by cookiemaster 82 Replies latest jw experiences
having had contact with financial enforcers and observed at close range some of the top "spiritual" movers & shakers, It appears
the organisation has a double personality.
heartlessnes, greed in the former and
aloofness, overconfidence, but also sincerity in the latter.
which of these real entities will prevail, or dominate, ought to depend on the current and coming circumstances.?
It truly is an organization of the blind leading the blind, so anyone high enough up in power at one time or another could of set things up to embezel money for them selves and others and once this was setup no one would be the wiser to it.
When i was in bethel, i went into the new flats, they were new and they filled the flats from the floor up. We were in the first flat. I had a pal higher up and so bypassed,being a janitor for a year and got good accomodation. The legal team had the top floor to themselves. They didnt talk to us, they all had cars, we had s mini bus (we were 30 mins away from hq).
Tney had nice clothing and were just living a very different life. I am sure they were JW's, Iam sure I asked my pal. But they NEVER spoke to us, never associated with us, always seemed flash with cash.
Someone at that time was driving an Aston Martin DB9, quite a big thing for the time, parked outside HQ doors every day, all the cheap suited testosterone filled lads admiring it for the car porn it was (and remains). I love cars, but that car just left a bad taste in my mouth.... I knew how much they cost.
APOGNOPHOS - With all due respect to you, of course you are free to believe what you desire to believe, but since I know what I know from a reliable inside source who was connected to the GB - I'll stand by what I say.
Your rhetorical question, " Can you imagine Legal telling Writing " Don't write this " ? Yes I can. Very much so. With all the child abuse lawsuits and other slippages and errors the WT Society has made in the last 10 years or more- yeah, I can imagine the WT corporate attorneys really advising the Writing Committee strongly to choose words and expressions to use in more legalistic accepted fashion indeed.
Here's the deal- WT Society powers that be- whether the GB OR the legal WT team or Writing Committee are going to print what is in the best interests of the WT Society corporate business machine- because at the end of the day THAT is what the WT organization is and does- it's a money making financial entity- and that takes priority no matter how or WHAT means WT powers have to use to protect that asset.
In proof of that statement I just made how do we explain in the early 1990's Ted Jaracz ( who allegedly was guilty of child abuse himself ) strongarming Lloyd Barry and trying to prevent him and the Writing department from printing articles condemning child abuse in that Awake magazine ? Lloyd Barry eventually prevailed as did the Writing committee- but not before Jaracz about blew a gasket as he did NOT want negative repercussions to not only come back on him , but was more concerned about the " group apearance " of the WT Society to the public - rather than the protection of innocent child molestation victims and how arents could protect them ?
Point I'm making is in the GB eyes or WT eaders eyes it's ALWAYS " organization needs first, individual needs last or never at all ". That's been proven time and again. To think otherwise is burying one's head in the sand like an ostrich.
Also- not to belabor the point- your quote about Ray Franz, " Ray Franz was a well-known figure with unassailable earnestness , and he did not document anything nefarious about the Society, did he ? " Well- he DID expose quite a bit of inhumane and unethical practices by the WT Society. Evil, wicked things they did. Nefarious ? Sure, WT Society is guilty of being nefarious. But Ray probably KNEW a lot more than he was willing to print at the time because if you remember he was being extremely hounded by the WT powers that be on his own Governing Body as he and his wife virtually had no place to live ! Only by the grace of knowing Peter Gregerson did he have ANYWHERE to live if my memory serves me right - so it's no small wonder that Ray had to temper what he wrote in detail about the WT Society- they were all OVER him ripping his life out from under him along with his wife ! Blackballing him and ruining his reputation severely. Of course Ray Franz was one of the most earnest men on the planet- but do you think he valued his life more ? What life he HAD after exiting the WT Society ? He was smart enough not to get too aggressive against the WT Society because none of us know to what lengths the WT Society may have gone to stop him. Nobody knows. O.K. I'm done . Love you lots Apog, just had to voice some opinions here
Napolean hill would say it's a "Burning Desire" backed by a spirit of faith...and put in to action."
You can do almost anything with that attitude. JW's have proved you can sell sand at the beach; commence pounding sand.
Its like with the rest of human society, there are good forces working upon every person and bad ones. Those who give in to the bad ones slowly desintegrate because the virtues and goldly qualities are slowly lost. That´s why there are sexual predators, within the (b)org, as well as outside off cause. The ugly part of the story is that the leadership is easily drawn away from humanistic, godly properties, as they are greedy in terms of power and money(material assets) and status.
Jesus was very mild when he dealt with individual sinners. To the contrary, he was very severe, even harsh with people in power who had the same problems as the GB today. So it looks like bad (satanic?) influences have taken over like in any other developed religious system on this planet.
To resume, I would not like to be in their place as their judgement will not be a walk through the park.
God bless.
Flipper: " Can you imagine Legal telling Writing " Don't write this " ? Yes I can.....I can imagine the WT corporate attorneys really advising the Writing Committee strongly to choose words and expressions to use in more legalistic accepted fashion indeed."
