OnTheWayOut

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Posts by OnTheWayOut

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  28

  Were You Ever SHOCKED That Someone Got Appointed As An Elder?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i remember some men getting appointed and wondering what the hell were they thinking???.

  likewise when i came to someone being appointed a presiding overeer or whatever they are called now!

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  OnTheWayOut

  Yeah- ME!
  I was baptized in 1988 and was appointed an elder in 1994. Awful quick ladder climbing.
  While I was fully in believer-mode and did underline in my Watchtower and all that jazz, I have heard that really just doesn't happen.
  
  I had the advantage that I was not a born-in, so my history was not an issue. I married right after being appointed an M.S. without getting into any trouble. I think the local elders and a new C.O. liked how I stood up to the C.O. at the time of my engagement because he said that "mixed couples" don't do well in the truth.
  
  But the biggest factor was that I studied with an elder who wanted another feather in his own cap, so he pushed for me to be appointed.
  
  I was appointed in a U.S.southern state and then moved in early 1995. I heard that there was a huge argument in my next congregation among the elders about appointing me again because I still hadn't been "in" for 10 years and they just didn't appoint under those circumstances. But they did appoint me. It was strange because I was in the congregation for 8 or 9 months and was not an M.S., was not given any responsibilities at all in the congregation- not even microphone handling, and had only had two five-minute "talks" in the Theocratic School. So I was surprised again. The whole congregation was surprised too, because I was still fairly new and then appointed an elder. Apparently, that congregation was chewed out for not "using" me. I was enjoying the break.
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  13

  January 2018 Study Watchtower - if only J.W.'s knew the truth!

  by The Fall Guy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  page 19, paragraph 12: "with prayerful consideration, the governing body strives to be faithful and discreet with regard to how the organization’s funds are used.".

  yeah, i "prayed" too - that more and more j.w.

  's would discover that millions of dollars of their hard-earned cash were being misused to shut the mouths of j.w.

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  OnTheWayOut

  "Are the millions of dollars worth of child abuse judgements and out of court settlements taken from the GAA, or is that another fund?"

  
  It is ALMOST worth returning to find a way to bring that question up. But seeing as I don't know when it could come up again, and then only locally, I won't do it. I sure wish you had said that.
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  18

  How/when did you become a jehovas witness?

  by Lewis1998 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so i've been a protestant for most of my life, it's how i was raised, but recently i started questioning my faith more and more and now i feel like my beliefs resemble that of a jehovas witness rather than a protestant.

  i don't know any jehovas witnesses, so i was just wondering how a lot of you found the religion and adapted to it?.

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  OnTheWayOut

  My aunt joined out of college and convinced my mother that the end of the world was coming in 1975.
  I was just a kid in 1975 when the end of the world did not come. My mother left the religion to return later, but I did not return with her.

  Fast forward to my young 20's. I made a mess of my life and tried to commit suicide. Jehovah's Witnesses was the only religion I knew. So when they told me God spared my life for a higher purpose, it sounded great to me.
  
  So I like to say that joining a dangerous mind-control cult was better than killing myself.
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  15

  Everlasting life on a stick

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i think the watchtower is the only organization that can promise a product (everlasting life) and never deliver it.. what fools we've been to believe this nonsense..

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  OnTheWayOut

  
  The image of chasing a carrot on a stick is not correct. They don't even have a carrot to put out of reach, just the promise of a carrot- everlasting life. When members start to realize they can not even smell a carrot, they stop chasing it.
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  7

  The cut back

  by Akid48 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  does the cut back for 6 magazines for the year show how there losing money or just cutting back.i feel going to begging for peoples money than just chargeing money for a magazine was kinda killing money.but they do get a lot of property and they can just sell that making money.. it seems to early for me to make a full opinion on the topic i wanted to know what others think about this..

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  OnTheWayOut

  I think each factor has to be taken separately.
  
  Ceasing the missionary program or closing a branch can mean they have no monetary profit from many foreign fields. Personally, I believe they had been paying for a loss in many foreign fields with the hopes that it would eventually turn around, and it never did.
  
  Continued reduction in quality and quantity of printed literature should tell us they see less monetary profit or even a loss from printed literature.
  
  We don't really know what they have done with the money from property sales. We do know they have made bad investments and have lawsuits, but we don't know where all the money is going. They do know that once a property is sold, it is gone. They cannot maintain a business model of selling properties off. I couldn't tell you if they are spending all the property money on current deficits or stashing it away.
  
  My bet is that they are stashing it away and preparing for continued reductions in membership and will continue selling Kingdom Halls until members have to meet in private homes in tiny groups (still years away from now). If that is the case, they should have enough money to run their rural New York Headquarters for a long time and provide some direction to the worldwide membership without a huge staff at Headquarters.
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  4

  What's Old Is New Again

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from annual meeting.

  re: dropping non-progressing magazine calls.. https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/163404/does-anyone-remember-big-6-month-bible-study-push-during-mid-1990s.

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  OnTheWayOut

  Yeah, what Ding says. They wanted to keep members in a frenzy because the end was so close.
  Not the case this time.
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  4

  What's Old Is New Again

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from annual meeting.

  re: dropping non-progressing magazine calls.. https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/163404/does-anyone-remember-big-6-month-bible-study-push-during-mid-1990s.

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  OnTheWayOut

  The push back then was to get the student to commit to getting baptized because Watchtower wants more members..
  The push today is to stop wasting magazines because Watchtower is out of money.
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  23

  Can Today's JW Logically Explain Their Beliefs?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  when i was a jw, i relished explaining my beliefs and why we had the truth!

  lol.

  todays witness has no clue , in my opinion..

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  OnTheWayOut

  I was pretty good at it in the 1990's and early 2000's. I knew quite a few who could explain the beliefs better than I could and a few who were about the same.

  I imagine many of those same ones can still do it, but it probably drops off as the doctrine got into the ridiculous.

  My mother knew some of the Fred Franz stuff pretty well. She could explain difficult Revelation stuff and 1914 stuff and the like. She was really good at understanding why the end didn't come in 1975, but was imminent.
  
  But she gave up on figuring it out somewhere in the changes of doctrine. I think many will be just like my mother and get frustrated with the delay of Armageddon and not keep up.
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  2

  NWT from Greek/Hebrew to other languages?

  by Counter-Watchtower in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  does jw org claim to have translated the nwt into other languages from greek/hebrew?

  because if they did claim that they would have to have biblical scholars in biblical greek/hebrew from every language, that would be a ton of ppl!

  and take a lot of time!

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  OnTheWayOut

  They may have claimed some such BS as going back to the original language for "tricky passages" but that's all B.S..
  
  All versions of the NWT in languages outside of English came from English.
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  18

  Jonestown

  by Akid48 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  does any one think the wt is going to go out this way?i know its dark but i can see it going down that way but i dont see it being the way there would go down..

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  OnTheWayOut

  I think it will not be at all like Jonestown.

  But I do think that after the Governing Body members run off with a few million dollars apiece to their tropical condominiums on islands without extradition and leave instructions to carry on without them, we will have to keep on suicide watch as the members figure out that they have been duped.