Posts by MrDarkKnight

35

A Sneaky Way To Mess With Watchtower Statistics

by DT in

jw
friends

the watchtower society is addicted to numbers and growth.

the problem is that their very existence is justified by a preaching work that is intended to result in growth.

other religions don't have that kind of pressure.

MrDarkKnight

This idea will not work. When a person turns in a report the hours and mags posted on their publisher record card and on a master sheet that tabulates the report. Any unusual deviations from normal activity would be spotted and questioned at the local level and immediately called into question.

@DT - When a person does not report time for month they are not counted as active publisher that month and total publisher reporting count goes down by one. If they hand in a late report the next month along with the current report for that month the publisher count goes up by two. Anyone turning two reports for the same month would be flagged. Pumping up the numbers would be really hard.

The peak publisher number in August is really a bogus number because it reflects all of the current months reports plus any months that were missed. Each report is counted as a publisher. There is no other way for them to do it. The official publisher count for a congregation is taken twice a year when the CO visits. Since every congregation has the CO visit at diffrent times it is not possible for these reports, which are the most accurate because they count publisher record cards, not field service reports to produce the peak number.

The real number is the average number of publishers because it eliminates the lows from months when the reporting is poor and the highs from months when the elder push to get missing reports and the count is high.

A+ for creativiy though!

151

A Woman, A Woman - Oh What Can She Be?

by LoneWolf in

hi, peeplezs,.

down over the years i have experienced plenty of discouragement and cynicism about faith and the existence of a god who cares for us.

if i allowed myself to dwell on those things alone, i suppose that i too would be feeling hopeless and cynical and would be just waiting until my time is up.. however, i don't feel that way at all.

MrDarkKnight

@Meangirl...You made your point. We all disagree. You can get off your soap box and go on home like you said you would and go comment on another thread. That's what I intend to.

Ridiculous.

22

Seeking Reinstatement

by Quendi in

no, i'm not seeking to be reinstated so don't worry.

but i did want to raise a point in relation to this.

i know this was true in my case and i've seen it in others i have talked to about this.

MrDarkKnight

@ziddina - The fact that many of us are hiding behind secret indentities while on this board is a very telling example of how far reaching the cruel practice of shunning is. There simply is no graceful way to exit the JWs no matter what their PR men say.

59

What exactly are men at the back of the hall taking care of?

by howdidtihappen in

once people have come in, and the doorman and the mic men are in place, why are there a few other suits scattered about at the back?

i saw a guy get up, sit down, get up, sit down, get up and when i looked what he was up to he was reading the noticeboard and looking around, waiting for a bus.

i figured he wasn't doing much at that point, but anything to not stay seated.

MrDarkKnight

When I served as an elder I was up and down ALL the time. I did as much of my WTBS administrative work as I could during the meetings so I would have more time at home for myself. I stood in the back as much as I could as it made the time pass by quicker.

I remember the first meeting I attended after I was no longer an elder. For the first time I realized how incredibly BORING the meetings were. One sister, who is a close friend of mine could see how bored I was. On her way to the restroom she leaned over and whispered in my ear: "Now you get to suffer like the rest of us."

I laughed out loud. The I got up and went outside. I do not miss the meetings at all.

32

JW leadership vacuum - explained!

by sir82 in

jw
friends

jw leadership shows an appalling lack of creativty and originality.. -- meeting attendance down across the board?

let's keep the same 1940's format anyway!.

-- missionaries quitting their assignments?

MrDarkKnight

@Sir82...This is the premise of the book, "The Peter Principle", that people are promoted to their level of imcompetence. I read this book when I was a young 23 year old at Bethel. A fellwo Bethelite and I were rather cynical and used to joke about the fact that the more incompetent you were the higher you seemed to rise. I talked to him recently. We are both out of Bethel but we both have still have copies of this book.

I had no idea that 22 years later I would see this at the highest levels of the organization. The most incompetent people truly have risen to the top!

Great post!

68

No More Missionaries

by Lunatic Faith in

jw
friends

has anyone heard about this?

we received an email from an old friend who is still an elder and doesn't know what we are up to.

"a change, they are no longer training missionaries and sending them into foreign fields.

