Also, look at places like Circuit City, they let go the sales people at the stores with experience, leaving inexperienced help, from what I have read, that is similar to what has happened at Bethel.....
insearchoftruth
JoinedPosts by insearchoftruth
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122
Could Watchtower Collapse Be Sooner Than You Think?
by metatron inthere have been a number of developments over the past few months and they paint an interesting picture.. witnesses can keep dragging themselves to meetings ad infinitum however, the future of the watchtower itself is another story.
the evidence of continuing cash flow problems is now overwhelming.
if you talk to well placed witnesses, most won't deny it but simply blame it on the publishers financial problems.. they have cut off loans to congregations many of whom genuinely need new kingdom halls.
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SC serial killer was a JW!..a friend here knew him and was in same KH
by oompa inmy friend here on jwd who i have known since a teenager texted me today and then called.
he actually recognized the police sketch of the guy!
the murderer was killed by nc cops, after he had executed five people in gaffney sc in the past week or so.
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insearchoftruth
He was probably killing people who were unbelievers to ensure that they would not die at armageddon so they could have a chance at a resurrection......
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Very Moving memorial to Michael. First class all the way
by StoneWall inglad i decided to watch it.
i was afraid it would turn out to be a circus and i was very pleasantly surprised at how.
dignified and honorable it turned out.. thanks to the jackson family for allowing many to see all the good things michael will be remembered for as well.
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insearchoftruth
Got this from a newspaper just outside of MJs home town of Gary, I am surprised by the spirituality of the memorial, especially given the information that he had a Jehovah's Witness type of funeral just prior. This seems as if it would be a huge conflict to the family, with a church chior, preachers from religions other than the WTS. I am so glad that the family allowed such a memorial to take place......a lot of folks may have needed this for closure, and it is most likely being very heavily watched by members of the WTS and that may cause some of them to take a second look at some of their beliefs...... What seemed the most strange to me is the spiritual song 'going to see the king', for in the WTS, this is something reserved for the anointed....
Jackson's public memorial takes a spiritual turn
By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer | Tuesday, July 07, 2009LOS ANGELES | Michael Jackson's public memorial, watched by millions around the world, struck a tone more spiritual than spectacular Tuesday, opening with a church choir serenading his golden casket and continuing with somber speeches and gospel-themed musical performances.
Pastor Lucious W. Smith of the Friendship Baptist Church in Pasadena gave the invocation, followed by Mariah Carey singing the opening performance with a sweet rendition of the Jackson 5 ballad "I'll Be There," a duet with Trey Lorenz.
"We come together and we remember the time," said Smith, riffing off one of Jackson's lyrics. "As long as we remember him, he will always be there to comfort us."
Millions of fans around the world gathered at odd hours to watch the ceremony, which was broadcast from Tokyo to Paris and streamed everywhere online.
Among those who saluted Jackson were music mogul Barry Gordy, the Rev. Al Sharpton and basketball greats Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant. Jennifer Hudson sang Jackson's hit "Will You Be There" and John Mayer played guitar on a whisper-light rendition of "Human Nature."
"This is a moment that I wished I didn't live to see," Stevie Wonder said before his performance.
The singer Smokey Robinson began the service by reading statements from Jackson's close friends Diana Ross and Nelson Mandela. The South African leader's statement ended with a poignant admonition: "Be strong."
After a long period of silence punctuated only by camera flashes, the tension broke with the organ strains of a black spiritual, "Hallelujah, hallelujah, going to see the King."
Lionel Richie gave a gospel-infused performance in front of a shaft of light evoking a cross.
An estimated 20,000 people were in the Staples Center as Jackson's flower-draped casket was brought to the venue in a motorcade under law enforcement escort. Those who gathered constituted a visual representation of Jackson's life: black, white and everything in between, wearing fedoras and African headdresses, sequins and surgical masks.
"Words really can't explain how I feel," said Dani Harris, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom from Los Angeles. "I'm happy to be here, but the occasion is not so cool. I'm happy to be here and have some closure. It still doesn't seem real."
Fans with a ticket wore gold wristbands and picked up a metallic gold program guide on their way in. Acting as pallbearers, Jackson's brothers each wore a gold necktie, a single spangly white glove and sunglasses.
