Posts by Athanasius

34

Are the Adventists looking to attract downtrodden JW's?

by donny in

sorry if anyone has already posted on this but i did not see anything related in the few pages of active topics i checked.. last saturday i went to an oil change facilty and one of their perks is they give you a copy of the current usa today while you wait in your car.

on page 8a is a full page ad titled "liberty of conscience threatened.... a national sunday law will be established as the mark of the beast.".

the article then goes on a typical adventist rant about how saturday, not sunday, is the real sabbath established by god.

Athanasius

Another poster stated: "Interestingly, William Miller was friends with Charles Taze Russell – the founder of the Bible Students, from which the Jehovah's Witnesses branched off."

It would be helpful to learn the source of this statement as William Miller died in December 1849 and Charles Taze Russell wasn't born until February 1852. So if Miller and Russell were friends, Russell would have needed to enlist the aid of spiritists to contact the dead Miller. If someone has proof of this it would further damage the credibility of the Watchtower's founder.

21

What did you do with all your old publications?

by Dark Fader in

jw
friends

so we had spent years building our "theocratic library" of bound volumes, books and other materials.

personally, i boxed everything, taped the boxes closed and threw them in a dumpster at a construction site.. i did actually feel bad though.

that was a lot of paper which could have been recycled!.

Athanasius

I sold all my bound volumes to a Ministerial Servant for $100. Some of the other publications I gave to my JW ex-wife. I also sold some of the Studies In The Scriptures to a second hand book store.

I can't see throwing something away if I can sell it and recoup some of the money I wasted on the Watchtower.

64

I Do Not Think Everyone That is a JW Wastes Their Life

by Magwitch in

my 97 year old grandmother died last week.

she was actually born and raised a jw.

her mother (my great grandmother) was a russelite.

Athanasius

I agree with the sentiments of the above posters. Some JWs have been in the Watchtower so long that finding TTATT would be devastating. We must remember that the Watchtower and JW religion is an institution, more like a spiritual and mental prison. Individuals who've spent a life time in a secular prison become institutionalized and often find it difficult, if not impossible to adjust to a life outside the walls. They are like the character, played by James Whitmore, in the film Shawshank Redemption. So it is with the JWs.

Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone.

44

Who was the Gilead Student that jumped overboard?

by VM44 in

a gilead student from thailand.

a young thai girl who came to new york to attend the gilead school in upstate south lansing, new york, had a mental breakdown.

staff members pleaded with president knorr to send her home by plane, under supervision.

Athanasius

It's been almost 30 years since I read Barbara Grizzuti Harrison's book, "Visions Of Glory," but I believe she mentioned the incident about Thai student's suicide because of Knorr. Harrison was serving at Bethel at the time and like Bill Centnar would have heard about it from Bethel insiders. If someone has Harrison's book, check and see if she mentions the incident, as I could be wrong.

52

Jehovah's Witnesses: Fastest Growing Christian Group in the US

by davidl7 in

the yearbook of american and canadian churches statistics listed the jehovah's witnesses as the fastest growing christian group in the us for 4 years in a row (the 2008-2011 yearbooks).

the 2011 yearbook reported a 4.37% growth rate (based on 2010 membership figures).

according to the 2012 yearbook, the growth of the jehovah's witnesses was 1.85%, falling into 4th place.

Athanasius

At first I couldn't figure out why Dave would post information about JW membership statistics on the child abuse issues forum. But maybe it is a Freudian Slip on his part. Since most of the JW membership increase is due to children born in, perhaps Dave wants us to be aware of that we can expect an increase in child abuse within the congregations.

131

Let's Discuss Ray Franz's Books

by Recovery in

i have been repeatedly pleaded with to read the books of ray franz in my short stay on this board.

apparently these are all the all-powerful, wt crushing arguments, that lead so many to leave jw's and become ruthless opposers of god's people.

we can discuss any claims/statements/scriptural arguments presented in either of his books, as long as it somehow proves jehovah's witnesses are not god's people.

