New Light on Beards

[Pudgy]

All of that nonsense is why I cannot attribute common sense honest motives to the new “beards ok” change.

It’ somehow has to be motivated by money.

[JW Insider]

2 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

It’ somehow has to be motivated by money.

I think that's a logical stretch, but I have heard similar ideas about the recent change to allow publishers to be counted even without any hourly goal to report. In an instant, it could bring up the number of publishers to include those who are just attending and rarely report. If membership now reflects attendance rather than regular service reports, then the numbers go up. This can have the effect of making more Witnesses more enthusiastic about the organization. Remember how we used to hear announcements of increases in country after country at conventions and we'd clap and cheer. This year the only place they pointed to, so far, was the Philippines.

If anyone feels like a full member who didn't before, they might feel more inclined to contribute. It also can make for easier converts who might have previously been taken aback at this "salesmen's approach" to making converts. (If you don't know what I mean, look at some of the older publications referring to sales goals and book-selling campaigns, and compare it to any sales meetings from those days when it was popular for people to go door-to-door selling encyclopedias, vitamins, Amway, magazine subscriptions, Fuller Brush, vacuums, Mary Kay, snake oil, etc.)

There is also the more cynical view that there are a couple of countries that give the JWs a monetary "reward" based on the number of JWs in those countries. This is based on the idea that the religions tend to take some of the burden away from the government for charity, social events, child education, elderly care, weddings, funerals, etc.  

Therefore if a religion increases the number of members, they increase their government "reimbursement." Using a membership number closer to the Memorial attendance could be a financial boon in those countries.

A change in beard policy doesn't seem to fit very well. At best it might make a very few persons feel like "full members" when they didn't feel that way before. It could potentially allow more persons to more easily convert, and therefore more likely to contribute. 

I think we've all heard the rumors that the Organization is losing money, and this has driven the reduction in KH's all over the world. We have even heard it stated in videos on jw.org (not just leaked ones). I suspect a connection to lawsuits and potential lawsuits over sexual abuse, blood, and now shunning. But losing money could also just be based on over-optimism about video projects, and building projects, not the lawsuits. And I have seen no evidence that even that cynicism about number of members, and additional converts is true. 

I prefer to think that the Society just wanted to finally "get out of our hair" on this matter. Nit-picking over such details could stubble someone.  

 

[Pudgy]

I am inclined to believe all you have stated, and more.  Like I mentioned before, it might have been a good idea for someone to check Aaron’s tent for some leftover golden calf gold.

Of course, studies suggest alternate explanations ….

U.S. - A new study released by LifeWay Research confirmed what everyone knew all along: beard length is directly connected to preaching ability.

"Throughout church history, the ones with long, flowing beards could preach sermons that would shake the gates of hell," said head researcher Dr. Jonathan "The Spurge" Pendleton, who happens to have a long, flowing beard himself. "The bald-faced ones are the heretics."

Presbyterian and Reformed ministers across the country agreed with the findings, saying it was a self-evident truth that God has revealed in the hearts of all men. "Only the depraved suppress this truth as they listen to their peach-fuzzed, wanna be pastors," said Charles J. Finklestein, an OPC minister in Philadelphia, as he stroked his 3-foot-long beard. "May they receive the condemnation they are due."

The study obviously found that women can't preach at all from a podium.

And in another study :

ORANGE COUNTY, NY - A study of over 2,000 non-JW bearded men found a "strong correlation" between a thick, bushy growth of facial hair and uncanny supernatural abilities such as flight, powerful regenerative abilities, heat vision, and enhanced strength, researchers at the Jehovah’s Witnesses Warwick World Headquarters announced Monday.

"Besides the obvious benefits like a manly look, warmth in the winter, and enhanced preaching and teaching skills, beards seem to grant the owner any number of enhanced capabilities," a Governing Body Helper told reporters Monday. "We witnessed one caged disfellowshipped JW  who grew a beard, and after it breached a length of one inch, could morph back and forth from an overweight  two dimensional cartoon dog, and was instantly gifted with the ability to run away at the speed of sound."

"It seems the obvious choice for any man is to grow a beard. We really don't see any reason why you wouldn't."