MrDarkKnight

It's interesting that the focus of Gilead has turned from providing training to bring people in to providing training to keep people in.

16

Whats hot? Curves or Not?

by facebeauty in

jw
friends

ok there are alot of threads on this board about weight and attractiveness.

so i'm curious as to.

what guys or ladies here, find "hot"..... so for example are you a fan of the "keira knightley and kate moss" look or the christina.

MrDarkKnight

I like big butts and I cannot lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face -

Sir Mix-A-Lot

15

JWN is enjoying a renaissance!

by Mickey mouse in

jw
friends

the past few months we've welcomed a lot of newbies who have contributed a lot to this forum.

some quality discussions are taking place, the likes of which i haven't seen here for a while.

in addition, many are taking action to expose the watchtower society for who they really are.

MrDarkKnight

@johnathan dough and new chapter - I think one of the reasons that there is not much in the way of theological debate is because their rich library of posts from 1o years that we newbies can review. I findn some of the older threads EXTREMELY interesting.

Also, frankly there is not much in the way of new material being provided by JWs to discuss and refute. No new interpretations of prophecy, not major doctrinal changes and they have pretty much stayed off the radar the last few years.

However I was directed to this site by Barbara Anderson as place to heal and find understanding and I personally have found that very beneficial.

Thank you all.

MDK

92

The Faithful and Discreet Slave - A JW Myth

by 00DAD in

jw
friends

probably this topic has been dealt with before, but i'm relatively new here, so perhaps y'all will be willing to indulge me in my pursuit for clarity.

regarding the anointed, the gb recently said this: .

"we thus have no way of knowing the exact number of anointed ones on earth; nor do we need to know.

MrDarkKnight

This is a great thread. But ever since I was 16 I had trouble with Matthew 24:45. I just did not buy it. I had a real bright young man that I studied the Bible with back in 1982. He was drinking the kool aid until we got Matthew 24:45. He did not buy it because he sensed that I could not sell it because I did not buy it either.

Here is the question I have always had: If 144,000 is the literal number of those going to heaven are you telling me that over 2,000 year period God could not find 70 or so good Christians a year to fill that number? Seriously? Really? For real?

And I thought the number was supposed to go DOWN as the end drew near. Why has it swelled from 8,000 to 11,000? Why doesn't the GB reach out and talk to these people? Why do they avoid them and call the newer partakers new or unbalanced?

22

Seeking Reinstatement

by Quendi in

no, i'm not seeking to be reinstated so don't worry.

but i did want to raise a point in relation to this.

i know this was true in my case and i've seen it in others i have talked to about this.

MrDarkKnight

@Quendi...When I decided to become inactive, my 12 year old Son said he was concerned that I would die at Armaggeddon. His statement stabbed me in the heart particularly because I WAS THE ONE WHO TAUGHT HIM THIS! As I sat there looking at him I could not help but ask myself the question, What is the difference between teaching that the wicked will die at Armaggeddon or that all wicked people go to hell?

Witnesses pride themselves in stating that a loving God would not torture people for all eternity, but have no probelm embracing a loving God who would terminate the lives of men, women and CHILDREN because they did not listen to Jehovah's Witnesses.

I do not wish to be separated from my son which is why I chose the abrupt fade and inactivity rather than disassociation. I moved to another state to make it more difficult to be reached. I am slowly working on his thinking, so that he will see what he is learning for what it is and I can save him from a life of misery.

With regard to the judicial process I realized today that as an elder I put FAR more people OUT of the organization than I brought in. And you are right. People miss the community and their families and that is why they want back in.

However, many Witness families are VERY liberal and they associate with their disfellowshipped family members no matter what the organization says. You find this particuarly in matriarchal families where the women really have nothing to lose by ingoring this rule. In these families the DF'd ones MAKE NO ATTEMPT to return. Why? They HAVE NO REASON to return as they have NOT LOST what matters to them, their families. My ex-wife's family was this way. Her father was DF's for 26 years. When my ex-wife's family got stricter with him, her father did the routine and was reinstated even though he never stopped smoking or overdrinking. It was an honorary reintstatement. He died not too long after his "reinstatement."

The whole judicial arrangement is unscriptural, unloving and inhumane. I am sure many Witnesses have ended up in therapy due this "tough love" as they call it.