Posts by umbertoecho

52

Bethel Meeting at Regional Convention

by MrTheocratic in

i decided to go to the bethel recruiting meeting yesterday to test out my theory that the organization is in decline.

i assumed that if there is a general feeling of apathy by many in the org, then certainly it would be shown up by the lack of enthusiasm or zeal by many to sign up for bethel service.

well let me say that based on what i observed, this organization is not going anywhere.

umbertoecho

Was it one of those congregations where they have mixed two together? In my congregation there was a mix of two congregations as the two separate ones were pretty small, but as a combined congregation, it was larger.

Put that badly..sorry.

50

Newspaper article: 'Rise of ISIS and earthquakes are WARNINGS before ARMAGEDDON destroys Earth'

by AndersonsInfo in

http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/581439/rise-isis-earthquakes-warnings-before-armageddon-apocalypse-end-destroys-volcanoes-earth.

the "end" of mankind, which has been long predicted by jehovah's witnesses, could happen as soon as this year - according to latest announcement from the christian religion.. in the latest edition of jehovah's witnesses monthly publication watchtower, an article translated into 700 languages - urges people to join the religion or face certain death when god sends his forces from the heavens to "remove all world leaders," "exterminate his enemies" and "rid the world of satan".. critics have lambasted the warning of a coming armageddon as yet another "failed prediction" by the religion, which has previously delivered similar alerts such as a foretold apocalypse in 1975.. indeed, jehovah's witnesses have been warning people of the need to recognise jehovah or face certain death when the "end" comes for more than 100 years.. the christian-based religion was founded in the 1870s by charles taze russell in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, us, as an offshoot from the bible studies movement.. today, there are 8.2million jehovah's witness evangelists, while 19.9 million celebrated their annual memorial festival marking christ's death - worldwide in 2014.. followers do not believe in military service and will not accept blood transfusions.. in a new eight-page article, watchtower said jehovah's witness leaders are now "convinced" humans are in their "final days" before the armageddon.. they cite an increase in global armed conflict, such as the rise of the islamic state terror group, as well as natural disasters such as volcanoes and earthquakes.. the lengthy article, written by an unnamed author, said: "will god let humans continue to dominate one another and threaten the future of mankind?

no, as we have seen, he will step in and bring an end to centuries of misery and oppression.

umbertoecho

That's because they all got Wash-towered.

4

Revelations only book with specific warning about change.

by umbertoecho in

revelations seem to be the only book out of the supposed 66 books in the bible that has a specific warning about taking or adding one word to " this prophecy".

i am curious as to what others make of this.

i have looked at a few bibles, the last chapter and verses 18-19, state this warning.

umbertoecho

It seems obvious that an author of say.......Revelations, would be warning against any change made to this book in order to protect it's contents. This book of prophecy is very different in language to just about any other book in the bible.

So I believe it would be to maintain the integrity of this prophecy.

What do you think fulltimestudent? I do realize that questions can be used as a form of teaching.........but at this stage I am interested in opinions

4

Revelations only book with specific warning about change.

by umbertoecho in

revelations seem to be the only book out of the supposed 66 books in the bible that has a specific warning about taking or adding one word to " this prophecy".

i am curious as to what others make of this.

i have looked at a few bibles, the last chapter and verses 18-19, state this warning.

umbertoecho

Revelations seem to be the only book out of the supposed 66 books in the bible that has a specific warning about taking or adding one word to " this prophecy".

I am curious as to what others make of this. I have looked at a few bibles, the last chapter and verses 18-19, state this warning. I used to be taught that this warning applied to the whole of the bible. However, it does not sound like it applies to all the bible books. It is quite specifically about this "Revelation" " this prophecy" and so on. It would explain why there are so many interpretations of the bible and so many variations. You may not even believe in the bible, but it would be interesting to hear your' thoughts on this subject.

