Posts by slimboyfat

16

Bible contradictions.

by pleaseresearch in

what are your biggest, funniest, scariest, etc.... wait wt says there are non hahahah.

slimboyfat

Charles Taze Russell agreed there are mistakes in the Bible.

There are certain parts of the Bible that are purely historical. The Books of Kings and Chronicles and the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are purely historical, and there is no particular need of inspiration in regard to these, unless it would be that divine providence would guide them so that they would not leave out what should be in. But where a history is written, it is not of necessity that it should be inspired, because all truth is good. If Saint Matthew, for instance, wrote that Jesus said thus and so, he is merely telling what he heard, what he knew to be the facts. He did not need to be inspired to tell the truth, any more than you need to be inspired to go out of here and tell what I have said: you should tell it straight; so there is no need of any inspiration about it. Now, I would say there are passages in Kings and Chronicles where evidently an error has been made. These are historical books, and there are little slips somewhere in the way the thing has been recorded. Both books cover the same period of time, but one gives it a little different from the other. We may see some day just how they can be harmonized, but at present we do not.

18

Another lie. This time from the UK Branch

by alanv in

andrew schofield, a spokesman for jehovah’s witnesses in britain, states: “for almost 60 years, our administrative operations for britain have been located in london.

however, larger facilities became necessary due to the increased demand for bible-related literature and materials.

we began site preparation on the 34-hectare (approx.

slimboyfat

It's up there with the classic Sam Herd comment: "we need to cut back because we are rapidly expanding". Forget the exact quote.

161

Help! Mike & Kim videos all being deleted by Youtube

by mrmagic in

due to watchtower flagging the mike & kim videos on youtube for copyright, youtube is giving them 6 days before they are shutting down their entire youtube channel.

can you help with a mass downloading program and then reuploading them on a mirror ?

would hate to lose all those good videos!

slimboyfat

Are they the crazy ones? Not a great loss, some might say. Sorry if I mixed them up.

25

this is the first of a multi-part article that tells my story, and how ajwrb got started.. https://www.openmindsfoundation.org/saving-thousand-lives-year-reform-watchtowers-policy-blood-transfusions-part-one/.

slimboyfat

Excellent, thanks. Does this mean you're no longer anonymous?

I first heard about the "liberal elder" during a meeting for field service in 1999. One of the first things I googled, or whatever the search engine was then.

31

10 Graphs that show that the Watchtower is in trouble in Mexico

by ILoveTTATT2 in

jw
friends

mexico is by far the country where the witnesses have had the most success in the entire world.

almost any statistic except the total amount of witnesses shows that mexico is where the witnesses have had the wildest success in the world.proportional to population, the witnesses in mexico are double, or nearly triple, what they are in the us or brazil.but there is "trouble in paradise".

if mexico falls, pretty much the whole watchtower falls.which is why it is so important to have jwfacts translated to spanish.i made an analysis and things are looking bad in mexico... if trends continue, mexico will become just like the 1st-world countries.here is the first graph:maximum publisher % increase:.

slimboyfat

The decline in baptisms looks particularly bad. Even worse if it was expressed as baptisms/publisher, as Paul does for worldwide figures on jwfacts. Congregation decline too is very significant.

I guess they may have closed down some English congregations because they were "concerned" some were attending for the "wrong reasons" and just wanted to improve their English. It happens in Europe too.

I think Zambia might have a good claim to being the country where JWs have been most successful. In Zambia around 1% are JWs and around 5% attend the memorial.

41

How much do you think the internet has hurt JW growth?

by HereIgo in

the internet is what helped bring me and so many others out of this evil organization or at least confirmed our doubts.

i have to say, i have seen quite a few youtube videos recently of ex jw's secretly recording their interactions inside of different congregations, halls, etc and see how empty the halls are!

so many people comment on how the attendance is so low, far more emptier than when i was in 6 years ago, even on a weekday meeting.

slimboyfat

In a congregation I know it seems there's a whole generation who came in, mainly during the 1970s, who either didn't have children, or their children left JWs.

There's a couple in their 50s who never had children.

There's a couple in their 60s who had two daughters, neither got baptised, they have a few grandchildren now who've only once or twice been inside a KH.

There's a sister who adopted two children, neither was baptised, neither attend.

There's a sister in her 60s, her son was never bapsited, her daughter is an active JW, and she has 5 children all still attending (this is the most successful JW family in the congregation in terms of retention)

Another sister in her 70s has three sons, only one attended as an adult, never baptised, no longer attends, various grandchildren only been to KH occasionally.

