell served up "food" to the membership at the proper time for it to be read, understood and followed.
___________________________________________________
CONTROVERSY!
Russell left detailed instruction as to who he, wanted to follow him as Directors of the Watchtower Society.

These instructions were violated by the next president, Joseph (Judge) Rutherford. Rutherford maneuvered himself into the sole controlling power position and left the others as non-functioning figureheads.
Pastor Russell deliberately left local congregations autonomous and completely free of central control by the Society itself. Rutherford saw fit to reverse this policy.

Pastor Russell wanted no membership lists to obtain or tests of orthodoxy to be held over the congregations. Rutherford reversed this policy as well.
Judge Rutherford allowed Russell to be understood as the "faithful slave" until such a time as he entrenched his powers and controls over the membership. At such a time the understanding of the doctrine of "faithful slave" morphed into the exact opposite of what Pastor Russell and his wife originally described.
_____________________________________________________

The religion of Jehovah's Witnesses is a hierarchy. Senior elders in local Bethels control the religion and its policies and practices much the same as bishops and cardinals guide the practices of Catholicism.
In 1931 the legal name of the religion changed to Jehovah's Witnesses from that of International Bible Students Association.

As many as 75% of the membership split away from the religion as a result of Judge Rutherford's takeover and policy changes. The faithful members who would not accept Rutherford's claims of anointing and spiritual headship remain as a group today.
The offices, publications and official journal was completely controlled by Rutherford as a result of his legal moves to usurp Russell's legacy. The membership roles he obtained through his traveling agents and the strong arm enforcement strategies he brought to bear on outlying congregations forced a series of reckonings. Rutherford branded any who would not comply with his power and authority as Apostates.

These "Apostates" remained autonomous as Russell had wanted them. Today they are known variously as Associated Bibles Students and Steadfast Bible Students.
                       What legal maneuver did Rutherford use to wrest control from the board setup by Pastor Russell?

Rutherford contended that the membership of the Board had never been confirmed by vote at the annual corporation meeting. This left them vulnerable to dismissal by Rutherford's legal opinion; he being the legal spokesman for said Society.
This interpretation was never tested in court, but, the application to Rutherford himself would logically and necessarily apply as well! Rutherford was never confirmed by vote either!
Rutherford proceeded to use the Society's printing facilities to set forth his personal views and side of the controversy in direct violation of Pastor Russell's express wishes that nothing be launched in publication after his death. By this time, Judge Rutherford had compiled a mailing list of the membership and directed his campaign of persuasion in personal attacks on four members of the existing committee of Directors. Subsequently, Rutherford fired the four and appointed his own choices to fill the empty positions.

The four dismissed members published their own rebuttals using their own resources and money, but; without the mailing list to guide their arguments their claims largely fell silent. Rutherford had the assets and monies of the Watchtower corporation at hand to win lawsuits if such should arise. The injured parties had no such equivalent wealth or legal standing to continue their fight.

Under the Judge, membership of the Board of Directors was a name-only position for everyone involved but himself. He did as he pleased and the members were told afterward as a rubber stamp function.
For all practical purposes, it was Judge Rutherford's authoritarian coup which set the standard for the monolithic legalism which grew by leaps and bounds ever afterward.

Instead of a religious group of bible students joined in mutual equality and autonomy; the corporate takeover of the Society's assets blossomed into a world wide sounding board for one man's ever stranger opinionating and prejudices.

The bombastic, excoriating series of books and articles which began to emanate from Pastor Russell's bible society, under the leadership of Judge Rutherford, dramatically established a new era of controversy, acrimony and public defiance.

So, unhinged was Rutherford's rampant takeover that he landed the board of Directors in prison shortly afterward for counseling members of the armed forces to lay down their weapons and leave the battlefield.
This began an endless series of clashes with government, churches and society itself which can only be characterized as a rampage of egotism.

