They get the same monthly allowance as every other member of the Bethel family; but they do indeed get many perks. They get to travel all over the world, have the best apartments at Bethel, and have excellent health care. But, considering the fact that most of them have been in the "full time work" for upwards of 30 to 40 years, I think that it's a big price to pay. If I had to serve in "full time work" for even 10 years, I would probably wind up shooting myself. Personally, I don't envy any of their lifestyles.
Posts by Arthur
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38Do the Governing Body have a priviliged life style or not?
by Gill inhaving heard that ted jaracz is being flown out of state to consult a heart specialist, i started wondering what other luxuries the governing body of the wtbts enjoy!
any one any idea how they really live and if their vow of poverty is fake?.
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Have any of you seen the movie "The Village"?
by Lady Liberty inabout a month ago a movie was on cable called "the village".
it was a freaky movie, and i was a little uncomfortable watching it, but nothing ever happened that made me turn the channel.
turns out there is quite a twist in the end which explained the freakyness.
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Arthur
Absolutely; it reminded me of the org. Several of us on this site have posted about this movie before. There were a lot of parallels. The "forbidden color" could symbolize "independent thinking" in the org. The boxes that they stored in their homes; containing the forbidden contents could symblolize "apostate material".
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42
Who, on this board, go to church now???
by mama1119 ini wondered how many abandoned going to any kind of church.
or, if there are some who go to a church now.
was it weird at first to go?
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Arthur
I am finding that many churches do a lot of good and there are so many more sincere Christians who follow in Christ's footseps with giving and helping, praying and outreach....yes many more than I ever dreamt of. Not all Christians are big cold hearted republicans either.
Yes, this is a very good point, because we as Witnesses were so indoctrinated with the phobia of "Christendom" that we thought that all Christian churches were evil. Tom Cabeen (former JW), who is one of the board members of the Bible Research & Commentary International http://brci.org wrote a really good article about "The Body of Christ". He pointed out that Jesus' descriptions about his true followers apply to the individual, instead of the whole church itself. Jesus described what his true individual followers would look like.
This article was very enlightening and helped me to see Christianity in a whole new light. Cabeen has written a couple of other very good articles that I recommend (one of them about the Faithful Slave doctrine). You can find his articles at the web link that I posted above.
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42
Who, on this board, go to church now???
by mama1119 ini wondered how many abandoned going to any kind of church.
or, if there are some who go to a church now.
was it weird at first to go?
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Arthur
Buddhism is like the Seinfeld show. It's a religion about nothing
LMAO !
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The Best Revenge as a so called "Apostate" is...HAPPINESS
by Lady Liberty ingood morning all and happy sunday to you and your families..... don't you find that when you are asked by a jw how you are doing, they expect you to say.... horrible, terrible, i am so unhappy..blah blah blah.
witing for that kind of reply so they can say in return,"well if you would only return to jehovah, and his spirit appointed organization you would be happy again.
" you know the drill.
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Arthur
The prevailing view among Witnesses, is that when someone leaves the heavenly sanctuary of the Mother Ship, that their lives will just come apart at the seams. Somehow they believe that whenever someone leaves the org, they will fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth, their head spinning around, getting ravaged by demons.
But here's the conumdrum: when they see someone who has left the org, living a happy peaceful life; it screws with their head. How do they deal with this dissonance? They reason: "the demons are making them feel happy." Meanwhile, they still cling to the belief that their own suffering and depression is a sign of their righteous endurance. Talk about a schizophrenic mind salad.
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A 'Good Con Man needs....'
by Gill ini was reading in 'the times' yesterday about a clergy man found guilty of trying to get two ladies to sign over their estates to him in their wills.. the police found on his computer information on how to be a 'good conman'.. apparantly a good conman needs only a little truth mixed in with lies to con anyone.. is this how the wtbts gets away with it?
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Arthur
The funny thing is, that when people point out to JWs that when you study with them, you don't study the Bible just Watchtower publications, they really can't accept it.
This is absolutely true. The "Bible study" is a myth. It is actually a Watchtower Society indoctrination session. How do they do this? The study publication always has a nice array of horrible pictures of starving children, tanks, war scenes, and crime. Next to that, is an artist's rendering of the paradise earth. The overall message being given, is that those who don't accept JW doctrines are those who are accepting "Satan's rulership" over God's. "If you don't accept the JW doctrinal system, you are really supporting all of these horrible things that are pictured here." The JW propoganda machine has convinced millions of JWs that anyone who doesn't accept a study with the JWs, and who doesn't accept the JW doctrines, is hard-hearted. JWs are convinced that people who don't believe in JW doctrines are "proud", "haught", and "goat-like". This in turn allows the average JW to not feel any discomfort over the slaughter of billions of people, because in the JW mind, those billions of wayward goats sealed their own fates. This level of irrational and delusional indoctrination is probably one of the biggest con games in history. It's an operation that would have made P.T. Barnum quite proud.
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Arabic "We will not be silent" T-Shirt removed before flight
by Elsewhere ini saw a news article about this on the al jazeera news site the other day and was going to post about it here with a link, but i was not able to because they promptly removed it.
", and inspector harris says "yes, sure".
inspector harris said: "you don't have to take of your t-shirt, just put it on inside-out".
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Arthur
I do see your point elsewhere, but just because other countries stifle free speech, doesn't mean the U.S. should also. I do understand that unbridled, and unlimited speech is something that none of us can expect to have, but I think that a T-shirt is something totally benign and trivial. I felt that this was a gross overreaction on the part of the security personnel.
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Comments You Will Not Hear at the 9-10-06 WT Study (FEAR GOD)
by blondie incomments you will not hear at the 09-10-06 wt study (august 1, 2006, pages 21-25)(fear god) .
review comments will be in red.
wt material from today's wt will be in black.
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Arthur
Again, another great post blondie! Thank you for these comments.
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The "Revelation Book" adhesive cut and paste instruction kit!
by Atlantis inthe revelation book adhesive cut and paste instruction kit!
this pdf-"kit" was sent to us from a friend of ours who is an elder in england who is thoroughly disgusted.
the file is being sent throughout many congregations by email to assist the witnesses with "corrections" for their "revelation" book.
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Arthur
Remember how they had to change a couple of the brochure covers several years back because the people who posed for the cover got DFd? I think that the Society should have just sent out pictures of heads that we could have pasted onto the old ones. It would have saved money, and would have given the little kids something to do during the Written Review.
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A funny SDA JW tale
by barry inmy dad is her in canberra staying with us and tonight i mentioned about how i get on jwd and how this site works.. he told me a great storey tonight about some sdas collecting for a charity over in wagga nsw where he onced lived.. anyway this bloke was going door to door trying to get donations he had a bag just like jws carry.
the going was hard people didnt want to even talk to him and being a good salesperson as he was in his regular job he couldnt understand the hostility.
anyway he decided he would tackle this problem head on at the very next door.
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Arthur
LOL ! That's hilarious.
I remember when I was going door to door; there were a couple of times where Mexican immigrants got nervous because they thought that we were with the INS (Immigration Naturalization Service). Looking back on that, I wish I would have gone along with it and told them that if they would give me a bribe, I would overlook their immigration violation. That could have paid for our pioneer lunches for a week.