Posts by Terry

16

A Brief History of MONEY and the Watchtower religion

by Terry in

watch tower corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time.

to appreciate how drastic these changes have been, you'd have to know how it was from the beginning.. .

watch tower corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time.

Terry

The more I investigate the business dealings of C.T. Russell and associates, the more flabbergasted I become. These men were knee-deep in illicit doo-doo. And all the while, they are using the public face of religion as a hobby to whitewash their reputation.
Had Russell not been a Sociopath, I doubt he could have carried off the illusion of being a humble servant of God while amassing illegal funds and punishing his wife.
Not all monsters look like Godzilla.

26

Jehovah’s Witnesses are Taught to Lie but to then Lie about Lying

by Terry in

jehovah’s witnesses are taught to lie but to then lie about lying.

first off, let’s define what it means to tell a lie.

i prefer the definition offered by aristotle way back in 4th century b.c.e.

Terry

Every belief a JW holds to be true is a lie.

These lies are not called truth. These lies are called THE TRUTH.

All the information a JW accepts into their hearts and minds is not called knowledge. It is called ACCURATE knowledge.

When a JW exhales, the carbon dioxide is laden with lies.

When a JW perspires, the sweat is liquid lies.

Every neuron in their brain fires lying impulses.

The JW's heart beat lying beats.

And why?

They are swimming in a sea of bullshit.

An ordinary life is repugnant to the person who holds eternity in their hand.

"The Truth" is worse than Crack.
But, it is just as brutal to the addicts who crave it.

28

If death is a natural occurrence in the human species, why are we born with the innate feeling to continue living indefinitely?

by Tenacious in

there are some people that do in fact want to die.

these people include the mentally unstable, emotionally imbalanced, and those suffering from ailments or diseases, just to name a few.. i've never met however, anyone, or heard of anyone, who is of sound mind, who just awoke one day and thought it would be an excellent day to die......naturally.. your thoughts?.

Terry

Look at it from the other end in a reasoned manner.

Why would any sane person want to experience the loss of everything they love?

If we had been born into a society, a family, a culture which didn't advertise Eternal Life as a genuine alternative (i.e. religious delusion) would we feel different?

If you could live comfortably on a million dollars, why would anybody ever want to be a multi-millionaire or a Billionaire?

If you are at least average looking, why would you want to be drop-dead gorgeous?

And so on. . .

If our education happened to be science-based, we would realize early on in life that every species that has ever existed except for less than 1 percent, have gone extinct. We are just another species.

We have developed a "higher-consciousness" which has made us stive for apotheosis, self-aggrandisement, and a greedy hunger for more than nature has ever granted.

It is so easy to want more in a consumer society.

5

My Best and Oldest friend has died. He brought me in to the (not) Truth

by Terry in

in my book, i wept by the rivers of babylon, i described the process of having a friend, johnny santa cruz, use our friendship as a platform for converting me to a jehovah's witness.. that friendship cost me decades of my life in bondage to a cult.. the friendship was real and johnny and i bonded for life.

but, the religion eventually turned him into a stone silence.

now he is dead and the imaginary reunion and meeting of the minds is no longer a possibility.. this makes his passing a double tragedy.. his memories were my memories.

Terry

In my book, I Wept by the Rivers of Babylon, I described the process of having a friend, Johnny Santa Cruz, use our friendship as a platform for converting me to a Jehovah's Witness.

That friendship cost me decades of my life in bondage to a cult.

The friendship was real and Johnny and I bonded for life. But, the religion eventually turned him into a stone silence. Now he is dead and the imaginary reunion and meeting of the minds is no longer a possibility.

This makes his passing a double tragedy.

His memories were my memories. By dying he has extinguished part of my life's verifications. The bond we could have shared into our retirement years could have strengthened. Instead, they dissolved--aborted by cult pressure.

I doubt I can get a family invitation to his funeral. It would certainly be disrespectful to attend without it. So, even in a final good-bye--I am shut out of both life and death.
++++++++++++++++++

Johnny married when he was 20 and his wife was 16. He was rescuing her from her father. The dad was molesting his 2 daughters, you see, but the Brothers at the Kingdom Hall had advised the JW mother that Divorce was not the answer.

I was at the wedding at the Justice of the Peace in a small Texas town. Johnny's sister, Judy, pretended to be the Mother granting permission.

