i was stunned by this dismal piece that i read in forbes magazine recently.
coming from the uk it is astonishing to me that an affluent nation as is the us, cannot provide better protection for the health and welfare of its citizens.
i was especially astonished by the fact that insurance companies withdraw their coverage while a person is sick and in need of help.
At the last circuit assembly I attended (over a year ago), our circuit overseer mentioned that there brothers who were concerned about health insurance. He said not to be overly concerned because shortly the new order would here and we would enjoy perfect health.
How do like that solution?
someone on this site mentioned they got a km off ebay that praised those that sold all their belongings and preached.. does anyone know which km that was?.
interesting, when going through the society's cd-rom i noticed that the drama for the district convention in 1975 was about noah's ark and was something along the lines of "there's still time left!
" (i'm paraphrasing).. -dm
Yes - I know a family who sold their farm and bought a trailer because the end was coming in 1975. Another family who sold their dry cleaning business so they could have more time for the preaching work before the end came.
Last summer I didn't go to the district convention, but my daughter and son-in-law attended. When they returned my son-in-law said, commenting on one of the talks, "Did you know that there were witnesses who actually sold their homes because they thought the end was coming in 1975? Wasn't that foolish?" Up until that time I had kept my mouth shut about my doubts, but I couldn't hold it back this time. I said, "How can the Society blame the publishers when they were the ones who encouraged the brothers to sell their homes?" He looked at me incredulously and said he didn't believe it. I said I can show you. He said he didn't believe anything unless he saw it in print. I kept all my Kingdom Ministries all the way back to the 60's, and a couple weeks later I delivered a copy of the 5/74 KM that Blondie just posted. My son-in-law has barely spoken to me since.
[I also mentioned the change on voting and the change in doctrine on whether the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah would be resurrected.)
My question is: if you only believe what you see in print, why bother to go to meetings. Just stay home and read the material over. That's what I do. Problem is, I'm now reading it to see what they really are saying and the more I read, the more I have no desire to attend.
some religions which have been on the fringe of society are eventually accepted into the mainstream because they have an aspect which is socially acceptable or beneficial to society.
for example, the seventh day adventists have hospitals and the mormons have the tabernacle choir.
but the jws seem to have nothing with which to appeal to the larger culture.
Consider next Sunday's WT lesson, p. 16: "Today, some individuals try to imitate Jesus' good works by opening hospitals or performing other services among the world's poor. In some cases, they do this at great personal cost, and their sincerity is commendable; but any relief they supply is temporary at best. Only the Kingdom will bring permanent relief. Hence, Jehovah's Witnesses concentrate, as Jesus did, on bearing witness to the truth about that Kingdom.
"Of course, true Christians do perform good works. Paul wrote: 'As long as we have time favorable for it, let us work what is good toward all, but especially toward those related to us in the faith.' (Galatians 6:10) In times of crisis or when someone is in need, we do not hesitate to 'work what is good' to our neighbors or our Christian brothers. Still, we keep our main focus where it belongs--on bearing witness to the truth." (which means we really do little or nothing humanitarian because we don't have time for it--too busy preaching).
you may remember i posted two days ago about a ten-page jw tsunami report that was e-mailed to me.
it consisted of about three separate letters.
since the report was so long, i tried to copy and paste some of the quotes from a word document and only got two out of seven.
You may remember I posted two days ago about a ten-page JW tsunami report that was e-mailed to me. It consisted of about three separate letters. Since the report was so long, I tried to copy and paste some of the quotes from a Word document and only got two out of seven. This time, instead of trying to copy them, I will just type them. The report only seemed concerned about the welfare of the witnesses--little concern about other people--although they gladly accepted the kindness of "worldly" people.
Here are the highlights I found:
From Bankok: "Most of our friends were at the meeting at that time of day. (a good lesson there for sure)."
"Many will not forget that evening or the closing prayer requesting Jehovah's spirit for those affected by this sign of the last days."
From Colombo, Sir Lanka: "Of course we all know and have comfort from the scriptures and will make the best use of this terrible disaster to give a good witness."
"I understand thousands are fleeing to the mountains......There was much panic. Foretaste of the real destruction to come?!!!"
So far, all brothers and families have been accounted for. There MAY be some fatality - but we do not know. I hear that some families in Wattala and Kelaniya had taken advantage of the holidays and gone to the beach down south and also to the East coast. They are reported missing but, if they were at the meetings, then, they may have been all right.
"Some overseas visitors (large numbers of brothers and sisters and their families from Italy and Germany) were where they SHOULD have been on Sunday morning, at our meetings, and so were spared!!! Had they remained in their hotels and on the beach, they may well have been affected if not killed. So, it does make sense to be faithful in little things!!"
