Posts by neverendingjourney

34

How big a fee does the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society get for booking Jehovah's Witnesses into Convention Hotels?

by Balaamsass in

curious.

i know travel agents and on-line sites get a kickback or fee for booking hotels.

how much is this fee?.

neverendingjourney

I'm sure someone will completely flame me for the comment but the practice appears innocuous to me.

Not a flame, but while the business practice of obtaining comps in exchange for a guaranteed number of bookings may be completely justified, the lack of transparency combined with the guilt, coercion, and manipulation the society uses to obtain such perks is not.

Here's a better idea. Instead of using its leverage to obtain kickbacks for itself and its "special full time service" members, why doesn't the society use it to actually negotiate better-than-market rates for its rank-and-file members, many of whom already are straining their budgets to attend given that they've decided to follow its advice on higher education and career choices.

47

convinced 95% of all active jw's don't have a clue as to where 1914 originates

by goingthruthemotions in

so talking with my wife last night...i was explaining to her about a conversation i had with a person at work about end times.

he has a strange belief that some scriptures in isaiah perdict something huge is going to happen in september of 2015. she then states that no one can predict the future only the father knows and he is in a cult.

lol on the inside.. i then stated "what about 1914 and the dubs perdiction and what it means today" she said no there was never any predictions.

neverendingjourney

I say that 100% of them do not know that it was all cribbed from the Adventists and 95% do not know that the actual prediction was for "the end" in 1914.

When I was a child, my Catholic aunt made me read some anti-Witness pamphlet written by her church. It talked about various end-of-the-world predictions Witnesses had made over the years. I don't reacall the exact nature of what was said, but I remember believing it was an obvious lie made up to make the Witnesses look bad. It never occurred to me that the Witnesses might have actually made such predictions. In fact, I'd been repeatedly told by the congregation that such things were lies.

After all these years, I wish I could somehow get my hands on that pamphlet again. I have a feeling everything in there was actually true.

9

Why Do JWs Think Bankruptcy Is Not Wrong? Does Pioneering Blot out Theft?

by BucketShopBill in

i mentioned a few elders on one of the highest viewed judicial committee videos filed bk, one of them has done it 3 times and feels no remorse!

my post is not to attack people who really need to avail themselves of a legal process because bad things happen to good people.

the economic climate had and can change radically!

neverendingjourney

Rattigan,

We handled a lot of small business bankruptcies and almost all were devastating. We had a client or two who I believed to be scam artists or people with giant egos that outsized their business acumen, but for the most part filing bankruptcy was crushing for the principals.

My experience with personal bankruptcies was different. The situation was quite the opposite. Most of the people who filed bankruptcy as individuals were people with significant emotional/psychological/addiction problems. A few had learned to game the system and would file every few years. Some were just incredibly irresponsible. That's not to say there weren't exceptions. One of the most hearbreaking stories was an older woman who filed to discharge medical bills that had been piling up since she was diagnosed with lupus.

Granted, this is strictly anecdotal and the law firm I worked for was in a poor part of town that catered largely to the underclass, so take it for what it's worth.

16

'Jehovah's Kingdom' convention banner

by undercover in

jw
friends

making the rounds on facebook is a snapshot of some jws holding a huge banner from the upper deck at a convention.

it says, "jehovah's kingdom" and underneath a crudely drawn download 'bar' with the number 99% on the right side, as if to say in computer lingo, jah's day is almost here.

behind are other dubs holding up smaller placards, but i can't remember what they said.. is this a wt sanctioned or approved action?

neverendingjourney

Is this a WT sanctioned or approved action?

I think they get carried away since international assemblies are one of the few ocassions they get to express any individuality. You see that with the delegates dressed in supposedly local attire. Some Witnesses use them as an opportunity to express themselves and get carried away.

That's my guess, anyway. I saw pictures from some local kingdom halls where they had literally piled hay on the stage and had the delegates stand for pictures behind it wearing their "local garb."

9

Why Do JWs Think Bankruptcy Is Not Wrong? Does Pioneering Blot out Theft?

by BucketShopBill in

i mentioned a few elders on one of the highest viewed judicial committee videos filed bk, one of them has done it 3 times and feels no remorse!

my post is not to attack people who really need to avail themselves of a legal process because bad things happen to good people.

the economic climate had and can change radically!

neverendingjourney

I worked for a bankruptcy atttorney in the early part of the prior decade. In going through his files, I was surprised to learn that a local Witness family had filed bankruptcy. I believe they had filed repeatedly, but it's been so long I can't really remember.

It stood out because the family was known for living well outside their means. They were always dressed in the latest fashions, drove new cars, etc. I don't beleive the father was ever an elder and as far as I know all the kids have since left "the truth." One of the sons later became known for having a habit of filing lawsuits as a result of various car/industrial accidents.