Wayward Pioneer Brothers returning from vacations who had  beards were observed slaughtering their foes by generating and hurling searing hot orbs of fire, or freezing enemies to death with deadly cold-breath abilities.

According to the full results of the study, available at Warwick Bethel website:   JW.org/donations/accounts/internal_audits/lawyers/ bankruptcy/beards, , subjects who shaved their beards immediately lost their powers, and "also looked really childish and dumb."

(Edited for clarity and readability)

[Pudgy]

Most of the above has been shamelessly plagiarized from The Babylon Bee, beaten to fit, and painted to match.

sorta like a cake mix.

[TrueTomHarley]

8 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I think that's a logical stretch, but I have heard similar ideas about the recent change to allow publishers to be counted even without any hourly goal to report

Almost anything can be open to such an interpretation if you’re willing to stretch enough. How many things are there among a sizable group of people that have zero financial impact? If you have cynicism running through your veins, anything can be framed as primarily motivated by the money that is ‘the root of all evil.’

Even in more plausible scenarios in which money might be a factor, how does that become a bad thing? Are mobsters the only people who use money? Don’t good and honest people do it too? Did Jesus condemn stewards for being wise in managing resources? Even one who was a bit slippery he managed to praise. It’s good to take money into account. It doesn’t always correlate with wickedness. More often it correlates with good, plain, beneficial common sense, so that you are foolish if you ignore it.

To constantly harp on money, even in plausible situations (which I agree with you, the above two situations are not) —doesn’t it become a ‘You hypocrites! Which one of you has a bull falling into a pit on Sabbath who will not immediately pull it out?’ type of scenario? Anyone here who gets a hole in his wallet who will not immediately stitch in up?

Now, time for my Bible reading: 

“If you build a new house, you must also make a parapet for your roof, so that you may not bring bloodguilt on your house because of someone falling from it.”

And Pudgy the Muttite said: “Bloodguilt, schmoodguilt! I’ll tell you why Moses is saying this! $$$$$$$$$!! What! He thinks I was born yesterday?”

[Srecko Sostar]

WTJWorg does not have a railing/parapet on its roof, but has window bars.

[Pudgy]

Hey! I’m just trying to understand WHY a grinding policy of 80 and more years was suddenly reversed 180°.

What caused this to actually happen?

So far the JWI SCENATIOS seem the most probable.

[TrueTomHarley]

9 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

Hey! I’m just trying to understand WHY a grinding policy of 80 and more years was suddenly reversed 180°.

Because they tried to do it gradually and it didn’t work:

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2023/12/beards-get-the-green-light.html

I did my very best to reassemble all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—stopping short only at the ridiculous.

[Pudgy]

… that’s MY forte’!

Yeah … if you are going to reverse a policy that is dumber than bat crap, and is diametrically 180° to simple  clear scriptural principles, and is completely arbitrary and capricious and causes .. actually CAUSES division and oppression … chasing good people away … why do it all at once?

Drag it out . Take it slow. The rubes are so dumb they will never notice.

[xero]

Remember back when everyone was in a tizzy about circumcision?

[Pudgy]

Yeah …. they tried to do it slow, but the screaming kept everybody awake for YEARS!

[TrueTomHarley]

59 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

… that’s MY forte’!

Still scratching my head over the 60K+ downloads in a two-day period. 80 hits a day are average for my blog. Then one day it is 40K, followed by 20K? My entire blog consists of less that 1500 posts.

It’s probably some AI bot kind of thing. As such, is it good or bad? If it trains AI to defend the good news and kick back that those who accuse our brothers day and night before our God, as in Revelation 12:10, then it is a good thing.

But I suspect it is just as likely, if not more,  to be some data-scraping thing for ignoble ends. Elon Musk capped access to other people’s tweets to the most recent two-dozen or so because AI-enabled competitors were scraping massive data in order to open competing sites, even contradicting sites, since everything is political these days. 

Most innovations of humans are immediately put to bad use, sometimes outstripping its good use. AI might be one of those things. Here is an article to the effect that fake and lying AI generated news channels are proliferating so quickly as to make uncovering the truth of anything a near-impossible task:

https://medium.com/@ai.news.official/the-rise-of-ai-generated-fake-news-a-misinformation-superspreader-c1a7f8f97cba