Members of the Jackson family sat in the front row of the Staples Center, including his brothers and what appeared to be his three children. Brother Jermaine Jackson took the stage and sang the standard "Smile" as he fought back tears.
Jackson's hearse had been part of a motorcade that smoothly whisked his body 10 miles across closed freeways from a private service at a Hollywood Hills cemetery to his public memorial and awaiting fans.
The traffic snarls and logistical nightmares that had been feared by police and city officials had not materialized. The thousands of fans with tickets began filing in early and encountered few problems, and traffic was actually considered by police to be lighter than normal.
"I think people got the message to stay home," said California Highway Patrol Officer Miguel Luevano. "When you have people staying home, it clears up those freeways."
Deputy Police Chief Sergio Diaz, operations chief for the event, said authorities had expected a crowd of 250,000. Besides reporters and those with tickets to the memorial service, the crowd around the Staples Center perimeter numbered only about 1,000, he said.
Outside the Staples Center, Claudia Hernandez, 29, said she loved Jackson's music as a girl growing up in Mexico. Now a day-care teaching assistant in Los Angeles, Hernandez said she cried watching TV coverage of his death.
"I'm trying to hold in my emotions," said Hernandez, wearing a wristband to allow her admittance to the service and holding a framed photograph of Jackson. "I know right now he's teaching the angels to dance."
More than 1.6 million people registered for the lottery for free tickets to Jackson's memorial. A total of 8,750 were chosen to receive two tickets each.
"There are certain people in our popular culture that just capture people's imaginations. And in death, they become even larger," President Barack Obama told CBS while in Moscow. "Now, I have to admit that it's also fed by a 24/7 media that is insatiable."
The city of Los Angeles set up a Web site Tuesday to allow fans to contribute money to help the city pay for his Staples Center memorial service. Mayoral spokesman Matt Szabo estimated the service will cost $1.5 million to $4 million.
It was not clear what will happen to Jackson's body. The Forest Lawn Memorial Park Hollywood Hills cemetery is the final resting place for such stars as Bette Davis, Andy Gibb, Freddie Prinze, Liberace and recently deceased David Carradine and Ed McMahon.
But Jackson's brother Jermaine has expressed a desire to have him buried someday at Neverland, his estate in Southern California.
AP Entertainment writer Sandy Cohen, AP Music writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody, AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch, Associated Press writers Solvej Schou, Christina Hoag, Amy Taxin, Andrew Dalton, Anthony McCartney, Danica Kirka, and AP researcher Monika Mathur contributed to this report. Copyright © 2009 nwi.com -
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insearchoftruth
Lionel Richie then performed the song "Jesus is Love."
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Why doesn't the WT just make a statement of MJ's standing with them?
by purplesofa ini just heard mention on the news of jw's again pertaining to burial etc concerning mj.. i have heard and read more jw stuff in the media since his death than ever in the media.. why not just come out and make a statement where mj stood with the organization?.
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purps.
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insearchoftruth
From the Washington Post - an article by David Waters
Michael Jackson's Sabbath Rest
He was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, he married a Scientologist, and his brother wanted him to convert to Islam. Whatever sort of religious adherent Michael Jackson was in life, or whichever faith's customs follow him to his grave today, it's clear he never found what he was looking for -- although he did see glimpses.
"What I wanted more than anything was to be ordinary," Jackson wrote in 2000 in a fascinating personal essay for Beliefnet. "So, in my world, the Sabbath was the day I was able to step away from my unique life and glimpse the everyday."
Those glimpses must have haunted Jackson for the rest of his anything but everyday ordinary life. There are indications that Jackson "disassociated" himself from the Witnesses in 1987. In its report on Jackson's death last week, the official web site of the Jehovah's Witnesses , referred to him as an "Ex-Jehovah Witness." But the church of his childhood never left him.
"When I was young, my whole family attended church together in Indiana . . . When circumstances made it increasingly complex for me to attend, I was comforted by the belief that God exists in my heart, and in music and in beauty, not only in a building. But I still miss the sense of community that I felt there -- I miss the friends and the people who treated me like I was simply one of them. Simply human. Sharing a day with God."