From those days forward, Rutherford's policies and dictum's took on a flavor of legalism that devolved into nitpicking behavior controls. Authoritarianism, threats, controls, legalism and outright bullying shaped the remaining 25% of Russell's original faithful few into a feisty culture of contrarian vigilantes willing to march into hell for the Judge's spoken commands.

Members began to be viewed as troublemakers instead of bible students. They insulted churches, pastors, Christianity, government, the military, holidays and even treasured customs in an effort to be noticed as holier-than-thou.

You had to be tough, feisty and cocksure to make it through those years. Those who did and lived to tell about it were the hardcore evangelists who went to extremes to bring in the next generation of misfits, upstarts and know-it-alls who would expand the membership from thousands into millions worldwide.
Today, the Watchtower Society is run with the same basic hierarchy structure as the Catholic Church. The chief difference being the tradition behind the theology has changed almost daily at the whim of the Governing leaders.

 

The TOPIC Which May Never Be Discussed!

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

 

 

Question: How does the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses instruct its members to prepare for the eventual Elder Care of its members?

Answer: IT PRETENDS it will never happen!

Is this responsible leadership or some kind of cognitive dissonant malfeasance?
It is deliberate social policy based on conscious FRAUD.

Beginning in 1920 the Watchtower religion has deliberately misinformed its membership that they will not only never grow old, but, they will actually never die!


This LIE has had consequences! 
The most glaring consequence is that every single person who died since that message has REFUTED the lie!

 Jehovah's faithful Witness member in good standing ages, grows feeble, has no social provision for elder care and becomes an impoverished burden on his or her family!
Illness and infirmity are real while the Watchtower promises are very false.

This is the "invisible" Elephant in the room.
It is a double tragedy.

Why?

Young members have been discouraged from Youth to avoid Higher Education. This makes them low wage earners.  They are told they will not need to worry about growing old. So, their likely saving for elder care, buying insurance and investing in their own future is vanishingly small.

The only Social Instrument for providing for actual human needs is ILLUSORY promises based on false hope.

Jehovah's Witnesses are certain of only one sure thing: they grow old, sick and totally dependent on help that IS NOT PROVIDED by their own religious organization!

So, the question must be asked simply out of humanity, consideration and fellow feeling: WHY ISN'T THERE ANY HELP?

ANSWER:  the Watchtower leaders DON'T GIVE A DAMN!

John 13:35, "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
The "identifying mark of true Christianity" is a long long way from the doorway of any Kingdom Hall, indeed.

 

Shocking Jehovah's Witness convention talk telling parents to shun children

The Self-Made PARADOX Of "Witnessing" Without Television Or Radio.

By Terry Walstrom\JWN.

 

 What if I asserted the following as true?


The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has no interest in an effective evangelical program of conversion.

Would that sound silly? Aren't they all about knocking doors and placing magazines for bible study?


Yes.

However: those two are not one and the same.

An event, such as the collapse of the twin towers in New York on nine eleven, could be seen AS IT HAPPENED by anybody who was near a television screen. Instant communication has been with us for decades.

If Jehovah's Witnesses believe they have the most important and urgent message in all of history; why do they deliberately choose to use the least effective means of delivering that message?


Statistically, (using the Watchtower's own figures) it takes 1000's of hours of door to door preaching to create one convert!

 What is wrong with this picture?

1. 
   How many preaching hours does it take to convert a person to a Jehovah's Witness?

   
   
   
   

WHAT IS THE ACTUAL PURPOSE BEHIND THE JW MINISTRY?

In 1884 Charles Taze Russell applied for incorporation for his association "Zion's Watch Tower Society". He stressed the limitations of the corporation in the following manner:
"Zion's Watch Tower Society is not a 'religious society' in the ordinary meaning of the term; for it has no creed or confession of Faith. It is purely a business association, whose mission is to serve in a business manner the wishes of its beneficiaries, who are represented in its officers"



Russell's successor, Rutherford, published wild claims using the corporation's presses:


"The corporate body - the WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, which Pastor Russell formed to finish his work. This verse shows that, though Pastor Russell has passed beyond the veil, he is still managing every feature of the harvest work."

