by DevonMcBride 13 Replies latest jw friends
I don't know if this was brought up before but it looks like the Watchtower doesn't consider investing in the stock market as gambling. I guess since they got caught investing in it, they had to come up with new light.
http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2000/10/8a/article_01.htm
Hello DevonMcBride,
thanks for the reminder and the precious link.
Another one for the file.!
As you wrote correctly:
"...since they got caught investing in it,
they had to come up with new light. "
Greetings, J.C.MacHislopp
The Society has always allowed individual JWs to invest in the stock market. This policy was not created because they were caught investing in it. The Society did at one time, however, prohibit local congregations from investing or from having their congregation funds in interest bearing accounts up until the early 1990s. About that time the Society raised the interest rate on Kingdom Hall loans from 3% to 6%, and then they quietly allowed congregations to have funds in interest bearing accounts. I understand that in recent years the interest rate the Society charges has once again been reduced to 3%.
I understand that in recent years the interest rate the Society charges has once again been reduced to 3%
They charge interest on their loans to the congregations? Well now that is interesting.
Psalm 15 [NWT] -
O Jehovah, who will be a guest in your tent?
Who will reside in your holy mountain?
He who is walking faultlessly and practicing righteousness
...
His money he has not given out on interest.
...
I don't know if this was brought up before but it looks like the Watchtower doesn't consider investing in the stock market as gambling
yeah well, that's good, because it's not.
Investing is investing. Gambling is gambling. There is a difference for intelligent people.
Watchtower doesn't consider investing in the stock market as gambling.
Maybe it's not gambling, but you could lose all you have, thus you could put your family in financial trouble, so in my book, it is equal to gambling.
Investing is investing. Gambling is gambling. There is a difference for intelligent people.
I agree. However, when I was a JW, a statistics expert I worked with got into a discussion on this with me. He made good arguments for investing being the same as gambling; only the probabilities are different.
He was instrumental in making me realize that both responsible investing and responsible gambling are morally OK.
Richard
He made good arguments for investing being the same as gambling; only the probabilities are different.
Well, color me skeptical, but if true, the average person doesn't know how to achieve those probablilities when gambling (hence casino's), while with investing, the average person can throw money at the market as a whole, and if they wait long enough, they will see a return. Not that I see that modus as much different from gambling from the perspective of the bonehead tossing his money at things.
From a criticise-the-WT standpoint, it is the greed of the gambler or investor that they seem to have no way to legislate, so with gambling, they legislate the action. It's beyond retarded actually. Are all gamblers greedy? No. Ok, maybe... but then, there are degrees of greed, and many gamblers' greed can't match that of the elder who got a stock tip and acts on it with no intelligent research. Would that elder then DF someone for gambling? You bet the hypocrit jerkoff would.
Ed, I agree and have always wondered why the WTS charged interest to their own "brothers".
I had a streak of "luck" with the market and let my JW parents share in some small part of the spoils. (Turned out it wasn't luck, just the general mood of the market.) Anyway, it piqued the interest of my parents in stock market investing and they told me of a brand new argument that I think was being promoted by a Circuit Overseer.
We had heard the idea that it was gambling before, but the new argument was that it is not "loving" because if you win, it means someone else "must lose." My parents had trouble buying that one, and actually asked me, their apostate son (!!!!), to try to find out if there is any truth to the idea.
And for anyone who questions whether it's scriptural for the WTS to loan money out at interest, well it's not really unbiblical, because after all it's not really "their money" anyway, and the scripture said: "His money he has not given out on interest." The money they loan out to the congregations to build a Kingdom Hall already came from the JWs in the first place; it's just a sneaky way of getting those contributions doubled (plus interest).
Gamaliel
