Posts by Athanasius

10

Question: When did the JWs start having judicial committees?

by Spiral in

i've been reading the book recommended by zing "soul snatchers, the mechanics of cults" (bought a used copy online) and one of the things mentioned was how cults police all aspects of their members' lives.

so it got me to wondering, when did the practice of three men (elders) having a hearing (or should we say trial) and passing judgment on a member start?

did the early bible students do this?

Athanasius

The JW disfellowhiping arrangement by the congregation service committee was put in place in the early 1950s. In 1954 there was a sister in our congregation who was disfellowshipped for immorality. In those days one had to wait a year before they could be reinstated. She did her time and after the year was up she was reinstated. A couple of years later some teens also got canned for the same reason.

However, in those days the disfellowshipped person could still talk to their family. Then in the 1970s during the reforms of Watchtower Vatican 2, disfellowshipped people were treated more humanly and not harshly shunned by non-family members in the congregation.

But after Ray Franz was removed from the GB, the new rules now required family to shun the disfellowshipped.

49

A deeper examination of The New World Translation

by Terry in

shorturl.at/ouakr.

Athanasius

Hi Scholar,

I was curious about linguistic credentials. Which university did you attend, and what was the name of the professor who taught you New Testament Greek?

Athanasius

7

Thirty years a tower slave

by rickroll in

i was with my brother in law when we were in service and given this book.

i have posted on this before but it got me to thinking.

it was taken from us by the local elder we talk to about it.

Athanasius

Read it back in 1973 when I was still a JW and an elder. Though I found Schnell's book interesting, it didn't have the wake up effect like Crisis of Conscience. I first read C Of C in March 1984 and six months later I resigned as an elder and began my fade.

51

“You know how I know that they're finished out there? The carts.”

by Athanasius in

jw
friends

the watchtower's many legal problems and the jws' use of carts in their preaching work, reminded me of a scene and dialog from the film patton.. in a scene where patton is viewing a battle site the morning after, he says to an aide about the nazis: “you know how i know that they're finished out there?

in my dreams i saw the carts.

they kept buzzing around in my head and i couldn't figure out why.

Athanasius

The Watchtower's many legal problems and the JWs' use of carts in their preaching work, reminded me of a scene and dialog from the film PATTON.

In a scene where Patton is viewing a battle site the morning after, he says to an aide about the Nazis: “You know how I know that they're finished out there? The carts. They're using carts to lug their supplies and wounded. In my dreams I saw the carts. They kept buzzing around in my head and I couldn't figure out why. Then I remembered: the nightmare in the snow -- the endless, agonizing retreat from Moscow. God the cold! The wounded, and what was left of the supplies, were thrown into carts. Napoleon was finished.”

Now it seems that the Watchtower is doing the same. The JWs are loading their literature, supplies, the old and the sick on to carts. The old and sick JWs then sit there silently minding the carts. The physically healthy JWs who accompany the carts are in retreat, talking among themselves rather than make an effort to do any preaching.

Of course this doesn't mean the JW religion will suddenly collapse. But it does indicate that they are beginning the fade into insignificance.

51

FAKE-NEWS.JW.ORG

by lastmanstanding in

the current “news” on jw.borg.

https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/.

look closely at he picture of “russian” police breaking in to what appears to be a utility shed.. first, you’d have to be a complete moron to believe anything you see.. the “police” are shown using a garden pic to open a door.

Athanasius

The link to the Tomsk police press release that Corney first posted didn't mention the JWs. So there was a legitimate question as to which extremist group the police were investigating.

However, the link to the Russian news broadcast that Corney provided today, does identify the group interrogated by police as being the JWs. While this tells us the identity of the religious organization in question, one does have to ask why it took Corney almost six days to provide the answer.

51

FAKE-NEWS.JW.ORG

by lastmanstanding in

the current “news” on jw.borg.

https://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/.

look closely at he picture of “russian” police breaking in to what appears to be a utility shed.. first, you’d have to be a complete moron to believe anything you see.. the “police” are shown using a garden pic to open a door.

Athanasius

My wife is Russian, so I had her translate the information on the website that Corney provided.

What is interesting about the Russian news report and the videos that accompany it, is that there is no mention of the JWs. The article and the video of the Russian policewoman just mention an extremist group with extremist literature. So I viewed the video of the police examining the confiscated material expecting to see Watchtower magazines and books. But I didn't see anything that could really identify this group as being JWs. If I missed something please correct me.

If the group in the video were JWs, it seems strange that the news report would fail to mention them by name.

69

Don't count on witnessing Watchtower's demise anytime soon.

by Roger Kirkpatrick in

jw
friends

the fact that there are pomi ex-jws who have been disfellowshiped or inactive for years who still live in constant fear of armageddon indicates that watchtower will manage to exist in one way or another for years, if not decades, to come.

watchtower, like all other religious cults, operate on the premise that "you can fool some of the people all of the time...and that's enough!

".

Athanasius

Though I left the JWs 35 years ago, I doubt that things in the local congregations have improved much since then. But when I was Service Overseer, I noted that in our congregation of 95 publishers, only 10% were turning in 10 or more hours per month. 20% were reporting 5 to 9 hours each month. 70% were reporting 1 to 4 hours.

The hardcore 10% were actually reporting 60% of the congregations hours. Of the 12 teens in the congregation, 10 were just putting in an hour or two until they were able to leave home and leave the religion. So if this is typical of JW congregations today, I'd say that of the 8 million JWs reported by the Watchtower, less than one million are hardcore. Five million are just coasting, and of that 5 mil, over 800,000 are just putting in time until they can leave home and leave the JWs.

Again my observations are based on my experiences serving as an elder in the 1980s. Perhaps things are different in the Borg these days.

6

Ravenna Kingdom Hall

by Lynnie in

another kingdom hall sold off in seattle.

this kingdom hall has been around forever but it's in a very desirable location in seattle by green lake so i'm sure there will be lots of $$.

lots of merging of halls here in the puget sound area..

Athanasius

Hopefully the Watchtower will use the money from the KH sale to get better actors for their videos.

12

New convention video

by Olig in

so i've just seen a snippet of a new convention release, and it's obviously a reenactment (bloody poor one - look at the state of the disposable beards lol!

) of bible times.. the chap speaking is heard saying if your family members turn away and serve false gods, you should kill them!.

https://twitter.com/jfnilsen/status/1133000862719270912?s=09.

Athanasius

Something tells me that the production of these videos cost the Watchtower a few bucks. Stage setup, props, soundtrack, etc. doesn't come cheap. Perhaps this is part of the reason why more money is going out of Watchtower coffers than is coming in.

20

Are there any JW songs that you HATE?

by neat blue dog in

you're probably thinking 'all of them', and it's true that the songbook is riddled with wrong stuff .

but are there any songs in particular that irk your moral sensibilities?.

for me it would be song #26, "you did it for me".

Athanasius

Some of the old JW song books contained Christian hymns in which the lyrics had been changed to fit Watchtower theology. I think that they admitted this when they introduced the "baby sh_t brown" song book in the 1980s, as it supposedly contained only JW lyrics and music.

But like others have mentioned, the new songs were lifeless and hard to sing.