 Rutherford penned an article of extreme controversy titled The Birth of The Nation. The editorial committee would not approve it. Ruthford moved swiftly to remove them! The absent men's names, however, still appeared in the Watchtower magazine as though the were still functioning until 1931.


Now that Rutherford controlled absolutely the "faithful and discreet slave" throne of dictatorial supremacy with the corporation he could now plot the takeover of local congregations (called ecclesias) to wield his will there as well.


On the local level all deacons and elders were elected by voting. Since Russell did not believe in religious organization as such there existed no lists of membership at all. Slyly, Rutherford moved to change all that. From 1919 onward the local congregations were asked to register as service organizations with the Watchtower Society. Nothing drastic, right?


Next, Rutherford appointed a Service Director (not subject to yearly election) as an arm of the Brooklyn oversight to function at the local level. Rutherford's man on the scene could usurp local control in this way by "helpfully" organizing the preaching work, assigning territory and encouraging participation in the field work in the congregation.


NOTE CAREFULLY:

Thus, the actual purpose of the door to door work was a ruse to link up Judge Rutherford with complete autonomy over local congregations under the pretense of making the preaching work more organized.

This plan carried with it Rutherford's de-emphasis of local public discourses from scripture. These were replaced by studies of Rutherford's organ of propaganda in the form of Watchtower Studies. Instead of referencing the bible per se, it was the fantasy mindset of one man, Judge Rutherford, who would be indoctrinating the former Bible Students with his own peculiar brand of humbuggery. The purpose of all this, as we have seen, was consolidating personal power. But, to do what?


Interestingly, the system of local elective elders was completely eradicated and replaced by something now called a service committee. These men took their marching orders from the throne room in Brooklyn, NY.


The book CONSOLATION (penned by Rutherford) says this: (Consolation 1940 p.25)

"The Theocracy is at present administered by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, of which Judge Rutherford is the president and general manager."

 

History shows that Rutherford embarked upon a plan which included:

1.Replacing the theology of C.T. Russell (mainly concerned with Adventist demonstrations) with his own.


2.Turning the Watchtower into a personal blog filled with crackpot ideas, schemes, poison-pen fulminations, rants and speculations dressed up as prophecy.

3.Creating a method of churning publicity out of throwing people of conscience willy-nilly into dangerous situations. (Avoiding military service, refusing blood transfusions, ridiculing other religions, railing against political parties, refusals to salute the flag, decrying the cross, etc.)

4.Renaming his Frankenstein monster of a religion Jehovah's Witnesses revealing his penchant for awkward phraseology.

Rutherford used religion as a bludgeon. Rutherford used people within this religion as weapons and victims to demonstrate the extreme reach of his ID.

How many honest and innocent believers were injured, killed, imprisoned, mocked, persecuted or otherwise maltreated because of Rutherford's mania for spectacle? It is difficult to know. The aim of the Watchtower Society was the purpose of Rutherford: become a famous religion with him at the helm.

Today it is easy for any Hollywood celebrity to capture headlines by engaging in some outrageous act of indecency or personal tragedy. But, in Rutherford's day, he discovered this process and used it for his own personal celebrity by capturing the attention of astonished churchgoers around the globe. He insulted ordinary believers, ridiculed them and flung pretzel-logic scriptures in their faces. He held up his own army of faithful slaves, Jehovah's (i.e. Rutherford's) Witnesses as willing to march into the jaws of hell if he told them to. It was the ultimate high for a megalomaniac drunk on power (and often alcohol)!


With Rutherford's death a change occurred. Nathan Knorr took over the helm of this Society; this Organization called The Watchtower.


A new invention took place at this time. A new terminology was introduced as if by magic: THE GOVERNING BODY.

