A) They are at your door to recruit you for enslavement to their watchtower corporation,they will say that “we are just here to share a message from the Bible” this is deception right off.

B) The ‘message’ is their false Gospel that Jesus is ruling in heaven already since 1914.The problem with this is it’s not just a cute fairy tale,Jesus warned of the false prophets who would claim “..look he is here in the wilderness,or see here he is at the temple”

C) Their anti-blood transfusion ban has killed hundreds if not thousands
D) once they recruit you they will “love bomb” you in cult fashion to also recruit your family & friends or cut them off. There are many more dangers,Jehovah’s Witnesses got a bad rap for good and valid reasons.

99% of the world has rejected the teachings of the Watchtower Jehovah’s Witnesses, the darker truth is they are a destructive and oppressive organization.
–
Danny Haszard Jehovah’s Witness X 33 years http://www.freeminds.org

“But the nations became wrathful, and your own wrath came, and the appointed time for the dead to be judged, and to give their reward to your slaves the prophets and to the holy ones and to those fearing your name, the small and the great, and to bring to ruin those ruining the earth.”

tom sheepandgoats: You certainly presented a well thought out witness to your truths. I want to clarify that, although I wish I was that creative and could take the credit, I did not author “The Fifth Wave”. I only echo its sentiments.

I agree that the internet is a threat to any organization that wishes to control the flow of information. Just think how such regimes as Communist China and middle-eastern fundamentalist states wish the internet didn’t exist. They reflect the viewpoint that to preserve a society you must strictly control it. And it certainly is possible to have the society you want through utter force - at least for a time.

However, with respect to a spiritual society, I do not believe that God wants or needs to have such control. Any religious organization that goes that route makes the same mistakes as the Pharisees whom Jesus chastized for their endless rules and regulations, and shows a lack of faith in God’s ability to move people though His spirit. It produces a people who, for the most part, go through the motions of whatever criteria the organization has set up to define spirituality, yet inside are no more spiritually advanced than anyone outside of that organization.

Instead of controlling people’s spiritual paths, Brother Russell only sought to provide assistance to people who were searching for God. That, to me, is a more Christian approach.

Thing is, from what I can see, it will be the end of us and not really the end of the world. Where the oceans are concerned, for example, we’re making them unfit for all the seafood we like but great places for algae and bacteria.

We’re capable of doing some damage, but life strikes me as having a pretty tenacious hold on the planet and incredibly resilient. It may be egocentric for us to equate fouling our own nest with the end of the world. If I recall correctly the sun’s estimated to have another 5 billion years before burning out - an awful lot of time for things to happen on planet earth, with or without us. Do hope we stay in the game though.

All of us have full potential to say/do something asinine or inconsistent. With the internet, we can now be assured that the gaffe will be transmitted instantly to everyone and that they will draw instant conclusions at gut level. The truth of anything requires some thought. Some will have no interest in thinking, and some simply won’t have the time. But all will drink in the quick byte of so-and-so making an ass of himself.

Is there any example anywhere of organization that has been aided by the internet? Maybe some fledgling politician, too small to be noticed by traditional means, and also too small for the internet to tear him down as it’s built him up. Finding instances where the internet has built up organization is a challenge, but finding instances where it tears apart we can do in our sleep. If Christianity were simply some do-what-feels-good-at-the-moment movement, then it might be aided by the internet. But it’s not. Christianity’s predicated on the belief that we need guidance from a source beyond ourselves and that there is a specific channel through which that guidance comes.

So I’m not as optimistic as you that the internet can only bring positive changes.

You mention that “letters have been deluging Brooklyn for greater change.” Well, I suppose they are. But when have they not? Is today’s generation the first to know how to write letters? I suspect back in the days when Watchtower was constantly before the Supreme Court, letters (proportionate to population) poured in more than today. Are we to assume that the Society simply carted all letters to the dumpster until today, when their sheer weight demands attention? I doubt it. Letters from individuals have never been the primary driver of Christian policy. But neither have they ever been merely ignored. They are a source of feedback and always have been.

The Society was more regimented when people were more regimented. For whatever reason, people in past generations were less fragile than they are today and enjoyed greater self-esteem. You could give your counsel blunt without their falling apart. They could take, not just the good, but also the bad without undue complaining. People are different today. Probably due to decaying society, individuals are much less secure. So an added emphasis on “principles not rules, love not punishment, flexibility not unreasonableness” comes into being to meet changing times. And I’m glad to see it. But I disagree with your assessment that it all comes only because Watchtower is being outmaneuvered by progressive people with “subversive” ideas.

Because we live in a democracy and prevailing mindset is that democracy tops everything else, we get used to the idea that we should have a say in things. And as people become more individualistic, we become more insistent that our say should be heeded. But the Christian congregation is not organized that way, as it was not in it’s first century beginning. The apostles sought to maintain unity and to forestall the endless sects and divisions that were to come. Thus, the Bible mentions the necessity of an older man to “reprove those who contradict” [Titus 1:9] and deal with those “wanting to be teachers of law, but not perceiving either the things they are saying or the things about which they are making strong assertions.” (1 Tim 1:7) Lots of people make “strong assertions” today and lots of people “contradict.” It’s a function of the times we live in, and is aided by the internet.

Not all of Jehovah’s Witnesses today are 100% behind the program. Many are puzzled over this or that aspect of theocracy and many entertain their own pet ideas of how more of this, less of that, modification of this tactic, and so forth, would be beneficial. Some make suggestions via letter or traveling overseers. There’s nothing new, earthshaking, or unnatural about that. It’s not evidence that the organization is at some unprecedented crossroads. But in the final analysis we realize that the burden of directing things does not rest with us, but with a non-democratic channel which God has provided. We’re not presumptuous. We cooperate as best we can.

The first century apostles lost that battle to maintain Christian unity. The “wheat” was oversown with “weeds,” as Jesus foretold. (Matt 13:24-30) It would have happened much sooner had the internet existed back then.

As you know, the Society maintains we are in the last days of human rulership. God’s rulership over the earth is soon to come, preceded by a public preaching campaign to that effect. Not everyone agrees, I realize. But looking at the state of affairs today, it clearly is not laughable that God might find human rulership lacking. Watchtower is doing their best to maintain Christian unity in the face of a increasing divisive world. And they’re doing well, despite overwhelming forces to the contrary. They contrast with most churches, where unity is generally slight and rough and tumble politics is the order of the day.