Posts by tim3l0rd

14

The Stupidity of the "Preaching Work" ...

by Muddy Waters in

this came up in another thread and i wondered if any one else thought this way while they were still in..... - that it is actually better not to preach as people who don't hear "the truth" are said to be given a resurrection rather than the poor saps who refused a paltry magazine and now merit everlasting destruction..

tim3l0rd

Funny enough, even though I believed that those who had not heard the "Good News" would probably survive the Big A, I never thought that it would be better to not preach at all. I'm sure it was full-on CD causing my brain to short-circuit. Preaching was ingrained in me as a child and I always felt that it was my duty so I couldn't question it.

I've presented that same question to my wife and I can see her brain trying to reason that question away. I know it messes with the perfectly constructed world in her head, but I can't quit trying to get her to think.

44

We talk a lot about conditional friends on here

by cappytan in

jw
friends

so, when people post about being shunned by their friends, i've heard several posters say things like, "their friendship is conditional.

real friendships aren't conditional.".

i'm sorry, but that just isn't really true.. if you and i were friends, there are conditions.

tim3l0rd

I agree with you. There are always conditions to any relationship. The question is who is setting the conditions. Are the conditions set between me and the other person alone or is some outside entity setting the conditions?

BTW…having gone through divorce and so forth, THEN a year later having gone through being shunned by everyone I knew including family ... isolating someone is one of the most worst things you can do to a person.

I went through the exact same thing; divorce and then df'd a year later. Being isolated and shunned is the single worst experience of my life. I loved my ex and was devastated when she left, but being shunned by everyone I knew was so much worse.

6

Google Earth the Bethels and you can see the Tennis Courts, Swimming Pools, but Austerity measures still continue

by Quarterback in

jw
friends

what's to become of these little luxuries enjoyed at bethel now that some departments have closed down such as housekeeping, laundry, meals, etc....

tim3l0rd

To be honest, I don't mind them having a swimming pool or a tennis court. The majority of the bethelites get very little bonuses for being there. Many do not come from wealthy families and do not have access to much recreation. They may get some notoriety in their hometown or congregations that they visit, but that's about the extent of the benefits of being a bethelite. Most apartment complexes have a swimming pool and a tennis court, so I don't feel that they are extravagant things to provide.

8

Possible crack in the door that I can expose

by WasOnceBlind in

so on monday when i went to pick up my son from my mom i noticed a framed print out of a poem on my moms living room.

it was in spanish but i read it and i was kind of surprised at what it said.

i don't remember it verbatim but i would go as far as to say it had some apostate factors in there.

tim3l0rd

In my opinion there is a difference between the actual teaching and how most dubs rationalize it in their lives.
My wife would never agree that only witnesses will survive to the new system but she wouldn't disagree with the WTS viewpoint either. Weird right?

Mine is the same. No matter how many times I show her a WT that says that only JWs will survive she rationalizes it away. She personally believes that many more will survive, but still somehow thinks that preaching is necessary to save everyone.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

tim3l0rd

OnTheWayOut-

While the org held a lien on the KHs, they didn't actually "own" the KHs, at least not the ones that my dad was an elder at. The local corporation held the title to the KH. When the loan was paid off on the old KH, they no longer sent payments to WT and the donations for "local expenses" actually reduced as everyone knew that the local expenses were less and they were able to keep some of the money for themselves. When they sold the old KH and built a new one, the proceeds from the sale were used to build the new one and lowered their monthly payments on the new KH. While it is true that the org could tell them that they needed to sell or not, they local body had a lot of input as to what they wanted to do.

Now they have no control and have to wait on the org to do anything. The LDC is focusing on densely populated areas and ignoring those in less populated areas. It will be years and maybe a decade or more before the KHs in some rural areas are renovated or rebuilt. In years past, the RBC focused only on their area, but now the LDC has a national approach. In the end, the org still controls everything, but now the local brothers and sisters have lost even the illusion of control.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

tim3l0rd

WireRider-

You don't actually think that JWs study the Bible do you? I know that even at my most zealous period in life I barely had time to prepare for the meetings, read the magazines, and read my bible daily. There was little time for deep research and thinking about the scriptures. The scriptures used for the meetings are selected to support whatever point they are trying to get across. Few JWs do more than look up the selected scripture and try to apply it to the paragraph.

Even those that read the Bible daily do so with blinders on. When I read the Bible as a JW, I was always thinking how the passage would fit to our understandings rather than thinking about the passage itself. When I started meditating on what the scripture meant and the context, that's when I started to see how JW understandings didn't line up.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

tim3l0rd

boc-

Here is the link to the post on Reddit: New Style KH

The pics say they are from Haledon, NJ. There's also this pic of the KH under construction.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

tim3l0rd

WireRider - I lost track somewhere. Why do so many people just send money straight to the WT for nothing? Looting accounts/reserves. Money. Where does the money go? A real estate empire? I can't believe that general people are paying the mortgage on WT owned property. It doesn't make any sense.

I think that many people stopped contributing to the World Wide Work once the announcement was made that the congregation was pledging to do so. I remember almost two decades ago that contributions to the WWW used to be close to $1000/month in my congregation. The report I looked at recently showed the contributions to the WWW was around $350 (that was money collected from the box for WWW in the KH). When adjusted for inflation, that $1000 would be like $1500 today. So donations have dropped almost $1200/month in 20 years.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

tim3l0rd

DD -

I know that they finished one in NJ and I believe are close to finishing one down near Miami. They did say on the video last year that they were focusing on the densely populated areas first. It just seems ridiculous though that the RBCs in each area were able to build so much quicker and now the LDC is running at a snails pace.

49

Forgiving Loans the Watchtower Way

by cofty in

bank - thank you for maintaining your loan repayments for the past 3 years.

to show our appreciation we are forgiving the balance of your loan.

borrower - yeah!.

tim3l0rd

Spoke with an elder last night and supposedly the LDC is in full swing and building new KHs, yet they have 5 congregations sharing one KH here because they sold a KH last year and they are not on the schedule yet for a new KH. He also said that as long as a KH is in good shape and has no major issues they will not be renovated or upgraded even with new equipment.

I checked the accounts report and that congregation is sending $500/month for the KH building fund. That's $2500/month if all 5 congregations are doing the same thing!