"The way the waves came, she thought this was the beginning of Armageddon."
i got a ten-page report from a friend this morning.
at one time i would have been quite impressed with the christian love that our brothers showed.
now i see that their primary concern was themselves--i saw very little concern for non-witnesses.
Sorry all the quotes didn't appear - I tried to to a copy and paste from a Word document. One of the other quotes was something like...some of the foreigners were at the beach instead of where they should have been--at the Kingdom Hall. It shows that we should be faithful in even little things. Another quote was that they would take this "opportunity" to give a good "witness." Then it mentioned "fleeing to the mountains" and how this reminds us of the real destruction to come. It was pretty sad.
The tsunami hit such a wide area that I believe it would have been in different time zones. That could explain why it was early morning in some places and "meeting time" in other places. Haven't studied it out yet.
i got a ten-page report from a friend this morning.
at one time i would have been quite impressed with the christian love that our brothers showed.
now i see that their primary concern was themselves--i saw very little concern for non-witnesses.
I got a ten-page report from a friend this morning. At one time I would have been quite impressed with the Christian love that our brothers showed. Now I see that their primary concern was themselves--I saw very little concern for non-witnesses. Interestingly, on a few occasions the non-witnesses were the ones who showed Christian love. I pulled out a few quotes. I think they speak for themselves:
Bankok
Most of our friends were at the meeting at that time of day. ( a good lesson there for sure)....
Many will not forget that evening or the closing prayer requesting Jehovah's spirit for those affected by this sign of the last days.....
.
my wife knows i have many douts about the wts because of things that have happened that have made me question certain teachings.i have been inactive for 6 yrs now and i have no desire to ever become active again.i love my wife very much(she is presently inactive also) and i wish she would see my point of view or at least look into the society's past but she's a die-hard jw,hanging on no matter what they do or say.. anyways,we had a chat last week and she told me to write down all the questions i have and then she'll do everything to get me the answers.i'm assuming she'll give the question list to an elder she believes she can trust and he'll come up with logical answers to all my questions, then i'll humbly return to all my meetings and progress spiritually.. i'm asking everyone's help to draw up a good list even though i am not very confident of getting any real,logical or intelligent answers to all of them.i understand if the elders are stumbled by these questions,they might take the easy route-label me an apostate and try to df me.if that's the case then i'll stand my ground and hopefully my wife will see that nobody really wants to answer my questions.. a co once tried to answer my questions about 607 vs 587.i told my wife when he runs out of real proof and answers he'll tell me to wait on jehovah.that's exactly what happened!!!!!.
thank you everyone for your help on this one.
Why not just say that someone - maybe a workmate - was asking you some questions and you weren't sure how to answer them. You could write down the question and just say that you told your workmate that you would try to get an answer.
this is a bit of an expansion on the above thread.... if memory serves (which is questionable), it seems that i read or heard that if a witness had employment which made them privy to files at work and if they saw something in the files that may be evidence of "wrong doing" that they were obligated to report the information to the elders.
for example, if a dub worked at a video store and saw that another witness had been renting r rated movies or (gasp) porn, the elders needed to know this.
or maybe a witness worked at a hospital and had access to medical files, the elders would need to know if anyone had been treated for vd, had a forbidden blood treatment, or if a sister had an abortion.
Yes I was one who turned a brother in with information that I learned when I was performing a professional service. I don't want to elaborate, because I realize now what a horrible thing I did and how it could opened me up to a lawsuit, affecting my entire family. I didn't want to tell the local brothers, so I naively wrote a letter to the Society. Of course, it all came back and the brother was disfellowshipped. I felt that I did what I had to do. I was influenced by that WT article of 1987 quoted above.
the tobacco bombshell
early in the decade of the 70?s, all jw?s were notified (in the tobacco-growing district) of a special meeting at the kingdom hall.
three representatives from wts, a district overseer and two circuit overseers delivered a symposium that brought an abrupt end for all jw?s working in the tobacco industry (whether selling cigarettes, manufacture, tobacco machinery, etc.
Randy - I'm so sorry about what happend. I remember the WT article about farmers who would have to give up their livelihood, but I just didn't understand the impact. Question: Since the tobacco fiasco occurred in the early seventies, how did you end up in Bethel? Didn't you have serious doubts when you entered Bethel? As I remember, you were there in 1981 when Ray Franz was kicked out. Just wondering.
kids at scholl are given an assignment to write an article.
the articles that are the best, are published in a newspaper with the writers name attached.. it seems that jehovah's witnesses are (plucking) kids names from these articles, and contacting them to see if they are interested in becoming one of jehovah's witnesses.. of course these kids are (minors), and they are being contacted (without) parental consent.
this has caused concern between teachers, parents, and newspaper management.
How about a letter to the local Kingdom Hall or to the Watchtower threatening an article in the newspaper if they don't stop the practice. Bet that would do it. They don't like adverse publicity.