79

I know 2 of the Elders on the Ray Franz JC

by James Jackson in

when i read coc, i was stunned that the 2 elders (theotis french & rob dibble) were on ray franz judcial committee.

i have known these men for over 20 years having done rbc and convention work with them.

they are still elders today which means they were in their early 30's(which is unheard of for a case of this importance to have inexperienced elders to sit on) on this committee.. without revealing myself, i have never tried(but have wanted to), ask them about their on having to judge a former gb member.. then out of the blue, about a year ago, i was mentioning how hard it is trying to get younger ones to volunteer to one of these elders, and he says"this is nothing compared to to sitting on the committee that had to disfellowship ray franz".

neverendingjourney

Unless you have been in my situation, it is hard to explain the mindset of a former longtime Elder(21 years), Regular Pioneer (14 years), one was at the top of his game, handling many responsibities on the Circuit and District level, serving on over 50 Judicial cases, including Appeal Committees, various Elder Schools (including Teaching parts in these schools), and even spending a week at Patterson for the COBE Kingdom Ministry School. I could go on but some of you guys are wearing me out!

I find the listing of organizational bona fides very strange now that I've been out for nearly a decade. Take this Theotis French fellow. He might have had an incredibly impressive resume that would have left me in awe when I was a witness, yet he's still a bus driver.

It's only within the confines of the cult that any of that matters. As far at the real world is concerned, it's meaningless gibberish. It doesn't make you more qualified than the next guy for a job at McDonalds.

I known people who once held high positions and have subsequently left the witnesses. I'm specifically thinking of a former bethelite and a former CO. Their linkedin pages now summarize their time spent in the witnesses as work in the "non-profit" sector, which is essentially a void and a liability. It must be a bitter pill to swallow.

30

Are they really that stupid

by moley in

jw
friends

i was recently approached by a couple of borg drones while i was walking my dog, and i thought why not, may plant a seed or two (how wrong was i).

there was no real logic to what they were saying but as i was in the local park the conversation started to veer to how wonderful nature was and how this was the work of a wonderful creator.

i did not let on i was a former witness and let them continue with their fairy tale of creation and how the vast multitude of animals shows a loving god at work blah blah blah...... but i digress, the converastion then turned to how evolution was false.. apparently to earth is only a few thousand years old, so i mentioned about the burgess shale, to be met with blank stares.

neverendingjourney

JW's don't teach that Earth is only a few thousand years old - obviously you met a couple who haven't been keeping up with Jah's chariot.

Not sure if there's been any "new light" on the matter, but as far back as ten years ago they taught the Earth was "thousands" of years old. In the years leading up to 1975, they taught that each creation day was 7,000 years old, so the Earth was less than 50,000 years old. After the resulting fiasco, the 7,000 year creative day idea stopped being taught in lieu of a generic "thousands of years" response.

Absent there having been some new teaching in the past few years (I haven't been keeping up), there was never really any support for the idea of an Earth that is millions of years old. The picked "thousands" very carefully. They never officially dropped the 7,000 year day. By saying "thousands" it was ambiguous whether they old teaching had been officially rejected.

30

Are they really that stupid

by moley in

jw
friends

i was recently approached by a couple of borg drones while i was walking my dog, and i thought why not, may plant a seed or two (how wrong was i).

there was no real logic to what they were saying but as i was in the local park the conversation started to veer to how wonderful nature was and how this was the work of a wonderful creator.

i did not let on i was a former witness and let them continue with their fairy tale of creation and how the vast multitude of animals shows a loving god at work blah blah blah...... but i digress, the converastion then turned to how evolution was false.. apparently to earth is only a few thousand years old, so i mentioned about the burgess shale, to be met with blank stares.

neverendingjourney

Yes.

23

recent watchtower article condemning catholic mediator between men and god

by oldregretfuljwx2 in

jw
friends

i'm researching for an article on religious torture, how the un condemns physical and psychological torture and how that applies to witness shunning and ran across the information below on mediatorship.

<a href="http://imgur.com/rrqt8ei"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/rrqt8ei.jpg" title="hosted by imgur.com" /></a> .

[url=http://imgur.com/rrqt8ei][img]http://i.imgur.com/rrqt8ei.jpg[/img][/url] .

neverendingjourney

In Apocalypse Delayed James Penton argues that the Witnesses, while giving lip service to the sola scriptura concept of Protestantism actually bear a closer resemblance to the Catholic Church, paricularly in their authoritarian structure. Their elevation of the governing body above all is strikingly similar to the magesterium of the Catholic Church, but the Witnesses would never admit to it.

After giving it some thought, I can't say I disagree.

16

My Satantic Smurf Scratch n' Sniff Stickers Story (True!)

by Phaedra in

jw
friends

back in the early 80s when i was around 9 or 10, my slightly-older best jw friend relished telling me all the latest scare stories she heard about the satanic smurfs popping off of wallpaper, cutting babies with sharp objects, and running through kingdom hall corridors swearing.

wide-eyed with no critical thinking skills at.

i listened and believed every single word.

neverendingjourney

I remember the smurf hysteria of the 80s as well. One of my favorites was that if you tried to burn a picture of a smurf, it wouldn't burn.

I was a small child then, but I remember my "worldly" cousin mocking me about it. He burned one right in front of me to make a point.

It's been so long ago and I was so litle that I don't remember much of anything else about that story, but I was easily suckered in by all the supposed demonism stories back then.