This observation, if it is correct, is worth considering in the context of how many religions seem to feel they and only they, have the best bible. The JW believers are very fixed upon the idea that their bible is the best, the only trustworthy bible.

If this is so, that there is only a dire warning concerning Revelations, I would then understand how the other 65 books have been altered in wording and other books were just left out.

37

W 15 july - members of others religions not destroyed???

by paradisebeauty in

please tell me what do you understand from this quote that is taken from w july 2015, the article your deliverance is close paragraph 5.. i understand that not all members of other religions will be destroyed at armageddon.

i talked to a jw.

he says he understands differently: they will not be destroyed when the babylon the great will be destroyed but they will be destroyed in armageddon.

umbertoecho

That's strange. I was informed by the "very in" JWs that the preaching work would start to close off soon. That the message was going to be more of a warning about not being accepted into the religion. It seems they keep changing all the time. Either that,or the explanations given by the GB are not clear.

9

Why do members of this board debate what the W.T. /G.B. meant in their publications when its all going to be changed shortly.

by smiddy in

its just a thought i had,why do we debate over what the wt publications say today when we know all to well that in a year or two they will say something different.. and put it down to new light .. everything charles taze russell said by word of mouth and in print , the so called , first president of the international bible students association (william h. conley was actually the first president ), later to be named the watchtower bible and tract society in his lifetime is discarded .. something like 40 years preaching and teaching throughout the earth , being the chief cornerstone of the foundation of the jehovah`s witness religion / i.b.s.a... nothing he said or preached or wrote about is accepted today by the jehovah`s witness religion as being relevant.. do they say he was wrong ?

no... do they say he was a false prophet ?

no ,... then what do they say about c.t.russell , well they do cherry pick some comments and take them out of context ,like he foretold 40 years beforehand about world war one.

umbertoecho

I like to have the freedom to debate them. This is one of the most important freedoms we get once we realize they are just people. Nothing more.

The witnesses who are in, don't have this basic liberty do they?

24

Org is going to appeal!

by The Searcher in

the english woman who has been awarded 275,000 compensation for being abused by the ministerial servant paedophile, will now have to wait while the org fights to keep hold of its precious money, by appealing the court's decision.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33201010.

umbertoecho

How different is there legal fight these days!

They used to brag about the human rights they fought for, the right to preach wherever they wished. Now they fight to keep a lid on their "wicked" behaviour and scandals. They would brag about this fight too if only they could squash all the cases against them for sexual abuse in the ranks and the internal policies they use to hide it.

24

Org is going to appeal!

by The Searcher in

the english woman who has been awarded 275,000 compensation for being abused by the ministerial servant paedophile, will now have to wait while the org fights to keep hold of its precious money, by appealing the court's decision.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33201010.

umbertoecho

Latest from the BBC - "an interim payment of £455,000 towards C's legal costs will be met by the society's trustees."

This interim payment looks positive to me. I hope that the law courts are different in England as opposed to other places. And yes, they have made an admission already. Surely that will be hard to take back.? I know Conti did not win all that she and her lawyer wished for. But the exposure, the constant stream of evidence and news reports are surely the worst sort of witnessing the society can imagine. Case after case will come up, eventually, sooner or later, this will gain traction in the mind of the public and in places of authority.

My complete and utter support for her and those involved. Something gotta give....

14

Compensation after 30 years

by umbertoecho in

i have waited for so long to see some sort of justice given to my daughters.

it is far too late for me.

i have the same story as so many do on this site, so i won't bore you.

umbertoecho

I have waited for so long to see some sort of justice given to my daughters. It is far too late for me. I have the same story as so many do on this site, so I won't bore you. The only joy I got out of all of it, was the joy of throwing stones on my fathers coffin at his nice JW funeral whilst the rest of my family pretended I did not exist.

Down to last week. At last there is a compensation coming for my daughter ( one has been paid out a few years ago)

This took some time and persuading to get my other one to go for compensation. She did not seem to have the will or energy. I did though. After all this time; thirty odd years when data bases were not in existence but the offence is still on record..........