Seven men became a Board of Directors of a Corporation disguised as a religion. This corporation/religion visibly existed for the purpose of making an urgent messege available as effectively as possible: Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom as having arrived in 1914 and warning of the impending event Armageddon.


However..........


This Corporation was made legal in its already existing powers for another purpose entirely. Corporations acquire legitimacy by earning a profit. In the case of a religious corporation the "profit" must not appear as mere monetary gain. There has to be a public service aspect to generating millions of dollars that will escape taxation! Ordinary coporations must demonstrate to the Board of Directors that cash flow is equitable to investors and a justifiable return on investment has been made. The Watchtower Corporation had to generate a kind of marvelous "machine" you could pour money into and make it disappear in the form of the preaching work.

CONSTANT EXPANSION was the key!

What was the purpose? POWER INVESTMENT!

REAL ESTATE!

The Watchtower was a corporate Donald Trump. It could grow dollars and not have to pay taxes on them. It could point to a worldwide work as evidence of money well spent (which wasn't really "spent" at all.) It could account for the cash flow by pointing to new projects in development and new acquisitions ostensibly for more and more publishing effort.

Further, every once and awhile a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE would have to be run. This would be in the form of date setting.

Date setting (determining when Armageddon was to arrive) was an Investment.

The publicity was golden. The threat level was heightened. The cash flow was extraordinary. The need for more investment property increased. The grip of absolute power was made real.

The downside was practically nil!!

Whatever number of members who balked and left in disgust; the upside was greater! How so?

1.Only the "weaker" members would leave and that is no loss at all.

 
2.The disfellowshipping would serve as a warning to other members and make threats appear very real.

3.An outside body of Apostates could be created as a target for villification that served to drain off anger as a target away from the Governing Body itself. This Apostate group would feel the brunt of frustrations and not the actual perpetrator's of date-setting fraud.

 
4.A mindset of cognitive dissonance would be reinforced because anybody who stayed would have to justify being made a fool of for believing in the Faithful and Discreet Slave nonsense in the first place.

5.Any slowdown in the worldwide conversions would be a bonus since it would "signal the end" of the preaching work was drawing near and that would mean Armageddon really was imminent!

 

But, there was a fly in the ointment.

As we have seen the purpose of the Governing Body is to generate investment capital through real estate ventures. A TV ministry would dry up that money machine quickly by generating a high-profile examination on the part of the newly well-informed public.
An actual full-frontal presentation of the weirdness behind JW thinking would kill the vague persona of citizen do-gooders who clean up after themselves at conventions. The scrutiny would become intensely focused on Brooklyn NY and the actual men who are power brokers on the throne of power.

TOO MUCH PUBLICITY in the age of the internet is a TWO-EDGED SWORD.

Publicity has served the corporate purpose when they can frame that publicity as Kingdom Work. Publicity of a different nature could destroy them!

The lawsuits and exposure by internet sites dredging up failed prophecy and policy waffling are a sore point. Governing Body power can only deal with rank and file unrest by clamping down with threats and a tightening grip. It cannot control non-members curiosity. It cannot ignore penetrating questions of authority by threats if the press starts bombarding them with high-profile questions hanging in the air unanswered.

That is why there is no TV ministry for Jehovah's Witnesses.
It is a kind of self-fashioned paradox that the Watchtower claims to be heralding an important and urgent message and yet demonstrates an absolute horror of making that message public effectively by using the best technology available.

 

The Totally BOGUS Idea Of CERTAINTY Inside The Watchtower Religion.

 By Terry Walstrom\JWN

I'm going to ask a question and it is a very simple question.
Think about it before you answer.  Ok? Are you ready?

Would Jehovah's Witnesses be a better religion if they were more honest and relaxed about how CERTAIN they are about their teachings?

Wouldn't some HUMILITY go a long, long way? (I mean, in view of the fact they have been so often dead wrong!)

