by expatbrit 207 Replies latest watchtower scandals
fearnotruth ......Welcome.
I am not persuaded to believe that investing in the PH MORRIS Company definitely means involvement in the Tobacco business for profit, and advocacy of Tobacco use.Correct me if I'm wrong. You're saying it's ok to invest in the tobacco industry?? Andy.
Hello fearnotruth. Welcome aboard.
.
.
.Now that the formalities are over,
just kidding.
fearnotruth, There is a principal here, a very important one. Regardless of what good things the Philip Morris Company does for people, and I am aware it is quite a lot; they are the major manufacturer of a product that is associated with SATAN! YES! SATAN! The society believes that SATAN THE DEVIL is the biggest promoter of smoking cigarettes. The Philip Morris Co. is a pawn of Satan himself. Just try to tell me I am wrong bucko! I have heard it directly from the meetings myself.
On another note, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been told repeatedly over the years to not have anything to do with the stock market. It is WRONG to invest your hard earned money into places such as the stock market. It is a form of gambling and it is a form of putting you faith in the wrong places. I know this because I sat in on enough meetings and heard it from the platform enough times to know what I heard.
What the WT is doing is just as serious as excepting blood money. WHY?
BECAUSE,
If a criminal robs someone and kills in the process, then offers me the money as a gift, should I accept it or not?
You think that is an extreme analogy? Well it is not. Why?
BECAUSE,
Those who smoke are, in the eyes of the society, the same as criminals, extortionists, thieves, and murderers!
It makes no difference that those same smoking criminals might do good things as well. They are still disfellowshiped!
Ok OFF with my rant now and leaving this area.grrrrr...
plum
It's WRONG. You only be disfellowshipped if you smoke other brand. If you smoke Phillips Morris is OKkkkkkkk!
jwsons
Sixofnine again presents the most balanced view and asks: "The question is whether they were aware that the trust fund director, who btw buys stocks for probably hundreds of trust (or may even turn that over to a company such as Fidelity), was going to purchase Phillip Morris. Of course they did not." Good question. Personally, I do not view this issue as the huge deal some of you are making it out to be. If you told me that the WT held 10% of Phillip Morris directly, or even through a holding company (something like the REGI deal), I would be all over it. But all I see is that a trust was given to the WT, and the trust manager decided to invest in this company. Should the WT reject the entire trust over this? It's very possible that, after seeing the holdings of the trust, the WT asked them to immediately dispose of those shares. Now what's this about a security company?
Hello fearnotruth. Welcome to the board!
It is true that PM owns other forms of business. The most notable of those is Kraft foods. It's also true that Kraft is traded seperately on the stock exchange. So if there was really a desire to avoid the taint of tobacco, the Trust could have invested without having to go near PM.
Will the WTS make money from this investment? Well, the Trust will recieve dividends from PM, and all income of the Trust is then donated to the Watchtower. In addition, when the stocks are disposed of, there may well be a capital gain, which will also be transferred to the Watchtower in the form of a "donation." So in this way it can be said that the WT will make money from the investment into PM.
While society in general does benefit economically from the tobacco industry (on a net basis, even allowing for increased healthcare costs), society in general doesn't condemn tobacco users and the industry as being unChristian and therefore worthy of destruction by God. The Watchtower does. This is the aspect of hypocrisy that is evident in them being connected, even one-step removed, with investments in the tobacco industry.
Expatbrit
Hi gcc2k:
"The question is whether they were aware that the trust fund director, who btw buys stocks for probably hundreds of trust (or may even turn that over to a company such as Fidelity), was going to purchase Phillip Morris. Of course they did not."
It's very possible that, after seeing the holdings of the trust, the WT asked them to immediately dispose of those shares.
But that is not the only question. Another question is "why didn't the Watchtower inform the Trust fund director that investing in companies directly connected to the tobacco industry was contrary to their Christian conscience (TM), as they tell their followers to do?" Another question, which I'm looking forward to seeing answered, is "what are they going to do about it?" Will they make sure that they don't benefit from this investment? Or will they simply take the money as a "donation"? That would further compound their hypocrisy, imo.
I keep thinking of the line "hoist on their own petard."
Expatbrit
Another question is "why didn't the Watchtower inform the Trust fund director that investing in companies directly connected to the tobacco industry was contrary to their Christian conscience (TM), as they tell their followers to do?"
Exactly my question too my good friend.
Keeping this to the top of the page since I'm back from holidays and watching those JW apologists on this board squirm.
hawk
Another question is "why didn't the Watchtower inform the Trust fund director that investing in companies directly connected to the tobacco industry was contrary to their Christian conscience (TM), as they tell their followers to do?"
I think it's almost certain that they did just that.
The simplest explanation which has been stated and you evidently did not read or chose to ignore is:
THEY NEED THE MONEY$$$$$$$$$$$
Need it why? They have $1 billion plus in property but are short on spending cash.
Why? Because they aren't getting as much $
Why? Because their main source of $ is drying up
What source of spending cash?
Dollar bills put into the contribution boxes.
Why short on $ in the contribution boxes?
Members aren't putting it in.
Why?
They don't want to.
Why?
A logical guess is that their policy of allowing "repentant" pedophiles to also go door-to-door preaching has been effectively exposed on
ht tp:www//silentlambs.org + Dateline NBC + CBS nightly news with Dan Rather
How can I approach members of my family still in with this? They will just say someone made it up, someone forged the document, blablabla. Any ideas? How can active jws even ask anyone about this? They will get in such trouble for even having access to this information :(