I have the pleasure to announce that the other daughter is getting some money for the damage done to her. I don't want to sound nasty or as though I am searching for attention. Not for me anyway. I wanted the attention to go to this man, this really nice man whom my family approved of and introduced me to. A man who must have had experience in grooming. To be fair, my family did not know, but when I took him to court in the eighties, things were so different. It was not done to take such a dirty thing to court. To do so was to admit to being a rotten parent. I saw it differently. I wanted his name etched for all time in the records, as a paedophile.

There was no support for me or my children. No family member or close related friends wanted to be near such a disaster. I must say that the detectives and the magistrate were so fantastic though. They were the ones who stayed by us in this horrible experience. The magistrate slammed his hand down hard when the perps lawyer tried to cast doubt as to my mothering capacity. He really slammed hard on the desk and it was loud. He (the magistrate) gave no quarter to this slimy lawyer ( disbarred later on by the way)

The detectives were the ones who hugged me as I left the court room. My children were left out of all proceedings. I have a deep ill at ease feeling, whenever I feel that justice may not be done with anyone having the courage to come forward for fear of being called liar,or having their memories dismissed. I remember all that I went through vividly. I recall I was 21 the last time I fought my father away and ran away........He chased me all the way down the highway for miles in his car. I couldn't get away that night....I did get away forever the next.

When this thing broke over my poor children, my father must have been terrified of what it could remind me of. I recall him visiting me, something he never did, for he called me crazy, bad and mad. Wicked, that was one of his favourites.........I stood up to him all the time.

On this visit though, I knew he was shitting himself in some way. I could see it in his cold eyes and his queries. I told him he would get no information from me to feed his rotting brain.

Anyway people. He is dead now and my daughters are validated with ...."money". It may not be enough, but it's something. I hope I haven't upset anyone by posting this. It is not a good topic but nowadays we are allowed to speak of the things that happened with less fear of being blamed for them happening in the first place. I suppose my daughters winning against this is a win for me in some strange way.

Thank you for listening

.

70

Anti-JW billboard going up in Texas

by sunny23 in

the first ever billboard has been crowd funded on reddit and will be going up.

i'm curious to know if it will cause a spark in any jw's who already have questions or doubts and lead them to research into the child abuse cases and lead them to the thought that the wt and gb are not inspired or gods mouthpiece.

at the very least it will provide people a topic of conversation and questions to the jw's who knock on their door: "so whats this whole sex abuse in kingdom halls thing about i saw on the billboard down the road?

umbertoecho

I have struggled for nearly thirty years to put a pedophile onto some sort of data base. There isn't one that I am aware of in Australia. By this I mean there isn't one that can be accessed by the public as it can be in America.

My two daughters were sexually molested when very young. The instant that I found out, I threw him out. I took the children to hospital in the morning and then pressed charges the same day. He was arrested and found guilty. Nothing can describe the guilt and horror of finding out that this really "nice" man could get away with it.

After all this time, my daughter is due to receive compensation ( the other already has)

I found this out last week, but didn't want to say anything until I was sure. Now, with money having to be paid out, I hope this puts a great big red flag beside this b)&(&rds name. Money usually has a way of doing that, especially government money.

We had our lives wrecked by this man. My life was already damaged by my father; a good standing JW who had a nice JW funeral.

Each of the 1,433 suspects has been put into a major crime database, which is cross referenced to ensure that no inquires are being duplicated and to identify suspects whose offending crossed borders. So far 30 individuals have been identified in one or more of the investigations.

This serves two purposes as far as I can see. 1 The need to "not' duplicate cases.

2 The fact that they are on data bases. It is a good excuse to put them there without appearing vindictive.

There are no data bases to my knowledge, in Australia. At least not ones that go back to the eighties or seventies.......or further.