Athanasius

It doesn't look like Recovery has really recovered from the JW mindset. He didn't become a Watchtower slave overnight. So for him to break free of Watchtower slavery it will take more than a couple of visits to this forum.

20

Jehovah's Christian Witnesses

by LoisLane looking for Superman in

how much do you want to bet, that in the next year or two, the governing body will get "new light" and change their name to jehovah's christian witnesses"?.

Athanasius

You are correct, EmptyInside. There is a schismatic sect of Jehovah's Witnesses that goes by the name Jehovah's Christian Witnesses. I think there is a small group of them in the Seattle area. By the way shortly after the Rutherford coup in 1917, a group of Bible Students broke away from the Watchtower. They were called the Stand Fast movement and they were mostly located in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. and British Columbia in Canada. So it's possible that the JWs from that part of the country are more independent in their thinking.

Maybe there are some ex-JWs from Washington State that have more information on the JCWs.

13

Question: Why would the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society "launder" money?

by Balaamsass in

i have a question for any legal or tax experts out there.

i have read a number of experiences about the wtbt$ moving money rapidly from one account to another.

overnight parking of huge sums, from one enity to another, to local congr, etc.

Athanasius

It would be interesting if one could get hold of the Watchtower's inhouse Financial Statements, as this would indicate whether the Society is involved in money laundering or not. After all, who are their vendors and what are their actual expenses?

The Watchtower can make large cash deposits without raising suspicion, due to what they claim to take in from their conventions. Moreover, there isn't any law that says the Watchtower can't pay twice or three times the market rate for goods and services. Since the Watchtowers Accounts Payable journal is not open for public audit, there is no way for us to know if it contains suspicious payments to companies linked to organized crime.

Again, I'm not saying that the Watchtower launders money for outside interests, still the opportunity is there.

41

Who else, besides me?

by AK - Jeff in

over the years on jwn i have often found myself hunting through posts of newcomers, hoping against hope i suppose, that the newbie would be one of my former friends in the local congregation down the street.. i just find it hard to imagine that not a soul among these people has taken the courage to investigate their religion and leave like my wife and i have done.. as the local 'active apostate', i also supposed that at any moment some of the 'brothers' would come covertly to my home, knock and say something like " i am out - please let's talk about it, why i left, why you left.

but, none of the above has ever happened.

i did come across a local former jw here, from another congregation, and we have become good friends over the past few years.

Athanasius

I know of only one person from my old congregation who is a member of JWN and she hasn't posted in a while. Though I know that she would never go back to the JWs. Most likely she has gone on with her life.

However, I was at the non-JW memorial service for my sister this afternoon and there were several in attendance for our old congregation who had left the JWs. I would guess that in the US there are just as many ex-JWs as there are active JWs.

11

The REMOVAL of many books

by irondork in

i understand the wts encouraged or instructed the congregations to dispose of all books printed before the year ????

they didn't want this old light (aka.

apostate literature) floating around their libraries.. did these instructions come via a wt article or was it a letter to the elders?

Athanasius

Back in 1978 we had an elder who came back from the two week elders school with information regarding the Kingdom Hall library. He claimed that the instructor said that only Watchtower publications should be in the KH library. I had attended the same school the year before and no such instruction was given. Having been the TMS overseer I had placed a number on non-Watchtower Biblical and historical reference works in the KH library. I guess I was pretty liberal for a JW back then as I placed Hugh J. Schonfield's "The Passover Plot" in the KH library.

Well this elder, claiming a mandate given him by the recent elders school, purged the library of all non-Watchtower publications. Fortunately there were several JW families who were more enlightened than the elder and they took in all the purged publications and were thankful to have them. I left the JWs in 1984 so I don't know if these families are still JWs.

However, a couple of years after the KH library purge a CO said that non-Watchtower publications of Biblical and historical value could be included in the KH library. Though I doubt that he would have approved of "The Passover Plot." But anyone who has served on the BOE knows there is always that hot shot elder who takes any instruction from the GB to the extreme.