sir82

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Posts by sir82

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  13

  150+/200 New Congregations in US are Spanish

  by daniel-p in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have a friend who speaks spanish and likes to go to their meetings once in a while.

  she was visiting a nearby congregation who was having their co's visit and he mentioned that out of 200 congregations that were formed in the states last year, 150+ of them were spanish!!

  this, of course, was mentioned in light of how fast the spanish are growing, but all i could think about was that if the spanish consists of so much of the growth in the us, then the english congregations must really be doing horribly in order to break that 0% growth!

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  sir82

  It would be interesting to compare that "200" number to the count of congregations from the 2006 yearbook, vs. the 2005 yearbook.

  If, for example, there was only an increase of 180 in the books, that would indicate 20 congregations dissolved (not a number the Society would like to push).

  Even if there doesn't turn out to be such an obvious drop, the number itself is pretty meaningless.

  Where I live, there is an enormous influx of people moving in, JWs included. There was a "new congregation" formed here last year, and another likely to follow this year. But that is due to JWs moving in from other states. So you have 2 "new congregations", but 20 congregations from up north are now smaller.
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  29

  Circuit Overseer Pensions and the Implications

  by AlanF in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just learned that the watchtower society has instituted a pension plan of sorts for circuit overseers.

  this is a big change.. previous to this new plan, the various kinds of "traveling overseers" were pretty much on their own when they retired from the traveling work.

  in a few cases, such men were invited to live out their lives in bethel, but in most cases they simply went back to being normal rank and file members who had to fend for themselves financially.. i can only speculate that the reason for this change was that the society has been having difficulty getting elders to become circuit overseers.

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  sir82

  Pension plan?!?!?!

  Wait a minute, Armageddon is coming "very soon now", isn't it? Why would anyone need a pension plan?

  I'd love to know more details about this, if possible.

  What are the payments to be? Will it be an annuity or a lump sum? Does it apply to current COs only, or will already retired COs get a benefit too? Will credit for "past service" be given, or will it be credited only from a certain date forward? (Our current CO has been "serving" as one for 50 years - if he can now retire and get a hefty sum for all those years, that may prompt him to retire).

  What about medical expenses - covered for retirees or not?

  If not, I wonder if this new arrangement is being made to, odd as it sounds, save money. While an active CO, the Society covers medical expenses. I can easily imagine that medical and prescription drug costs for a 70 or 80 year old CO would be huge, or at least the cost of an insurance policy for these guys would be quite large. Plus, if these guys have been "full time servants" for 40 - 50 - 60 years, they would have paid little or nothing into Social Security, thus may not be eligible for Medicare.

  It may be cheaper to just pay a few hundred bucks a month to a "retiree" than to continue to pay for his medical care.
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  16

  Is the Watchtower behind this "unbiased" website?

  by SeymourButts in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i just happened to stumble across this website while doing some research.

  although it claims to not be biased toward any religous denomination, it has a decidedly watchtower slant to all of its bible translations and subject commentaries.

  it completely supports 607bc and even claims that only 144,000 will be going to heaven.

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  sir82

  Probably a frutrated "young anointed" who has no other way to propound his own particular slant on the Bible.

  I would imagine he has written dozens or hundreds of letters to the Society, each of which was likely ignored, and he can't figure out why, since, beein anointed, he is one of the "Faithful and Discreet Slave", and aren't his ideas as good as anyone else's of that august body?

  The website, I'm guessing was his Plan B.
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  11

  CO's talk - A People Prepared for Survival

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the co last week gave the following talk, "a people prepared for survival".

  he solely used an old testament example, that of the israelites preparing to eat their lamb and greens in haste and mark their doorposts with blood.

  they only had a limited time to get prepared, get the sheep, cook it thoroughly before the angel of death came to kill egyptians firstborn.

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  sir82

  Wow, what a flashback...

  I remember a talk very similar, but it was over 30 years ago, in the big run-up prior to 1975, when i was just a wee one.

  The CO (can't remember who) gave a contrast between 2 Israelite families, one a "fine upstanding example", the other who liked to cut corners.

  The fine upstanding family did everything exactly as Moses had said, splashed the blood, prepared the lamb just so, etc. etc. and everyone made it out of Egypt just fine.

  The other family said something like, "Splash blood?!? that'll ruin the decor of the house. Let me get a paintbrush and dab it around a bit."

  When it came time to eat the passover, "It's so late, and little Johnny is so tired, let's just send him to bed."

  And, when the angel of death came, as they had not followed all instructions to the letter, the angel of Jehovah killed little Israelite Johnny. Even thought he parents escaped with the rest of the Israelites, their hearts were heavy as they thought of their lost child.

  I think the idea was, JW parents should unquestioningly obey every dictate coming from "Jehovah's visible channel", and not even "take it easy" on their own children, if they wanted to see everyone survive Armageddon.

  As you can imagine, it made one whale of an impression on my little 6-8 year old mind. To this day, I remember feeling horrified at what happened to little Israelite Johnny.
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  11

  Aprocrypha and JWs

  by Lilycurly in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i made a search but didn't come up with anything specific about what are the views of jws concerning the apocryphal bible books.. from what i know, some man a long time ago (catholic or pagan, but certainly not a jehovah's witness) decided wich books were inspired and wich to dump, and then proceeded to assemble the bible as we know it today.. now i don't want to start a fight about wether or not they would be inspired....but how do the jws explain that they accept this choice made by this particular man (or group??

