MMXIV

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Posts by MMXIV

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  17

  Was it ever in your heart?

  by mamalove in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't think it ever was in my heart, that is why i have found it relatively easy to leave and not be scared of the fear belief system.

  i feel kind of bad for people here who were so immersed that they still get these weird twinges of armageddon fears, etc.

  that has to be difficult to still have that looming feeling.

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  MMXIV

  Hi mamalove,

  It was never really in my heart so probably did make it easier to leave. As a born-in telling my parents who are sincere that I don't believe what they have spent decades teaching me was tough though.

  It may have been in my heart briefly when I was a kid looking at pictures of the paradise and the cuddley animals. I was a people pleaser and wanted to do the right thing.

  I guess the new viewpoints I embraced were that I didn't believe most of the WTS viewpoint. So much of what I heard from the platform of what I read in the magazines was illogical, contained sweeping statements, plain dumb. As I didn't believe it, the benefits for being in were small compensation compared to the burdens.

  I'm so glad to get on with life although I'm still finding my way on what i do believe.

  MMXIV
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  41

  SD-7 Is In the House!

  by snowbird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  welcome back!.

  you were definitely missed.. syl.

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  MMXIV

  Hey SD-7 - will we get an update. How is your mind coping with the meetings?

  MMXIV
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  6

  Is going to the Kingdom Hall G or PG or R rating experience?

  by asilentone in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  MMXIV

  It should be R18.

  As a child I was subjected to many a meeting which included "adult content".
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  7

  Some Financial Info Regarding the London Branch.

  by Bangalore in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals
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  MMXIV

  Thanks Bangalore - good high level info.

  If anyone wants to see the detailed financial statements for the UK - please see the link below:

  http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/SHOWCHARITY/RegisterOfCharities/DocumentList.aspx?RegisteredCharityNumber=1077961&SubsidiaryNumber=0&DocType=AccountList

  I thought it interesting that 23% of it's voluntary income came from legacies or 10% of it's total income. Quite a chunk - need to keep looking after those old folk...

  MMXIV
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  26

  A JW MOTHER'S SO CALLED LOVE

  by elm in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  before i tell you my story i just want to say thank you to everyone on this forum for their sometimes funny,and sometimes sad, and sometimes very thought provoking posts, it has helped me a lot.. my family, which consists of a younger brother and a younger sister and my parents.

  we began studying with the jw's as a family (mother's insistence) in the mid 1980's.. i was then 13, my sister 12, my brother 7, my mother thought she found the answer to all life's problems and became fully brainwashed, and hence if we wanted to be a happy family we had to all become jw's, and so because we were young and mainly to keep our mother happy we all became jw's.. all i can say is my parents life might have been, happier but mine was far from happy.

  i left home as soon as i could i was 16.. my sister at 18 got married to a jw, and they bought a house and settled in to married life, when my sister had her first child at 19 her son was 6 weeks old when my parents moved into their home for a few weeks, while their new home was ready to move into.. during their stay in my sisters home they all got on really well despite a small house and no room to move.

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  MMXIV

  Elm,

  I've been shaking my head at this story and how your mother has abused her position. She seems to like male attention and was old enough to know better than cross the boundaries with her son-in-law. Maybe she justifies it as rape because she made a half-baked attempt at stopping the situation after leading him up the garden path. You're right though - there's no way she would have carried on for 6 weeks if it was rape.

  The sad part (aside from all the hurt you've had and huge effect it will have had on your sister) is that by manipulating the story to your brother - it will sound to him like your sister was in the wrong for having married a dodgy brother and staying married to him.

  I'm almost angry at how shameless she has acted - she's screwed up her own daughters marriage, robbed her daughter from ever being able to trust her mother and all of this at a time when she needed support just after having a new baby. Pretty sick.

  Might be worth setting the record straight with your brother if you can. Perhaps asking him if he thinks what he's been told is true and if he suspects there is more to it.

