dozy

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Posts by dozy

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  9

  A 'typical JW' story

  by joey jojo in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i am friends with an elderly 'worldly' woman, who was unaware i am an ex-jw.

  she employs a jw husband and wife pioneer couple for odd jobs around her house- mowing, cleaning etc.

  the couple has been working for her and her recently deceased husband for years.. just before the 2019 international convention, despite the fact that the husband was fighting his last battle with illness, the couple kept asking him to attend the convention with them.

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  dozy

  The CO stated that it was alright to take and even read the magazine if it meant getting Watchtower literature in the householder's hands.
  

  That isn't official Society policy. Sounds like the CO is going off on his own views there...
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  64

  Havent gone to the kingdom hall in ten years but may have to go back...

  by Joliette in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  made a big mistake of talking about being raised as a jehovah's witness to some old friends and family.

  people have told me that i am still a jws even though i've never been baptized.

  i'm in school for social services, dealing with student loan debt, and a lot of other debt.

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  dozy

  Hi - I do sincerely sympathise with your situation , but have you really though this one through? I haven't read the thread through so doubtless other posters have made similar comments , but just my 2c.

  Initially you will experience short term "love bombing" - in these days when the truth about JWs is just a Google search away , very few people join JWs these days , and a former lapsed JW who returns would receive a lot of attention. Very quickly , after baptism , this would disappear and you would just be treated like any other member of the congregation.

  Would you really want to be spending hours every week knocking on doors ( or being judged if you weren't "doing enough"). Or standing beside a literature cart at some crappy railway station? Sitting through two long boring meetings a week - dragging yourself out on a Sunday morning or weekday evening.
  

  As a 30 something female JW - you know that the chances of finding a boyfriend / husband in the Borg are pretty much zero. You would just be regarded as yet another single JW "sister" - pretty much the bottom of the pecking order in the Borg. Cut out of most of the congregation cliques. In the unlikely event you did meet someone - can you imagine dating with a chaperone tagging along at all times?

  JWs is just a former religious publishing business - now mainly a real estate flipping business. Its like a MLM. People work for free with the promise being the imminent new order - a false promise that has been made since the 1870's. It has certain elements of a religion , but in truth - ultimately , that is all it is.

  Whatever the question is - joining a cult can never be an answer.
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  34

  Anyone notice how when some of us older ones were in the cult.......

  by mickbobcat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  when i was a kid in the late sixties the type of books we would study was very intense compared to the bull shit pablum that they put out today?

  i mean the finished mystery and others now its these stupid books that don't dive deep into the beliefs.

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  dozy

  I hadn't seen a Watchtower for a few years and couldn't believe just how simple the study articles are now when I looked online. Just 3 sentences or so per paragraph - incredibly simple questions. So dumbed down it is like kindergarten level.
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  19

  Letter from local Kingdom Hall

  by jhine in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  today l received a hand written letter from my local kingdom hall .

  l say my local as the one nearest me , for those who don't know me l am not nor have ever been a jw .

  as this letter was addressed " to the householder " l assume that everyone in the area ( tamworth , staffordshire ) has been sent one .

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  dozy

  Are these letters just sent through Royal Mail and stamped? At 66p a time - that's going to be pretty expensive. 100 letters - £66 ( about $100 ).

  Why not say to them that you have respectfully read their letter and ask them to watch a simple video in return - eg the Youtube video of Tony Morris buying the whisky. https://tinyurl.com/y3kmdj5z and ask them for their thoughts.

  They won't of course , but at least you tried.
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  30

  Thoughts on JW funerals

  by Syme in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i recently had the sad opportunity to attend 2 jw funerals.

  the first was a few months ago and the second today.

  the first was my grandfather's and the second of an old friend back from my jw days.

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  dozy

  It seems to vary but I have noticed a change in more recent times that funeral talks tend not to follow quite so tightly the Society's script. This is especially true if there are likely to be a number of "wordly" people , especially close relatives , at the service.
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  31

  Who was it who ''rescued'', or ''saved'' you?

  by Beth Sarim in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  from the borg?.

  i point to none other than cal lehman and the towerwatch ministries.

  towewatch.com.. the years following the collapse of the ussr and the 1995 generation left a bad taste in my mouth for a long time.