The marriage has lasted all these years, 1967 to 2016. He was very proud of that. His wife never graduated from High School, she dropped out. She never worked a paying job in her entire life. All her friends were JW's. It was the only life she ever knew and the only one imaginable.

________

Johnny and I were friends from the age of 12. All of our early memories were the SAME memory.

We called each other "Best best Buddy, lifelong pal." But that "lifelong" part was a dream.

Johnny would always prod me with JW-related statements, provoking discussion about (presumably) the Bible.

In my family, we were not religious people nor did we attend a church. I had respect--even reverence--but no emotional attachments to God or the good book. I was sort of a Nerdy intellectual kind of kid. So, we had lots of arguments--and I couldn't win those arguments even though I was using rational thinking and logic. Why?

I didn't realize at that time, we were living in two different worlds entirely! A fancy word covers the situation: "Non-overlapping magisteria."
The real world and the world of religious beliefs are different areas of inquiry, fact vs. values, so there is a difference between the "nets" over which they have "a legitimate magisterium or domain of teaching authority," and the two domains do not overlap.

So, here it is folks--my life was about to take a sharp left turn simply because I needed to be on EQUAL footing with Johnny and the only way I could think of to do that was to LEARN his magisterium and master it.

I would compare this to having a friend who is hooked on addictive drugs saying, "Just try it and see if you like it."

One snort, one injection, one high was all it took and the next 2o years would be a roller coaster ride through hell.

_______________

Johnny is dead. He won't be joining his devout parents in Paradise in all likelihood. You see, he knew how so much of Jehovah's Witness teachings had unraveled not standing the test of time. He was very angry when the Awake! magazine dropped the "generations" blurb which had been his bellwether to Armageddon.
He saw his belief system dismantled and reassembled like a Legos project.

He was highly intelligent. But he was a profoundly loyal advocated, too.
The arguments he and I shared never budged him off center--but they certainly rattled him to the core.

Today I want to salute his long marriage and his unshakeable Faith.

In the same breath I want to shout to the world, "You were and always will be my friend--you stupid fool!"

Johnny Santa Cruz--1947 to 2016 Rest in Peace my best, best Buddy. I wish you had remained a lifelong pal.

16

A Brief History of MONEY and the Watchtower religion

by Terry in

watch tower corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time.

to appreciate how drastic these changes have been, you'd have to know how it was from the beginning.. .

watch tower corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time.

Terry

I stumbled across this rather fascinating gem:

"In July 1879, ZION'S WATCH TOWER and HERALD OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE magazine was started by Charles Taze Russell and Maria Russell, his new wife of three months, as a personal business venture. (Maria F. Russell was a trained and experienced schoolteacher who eventually claimed that she edited and/or authored much of the writings attributed to Charles Taze Russell. One only has to compare the quality of Russell's writings immediately before and soon after their marriage to see that Maria was telling the truth. Maria Russell also claimed that before they were married in March 1879 that Charles and she discussed partnering in their own Second Adventist magazine as one of the main reasons for their getting married. Apparently, even his marriage was a business venture as far as Charles Taze Russell was concerned.) TheZION'S WATCH TOWER magazine, the Millennial Dawn series of books, and all other signature publications published up until May 1898 were all OWNED PERSONALLY by Charles Taze Russell -- NOT Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society. Simply observe that ZWT specifically directed that all non-cash PAYMENTS for ZWT subscriptions and other literature and materials regularly offered for sale in ZWT were to be made payable to"C. T. Russell".

http://jwdivorces.bravehost.com/russell.html

44

My "best" friend (active JW) has just died

by Terry in

jw
friends

johnny santa cruz and i met around 1959 at a movie theater in fort worth, texas.. the purpose of that meeting was to create a fanclub for horror movie director william castle.

a week or so later, johnny stopped me as i was walking home from elementary school.. "hey--i think i know you.

weren't you at the william castle fanclub thing?".

Terry

With a best friend you have corroboration for your memories of how things really were and of yourself from another POV. When the friend dies, that corroboration vanishes.

Did this person say such and such as I remember, or was it somebody else?

Where, when, who and how becomes intangible, transparent, dissolving in the onward rush of time itself. Who is to say if memory is true in its reckoning? The people who were there with you, that's who.

