I know a lot of tradesman and they are all Witnesses. That's because when a young Witness man is about to enter the working world he thinks not of his future prospects, but of his present circumstance. He is recommended this approach by his peers, his role models and his God. It's requires less time to become an apprentice or to simply teach yourself a certain trade than to get a formal education. The result is a large army of tradesman within the Organization of Jehovah's Witnesses.
It's an interesting community to grow up within. It ultimately didn't work out for me since my mind is the type that would work better in theoretical physics or anthropology. Not necessarily the type of mind that shines within a tradesman's arena such as construction, auto repair or flooring.
Why am I telling you this? Because it's needed information to understand the questions that have arose in my mind.
Jehovah's Witnesses have unique community building projects called Quick Builds. Since there are so many tradesman to sample from the Organization they are able to assemble whole religious buildings in a weekend. They obtain the workers by keeping track of skills in each of the congregations. A lot of these tradesman travel several hours, or more, by automobile to the Quick Build sites. I was always very proud of my community for being so thorough and unified; the outside world called it "amazing" and I had a warm feeling about the whole arrangement.
Every week, as a child, I would be read, along with the crowd, the Accounts Report at my tuesday night Kingdom Meeting: The Theocratic Ministry School and Service Meeting. The report would be read before the Service Meeting and right after the Theocratic Ministry School. One of the items always refered to was our Kingdom Hall mortgage. We paid it with the money we placed in the donation box in the back of the Kingdom Hall. Sometimes the hall would be paid off and as a kid I didn't understand deeds or property or anything like that.
According to several accounts I have read on this forum the deed is allegedly handed over to the Watch Tower Society when paid off by the congregation. How can that be? You mean to tell me that these people forgo an education to enter a trade, that will likely overtax their body before their time; then use that skill, without pay, to build their place of worship to God; then, after it's built, the mortgage is paid off over 15 years with the money the tradesman makes either running his own outfit or working for someone else; then when the building, that they constructed from the ground up, is paid for it is then legally handed over to the Watch Tower Society? Besides raising a family, working full time and a lot of times having congregational duties this tradesman is required to have at least 9 hours in the membership growth work so that new tradesman can take his place or add to his "empire" of 1.
Because if that were true when the Society sells the peice of land they originally bought, likely for a very cheap price, it now has a top-notch religious building on it and is worth a ridiculous amout of profit.
How does one justify that kind of profit directly from the backs of others?
Why do I get the feeling that Kingdom Halls are more like harvesting nodes?
-Sab