  ) do they admit tha the man was inspired?

  if they do, then they'd have to admit that god gives his blessing to other religions, and if not, they are missing some books and serious information..... what would my father tell me, if i asked him?

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  sir82

  They will likely point you to the "All Scriptures Inspired" book. It has one chapter for each of the 66 books included in the Bible. Each chapter has 1 paragraph about why the book that chapter considers in canonical. As I recall, in most cases, the reasons given are "traditionally accepted as part of the canon" and "is in complete harmony with the rest of the bible".

  Ergo, any book not part of the canon (the apocrypha) either "was not traditionally part of the canon", or "is not in harmony with the rest of the Bible".
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  135

  WALKING IN THE PATH OF INCREASING LIGHT - WT STUDY

  by Mary in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for those of you not "keeping up with the organization"botchtower deals soley with all the bullshit instances of "increased light" on this joke of a religion god's organization.

  it asks many drone-like thought-provoking questions as i've listed below.

  incredible that these guys claim to be the sole ownership of what is absolute "truth", yet change doctrines like i change lipsticks.

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  sir82

  sir82, How do you think they will turn the screws tighter? Will they go to regional communal living? Build compounds like other groups have done?

  I really don't see anything drastic. Regional communal living might be an option if there were 6000 JWs in total, all living near eeach other, but with 6 miilion plus active scattered across 200+ countries, and then another 9 million or so "hangers-on", it wouldn't be possible to control so many.

  This is all speculation at this point, of course. One idea that popped into my head last night: some sort of program like "you must be an active publisher to be 'true Christian' ". To be followed by a program of specialized shepherding on all inactive ones. After a "reasonable period of time", any who don't cooperate with the elders are announced as "no longer one of Jehovah's Witnesses" (fitting in with the mysterious wording change in the new Organization book).

  Just an idea, who knows what it really may be.
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  135

  WALKING IN THE PATH OF INCREASING LIGHT - WT STUDY

  by Mary in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for those of you not "keeping up with the organization"botchtower deals soley with all the bullshit instances of "increased light" on this joke of a religion god's organization.

  it asks many drone-like thought-provoking questions as i've listed below.

  incredible that these guys claim to be the sole ownership of what is absolute "truth", yet change doctrines like i change lipsticks.

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  sir82

  One thing I'm pretty confident of...

  If there is some change coming, and it will affect JW actions, it sure as @#$% won't be to make anyone's life easier.

  Think about the direction the Society has gone in the past 5 years. College is evil, shun your D-F'ed relatives, materialism is evil, your all a bunch of porn-watching slackers, quit going to nightclubs, your clothing is atrocious, etc. etc.

  So, while I would certainly welcome reforms along the lines of "blood as a conscience matter", "making it easier for a DF-ed person to return", "no more field service in certain areas", etc., it almost certianly ain't gonna happen. I expect the screws to turn a bit more tightly, if anything.
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  21

  So I've got this penny...

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i've got this penny.... it's a 1947d, a wheat back, like this one:.

  i'm looking at it and wondering where it's been.

  in 1947, you could get five pieces of candy for a penny.

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  sir82

  It saddens me that you felt the need to explain it further.

  D'oh!

  My intention was, don't walk into a copper smelting plant with 20 pennies and expect to walk out with 30 cents. You would need thousands & thousands to make it work.

  OK, OK, I'll crawl back into my den of nerdiness....
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  21

  So I've got this penny...

  by AlmostAtheist in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i've got this penny.... it's a 1947d, a wheat back, like this one:.

  i'm looking at it and wondering where it's been.

  in 1947, you could get five pieces of candy for a penny.

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  sir82

  Speaking of pennies, here is another little-known fact.

  Since 1982, all pennies are made from zinc, with an extremely thin coating of copper over it. It is not too difficult to scrape it away, to verify it.

  But, pennies dated 1981 & earlier (plus some date 1982) are 95% pure copper.

  In recent times, the cost of copper has risen to a point there is about 1.5 cents worth of copper in each pre-1982 penny.

  I.e., if you collected thousands of pre-1982 pennies, and sold them to a place that bought bulk copper, you would get about 1.5 times face value.
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  45

  Richie's Elders: Deaf? Dumb? Both?

  by RichieRich in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  let me preface this by saying that i in now way mean to insult to the deaf/mute community by comparing them to leaders of a very prevalent cult, the jehovah's witnesses.

  you see, in the service meeting last night, there was a talk based on an article in the january 2006 our kingdom ministry entitled "young ones: shining as illuminaters".

  the brother who gave this part is my book study overseer, and a member of the "richie taskforce", i.e.

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  sir82

  Richie,

  I think what Nina is trying to say is, take the high road.

  The fact that there are murderers in the world, does not give you the right to murder.

  Does the fact that the Watchtower lied to you, give you the right to mislead others in the congregation?

  I'm not trying to insert myself into the dispute, I just don't know if you got her point.