Two friend sharpen each other.

A true friend tells you how it is and you have to take your lumps. Casual friends will tell you what you want to hear.

All this dies when the friend dies.

I am half the person I was yesterday. Part of me is unverifiable.

Sigh.

Deep sigh. . .

25

The saga of Russell and Rutherford

by Terry in

i think little charlie russell having been born after many miscarriages by his mother, was doted on and coddled beyond normal.

his mother died of a fever epidemic when he was about 9 and he may have associated burning with fever with burning in hell.he seemed to be obsessed about hell for awhile even to the point of graffiti on sidewalks marking scriptures as warnings.he was privately tutored and brought into the men's clothing business and given and adult's responsibilities.

although the family was presbyterian, there appears to be a streak of insubordination in the genes because they switched to a congregational church with an autonomy of leadership and no organizational oversight.why was this a big deal, do you think?

Terry

I have to wonder when the day will come (or has it already) when the Society will fudge its statistics to shape reality.

How would we ever know it was happening?

44

My "best" friend (active JW) has just died

by Terry in

jw
friends

johnny santa cruz and i met around 1959 at a movie theater in fort worth, texas.. the purpose of that meeting was to create a fanclub for horror movie director william castle.

a week or so later, johnny stopped me as i was walking home from elementary school.. "hey--i think i know you.

weren't you at the william castle fanclub thing?".

Terry

Yes, thank you all for your expressions of moral support. It is an odd emotion to nurture because I can't connect directly to a solid feeling due to our estrangement. I think it is my distant memory of Johnny more than my recent memory which saddens me.

His intransigence really frustrated me. He would admit so many failings on the part of the Watchtower religion and simultaneously excuse each of them. He claimed thousands of people left the Society in 1975's aftermath because "they weren't in it because they loved Jehovah, they were in it to save their own ass."

He was an intelligent fellow with lots of tricks up his sleeve to avoid losing an argument;)

I got what must be characterized as a "panic attack" last night at bedtime because I realized how many times a day--a week--a month--each year some little thing I learned or saw or felt I wanted to SHARE with him.

It won't ever happen and that is the most final reckoning death has to offer.

13

Catholic encyclopedia misquote

by alcyone in

i do not know if this misquote has been discussed here already.. new catholic encyclopedia says this about jw:.

"judge" rutherford introduced important changes in the witnesses' creed and transformed the congregational structure of the sect as it was under "pastor" russell into a rigid theocracy.

the third leader, "brother" nathan h. knorr, gradually replaced the offensive convert-making tactics of the rutherford era by suave manners that have gained the witnesses their current reputation as one of the best-behaved groups in the world.

Terry

How does an encyclopedia make a statement about what is "known"?

Wouldn't this sloppy statement be better served with a citation of quotations to the effect?

Sounds like a JW press release accepted as proof of a true fact, to me.

16

A Brief History of MONEY and the Watchtower religion

by Terry in

watch tower corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time.

to appreciate how drastic these changes have been, you'd have to know how it was from the beginning.. .

watch tower corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time.

Terry

Watch Tower Corp has changed a long-standing policy in regard to donations which had been in place a long, long time. To appreciate how drastic these changes have been, you'd have to know how it was from the beginning.

To understand the original policies (about money) and the changed (new policy) we have to take a peek into the past.

I don't want to bog you down in history. You can research on your own using Google.

Here are salient facts.

_________________________________________________

Charles T. Russell, age of 13, joined the Congregational church (dumped Presbyterian).

He went (like Girl Scouts are sent out with cookies to sell) door to door to RAISE MONEY for the Church.

Russell hated fund raising. He had to ask poor people to part with their money. He said he felt he was "fleecing the flock."

Russell sold 5 men's clothing stores for: $6,521,739.13

$300,000 of 1876 dollars would be worth : $6,521,739.13 in 2016.

http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php?

_______________________________________________________________

He threw his money into publishing End Times writings. He spent the family fortune like a drunken sailor on his favorite topics.

If somebody wrote something Russell agreed with he'd pay for the publishing.

If that somebody disagreed with Russell, he'd pull funding.

Russell finally fell in love with his own writings to the exclusion of everybody else (including his wife) and began writing 7 ambitious volumes.

He wanted to set everybody straight.

