at our meeting last night there was a talk about having run out of magazines for the last three months.
it's expected this will continue to happen.
the "branch" has not sent the requested number of magazines.
It's all available online. The elders can print the mags for the members who don't have access.
WTS can only wave this stuff in people's faces. They can't really enforce anything on them. When they cancel an order, close a Kingdom Hall, send the C.O. with a message- it hurts a bit, but the members start skipping recruiting when they have no product, start skipping meetings when it's a longer drive, start caring less what the C.O. has to say.
i guess the branch isn't happy with the amount being sent each month since we are way lower than our loan amount.
we now have to another financial survey to see the max amount that can be given.
it is "encouraged" for all to be in attendance and give much forethought and consideration to the amount you can donate each month.
This whole pledge thing is going to back fire on them big time and dry up any desire to give as the unconscious of even the more devote worshipers moves them to give less and less.
I so disagree. You are somewhat correct in that members will give less and less as they realize they don't have to. It happened with literature and it will happen with donations just for the good of the worldwide work they think they are giving to.
BUT
Watchtower already took tons of money and all the Kingdom Halls. They already won. Some congregations will give more than they think they need to and many will give barely what they think they need to. Sure, the rest won't give as much, and as time goes on, this monthly amount will go down. As the money goes down, they can simply not remodel Kingdom Halls and the local members will do their best to keep up the place without LDC. They will close halls that they feel are not profitable.
Personally, I look at Scientology and see Watchtower going the same way. Scientology has the money and is not really concerned about retaining and recruiting so many new members. Watchtower will keep the money and suffer with less members.
i guess the branch isn't happy with the amount being sent each month since we are way lower than our loan amount.
we now have to another financial survey to see the max amount that can be given.
it is "encouraged" for all to be in attendance and give much forethought and consideration to the amount you can donate each month.
If the vote is truly anonymous, I am torn on putting ZERO down or putting a high number down and then not actually donating it.
If they know who filled out what, I would write NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT I GIVE!
my father served in the second world war.
he served in the south pacific.
he loved his time in the military and my mother was more than supporting.
You can put emotional spins on it, but does that change reality? Does a sincere JW make what he believes correct, or does emotional satisfaction in one's beliefs make them true?
Good people, bad people, people who are indifferent. YES, I believe they lived their lives and are gone.
It's really not even a "BELIEF." Until otherwise demonstrated, there is no afterlife or resurrection and dead is dead. The burden of proof is with those that choose to believe something other that what we have seen.
i have just read the book crises of conscience in less than 3days!
i could not put it down!
even in front of my jw wife and her family.
Hey, congratulations on your new-found freedom of mind. Stick with your decisions.
My first real book that "they" wouldn't want me to read was Steve Hassan's COMBATTING CULT MIND CONTROL. Ray Franz' COC was next.
In both cases, I was glued to the book just like you. It was about 9 years ago, and I had never even heard anything about Ray Franz and his being kicked out.
I think the awesome thing about COC is that Ray was in the Governing Body, and he was a writer for Watchtower. So he knew how to write in such a non-controversial way without bitterness and heavy opinions. Plus he knew what they were doing at the Ivory Tower.
I tried writing about Jehovah's Witnesses, and it was just a bitter read loaded with heavy judgement. I had to abandon it.
a visit to my ophthalmologist yesterday.
he told me i have 22-20 vision, so .
i ask if i have 20-20 vision why do i need glasses to read the news paper.. he laugh and told me most people need glasses after they reach 45 years of age,.
When I read, I have to take off my glasses that help me see distant things more clearly. I have weak reading glasses but don't really need them for my smartphone and laptop, but definitely use them for reading print.
I get your point about Noah or Enoch, but a believer will say there just wasn't much at all to read. (And a JW will say how they were closer to perfection.)
thanks to bu2b and splash who mentioned this quote in another thread!.
but i thought it deserved a thread all of its own, such is the impact of this:.
the very best example of going beyond the things written comes from a 2008 watchtower.
if you recall, i'm just coming to grips with ttatt and atheism after a few years of doubts.
made a long post around here, a while ago, talking about the very subject.
but, anyways.... so the other day, my wife was telling me how she was just exhausted and "peopled out.
i don't know if i have shared this with everyone, but there seems to be a new theocratic term, at least in my circuit.. the term is "final push.
" wtf does it mean?
well, an eldub said that the gb are "all in" with warwick and they might spend all their money on the project.
Anyway, I think the dubs really believe it! They think they are in the Final Push, before the GT! Then the GB will be taken to heaven and the BIG A will start! Then it will be too late for YOU to show your support!
The members are urged to always think like that, since the beginning of Watchtower.
I am never sure if the cult leaders believe as victims of their own belief or if they know it's b.s.. I can tell for sure that with "overlap generation" and their money grabs that they know the end is not imminent, but they want the members to keep thinking urgently that it is closer than ever.
for those of you who left family and friends and had to start over from scratch just to get out of the organization, was it worth it?.
.
I haven't had it too bad. Sure, I lost my best friend and really all my "associations" but I kept my family and got closer to non-JW family.
I realize that my best friend is a victim of a dangerous mind control cult. And I have made tons of unconditional friends from among the ex-JW's who are not worried about my beliefs or politics. My JW associations, well.......let's just say "Good riddance!"
