this is the scuttlebutt in one of the "bethel congregations" by us.. no details as to exactly what this "faith-testing" announcement might be.. anyone else hear any of this pre-zone visit hype?.
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STA - This goes in line with the new "language app" and the new donation arrangement. Those who were speculating the big announcement was related to credit card donations weren't that far off. Except that it was announced last night in a regular meeting.
What's this about a credit card donation announcement?
i have words that irritate me and not always without reason.. my latest hate is the word: 'solutions' as used by so many businesses in their title these days.
y'know, 'something innane business solutions' and such balderdash.. i loathe that word now.
arrrrggghhhhhh!
The misuse of ironic/irony always gets me. I blame Alanis Morrisette.
Another one is the word "rim" used when someone is talking about the wheels on a car. I have no idea how that started, but in no way is a car's wheel the rim of anything. It has a rim, but that's only a small portion of the wheel, and is essentially never what the person is talking about. Drives me crazy.
Then there's just the common misuse of phrases that come about because no one bothers to actually listen to themselves and think about the meaning of the words they're saying, i.e. the eggcorns - "for all intensive purposes" (intents and purposes) "I could care less" (so you do care some, then?) "supposably" (instead of supposedly) or probably the most common, the use of "of" instead of "have" or the "'ve" contraction- he should of done it vs he should've done it, etc.
i have a question for any still going to meetings but no longer a believer.. is there any situation or announcement that would cause you to.
draw your line in the sand and walk away?.
if so, what would be your "last straw" moment?.
bigmac - I've often thought about that myself. I'm thinking in about 20 years the bulk of the pre-information age folks will have died off and many will realize that they never "made the truth their own" at that point. plus this will coincide with the failure of the overlapping generation time limit, so I can see this being a huge drop off point for the cult. If they see it coming, I suspect they'll push 2034 as the date for armageddon, but that will fail and many will leave.
I can't wait that long, though...
this is the scuttlebutt in one of the "bethel congregations" by us.. no details as to exactly what this "faith-testing" announcement might be.. anyone else hear any of this pre-zone visit hype?.
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You'll know everything there is to know about the latest thing to be pulled of of the governing body's collective ass by 6pm PST 11/8 ( probably a bit before... The meeting starts at 3 and is supposed to last 3 hours. They'll probably spill the beans by 5:30.)
i have a question for any still going to meetings but no longer a believer.. is there any situation or announcement that would cause you to.
draw your line in the sand and walk away?.
if so, what would be your "last straw" moment?.
Basically anything that I could use to convince the wife that I was leaving in order to take the moral high ground. Obviously there's no shortage of issues with the cult that fall into that category, but since they're not new, it's difficult to take a stand on something thats been going on for decades.
A perfect example would be if they made blood transfusions a conscience matter. enforced tithing would do it, as well as a few other things. In lieu of that, I'll just continue to point out their lies as they come until they've added up enough that I can sell my leaving over that without setting off apostate alarm bells.
this is the scuttlebutt in one of the "bethel congregations" by us.. no details as to exactly what this "faith-testing" announcement might be.. anyone else hear any of this pre-zone visit hype?.
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I can't see them making a change on blood as a big announcement associated with a zone visit...any change on blood will be a QFR or question box in the KM after they've gone a while without mentioning it. If they draw attention to it, it just makes it that much easier for those on the fringes to sow seeds of doubt by saying things like "I'm glad I never studied with someone to the point of baptism, if I had and they died for want of a blood transfusion I'd be bloodguilty"
i had a conversation with my wife today about child abuse as it's in the news, and i managed to slip in the fact that wt (not an individual, but the .org itself) has just been ruled against in the states to the tune of 13 million or so.
she knows i'm opposed to the procedures we have in place, and she can definitely see that it makes sense to go straight to the police, and said she would do immediately if it were our children.
we had a fairly local case where the elders positively marched the offender to the station themselves, and good for them for doing so, but she most likely thinks everyone would do that out of common sense.
Progress is progress, take what you can get. Sounds like you're doing a better job with your wife than I am with mine.
with the recent case of the watchtower hierarchy defying the court to either produce documents relating to child sex abuse claims within their organisation, and also refusing to produce a governing member to appear in court to answer questions , not only shows their arrogance and defiance of the law , they also show their contempt of the judicial system of the usa .. arent they supposed to be obeying the bible injunction ?
" pay back ceasers things to ceaser ?".
"when you are hailed before the courts , i will put words in your mouth ?".
JV - in the interview with the lawyer from the 13.5mil San Diego case, the lawyer demonstrated that he had in-depth knowledge of the current and previous elder's manuals. I suspect that was used when they presented their arguments.
this is the scuttlebutt in one of the "bethel congregations" by us.. no details as to exactly what this "faith-testing" announcement might be.. anyone else hear any of this pre-zone visit hype?.
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I sure hope so, I'm quite ready to have my faith tested! Especially if they enact some form of enforced tithing - I could easily draw a line there and have my wife at least understand.
In the end, though, I suspect that the only thing that will be tested will be my ability to remain awake for 3 hours of the ramblings of old men. JWs are always inventing rumors to keep themselves going. About the last convention, someone said to me "The theme is 'Let your kingdom come!' - they've never had a theme like that before! maybe it means the end is close!" When I (still blind to TTATT at the time) replied that only a few years prior they'd had a similar theme and they'd said the very same thing about it, they couldn't seem to remember. This is probably the same thing - JWs whipping themselves into a froth only to be let down because if they don't they might realize it's all a scam and that's something they're not ready for.
with the recent case of the watchtower hierarchy defying the court to either produce documents relating to child sex abuse claims within their organisation, and also refusing to produce a governing member to appear in court to answer questions , not only shows their arrogance and defiance of the law , they also show their contempt of the judicial system of the usa .. arent they supposed to be obeying the bible injunction ?
" pay back ceasers things to ceaser ?".
"when you are hailed before the courts , i will put words in your mouth ?".
Honestly, I think they may have the best strategy for their situation - they're screwed either way but they're just trying to make the best of a bad situation. They have documented and OCR'd (thus easily searchable) lists of known pedophiles in their possession that they cannot give up to be made public record. Right now there may be 20, even 100 cases in the pipeline against them, but if they have a list of a thousand pedophiles that they've protected and failed to do anything about, they're better off taking the blows that they get from the victims that come forward.
If a lawyer gets a hold of the list and it becomes public record, they immediately have ammunition for countless more lawsuits, possibly a class-action law suit. A lawyer could easily make a lifelong career off of picking a name on the list, finding his victims (especially those victimized after the WTS was made aware of his pedophilia) and encouraging them to sue. what's 200 million in settlements and rulings when it could easily be in the billions?