1886 the money dried up due to the immense amount of money spent in printing and distributing the first three publications.

He was spending about a million dollars a year! (In today's money.)

GUESS WHAT YEAR Russell tried to sell his books in bookstores? 1886.

_______________________________________________________________

By 1897, nearly one million Dawns had been distributed, largely by the colporteurs. DOOR TO DOOR BOOK SALESMEN.After 1931, the term “colporteur” was replaced by “pioneer.”

Pastor Russell's volumes were sold at about $2 a set or $2 of 1900 dollars would be worth: $55.00 in 2016 purchasing power.

Russell also turned to writing sermons as a newspaper columnist and built up a readership of about fifteen million people.

Having built a customer base (faithful readers) Russell went on tour giving sermons IN PERSON becoming one of the most recognized and 'famous' ministers in the world, like Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyers today.

Russell had no problems accepting private donations!

Pastor Russell had made a name for himself by refusing to take collections during meetings.

The slogan "Seats Free - No Collections" angered many clergymen because it was a slam on the traditional collection plate process.

_______________________________________________________________

The Watch Tower turned to advertising miraculous beans as a free giveaway and then switched to Miracle Wheat for a dollar.

In 1911, the market price for wheat was 59 cents to $1 a bushel. In Charles Taze Russell's Hicks Street Tabernacle, "miracle wheat" was being sold for $60 a bushel, or $1 a pound.

(The beans and wheat had been DONATED to Russell's ministry)

$1 of 1911 dollars would be worth: $24.39 in 2016 buying power.

Miracle Wheat brought in $1,800 of 1911 dollars would be worth: $43,902.44 in 2016

_______________________________________________________________

1897: When his wife Maria petitioned the court for a LEGAL SEPARATION (not a divorce) it was granted with Alimony.

Russell transferred his funds into the WTS account and strung Maria's alimony out torturously to make her dependent and to teach her a lesson.

Russell was litigious if he thought he could win a lawsuit.

The Washington Post partially quoted Maria's testimony about his claim "he floated from woman to woman like a jellyfish."

Russell sued and was awarded one dollar in damages. But--he relentlessly pursued an appeal making himself a legal nuisance and the case was settled for $15,000. $15,000 of 1915 dollars would be worth : $348,837.21 in 2016.

_______________________________________________________

http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/documents/1915_A_Great_Battle_in_the_Ecclesiastical_Heavens.pdf

Russell's attorney was Judge Rutherford who wrote a pamphlet: Great Battle in the Ecclesiastical Heavens defending Russell's reputation.

"This is a non-stock corporation; it pays no dividends, no salaries, and no one has ever, as its books clearly show, reaped any financial benefit therefrom. It is supported entirely by voluntary contributions made by those who are interested in the promulgation of Bible Truths. Its work is exclusively religious.

For each contribution of $10.00, the contributor is entitled to one voting share. While there are nearly two hundred thousand shares, and it would be an easy matter to elect some other man as president, there never has been cast a vote against Pastor Russell."

Ten dollars times two-hundred thousand shares = $2,000.000 $2,000,000 of 1915 dollars would be worth: $46,511,627.91 in 2016

Bingo! (Note: 1913 Federal Income Tax was passed into law.)

_______________________________________________________________

NINE MILLION people saw the PHOTO DRAMA of CREATION (a slide show) presented to audiences around the world. Stop and consider:

No collection plate was passed--however--DONATIONS were accepted. (A donation box in plain sight.)

On September 23, 1912, the Eagle ran a cartoon called "Easy Money Puzzle."

Russell sued the Eagle for libel, demanding $100,000 in damages for "injury to his reputation, good name, fame and standing."

The case was brought before Justice Charles H. Kelby and a jury in the Kings County Supreme Court.

One of the juicier allegations made against the Watch Tower Society was that it had coerced an insane man, Hope Hay, into contributing $10,000 to its funds. William E. Van Amburgh, secretary-treasurer of' the Watch Tower Society, acknowledged that Mr. Hay was in an "insane asylum" and that the Watch Tower Society was footing his bills, but denied that Mr. Hay had not given his money of his own free will.

The jury of twelve men was out for less than forty-five minutes before it returned a verdict of not guilty in the Eagle's favor.

This is just a historical snapshot of how money and the Watch Tower had their beginnings.