What a great read TERRY ....perhaps you should take note of Mad Tiger 's comments "Whether true or not, Dan Brown or Tom Clancy should get started on it quick!!!" Start writing your first book ,I'd buy a copy
YOU "THINK" YOU KNOW.....BUT...YOU DON'T KNOW!!
by Terry 93 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Gregor
Terry, Your such a cynic! And right on target!
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Bryan
If you only take into consideration the magazines sold to rank and file. Maybe 7 sets per member per month, times 6 million.
Cash Cow
Bryan
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Gordy
Great post Terry
Contained things I have thought and said for a long time.
Especially about what do they do with the money!
I have pointed out to JW's that after 100+ years of preaching and the millions of pieces of literature printed. Just what does the ordinary man-in -the-street know about them?
Ask most people what they know about JW's and you get basically "No blood, No Christmas or birthdays, they knock on doors"
Is that the sum of 100+ years of preaching!!
Yet the Watchtower has its members believing the rest of the world is talking about them, that ministers of other religions are scared of them.
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_Atlas
Well Terry I got my reserves on the issue.
Let me clarify that I am in no way a WT apologetic but some pieces of the puzzle are conspicuously missing here.
Why didn’t Ray Franz come clear of the destinies of the money when he rat them out? I suspect a member of the GB will be privi to all this. Yet he hardly mentioned the issue.
If the WT sole purpose was to accumulate wealth, would that be consistent with their promoting of illegal alien type jobs for their membership? Wouldn’t they be better with the ‘buy your way to heaven’ motto that other religious institutions have adopted successfully? Keeping their members in the dark intellectually could be a plausible explanation for preventing the R&F from educating themselves but you can just as easily promote greed without education and still benefit on the results. Other religions have a better ordered ‘donation’ system that still allows them to remain under the tax exemptions and maximize their gains.
Are these men who run this organization just a greedy bunch who like to sit back and count the money while they rust away in apartment complexes in NYC while periodically flying to Zimbabwe to be the star speaker at the international convention down there? If you ask me, these men do not look like the voracious type they supposedly are. Extravagant Rutherford would be a better example of the kind of person who craves money and is quick to expend it in queer ways. Are they just being kept in check due to the new structure of the GB? Are they just employees of a larger outside structure that scrutinizes their expenses? Possibly… but it is hard to imagine a Governing Body so gluttonous yet so cohesive thru out the years with out no one coming out suing for lost income or some other kind of compensatory reclamation due to his intimate knowledge of WT economic structure. Human beings are greedy by nature.
No one in the face of evidence can deny the lengths that they will go to when protecting or trying to enhance their economic resources. It is evident that there are very few boundaries (legal or ethical) to this practice.
But all this is also consistent with a bunch of zealots trying to make the best of their assets in preparation for that huge expansion in ‘business’ that is impending since the 1800s. Like a fellow poster once said: ‘Religious businessmen protecting their religious business…’
Perhaps those 300 Shareholders are the key that we should be looking for… Are they being compensated at all for their ‘investment’?
Until some hard evidence of the final destination of the money surfaces I will remain skeptical that they are more financially oriented than religiously.
All the theories mentioned here make a lot of sense but in the absence of any evidence they should remain as theories.
Besides, we got so many other things to pin them down with…
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Gill
Sounds a pretty accurate summary of the WTBTS, Terry.
I believe, as others, that the WTBTS did start as a religion, but has gradually transformed into a money making bOrganization.....and that's all that it is now! Nothing more, and nothing else. What's fascinating is that it's a money making organization with no product at all, just useless bits of paper......however, it makes excellent brainwashed slaves that happily hand over their cash!
Someone has to expose them sooner or later. Are they able to silence anyone who COULD expose them for what they really are?
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Terry
Until some hard evidence of the final destination of the money surfaces I will remain skeptical that they are more financially oriented than religiously.
All the theories mentioned here make a lot of sense but in the absence of any evidence they should remain as theories.
The question remains. Why bother investing money? Why bother buying buildings and selling them for profit? What good is the money when Armageddon IS ANY DAY NOW?? Wink wink, nudge nudge.
You see? There is a gross insult to the intelligence in this dissonant fact. Either the Watchtower believes what it is preaching or it doesn't. The financial activity tells us it DOESN'T.
As far as how these men at the top live or don't live----what information are any of us privvy to? And that is my point. By remaining largely anonymous they do not make themselves targets like Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, etc. whose every movement is tracked by the media. The Watchtower gang has found a better way; built a better mousetrap.