Instead of being know-it-alls and having this (what amounts to being an) ERROR MACHINE called the Faithful and Discreet Slave with a hotline to heaven on their desk---they could simply be searching, diligent seekers-of-Truth.  But no. Instead they wanna be bigshots.

Isn't the real problem the POSE and PRETENSE of correctness and authority to tell everybody what to think and say and do??
Isn't pretending to KNOW what they are just GUESSING AT the fly in everybody's soup?
Of course it is!

Being right is what grants them their Authority.
And think about this, please......haven't they had a hundred years to prove or disprove whether they KNOW or are just GUESSING?

Say that out loud, please. Say it along with me now:
Hasn't the Governing Body had a hundred years to prove or disprove whether they KNOW or are just GUESSING?

Well, of course they have. It was only a thesis and has NEVER BEEN PROVED to be correct!
Let's clarify why this is so. Let's make no mistake about it.

This lot of very proud and convinced men in power are fooling themselves and fooling each other while they are fooling 7 million followers.
Plan and simple.  They claim to know what they have only been guessing incorrectly about.
This pretense has forced them to keep fine tuning and changing and worrying the wording of some rather peculiar teachings over the years.
It is their insistence on being CORRECT that is so galling and egotistical and proud. The statistic don't support their claims.
There is NO EVIDENCE to corroborate the idea they are being led by Almighty God toward a better understanding of End Times than anybody else.

If you go to the Wiki page on "Christian eschatology" you can review the hundreds of personal interpretations currently offered by the greatest minds
in Christianity.  They are competing for the mantle of TRUTH along with the Watchtower.  None is better or worse.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_of_Christian_eschatological_differences

What made Charles Taze Russell stand out among the men of his day was two distinct features.
1.He was rich, owned his own publishing business, was well-spoken and confident
2.He had a knack for pumping up the volume on End Times speculations as though they were certain.
Russell pretended he KNEW what he was only GUESSING about!

We can now say he was guessing because we are looking back on history.  The remains of Russells publishing empire (under Rutherford) made the same error no matter how many adjustments were tried again and again.
Rutherford changed, tweaked, adjusted, renamed and reshaped the Russell publishing business as a new religion of Jehovah's Witnesses.
But, Rutherford was JUST AS WRONG while insisting he was absolutely right.

The history of this Watchtower Religion is that it won't let go of its own SELF-IMPORTANT CLAIMS now proved totally bogus!
Next year it will be 2014.  ONE HUNDRED YEARS of false dates, doctrinal tampering and embarassing public humiliations to examine as proof.
They have no standing as oracles.
They have no credibility as "prophets".
They have no humility to change themselves and openly admit to being chronic bullies who bully in the name of Jehovah, either!

The three worst CRIMES of CERTAINTY committed by the leaders of the Watchtower religion are very condemning to them as pastors.
1.Their Authority damages the lives of humble believers in god because it short-circuits the conscience of committed Christians.
2.Their Hubris cuts friends, familty members and honest thinkers off from each other by shunning and ad hominem name-calling. This scatters the Flock of God and drives a wedge in the Body of Christ.
3.They recklessly endanger the weakest members of society: children, women and the elderly. They insist on repugnant polices on molestation, rape, education and medical treatments. By denying the effectiveness of vaccinations to refusing blood in medical emergencies their authority is rapacious.

In this 100th anniversary of the invisible return of Jesus why don't we examine all the fine work this invisible leadership has provided.
From the teaching that the Great Pyramid of Egypt is "God's witness in stone" to the "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" fiasco to the end of 6000 years of human existence in 1975 to the intense disfellowshipping crackdown in 1983 and the narrowing of the FDS in recent months to just those good old boys in the Governing Body---WE HAVE ALL THE PROOF WE NEED:

The BOGUS idea of CERTAINTY inside the Watchtower religion is proof positive they are a feckless, authoritarian power mad CULT of deception.

IT IS TIME WE SERVED NOTICE!!