Another sister in her 60s, had one daughter, was baptised, now inactive.

Another sister in her 60s, two daughters, one baptised then disfellowshipped, other daughter never baptised, never attends.

Another couple in their 60s never had children.

Another sister in her 60s had one son, never baptised, never attends (never even seen him)

One couple in their 60s had one daughter who is baptised and active.

Another couple in their 40s have no children.

Another couple in their 50s have no children.

Another sister in her 80s had three step children, one got baptised, disfellowshipped and later died. The rest never got baptised.

One brother in his 60s had three children with non-JW wife, none ever came to KH.

One couple in their 60s look after a grandchild who comes to KH occasionally, never baptised.

Another couple in their 60s had a son and daughter, neither got baptised, neither attend.

There's a whole generation of children who simply never became JWs. As the 1970s believers get older, there's literally no one ready to replace them.

17

Co-Ordinator of BOE Secretly Putting His DF'd Daughter First

by pale.emperor in

long story short, a friend of mine around the same age as me is df'd.

she's from another city.

we met up a few months ago with other exjws.

slimboyfat

Questions to determine if he stays an elder include:

Is the congregation disturbed by the brother's action? Have a number lost respect for him?

That's just a invitation to gossip and bully people when they're down. "Poor souls" claiming they have been "stumbled" by the brother's actions. For crying out loud, how infantile.

i think plenty of JWs were "disturbed" and "lost respect" for Geoffrey Jackson over his ARC performance, so I wonder when he is going to step down?

45

Britain Branch to Cease Printing Sooner Than Expected

by The Searcher in

i've received the following news from a reliable and trusted source: .

the demise of printing literature in the u.k. is being brought forward by one year - to march 2018. graphic design and printing support will go too.

large numbers of "disposable" bethelites will now have to make their own way in the world, when their "mother" abandons them.

slimboyfat

It's hard to see how they could eliminate printing altogether.

But on the other hand, it just occurs to me that, when cutting costs, a 90% reduction in printing doesn't simply produce 90% reduction in expenditure, nowhere near it. So there's a certain futility to all the cost cutting unless they go all the way. Because whether they produce 100 million books a year or just 1 million books, they still need the presses, the buildings, repairs, the personnel, the expertise, the methods of distribution: the whole structure remains necessary, whether it's 100 million books a year or just 1 million. The only saving they are making is on paper and ink, and whatever other variable costs. The more substantial overheads remain.

So at a certain point won't they conclude that, if they have cut production by 90%, why not cut the final 10% and make the final savings? They could stop printing altogether, contract a few items to outside companies and that's it.

In the olden days how many books did the WT produce a year?

I reckon many publishers would get 2 copies of the new release, a yearbook, a day's text, possibly the bound volumes as well, a couple of copies of the primary study book for placing on the ministry, and every few years maybe a new Bible or song book, and occasional special items like Insight books, Bible stories books, Proclaimers, indexes, KIT, reference Bibles and so on. So I think a reasonable estimate is about 10 books a year per publisher. And considering some JWs placed a lot of books, that's probably a conservative estimate.

How many books do JWs get a year now? Well even the release at the convention was treated as a "special request". I'm curious if they will even print the yearbooks next year? It's down to next to nothing. They seem to have an abundant supply of Bible Teach books for the carts, but when they run out? They could get publishers down close to zero books a year at this rate.

I really think they are winding down in quite dramatic fashion.

39

JWs Among the Least Educated in the US

by jp1692 in

september 6th, 2017: a just released research survey shows once again that jehovah's witnesses are among the least educated people in the united states: .

america’s changing religious identity.

it is also interesting to note how jws rank in the categories of: income, insurance coverage and homeownership.

slimboyfat

Interesting, thanks for posting.

6

A find on Fred Franz's "system of things"

by careful in

i was looking at the footnote in the 3rd ed.

of weymouth's nt (1912) on an unrelated topic and i happened on the phrase "the passing away of the present system of things" (p. 659 n. 2).

when i was in, i remember reading that the nwt "committee" (= f. franz) came up with that "system of things" rendering of the greek aion from john parkhurst's very old lexicon.

slimboyfat

Very interesting observation. I can't recall any other particular dependence on Weymouth in the NWT off the top of my head.

But it seems possible this is the source of the phrase since Franz was eclectic in the places he gathered NWT idiosyncrasies. When I've got time I'm going to look at WT literature from the 1940s and 1950s to look for references to Weymouth, explanations of this "system of things" phrase, and the background of NWT peculiarities generally.