The Mega-Church is built around a central person who has charisma. C.T. Russell was such a man. When he died the entire sum of his life's work was in a tailspin. J.F.Rutherford hijacked the religion and replaced C.T.Russell with himself as the central charismatic figure. But, he was unlikeable! Whereas Russell used persuasion and gimmicky charts and lovely prose to stir up interest; Rutheford made the rank and file into contrarians who were the opposite of every person who ever walked in the front door of a church. He made the rank and file the object of media attention and not himself! The Joe Blow JW got the attention for letting their young son die of a needed blood transfusion. JW kids got heckled and despised for not standing and saluting the flag or saying the Pledge or celebrating Christmas. The cart was placed before the horse, so to speak.
By not following the example of Christendom's churches a pattern was set for the more business oriented types to run the Organization and make it into something self-sustaining and even profitable in a different way.
Nathan Knorr was an organizer. He shaped up the rank and file and let Fred Franz run loose with the religious end of it.
By the time Knorr was no longer the tip of the pyramid even Fred Franzy couldn't derail the new machine.
As far as WHY Ray Franz did not blow the whistle on the finances of the Watchtower think about this. Franz received at least one large cash payment from the Society when he left. He left on bad terms, yet, he was paid.
There seem to me to be three possibilities.
1.Franz did not delve into the finances of the Watchtower Society because he was out of the financial loop.
2.Franz deliberately avoided implicating himself as a Governing Body member in what would become huge scandals (thus shooting himself in the foot for being a part of it.)
3.Franz was promised money for the rest of his life if he would keep silent about the money.
But, such speculations are silly and easily lead to all sorts of ridiculous conspiracy theories. I don't go there. It doesn't matter to me who did what to who and why.
All I know is that it is mighty mysterious there was absolutely NO MENTION of where the money goes by a man who sat in the room with top guys. He had every reason to say at least "something" nice/awful about the money if he were going to reveal ALL. But, he remains silent on the one issue that could drag the LAW into the boardroom. Doctrines (true or false) are not a concern of the authorities who police financial malefeasance. So, Franz had a free ride in that department.
Until we know where the millions (if not billions) are buried; we know nothing about what the Watchtower Society really is.
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hillary_step
Terry,
I believe that if the aquiring of money were the motive for the WTS it would be a much easier beast to bring to heel. My experience is that the GB and those in 'higher office' strongly believe the ideology that the WTS stands for. They believe it as strongly as you believed it when at your most fervent. This is what makes them so difficult to deal with as an Organization, and this is why Raymond Franz refers to the GB in 'Crisis Of Conscience', as 'victims of victims'. Ted Jaracz for example, refuses to accept any of the personal 'donations' that are sent his way and either returns them or places them in the coffers.
The aquisition of buildings, and now the selling of many of these buildings are viewed by the WTS as a tool to enable them to 'do the will of God'. I do not believe this is about money with the WTS, I wish it were!
The WTS do have personnel in the Bethel homes who specialize in investment in equities and other vehicles for safeguarding its investments. This frankly seems to me to be prudent for a large Organization that costs millions each year to run. I know some of these 'investors' have made a lot of money for some of the Bethel staff whose portfolios are handed to them. I know of a Branch co-ordinator who has for many years refused the monthly stipend that he and his wife are entitled to as he no longer needs the cash, now being financially independent.
I think that the ideology of the WTS is far more dangerous than its wealth, but it is this wealth that allows it to propagate and grow its poison.
HS
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Junction-Guy
My mother in law, who knows very little of the JW religion, told me it sounded like they were a front for the mafia.----But yes the questions still remain, #1-where is the money going? and #2-Who are the 300 shareholders? I remember reading here that the WT Society said these 300 shareholders are not JW's. Imagine a billion dollar religious corporation controlled by people who arent even believers in it. It makes you wonder just who is pulling the strings behind the WT Society?
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AK - Jeff
Terry - You and I rarely see eye-to-eye [This is actually a good thing as it stimulates thought]. But in this matter I am 100% in agreement.
Primarily in the real estate market they are engaged. They 'own' technically virtually all KH's in the US as I understand it. Then they use the local witnesses to pay for the financing of repairs and new halls, with money they 'borrow' from Brooklyn, repay to Brooklyn, then deed the property in the end to Brooklyn. Local elders administrate the property legally, but the ownership is really one of the WTS corporations. Someone please correct me if wrong.
Your post is right on.
The message is cloudy and unclear and confusing, because the message is unneeded. It keeps dubs busy and active and interested and contributing to upkeep of Brooklyn property. Free ownership, free maintenance, taxes and insurance paid for them. All they need to do is keep the sheep they have to maintain the wealth.
Jeff