Posts by MrMonroe

20

How many meetings does a JW attend in a week?

by jwfacts in

.

i always found it a bit deceptive to say we attended five meetings a week, when in reality it was only 3. now that there are meetings only twice a week, do witnesses still claim to attend 5 meetings a week or four?.

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MrMonroe

I suppose you could call them overlapping meetings. Maybe there'll be a part on it at the next district convention.

19

Rutherford grave

by django in

hi everybody.

i would like to know where is the grave of joseph franklyn rutherford?.

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MrMonroe

Things had changed by the time the old bastard died. When CTR died the Bible Students were dumbstruck, wondering what the hell they'd do next.

When Rutherfiord died there was probably a huge collective sigh of relief. The Wikipedia article on Rutherford quotes a Watchtower in which a Bethel worker recalled: "It was at noontime when the family was assembled for lunch. ... The announcement was brief. There were no speeches. No one took the day off to mourn. Rather, we went back to the factory and worked harder than ever."

From memory there were about four people at his funeral, and I'm not sure even his wife and son were there.

By the time he died he had knocked all humanity out of his followers. No one dared grieve, because that was seen as being just like the world, and failing to have faith in the better life to come. Even today Witnesses are very stoic about death, holding back from any real show of emotion for fear of being viewed as lacking faith. Funeral services limit the comments about the departed individual to how much they "loved the truth" and looked forward to the new system, and then they cut straight to the recruitment section of the talk.

20

How many meetings does a JW attend in a week?

by jwfacts in

.

i always found it a bit deceptive to say we attended five meetings a week, when in reality it was only 3. now that there are meetings only twice a week, do witnesses still claim to attend 5 meetings a week or four?.

.

MrMonroe

(That's weird. The box for a reply doesn't appear; I had to use the "Post a reply" tab at the top).

I recall the wife of an elder ticking her husband off after a Memorial talk because when he did his usual recruitment talk at the end, he said they held five meetings a week and cordially invited newcomers to them. She told him it made it sound like they were at the KH most nights of the week and would put people off.

It always was a stupid concept because the expectation was that you would arrive at the start and stay till the end. I, towards the end of my unhappy career as a JW, took the thing literally and would choose for myself which of the two "meetings" I would attend on a Sunday and would leave after the first "meeting" on a Tuesday night.

24

Any Tourettes syndrome in your congregation?

by fade_away in

a huge number of jws have mental illnesses.

i knew someone with a schizophrenic disorder and he would occasionally forget/refuse to take his pills which made for some very embarassing moments at the meetings and on service.

he would come to our house claiming he is jesus christ in the flesh and would get upset with anyone that didn't believe him.

MrMonroe

In one congo I was in, a woman insisted on bringing her elderly, wheelchair-bound father along to meetings. The poor old bloke had Alzheimers and was a bit of a handful at the best of times because he was a big old farmer, but she probably figured he might learn something from the meetings and therefore be saved at Armageddon.

One time we had the CO at the congregation giving the Sunday morning public talk. The old bloke started muttering loudly and his daughter tried to calm him down. But suddenly he bellowed out, "I CAN'T UNDERSTAND A F***KING WORDS HE'S SAYING!"

The CO paused and you could have heard a pin drop. No one knew quite what to do, and I doubt there was anything in the elders' training manual about what to do when someone yells the F-bomb at the top of his voice. Pops was promptly wheeled out of the hall.

49

Special Meetings with GB+ Scheduled for October in Patterson and Assembly Halls

by happyexjw in

apologies if this has already been discussed, but saw this on the fb jehovahs witnesses, new, library, history page and wondered if anyone knew anything about it or has any idea what it could be about.

date: august 17, 2011 5:38:59 pm cdt.

to: the librarian <[email protected]>.

MrMonroe

Maybe presenting details of the takeover offer from the Church of Scientology. The directors of the WTS recommend acceptance in the absence of a higher offer.

Scientology offering WTS $50 for each of its publishers, $5000 for each pioneer and a 5% discount on monthly field service quotas for all R&F members. Members of GB will be required to swear allegience to Xenu, but will then be given comfortable accommodation at Scientology HQ in LA and one seat on the Scientology board. David Miscavige to be new president of joint Watch Tower Tract and Scientology Society.

18

Got some Street Encounter Questions for JWs?

by Vanderhoven7 in

jw
friends

MrMonroe

1. If I studied with you guys and got baptised and became a JW and we became friends .... what would happen in a year or two if I decided I'd picked the wrong religion and wrote a letter of resignation and left? Would you still talk to me? If not, why not? In what way would that be different to joining a sports club or a Rotary club and deciding later you don't want to remain a member: do you think those clubs would ban every other member from talking to me?

2. Where do JWs get their doctrines? Who decides them? If you think one of those doctrines is wrong or makes no sense, are you allowed to say so? If I got baptised and became a JW and decided I was one of the anointed and decided one of the doctrines was wrong, how could I get that doctrine changed? Because as a member of the faithful slave cass, I'd know that God was using me to reveal things.