  MMXIV
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  18

  The H.M. Riley Trust

  by alice.in.wonderland in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  because someone, someone who misused their authority as financial information of such as is posted online relative to this trust is confidential communication between a financial planner, accountant, board of trustees and beneficiary of the trust; it's revealed the mutual funds owned by the riley trust have a "consumer staples/consumer goods" component, and one of the stocks in that component is phillip morris.. it's a completely immaterial amount of money and it's not generated by securities that are able to be traded, unless the entire mutual fund is sold off.

  this is another fine example of people who have an axe to grind with jehovah's witnesses doing a whole lot of work to produce a "smoking gun" that really is nothing of the kind.. this stems from some financial information that was released related to a lady named henrietta riley.

  apparently a wealthy jw that made the watchtower society the beneficiary of the income from her trust.

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  MMXIV

  Firstly - thank you AIW for bringing this to my attention - I was not aware of this before.

  I'm curious about why its bad that this information was leaked to the public yet you also quote on the whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand. One has leaked information about the hypocrisy of an organisation that has killed members by it's products (printed policies on blood, Malawi/Mexico etc) and the other has killed is customers by it's products. I don't see how one deserves to be protected and other outed?

  You bring up the point about materiality (and quite rightly in my opinion). The Church of England clearly defines materiality in terms of it's defence investments:

  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:u3Rbj2v-sIUJ:www.cofe.anglican.org/info/ethical/policystatements/defence.doc+materiality+as+a+defence&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

  The WTS is not transparent about materiality because we would all assume it's investments are "ethical" based on it's own teachings. Have I made a correct assumption about this or does it state anywhere that it wouldn't hold non ethical investements?

  Do you think that the society was a) wrong to accept these in the first place, b) should have liquidated the portfolio upon receipt but kept the money c) it's not material so no wrong has been done d) we should not judge our brothers at the WTS and no-one should ever leak any information about them?

  I worked for a company that received money from Phillip Morris for it's anti-smoking campaigns. Do you see what Phillip Morris does as hypocritical in any way or simply a good thing (aside from the fact it is a legal requirement)?

  Thanks

  MMXIV
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  39

  What Do You Think About Tattoos?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do you have any?.

  i know a lot of women, not just younger women, that have tats.

  i wouldn't have one but that's because i don't need the pain..

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  MMXIV

  They can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but me they mean cheap graffiti. Think about it - would you accept a photograph or picture in a magazine of such poor quality? The wt and awake had better quality printing in the late eighties. Why would you accept such a poor image on your body? When they offer high definition 5m+ pixel tattoos with vibrant colour they I'll review my opinion.

  You can't give blood if you've recently had a tattoo so I won't be having one any time soon.

  MMXIV
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  43

  Was the legend about Smurfs being demonic just an urban legend, or was it mentioned in the literature?

  by IsaacJ22 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i never heard about the smurfs being evil until i joined the forum.

  but when i look in the volume library, the word doesn't come up.

  i was wondering if anyone ever heard mention of it in the literature--as in, was it an official position?.

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  MMXIV

  Marcus, thanks. The rumours made it to London and the home counties by 1983.

  Sab, Papa Smurf would definitely have knocked the stuffing out of a Care Bear.

  MMXIV
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  66

  How did you choose your screenname for jw.net?

  by Voices in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  alright, i'm curious now cause i've been wanting to know how certain people go their screennames.

  now some people have their names involved with makes sense and so forth.

  but i guess i'll start out.

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  MMXIV

  I'd been reading a thread on the generation whilst lurking and always been told that 100 years after 1914 would make it history. When it comes and goes I'll be opening the bubbly and tipping my hat to the world that has survived.

  MMXIV
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  32

  Could you die without anyone noticing?

  by AK - Jeff in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  not long ago i had 100 'friends' - or so i thought.

  i certainly had 100 or more people who said they were friends.

  then i left a cult, and found myself with very few friends - those kind in the flesh, in the community.

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  MMXIV

  Wouldn't happen in the truth - why? Because 23% of income comes from legacies (2009 financial statements for UK).

  MMXIV