the following table illustrates the extent to which watchtower sometimes goes in their interpretation of scriptures.
when i look at that table and the charts that follow, it makes me think of the word kaleidoscope.
i suspect we've all played with such a toy when we were kids.. kaleidoscope -- a constantly changing pattern or sequence of objects or elements.
The depressing thing though is that witnesses living in the 21st century, have no idea whatsoever about all the past flip flops and alterations.
They are encouraged to just look at the situation now.
So what they see is revolutions in many countries, financial problems in leading world economies and their mother organisation telling them that this shows how we are at the end of the present system.
For many that is all they need ie reassurance that everything will work out very soon.
the 2012 yearbook has released the publisher statistics for the 2011 service year.
a scan of the report can be found at http://www.jwfacts.com/images/2011-publisher-report.pdf and i have started updating the graphs at http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php.
as expected, it is following on from similar trends to the last 15 years.
Good point room 215. I had not thought of that. If only an extra small percentage started counting bible studies in the family, it would raise the figure considerably. What would be really interesting is, how many studies are just with newly interested ones that are not a part of the JW families
a few years ago , a very zealous 30 ish pioneer couple sold up & moved to central america to serve where the need is greater.
they were the classic incredibly "enthusiastic for jehovah" types who had deliberately not had any family & led a very "simple" life to focus on kingdom interests.
they were very very close & always worked together in the ministry.
It does make since. I think the best thing any of us can do is engage in foreign travel if possable. It really opens your mind to what it is really like in other countries.
have others noticed that if you enter "jehovah's witnesses" into a google search that the first alternative it predicts is "jehovah's witnesses mentally diseased"?.
i use firefox and am in the uk, if that makes a difference.. does that mean that "jehovah's witnesses mentally diseased" is currently the most popular jw related search?
if so i wonder how many of those searches are by jehovah's witnesses prompted by media exposure of the issue?.
I have just typed in Jehovah's witnesses and the first few sites are the societies own. I then typed the same in and added 'in UK' and abot 4 searches down there was the mentally diseased link to a British newspaper article about it.
place los angeles dodger stadium temperature 97-100 degrees.
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prayer lenght 25 minutes of pain!.
The society and even local elders use prayers as a way of drilling in the main points of a meeting or an assembly. It is a part of the indoctrination process.
my 80 something year old mom is a die hard jw, but to her credit, she has not shunned me.
as would be expected, she is always "praying" that i return to jah and get reinstated.
is consistent...every time my wife and i see her, she always tries to steer the conversation to "how bad the world" has become.. today, she escalated the "theocratic attack" by coming out directly and asking me what i thought of world conditions.
Hi tenyearsafter, there is a very good website called the good news network. It is nothing to do with religion, it simply prints articles from round the world of all the good things that are happening. I use it regularly when talking to any JW, because as you say they like to go on about the bad things. Here is a link for anyone interested.
we all are at different stages in our journey from the watchtower organization.
some of us have been free for years, and some of us are at that moment of initial discovery.
as for me, though i began to conscientiously fade just a few months ago, my discovery actually began years ago - even while serving as an elder.. i have no illusions that this journey will be easy.
Hi Darth, It's not easy for anyone to leave but especially an elder or mini servant. I faded 15 years ago successfully and the witnesses never call at my house now. Then a few years ago my grown up son joined and simply would not listen to anything I told him about the org. That was hard to deal with. But I am so glad I did leave, because like you I could no longer live a lie.
dear brothers and sisters, i watched a disturbing video on youtube of this born-againer beating the hell out of some old timers in utah( i think.
) and his conduct was hideous, not christlike one bit.
the question i pose to you is this, how many jws were you truly impressed by their use of the bible?
They have certain scriptures they know very well, as they are regularly used at the meetings. However the vast majority of the bible never gets used by them. I know my use of the bible was very limited when I was a JW.
when thinking about the wealth of the organization, i used to wonder how anyone of us would ever really know if someone was actually getting rich, personally profiting or living the highlife using watchtower funds.
i always figured that if there were something like that going on, the u.s. government would surely have found this out and would have gladly exposed it.
then some time ago someone made a post indicating that there are those who are being paid by the watchtower.
Ray Franz who was an ex governing body member made it clear that the gov body members did not get huge paychecks. However as has been said before, they do not need lots of money as everything is paid for them. A nice apartment, three good meals a day, endless vacations to ecotic parts of the world where all they need to do is stand up and give manuscript talk. They get free healthcare, a nice modern car, all utilities paid for, and often receive money from individual witnesses. Many would give their eye teeth for a package like that.
universities were established by the catholic church.
the european ones are ancient.
judaism provided a robust education, esp.
The only reason not to go to Uni now is that there are so many doing it, and often not enough people learning practicle jobs, like being a plumber, electrician etc. However Uni gives you power to reason and check what you have been told. That is the main reason the society are against it.
However when it comes to getting witnesses to act as lawyers and doctors for them at Bethel. I am sure they are very glad they have those Uni trained witnesses.