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  dozy

  A lot. This website ( thanks Simon! ) then called jw.net. On the JW Wikipedia page there used to be live references to a few chapters in Ray Franz's books which I then purchased and downloaded. JW Facts. The references proving the Society had copied pictures from booze adverts and even Christendom's books https://www.watchtowerlies.com/plagiarism_by_the_watchtower.html . The Atheist's Book of Bible Stories.

  https://www.box.com/shared/uclytd91jd
  

  But really above all it was the Society with its numerous flip flops , a particular Kingdom Ministry article in 2007 ( approx ) that told JWs not to research Hebrew & Greek and the rampant hypocrisy and nepotism that I observed in the Organisation that killed it for me.
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  34

  Are there more Bethel layoffs in the immediate future?

  by LongHairGal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just saw a post on reddit: ‘wt are prepping the r&f for changes in the march/april meeting workbook’.. in the post the person noted what they read (for march 8) and it mentioned bethel adjustments and reference was made to 2015 when bethelites were let go.. if this happens (yet again) another bunch of people are being sent home to fend for themselves in the big bad world at an advanced age with little to no preparation.

  even though this doesn’t surprise me, it could not come at a worse time with a global pandemic and massive job loss everywhere..congregations are already in turmoil because of so many who reached retirement age totally unprepared because they were told armageddon would be here before they reached that age.

  this is in addition to all the other ‘needy’ and troubled types in the congregations looking for as$istance.. i hope any bethelites there have a plan and some people they can contact.

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  dozy

  From a UK perspective , I also wonder about the new UK Bethel - they have 584 apartments there housing up to 900 people. I am still in touch with a PIMO JW who has worked on the site & he is baffled as to what exactly the 900 workers will do , bearing in mind that no printing is taking place - a question also raised ( but not answered ) at a planning meeting with the local authority ( below ). He asked a member of the UK branch committee who said that "Jehovah will show the way."

  https://www.whpc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/MINUTESOPENMTGMASTER25.11.19-4.pdf

  My friend reckons as a distribution hub for German produced literature and a film studio they could probably get by with 300 maximum very comfortably - probably less.

  He reckons that in a couple of years a lot of these Bethelites will be getting kicked out - it would be very easy for the Society to sell off the accommodation blocks which are some distance from the HQ ( they also own 200 acres of non developed land and say they have "no current plans at the moment" to develop it so could build new accommodation blocks there if required ).

  584 studio style apartments would easily fetch over £100K each - that's upwards of $100 million from a build cost a fraction of that. The Society are already selling off the 18 flats in Wood Street , Chelmsford that supposedly was long term additional accommodation https://ibsaproperty.com/

  Increasingly nowadays the Society are basically a real estate development and trading company using free labour to develop property & free of capital gains tax to flip. It's such a simple model.
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  44

  Nurses are unwilling to take the COVID-19 Vaccine

  by adjusted knowledge in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i work at two separate hospitals and most of the rns i work with have stated they won't take the vaccine.

  i've read a report that 1/3 of rns will refuse the vaccine.

  for those in other countries do you see this being an issue or is it more an american phenomenon?.

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  dozy

  A friend of mine says she is reticent about taking the vaccine yet she happily gets botox injections every 3 months and takes her 2 dogs for their annual vaccinations every year. It's a bit weird - even she admits she is thinking irrationally. Thankfully this is the UK where probably the take up will be sufficient (85%-90%). In the USA where the anti vax conspiracy theories are much more prominent and the disgraced fraudulent UK doctor Wakefield is regarded as something of a hero by many, I'm guessing they might struggle to reach the threshold.

  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/18/how-disgraced-anti-vaxxer-andrew-wakefield-was-embraced-by-trumps-america
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  15

  Shepherding visit

  by donnye in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i cannot seem to find any information on which elder/s are assigned to do a shepherding visit on a congregation member.

  does one of them have to be the member's field group leader?

  can any elders do a shepherding visit at a member's request?

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  dozy

  One of the elders is normally the field group leader as he ( in theory ) is supposed to know the individual. Normally another elder comes - sometimes from the service committee ( CBE / Service overseer / secretary ). A MS will tag along if it is a genuine "encouraging" shepherding call ( but these are very rare - most visits are for counsel purposes).

  I was a JW for 40 years and had one shepherding call on me all that time and that had a counsel element. Conversely , I was an elder and probably made only 2 or 3 genuine no counsel shepherding calls during my 10 years.
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  5

  2020-December--Announcements Etc

  by projecthydra in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  2020-december--announcements and reminders.2020-december--audio/video guidelines for those giving public talks via video conference.. download link https://www.filemail.com/d/yfmnczlhgjzhwqq.

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  dozy

  Thanks