Posts by Hondo

42

JWs Called at my House This Morning

by Seeker4 in

jw
friends

here it was memorial day morning, and i'm out in the front yard watering the gardens when i hear a car pulling up the driveway.

it pulls into our section of the drive and i see it's a witness couple i know in the front seat.

the wife is driving and they spot me right off.

Hondo

Do JW's do recruiting via phone now. In the past they would "knock" at my door maybe once or twice a year. I received a call yesterday from someone identifying himself as a JW inviting me to attend the local KH this Sunday. He identified himself by name (I don't know him), was very soft spoken, almost angelic, and repeated several times that there would be no request for donations or money in any way, shape, or form. He must have repeated this point 3 or 4 times. There was no mention of Jehovah, other than him saying he was a JW. No mention or indication that the "sky was falling" and that I should consider a free bible study, etc., although I suspect that If I were to visit the KH this Sunday I would be bombarded with their kind of Love and asked to consider becoming a member of the "troof." I certainly do not intend to attend, but thought it strange to be receiving the call. Are the JW's changing the way they operate? Anyone else received calls?

Thanks

Hondo

27

Watchtower assaults its youth fear/guilt/baptism and career July 1, 2006

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

if we imagined for one moment that the majority of youths get baptized, then the july 1, 2006 wt paints a very different picture.

there must be a serious problem in the organization for the society to write so strong an article.

july 1, 2006 wt youths, make it your choice to serve jehovah.

Hondo

"Imagine that you are planning a long journey that will take you many miles from home. Probably, you would first consult a map to determine the best route. It is similar with planning your future. “ You have a wide variety of options,” says Michael, a young man who now serves at one of the branch offices of Jehovah’s Witnesses."

"It is similar with planning your future..." What future? I thought the end was near, right around the corner...??? Why plan for a future?

If JWs do plan for the future, how far into the future do they plan for? 2 years, 5, 10....how many?

61

Bethel Downsizing Spin

by Cellist in

jw
friends

there's an article on e-watchman giving the latest spin.

i don't know how to cut and paste, but i hope everyone goes and checks it out.

it is truly nauseating.

Hondo

"This does not take into account that many of these people have not paid into social security the whole time they have been at Bethel. ; They would have to work 10 years secularly to be able to draw on that fund. ; If they had worked some before coming to Bethel, they would have to make up that difference."

blondie,

do JW's think about Social Security? Why? The end is near correct? When my now ex left me for them back in 2003 she wanted to ensure that I started up an insurance policy, just in case I croaked before the big "A", and she wanted to ensure I paid her as much allimony as possible (she wanted it for life but the Judge had apparently dealt with these type divorces before and only gave her a very minimal amount for 6 years). Anyway, is their thinking that the end may not come and that they need to be prepared just in case? I asked my ex why she needed the insurance policy and allimony if the end was just around the corner. Her answer was just that, "just in case."

What am I missing here.

Tks. Hondo

61

Bethel Downsizing Spin

by Cellist in

jw
friends

there's an article on e-watchman giving the latest spin.

i don't know how to cut and paste, but i hope everyone goes and checks it out.

it is truly nauseating.

Hondo

Thanks sir82. I disagree with your statement "and that the deliverers have little or no interest in spreading"... Not my ex-wife (she joined the JW's after 20 years of marriage ruining our family, life, and so forth and so on). She is wrapped and packaged so well by the WTBS/JW's that she would run down the street naked with a purple hat on yelling, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling", if she were told to do so because of some misquoted, out of context biblical passage. She will do what she has to to "spread the word (lies and deceptions) of the WTBS", thinking that she is in the "troof." We were divorced in 2003 by the way.

Hondo

61

Bethel Downsizing Spin

by Cellist in

jw
friends

there's an article on e-watchman giving the latest spin.

i don't know how to cut and paste, but i hope everyone goes and checks it out.

it is truly nauseating.

Hondo

Also discussed were the more than 1 million inhabitants of the US that live in unassigned territory and quite a few more who do not receive a regular witness.

This above, from the Bethel letter, is a bit confusing. What does it actually mean? Are there only a million+ folks left in the U.S. to be witnessed to? Does it mean that ~299,000,000 (approximate U.S. population) people have already been approached, or approximately 74,000,000 households (base on 4 personnel per family), doors have been knocked on? If so, what has been the success of all this witnessing. If you compare a "period ot time" example, in this case the tenure of Pope John Paul II, how do the numbers compare to each other. For example, during his 25+ (1979 - 2005) years as Pope, 250,000,000 new catholics joined the church and were baptized, and, to best of my knowledge, John Paul did not knock on one door. Can the JW's claim any numbers close to this? They "pound the pavement", and doors, putting in a ton of hours. What is their actual success rate? I'm not espousing Catholicism mind you, but only using them in comparison as an example, primarily because just about all the major TV stations covered John Paul's death, and ultimate successor process, intermingling in all broadcasting the history, facts and figures about the Catholic church.

