New York Bethel Bus Trip & MET Tour

by What Now? 23 Replies latest jw experiences

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  Band on the Run

  Ecuse me. I've been a member of the MET since late high school. Indeed, I can recall when hardly anyone visited the MET. The MET receives a lot of govt financing and private foundation money. Is this tour called by a special name? I am curious about the docent. The leader is not disfellowshiped.? Sounds not kosher.

  Is the content neutral but the leader is a Witness? If the content is skewed towards Witness teachings, there may be a way to stop the tours. On the other hand, the MET was one of the seductive experiences in becocming "worldly." There are several early Christianity pieces and even later that directly challenge Witness teachings.

  I wonder what art history periods are shown/ The MET. Well, MMA, not to be confused with the Met, the opera house.

  Jewish donors might want to learn of this Witness tour.
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  bytheirworks

  I've been on the tour of both parts of the Woman & the Seed.

  The tour shows you all the mummies & "false" gods.

  The bethelite starts off with Egypt and talks alot about how the Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul.

  Then they goto Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar.

  Then the tour ends EXACTLY at Jerusalem's destruction. Why? Because there's nothing to support their fake 607 BCE date!!!!

  The whole purpose of the tour is to trick you into thinking the Watchtower's interprettion of the Bible is soooooo correct.

  Then the Bethelite says: "This concludes Part 1 of the tour. Please schedule again to see Part 2." (Part 2 starts off with Alexander the Great of the Greek Empire, TOTALY BY-PASSING anything to do with the real 587 BCE date.)

  Then the JW huddle around the Bethelite and thank him & praise him & give him more money.

  I'm not kidding. If you ever get to go on this tour, do what I did when you get toward the end of. ASK: "Where is the 607 BCE date? We just spent all this time & money verifying these Bible facts against archeologoy right? Where is the 607 BCE date?"

  The Bethelite quickly got us into the elevator & before we hit the lobby, simply turned the question over to the group. "Hey, anybody know when Jerusalem was destroyed?" The group of JW's answered in one voice 607 BCE!!!

  I felt trapped in an elevator with a bunch of brain sucking zombies.
• 

  steve2

  I would envisage that the Witness tour would consist of two parts played over and over and over and over:

  Part 1: Lots of artistic depictions of the scary destruction wreaked by Armageddon (e.g., churches cracked wide open, priests and nuns with fear etched on their faces as the earth opens up to swallow their still warm bodies, children running scared into oblivion with their cuddlesome toys and teddy bears thrown helter skelter by angelic forces, perhaps a plummeting plane included for added horror and of course, lightning struck skyscrapers, etc);

  Part 2: Depictions of absolutely perfect paradise conditions (e.g., endlessly smiling peoples each wearing well pressed cultural clothing, barbeques 24/7, the occasional farmer ploughing unfenced feilds and, of course, "sisters" baking cookies to give to their clean, well-behaved, well-dressed children - oh, almost forgot, a few choice lambs laying down with lions in a nice, playful way).
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  bytheirworks

  steve 2, you're speculations are debunked. I will say tho, that the Bethelite who conducts the tour has a Watchtower ouline that he's reading from to the group. As someone who paid for the tour, it was pretty much a manipulated talk outline, designed to show how close history matches the GB's teachings. In reality it is just a cherry picking, look here don't look there, tour with scriptures that the Bethlite quotes from the outline. Remember how God put eternity into the minds of men? See the Egyptians tried to be immortal thru mummification. Remember how the Isrealites mixed true worship with false gods? Look at this Artifact mentioning Jehovah's name over this sex act. Overall, interesting... but manipulated.
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  CuriousButterfly

  I have not done the that specific tour but many of my friends have and always keep suggesting we go. We have been in NYC numerous times and were never interested in the tour but have to some fun in the city.

  The company is Oasis Biblical Tours.

  http://www.oasisgrouptours.com/obt/Home.html

  http://www.oasisgrouptours.com/obt/mettours.html
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  Narcissistic Supply

  It's a METH tour. They make you smoke it...
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  What Now?

  Hi everyone,

  Sorry, "the MET" = the metropolitan museum of art in New York.

  From what I understand, it's not an official museum tour - its a small group of pioneers or Bethelites that run a small side tour for visitors to the New York Bethel. I have known several people that have organized bus trips to Brooklyn/Walkill/Patterson, and this special tour is an option for one of the free days.

  Freeof1914 - You actually gave the tour, wow! I'm just curious as to what things were highlighted and how these were connected to Witness beliefs ... and I find it so interesting that giving this tour was instumental in your leaving!

  bytheirworks - that's pretty much what I figured.
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  steve2

  its a small group of pioneers or Bethelites that run a small side tour for visitors to the New York Bethel.

  To make it worth their while, I bet they count their time conducting these tours.

  Hi everyone,

  Sorry, "the MET" = the metropolitan museum of art in New York.

  Thanks for that clarification, What Now? I visited this museum with my partner 3 weeks ago. Totally enjoyable experience. We also visited MOMA: The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. I have the tee-shirt to prove it!

  We have been in NYC numerous times and were never interested in the tour but have to some fun in the city.

  O CuriousButterfly, you speak my language. I could think of few things worse than wasting one's valuable time in the Big Apple going on a pre-digested JW tour of any museum. Equal parts Bor-ing and Infuriating!
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  ShirleyW

  So if I'm following correctly, there are a few Bethelites that are giving tours at the MET ( wondered how they worked their way in their do that) reading Bible scriptures and so forth, so if the museum decides to a special exhibition of the Vatican taking up most of the museums space, then I guess the Bethelite will refuse to do his job for a while (but yet demand to be paid) . . . ??
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  Freeof1914

  Hey guys,

  So the museum actually has an agreement with the brother in charge of the entire operation. In terms of putting a stop to it, highly doubtful being that they even provide a seperate staging area for the tours on Saturdays and Sundays. The MET apprecuiates I am sure the money that is generated with these tours. As a tour guide I would have to pay the museum and the remainder of the money would go to the brother in charge of all of this. When I joined the tour guide group, the company was beginning to steer away from hiring bethel it's, because there were rumbling that bethel would be leaving Brooklyn.

  In terms of how it is organized, the best way I can describe itmismthat we were given something similar to a public talk outline. If you are familiar with that set up then this is exactly how the tour is done. We were given a ton of info and then prepared on our own and decided which exhibits interested us the most and those were the ones we delivers. Essentially, the exhibits are spun to support bible accounts regarding the exodus, Nimrod's existence and the building ofmthe Tower of Babel etc. Above all though the information is spun to favor all Witness and beliefs and place other religions in a negative light and show how these other religions all have pagan beliefs.

  In my case it was instrumental in leaving, because as I began to delve into the research and the secular authors that were quoted by the the watchtower I began to notice two things. They cherry picked their quotes and only selected what benefitted or supported their doctrine. Many times the author would be in complete opposition to what the watchtower said, but since only part of the quote was used the reader would never know. The other thing I noticed was that many of the things that I researched and were quoted by the watchtower were written by authors or researchers that were completely insane or had been discredited long ago. When I realized this is struck,me as to how complete the control of information the watchtower had over us and that just added to my already nagging thoughts.

  Unfortunately, I threw out my English notes in the tour, but I do have the electronic version of the Spanish notes which are identical. I will not post them here because they are legally protected and I did sign an agreement to this, but I will gladly email them to anyone that is interested.