I agree. I would go further in saying that WT has changed, or considered what it publishes under legal advice, not just their literature, but their own Bible to avoid legal trouble. Case in point: The Revised NWT has removed "mentally diseased" from 1Tim. 6:4. Do you think that decision was motivated by a Translation Committee interested only in 'scriptural accuracy'? Or, more by WT attorneys advising the GB to distance themselves from the scrutiny that hateful term brought upon the WT by secular authorities and the legal fallout sure to come?
WT is a business posing as a religion, nothing more. Those who believe otherwise are prime fodder for the WT corporate machine....
AndDontcallmeshirley- Wow. I was not aware that the WT Society had taken out the term " mentally diseased " from their New Bible translation. Incredible. Well, yeah, that definitely proves that the legal department and WT attorneys ARE having an influence on the GB and writing committee because they are scared of the legal repercussions of possible lawsuits from the " mentally diseased " blunder they pulled in the media. Thanks for bringing that out . Very interesting
Your rhetorical question, " Can you imagine Legal telling Writing " Don't write this " ? Yes I can. Very much so.
I'm afraid you missed my point there, look at my next sentences. I was trying to say that the GB can push through anything they want because of their status as "God's channel", overriding any objections from Legal.
In proof of that statement I just made how do we explain in the early 1990's Ted Jaracz [...] trying to prevent [...] the Writing department from printing articles condemning child abuse in that Awake magazine ?
Well, that's a good point, and in that case I guess a GB member lost an argument. But in terms of why he did this, as I said earlier: "Top-level brothers are also ideal company men, of course. They do not draw much of a line between the corporation and the belief system, so anything that threatens one threatens the other. Thus an action taken to preserve the org. would be, in their own mind, a defense of 'the truth'."
This sentiment agrees with what you just said here:
Point I'm making is in the GB eyes or WT eaders eyes it's ALWAYS " organization needs first, individual needs last or never at all ". That's been proven time and again.
What I took exception to was your earlier statement that "The WT Society is a money making corporation USING Jehovah's Witnesses as a religious front for a marketing tool to make huge profits." At what point do true believers rising up through the ranks (elder, CO, DO, Bethel) get initiated into the secret that "we're just a money-making corporation"? What happens if they don't go along with it? It just strikes me as a crazy conspiracy theory.
What I do agree with is that the corporation has become a sort of end unto itself for brothers at the top, without their realizing it. I simply don't believe that there is a knowing deception going on at such a fundamental level (besides the minor deceptions that they participate in to "avoid stumbling the flock", like the UN thing).
Also- not to belabor the point- your quote about Ray Franz, " Ray Franz was a well-known figure with unassailable earnestness , and he did not document anything nefarious about the Society, did he ? " Well- he DID expose quite a bit of inhumane and unethical practices by the WT Society. Evil, wicked things they did.
Okay, that was a poor choice of words. What I was getting at with the word "nefarious" was some Oz-like illusion or master deception. The man behind the curtain knows what he's doing, whereas I doubt the GB do.
Ray probably KNEW a lot more than he was willing to print at the time because if you remember he was being extremely hounded by the WT powers that be on his own Governing Body as he and his wife virtually had no place to live ! [...] He was smart enough not to get too aggressive against the WT Society because none of us know to what lengths the WT Society may have gone to stop him.
See, I can't agree with this. It's true that if he went too far with allegations that he did not have hard evidence for, they could have sued him into oblivion. However, he lived for many years after his disfellowshipping, and never seemed to append anything to the book he wrote as far as further scandals, nor did he apparently arrange for anything revelatory to be published after his passing, nor do I think he would have been able to write what he did about his crisis of conscience while avoiding the subject of it all being some kind of master deception for money and/or power. Talk about an elephant in the room.
I know that you talked to an "inside source", but it's important not to take people's words and treat them as an authority without any backup. We had a certain poster here who could sound very rational and who could discuss the Bible and history very intelligently, and then if you talked to him long enough you started realizing that he had a massive messianic delusion. Since you said you only spoke to this person once, I don't worry that I'm being disrespectful to a friend of yours, but rather I am simply saying that it takes a while to know if someone has some, well, odd beliefs or mental processes.
Case in point: The Revised NWT has removed "mentally diseased" from 1Tim. 6:4. Do you think that decision was motivated by a Translation Committee interested only in 'scriptural accuracy'? Or, more by WT attorneys advising the GB to distance themselves from the scrutiny that hateful term brought upon the WT by secular authorities and the legal fallout sure to come?
Considering the stilted nature of that translation, and the fact that all of the awkward wordings from the NWT seem to have been revised, I don't see any reason to assume that there was a legal reason for this one change, especially because the verse is not speaking about modern-day apostates; the Society chose to apply it that way, and if they were concerned about a legal situation, they would stop printing such things in their literature; the Bible itself would not need to change.
This is a classic example of how we can all see the same thing and interpret it totally differently based on our existing expectations. There's no way to really tell who's right, but there's definitely an innocuous explanation considering that the choice of wording was always peculiar.
I do believe Mr. Flipper is right about the kingdom hall remodeling scam. The latest push in some areas is to just make the RBC its free labor construction crew on new properties.My family puts themselves in very bad financial situations to travel across America to oversee projects worth tens of millions of dollars, for not one dime of reimbursment. While working on a California assembly hall recently, they were informed that 72 brand new halls were needed immediatly!......"there is just so much growth here, Jehovah is really speeding up the work"..i was told. Oh, Really?