Just curious. Thanks for any response.

Hondo

37

Congratulations (belated) to Randy Watters on reaching 2 million!

by Deleted in

jw
friends

when i was in nyc in spiring of 1999 (there on biz) i asked a bethelite friend who was the biggest pain to the wts and he said randy watters and his bethel ministries.

i flew home to oregon and i read everything on randy at www.freeminds.org (watchers of the watchtower world).

truly a life saver for me and my family!

Hondo

I was never a JW Randy, but lost my wife to them a few years ago. I cannot emphathize with those JW that have left the organization, nor can I imagine the mental anquish they went through. What Freeminds did for me was to provide a vivid perspective of the JWs and Watchtower Society exposing, in exacting detail, their deceptions and lies, and why my now ex-wife became encapsulated by their beliefs. I thank you Randy. I visit your site daily and learn something new with each log-in. I only hope that someday, because of what I have learned about the organization by browsing your site, I will be able to discuss, with my ex, and and any doorknockers, in a logicat way, why what she/they are doing was/is a mistake, and that they are headed down the wrong spriitual path.

Thanks again.

Hondo

26

Do the Original books of the Bible still exist?

by Gill in

i was talking about a born again neighbour of ours on my topic on 'is j k rowling a witch?

' today.. one thing, during our discussion that she brought out was that she had actually seen first hand the original books of the bible.

i told her that the whole, unconditional, originally written scrolls books as first put down, 'pen to paper' as it was no longer existed.. she said she had seen them herself in israel and hence 'knew for certain that these bible books are from god!'.

Hondo

If she is talking about a copy of the "bible" the answer is yes, copies do still exist. The first true bible, the VULGATE, handscribed entirely in latin, was written ~400AD. All bibles

thereafter (until Gutenberg invented the printing press) were handscribed, rare, and there are many copies of these around as well.

36

Who here is not former Jehovah's Witness?

by omerp in

just wondering who else is lurking besides me?

Hondo

I was never a JW, but have know of them, and observed one of their bizzare practices (a young JW girl I knew when I was about nine years old died because her parents refused her a blood transfusion after a accident) when I was young. More recently, I lost my wife (a Japanese National) to them after 20 years of a pretty good marriage. We are now divorced (since 2003, our 20th year of marriage). I read everything I can get my hands on to try to understand what went wrong; why she decided to destroy a marriage, family, and life. Somedays I blame myself; somedays I blame her. Lately I have been blaming myself more. I must have done somthing wrong to cause her to give up so much on the twilight of us entering into our senior years (2 grown kids and not JWs). I am constantly amazed, to a very great extent, at how the WBTS/JW's has wrapped and packed her within their belief structure. I have not seen her in more than a year, but last time I did, it was all doctrine and kept telling me how I would be sorry soon. She would run down the street naked with a purple hat on yelling, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling," if she were told to, based on some biblical misinterpretation of course.

Thanks for listening.

88

WTS: NO MORE BOUND VOLUMES AFTER THIS YEAR!

by Mary in

jw
friends

i just found out today (from my sister) that crooklyn will not be making any more bound volumes of the watchtower or awake magazines after this year------instead, they're all going to be on audio tape only.

she does not have a computer so i generously

i think this could very well be yet another tactic of the gb trying to keep a lid on their "embarassing" quotes of yesterday.

Hondo

Are the audio tapes "proofread", or more correctly,"prooflistened," before they are distributed? Is someone going the check to make sure all the right words were said? Or, will it be possible for the irrate speaker, maybe questioning JW/WBTS policy or doctrine, to make a negative type "change", or "changes," against the WBTS as he or she recites the months awake or watchtower? Similarly, it seems it will now be easier to alter the original magazines content and insert a doctrinal change (new light) that may have taken place between the time the magazine was published and when it was actually recorded.

Thanks

55

Who was Jesus really?

by Spectrum in

1. was he the son of god and some kind of god himself?

2. was he an extremely intelligent man that manipulated people and made himself appear to be fullfilling the prophecies about the messiah?

3. was he a dellusional nutter?

Hondo

Hello Spectrum

I only suggested several other "saviors" not thousands (Jesus had thousands of followers), which there probably were. The book Sixteen Crucified Saviors of Christianity Before Christ; Kersey Graves, suggest this premise, albeit with some controversy. Even the bible mentions that there may come false prophets, or others who will proclaim words of God, but falsely.