3. Is it true your religion has judicial committees that puts JWs on trial and can expel them and make sure no one is allowed to speak to them? See, I heard someone going through one of those trials isn't allowed to have representation and isn't allowed to record the trial, isn't allowed to know what evidence is gathered before the trial .... and when a judgment is made no one in the congregation ever knows what the charge was, or the evidence was, they just know a person was found guilty of something and they're never allowed to talk to them again. Does that sound wrong?

4. A friend of mine was in a religion and then examined its real teachings and decided it didn't match what the Bible said. But they felt like they coudn't leave because there was so much poressure from their family, and they'd be punished. Do you think that's wrong? Do you think they should be allowed to leave? (JW answer: Of course!) See, that friend is a JW. So you agree that's wrong for family to put pressure on someone to stay in a religion even when they know it's wrong?

5. Would you still be witnessing as much if the Governing Body decided you didn't have to put in field service reports?

35

Angels are taking the lead in the preaching work

by mankkeli in

jw
friends

consider one experience in which two kingdom publishers were accompanied by a small child.

at the end of the morning, the two witnesses were about to stop their preaching work, but the child was unusually eager to go to the next home.

in fact, he went by himself and knocked on the door!

MrMonroe

As part of my job I cold call on homes in different parts of my state. Recently I knocked on the door of a woman I had met exactly one year earlier in a suburb 150km away. We had a laugh about it and I told her I'd probably knock on her door again in another year in a different town.

It was a coincidence. If it was a JW knocking on the door it would have been angelic direction. Describing it as such is superstitious nonsense.

47

My public talk on sunday

by mankkeli in

jw
friends

i am currently preparing for the public talk on sunday and as i was looking through the outline some these thoughts just keep popping up my mind that in the face of several allegations and numerous scandal, wbts has not stopped claiming to be god's organisation, i am wondering if they will ever realise that their strategies are no longer appealing to the general public.

regrettably, they keep on publishing and printing using victims of mind control hazards to the detriment of over 7 million rank and file members and spiritual illiterates in the society.

i keep on pondering on how long this malicious activity would continue.

MrMonroe

Cantleave, you beat me to it: I was gonna ask if you included Ummagumma.

To th elders posting here who still give talks, you are in a difficult, yet valuable position. If you feel you can make people think by what you include in talks, then that's a good thing. But I think we all know that JWs don't go to meetings to pay attention listen and absorb. They go to be seen there so people don't think less of them.

I think they check in all their reasoning faculties when they walk through the door; it's a fantasy world where talk of angels, Nephilim, grass-eating lions and angelic direction are commonplace and people address one another as "Brother" and "Sister". It's a pretend world, where everyone enters an unspoken pact to believe the unbelievable and not do anything to pop the bubble the spoil the moment.

If you're working on an exit strategy that's wonderful. Considering the depth of mind control that exists within the organisation, I seriously doubt you'll take "thousands" with you. There have, of course, been instances of mass defections triggered by unpopular disfellowshippings. "Crisis of Allegiance" by James A. Beverley tells the remarkable story of how Jim Penton's expulsion split congregations and prompted mass walkouts (and in one case a fist fight).

But it's a rarity. All the very best, however.

15

Millions now living will never die

by stillin in

the word "now" has taken on new meaning.

or is it the word "die?

".

MrMonroe

Yes, some irony in that Rutherford, the writer of that book, was not one of those millions. Essentially they are selling the same message today, hoping that though it wasn't true then, it may be today.

WT 4/15/2005: "Notice how Jesus expressed these two thoughts. When speaking to Martha about the resurrection of the dead, he said: “He that exercises faith in me, even though he dies, will come to life; and everyone that is living and exercises faith in me will never die at all.” All evidence shows that this “day” is very near, which means that you may “never die at all.”

Jehovah's Witnesses might like to give some thought to an illustration in a November 1995 WT:

"IMAGINE a weather forecaster whose predictions almost always come true. If he predicts on the evening news that it will rain the following day, you do not hesitate to take along your umbrella when you leave the house the next morning. His past record has won your confidence. You act on what he says."

What would be the appropriate action for a JW who has watched more than a century of predictions by the WTS that have failed, one after another?

243

Victoria, Australia: Steven Unthank's Press Release: JW's Hierarchy Formally Charged Today With Child Abuse

by AndersonsInfo in

jehovah's witnesses hierarchy charged.

immediate press release: 26 july 2011. link to this press release: http://wp.me/p1g1hc-4o.

worldwide church hierarchy charged with child abuse.

MrMonroe

I don't see that he is trying to connect the two. He gave evidence at the judicial inquiry that happened to convene near his hometown and has more recently fulfilled his long-held ambition of having criminal charges laid against the organisation.

You are correct that you are confused and that your assumption is untrue. I don't know who you refer to in saying "many here myself included" are confused. It's a matter of digesting clear information he has provided. Stop jumping to false conclusions.