Maybe that's what attracted Jackson to the Jehovah's Witnesses and, later in his life, to Islam. As distinctive as those two faith traditions are, there is one interesting similarity. Witnesses and Muslims reject the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity -- the belief in a triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) -- as a form of polytheism.
In our polytheistic culture that worships mere mortals, in many cases because of their God-given abilities and talents, a man who is treated as a god and lives as a god deep down must know there's only one true God -- and it's not him.
Whether Michael Jackson will be buried today as a Muslim, a Jehovah's Witness or simply as a child of God, may he rest in Sabbath peace.
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POSTSCRIPT: "Sundays were sacred for two other reasons as I was growing up," Jackson wrote in 2000. "They were both the day that I attended church and the day that I spent rehearsing my hardest. This may seem against the idea of 'rest on the Sabbath,' but it was the most sacred way I could spend my time: developing the talents that God gave me. The best way I can imagine to show my thanks is to make the very most of the gift that God gave me."
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Why doesn't the WT just make a statement of MJ's standing with them?
by purplesofa ini just heard mention on the news of jw's again pertaining to burial etc concerning mj.. i have heard and read more jw stuff in the media since his death than ever in the media.. why not just come out and make a statement where mj stood with the organization?.
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purps.
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insearchoftruth
Good idea mrsjones!!! This is one time I am glad to be at work (and I stay late on Tuesdays, my wife is making her son do a bible study on Tuesday afternoons....yippee.......)
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Did You Feel The Love As A Jehovah's Witness?
by minimus inother than feeling "love bombed" when you first started associating with the "brotherhood", did you experience the "love" in your years within the organization?.
if you felt truly loved, was it in reality, a "conditional love"?.
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insearchoftruth
We didn't have the monopoly on love that the society says we did.
I think this is a very important point that those who are born in do not realize.
The world is generally a good place and a vast majority of people want to help others....
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...A Doggie Day in Hell...
by OUTLAW inever have one of those days..when you go outside,and part of your dogs throat has been ripped out?...
that was the begining of my day... i have no idea what attacked him..whatever it was,was f*cking vicious!
!..there was a 2 inch hole of missing fur and skin on his neck.....and a severed artery......also a 2 inch hole of missing fur and skin on his leg.....and..another severed artery.....there was blood everywhere... the nearest vet is 1 1/2 hours away..i phoned in and told the doctor to be ready for me... i tied the dogs wounds up with tee-shirts to try to minimilize the bleeding..then put a 100 lb bleeding dog,in the back of the truck..........poor dog tried to stand up in the truck..his neck started to gush with blood..i got him to lie down..the bleeding slowed.....i jumped in the truck and drove..that was one long hour and a half... the doctor came out..looked at the dog,ran back in and brought out a stretcher..it took three of us to bring him in so he would`nt move around..that dog has spunk!..lol!!.
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insearchoftruth
So glad your dog is on the mend....with my wife's recent flirtation with the WTS, my dog is the best friend I have in the house!!!
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2009-The Bible-What Is Its Message-brochure--PDF!
by Atlantis in2009 the bible-what is its message-brochure--pdf!
we thank "yknot" dearly for sending the brochure and book for scanning.
i will start on the book in a few hours, but have to get a little shut-eye and then will continue.
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insearchoftruth
I think the WTS is forced to find a more general message.
More general = more mainstream??? Or just something a bit less 'culty'?
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2009-The Bible-What Is Its Message-brochure--PDF!
by Atlantis in2009 the bible-what is its message-brochure--pdf!
we thank "yknot" dearly for sending the brochure and book for scanning.
i will start on the book in a few hours, but have to get a little shut-eye and then will continue.
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insearchoftruth
The "message" now will consist of a general message devoid of the organizations role.
Drew, please elaborate a bit more on this point......do you think that by giving a more 'acceptable' presentation of the bible they may be able to lure a few more folks for studies?? This seems to be somewhat contrary to the message of the insiders only watchtowers that is further lifting up the importance of the organization and more particularly the GB.
What is the purpose for a brochure like this, will it be to place when one is in field service??
