everybody knows the famous "stay alive still 75" audio clip but here is a clip from 1972 with english subtitles.
harold mouritz was the branch committee member in finland when he gave this talk.
later he became the coordinator of the australian branch.
I remember Viv Mouritz. He came from a large family of JWs. His Brother, John was well know in Sydney, and another brother Doug., was a circuit overseer. There was another brother who (I seem to remember) was quite as 'faithful.'
There's a previous thread on Viv; https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/246746/viv-moritz-australian-experience
australia bethel had from 1938 began to make big money!
they employed many brothers.
they opened a saw mill, bakery, 20 kingdom farms, and an engineering company.
I was a kid in 1939-40 so was never near a WTS farm or even a bethel. But when I did become a JW, my father objected on the basis that that the witnesses wouldn't join the army but would sell food to soldiers in the next door army camp.
I'm not defending the the witnesses, but in the interests of 'truth' want to make a few points (that may not please all readers here).
I. The so-called kingdom farms and the road side stalls existed for some (forgotten - likely due to old age and a desire to forget all things witnessy) time before 1939. I think that refusing to serve soldiers from those camps would have been legally difficult. In fact, one brother told me that he, when young, and not a JW, when he enlisted was in Ingleburn Army camp, and had bought food at the stall, and appreciated being able to buy fresh fruit etc. So two different attitudes, my father's viewpoint and this other brother.
That said, I believe that, due to the war, and the need to train soldiers, creating more demand, the then branch (branch overseer was named Mcgiilivray* -see footnote) had added staff to cope with the demand.
Of course, there's another problem, that may have been a peculiarly Aussie problem, there wasn't a particularly high standard of morality among the witnesses at that time. I've had a few folk who worked at that stall, tell me that the brother with oversight of the stall ran an illegal SP betting shop on the side, and on saturday afternoons would retire to his office, shut the door and work on his "books."
Others who worked there also complained that they were not very well treated.
2. Why did all these things happen, one long-serving brother who transferred from Melbourne (where the branch office was previously located) when the Strathfield property was bought told me that there was no money left over. But that there was a lot of unused printing paper left over in one of the buildings and a guillotine. Someone had an idea, cut the paper up and sell it. They did and made quite a lot of money out of it.
And, that raises an aspect of the (then, anyway) Australian character - When you have a problem, 'Quit wingeing, get of your arse and do something about it." And, they did that! And, the WTS (Aussie branch) was soon involved in lots of off-christian activity.
How much commercial work was going on when Rutherford visited in 1938? Some of my informants suggest that R. was not told about the commercial activity.
Anyway, the money that was made, enabled the building of office space and much better printing facilities.
I was only new (as a JW) and somewhat alarmed by my Dad's accusations, so set out to find out what had happened. What I've said above is what I remember of it.
There were only a couple of thousand or so, witnesses in the1930's, and since the great depression (that started in the USA and badly affected Australia, In fact it was still influencing life in Aust,. in 1939) and I guess, they could not have financed anything from the membership of the time.
I've forgotten the details, but most of the property owned by the society was bequeathed in wills or gifted in some other way.
Not every witness, got involved in that commercial work. Bill Schneider, A soldier in WW1 refused to stop pioneering and take on some work that the branch wanted him to do, so he was sent to some far-western NSW town, until Knorr's visit.
Footnote: McGillivray - there's a good story about him. I found it hard to find out anything about him. His former secretary was in my first congregation and thought he was wonderful. Others blamed him for anything wrong with the witnesses in that time.
There's thread here somewhere in which I tell the story about him being shot by an Army sentry. Briefly re-capitulating. The WTS was accused in the first few years of the war of giving information to the enemy, and banned (The High court of Australia later found that the charge was false and exonerated the witnesses). But at the beginning the Army occupied the Strathfield Bethel, but the bethel family were allowed to continue living there. McGillivray came home late one night, and on being challenged by a sentry said something stupid, who promptly shot him (in the shoulder).
Footnote; My father's first job was as an apprentice, he was laid off in from that company in 1929, did a few ways to try to eke out a living and eventually got a government job (his future father-in-laws influence) His first assigned area covered an area about 20 miles long. He was given a bicycle to get around that area.
the kingdom hall is still empty.
even with amalgamation of 2 congregations.
the elders are handling the microphones and there was only one comment from zoom at the watchtower.
had lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.
of one of australia's best universities.
he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.
There's an very interesting court case coming up in the USA. The NY TImes is suing Microsoft and OpenAI, ( the creator of ChatGPT) claiming misuse of articles published by the NY Times.
