The Mystery behind the Conventions and Assemblies (page 2)

Amnesty Vendor

Here's a question.

Have you ever been to a ball game, or concert or other post assembly venue and heard someone say?:

Holy cow! Who cleaned the cr?p & p*ss off the bathroom floors? They must worship the only true god or something. I just gotta hook up with these folks!

WTS had me believing that the creator of the universe was personally interested in me scraping gum off the stadium seats, so the poor worldy folks would know that he is the only true god.

Next summer, ask your co-workers and neighbors who is meeting downtown this week? I wonder how many will say: Them JWs, I wonder what they are doing in there?

Amnesty Vendor

Here's a question. Have you ever been to a ball game, or concert or other post assembly venue and heard someone say?: Holy cow! Who cleaned the cr?p & p*ss off the bathroom floors? They must worship the only true god or something. I just gotta hook up with these folks! WTS had me believing that the creator of the universe was personally interested in me scraping gum off the stadium seats, so the poor worldy folks would know that he is the only true god. Next summer, ask your co-workers and neighbors who is meeting downtown this week? I wonder how many will say: Them JWs, I wonder what they are doing in there?

Amnesty Vendor

Here's a question. Have you ever been to a ball game, or concert or other post assembly venue and heard someone say?: Holy cow! Who cleaned the cr?p & p*ss off the bathroom floors? They must worship the only true god or something. I just gotta hook up with these folks! WTS had me believing that the creator of the universe was personally interested in me scraping gum off the stadium seats, so the poor worldy folks would know that he is the only true god. Next summer, ask your co-workers and neighbors who is meeting downtown this week? I wonder how many will say: Them JWs, I wonder what they are doing in there?

Stealth453

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Exactly!!!!!

Farkel

You asked:

: Did the Watchtower hold conventions to show the world God has a united people?

No.

: Did money play the primary importance as an income source for the Watchtower? Yes, and I'll show you why.

: Did the assemblies set the stage for recruiting more members?

No. It rarely worked unless they were selling the end-of-the world du jour.

:What do you think was the motivation behind the conventions and assemblies?

Money, money, money. The conventions have been a very profitable world-wide book-promotion venue with a built-in audience. I remember it well. It was all about the new BOOKS!. i.e the "new releases' wherein we would all cull through them and find out that the old lies were replaced by newer and better lies. Everyone lined up en masse to BUY the new books and people actually shoved and pushed to get to the front of the line before they ran out. I saw (many times) people buying up a whole bunch of new books and their family members buying up a bunch more of the new books at the major Conventions. The Watchtower Printing Corporation(tm) worked up the frenzy with the speaches from the speakers and the masses came. And they bought the books.

Whether those folks "placed" those books or not was not important. The Watchtower Printing Corporation made a profit on every Assmebly/Convention. It was a BUILT IN book-buying audience, fer cryin' out loud! They made a profit on food when they were legally allowed to offer food and not have to pay taxes on it. They always made a profit on parking lot fees, even though in many cases their contract forbade them to charge for parking lot fees. They made a profit on dubbie Convention ID Badges. William Schnell pointed this out: Rutherford calculated that he could produce badges for a fraction of a penny and then charge a few pennies for each one, and the congregations REQUIRED dubbies to get them.

What a racket. What a racket.

Yes, the conventions were partly about control: for example, we were are TOLD to RISE for the concluding comments, ala a Hitlerian environment, but mostly it was another profit center for the Watchtower. We were the fools. They sold us books that became obsolete soon later, only to be replaced by newer and "better" books. It's all about the books and mags. We had the thought police who told us how many paper towels and toilet paper to use when we had to the visit the bathrooms. We had Nazis who grilled those of us who wandered around during the sessions about why we were not in the stadium. We had those same Nazis who trolled the parking lots and grilled those of us who were in our cars and asked us why we were not being brainwashed in the stadium.

I really enjoyed giving up all of my childhood and younger life in the "Christian Brotherhood" of Jehovah's Witlesses. Yep, I sure did.

Farkel

choosing life

Number one reason has got to be money. Built in book sales and donations on top of this. Many times they used facilities for free and then whined how they needed money to pay for them.

Second reason was to impress the followers that there was a worldwide brotherhood. I remember the first convention I attended. It convinced me that jws were a much more significant religion than they really were.

Undecided

Now MQ, stop talking about me.

It really seems like a lot of people at conventions, especially if you live in some backwater in North Carolina and attend a congregation of 60 or fewer members.

Ken P.

TweetieBird

When my children were little, I always felt the conventions were designed to help parents cope with persecution. To me, being put in prison would have been preferable than trying to force small children to sit quiet all day.

dedpoet

Assemblies and conventions don't show the "world" anything, apart from the fact that there are a lot of jws all in one large place, instead of many smaller places. I would imagine the "world" unwittingly enjoys conventions and assemblies more than most jws do. It gives them a break from having their sleep disturbed on Saturday and Sunday mornings by some over - zealous moron trying to sell them a magazine or a book.

The prime purpose of assemblies is to raise funds. The wts know that, when the annual new (recycled) publication is released, the dubs will fall over themselves to get it. When the inevitable announcement is made on the last afternoon that the assembly is running at a loss, they will head for the donation boxes to contribute enough to make up for the (usually non - existent) shortfall.

Whatever other changes the wts makes, or is forced to make, over the next few years, the assemblies and conventions will never end. They are among the biggest money - spinners the org has.

dedpoet

Jim_TX

I'm not sure of the reason - although I'm betting that money is involved - otherwise, they'd discontinue them - and retreat to their 'one day' assemblies at their assembly halls.

Personally - when I was a good lil' JW - I always looked forward to them. No - not to sitting there being bored outta my gourd - but to the 'lets go to xxx city and see other jw friends from long ago'.

I also looked forward (when I was a teenager with raging hormones) to seeing all the gals there... *shy grin* ...although I always knew that I'd never get to meet any of 'em. (They always seemed to be hanging on the arms of some of those fellas that were more 'theocratic' than I ever was.)

But last - and not least - I always looked forward to 'volunteering' - usually for the sound department - so that I could get out of having to sit through the entire day of being bored. Being in the sound department - I got to wander during the speeches - and 'check the sound levels' - making sure that every corner had adequate volume.

Regards,

Jim TX

The Mystery behind the Conventions and Assemblies

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