It brings into the open, an interesting aspect of AI, as the NYTimes case points out, AI has to be fed data - which I guess is exactly what happens with humans through various forms of education and training, including, of course, religious ideas.
I have little understanding of how Microsoft and OpenAI may have "misused" the NY Times copyrighted information, but perhaps it means that data fed to an AI program can be slanted - again just as in the example of the human mind.
A human mind fed with biased information can refuse to examine contrary ideas, our experiences as JW's (or, any other religion, for that matter) illustrates the problem, Rubbish in - rubbish out, some call it.
Will AI be like that???
FYI, I reads about this case, on an Australian Media service, the ABC, a government owned (but, supposedly independent) media group.
Check it at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-28/new-york-times-sued-microsoft-bing-chatgpt-openai-chatbots/103269036
richard dawkins revealed that he celebrates christmas on radio four's today programme.. here is is quoted as saying: .
'i am perfectly happy on christmas day to say merry christmas to everybody,' dawkins said.
'i might sing christmas carols - once i was privileged to be invited to kings college, cambridge, for their christmas carols and loved it.
The real santa, resurrected...Oh!! Sorry!!! I meant to type reconstructed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sCUp1127PA&t=27s
Well, at least their doing better than bloody old yhwh, whose given up resurrecting anyone.
richard dawkins revealed that he celebrates christmas on radio four's today programme.. here is is quoted as saying: .
'i am perfectly happy on christmas day to say merry christmas to everybody,' dawkins said.
'i might sing christmas carols - once i was privileged to be invited to kings college, cambridge, for their christmas carols and loved it.
Sea Breeze: Quote - "Here's what I believe after 60 years on this planet. I believe the most fundamental feature of humans is their ability to lie. They lie to others all the time, but mostly they lie to themselves."
So ...Are your lying to yourself? Are you lying to us?
Another Sea Breeze comment: Quote - "But, the ultimate hypocrisy will occur here in a few days when atheists enjoy all the good things associated with God's birthday, while at the same time claiming (lying to themselves) he doesn't exist."
A bullshit statement!!!
richard dawkins revealed that he celebrates christmas on radio four's today programme.. here is is quoted as saying: .
'i am perfectly happy on christmas day to say merry christmas to everybody,' dawkins said.
'i might sing christmas carols - once i was privileged to be invited to kings college, cambridge, for their christmas carols and loved it.
Surely, this was a dumb question.
I understand the sem-christian origins of Xmas, but in the contemporary celebration, what precisely is christian?
Both in my own suburban shopping centre and in the centre of Sydney today I notice very little that may have christian significance.
Santa Claus and xmas trees rule supreme
buddha of india .
he performed miracles and raised one man, el-azar-us, from the dead.
the sun is the "light of the world.
Josephus wrote about lot's of things. For example, he seems to have thought Vespasian was foretold in the Jewish writings, and here I include someone else's thoughts:
Quote: "Josephus seems to have thought Emperor Vespasian was the Messiah. He writes in Jewish Wars:
"What more than all else incited them [the Jews] to the [1st Roman] war was an ambiguous oracle ... found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. This they understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation of it. The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian who was proclaimed Emperor on Jewish soil" — Josephus' Jewish War 6.312-13. (End of qutote)"
Interestingly, many conclude that Vespasian was actually proclaimed Emperor when he and his army had reached Egypt.
When we examine the writings of ancient people, we can't conclude events were as well-known as they may be today, when radio and TV etc. can make events widely known. Even so opinions can vary.
had lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.
of one of australia's best universities.
he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.
a long, long time ago, when i was young, i became a 'special' pioneer.
it meant that i had to spend 150 hours a month, and i received a small allowance.
i was then assigned to a small country congregation, in western nsw (australia).
It's more than 30 years since I was chucked out of the spiritual paradise, and about 60 years since the experiences I've described.
I no longer think that there's someone up in the sky, looking after "his" (or maybe "hers," or even "its") people on earth. Did all the hours spent in preaching or "helping" people, by myself or anyone else, ever have any real benefits?
I did try to be some sort of comforter to the Sister I (the one who lost her son in a blood issue), but from my present perspective I suggest that she needed 'help' from someone with far more training and experience in providing psychological/psychiatric assistance than a young bible basher could ever provide.
From a more general perspective, has anything that christianity or any other religious group done, ever made an iota of difference to the human condition. I've visited Asian countries many times, and see buddhist adherents praying fervently, but no modern day buddha has appeared to relieve their problems.
