OnTheWayOut

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Posts by OnTheWayOut

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  40

  We're going to impeach Trump . . . and make Mexico pay for it!

  by Coded Logic in

  1. social
  2. current

  i have little doubt articles of impeachment will be drawn up on trump within the next year or so.

  my only question at this point is what are they going to get him for?.

  collusion with a foreign government to subvert an election?.

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  OnTheWayOut

  We're going to impeach Trump . . . and make Mexico pay for it!

  I saw that meme on FB and loved it. I bet Canada would pitch in, too.
• 
  35

  RUMOUR - Regarding future memorials

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i heard this on the youtube channel - bad jw round table discussions and i normally don't give much thought to rumours, i did find this one interesting.one of the guys on the channel said that there are plans that 'the other sheep' will be told not to attend any future memorials.he was asked how credible was this and he said that it is talk going around by those in the know, just like there had been those that knew about the fairly recent new edition of the bible being in production.even if this is probably just a rumour, the idea has a lot of merit.

  the benefits for the organization outweigh the negatives and would fit in with their current direction.here are some of the benefits, for the org.

  that could come from it- the biggest benefit would come from not having to accommodate so many attendants, which are more than double a normal meeting.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I try I try I try to guess what they might do. They love control-based activity like field-recruiting and 5 meetings a week. But one thing that overrides control is money. They ditched the book study quite easily.

  So, the cost of the Memorial is all on the local congregations. All that figuring out how to fit so many people into one Kingdom Hall or rented facility on the same night is not their problem......unless.....they plan to cram even more people into less Kingdom Halls.

  So, here's my wild speculations on how and why this could be true. Emphasis on "wild."
  
  1. They are actually calculating a loss of money on all those invitations. Sure, more inactive and family of JW's come to the Memorial than any other meeting. Sure, the JW's drag their "Bible studies" to the event. But do they stuff the donation box???

  2. They have too many fake anointed and will stop counting. They will have regional Memorials where only the elders will know about it and will be instructed to only tell JW's in good standing who claim to be of the anointed where they are held. I mean- a genuine "anointed" must be a JW in good standing, right??? They can easily make a Watchtower magazine study for everyone else that week. This way, no need for cramming any extra meetings into a single hall on a single night.

  3. It could become a special live internet thing where elders are instructed to help the old ancient elderly "anointed" ones to see it and have some wine and crackers. Others are welcome to watch at home and remember to put money in the box next Sunday.

  I don't really believe this would happen. They currently still say the Memorial is "the most sacred event." But hey, I really believed Donald Trump would never win his election.
• 
  11

  Update on U.S. Local Design/Construction Arrangement—May 2017

  by neat blue dog in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  https://photos.google.com/share/af1qipoujulgkxn02fa9s1iu-tzraj_4lwdepjgaur7crfbnqze5eccnvo8ki6jbnp-6sa?key=ajfvcy1vnfdra2dhzgdrwgtbekjmb04zrhlzwwf3.

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  OnTheWayOut

  They are underpaid stipend-receivers whose job probably actually focuses on telling congregations that they will not be renovating and getting locals to scrub and do minor repairs on their own. They probably do more recommending of which halls to close and which ones to move people into.

  The biggest part of the job is enjoying having people kiss their asses and think so highly of them, making sure they tell people that so much is going on "somewhere else." I imagine most were well-connected Bethelites who managed not to be canned.
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  5

  JW Topics w/ Mom and Her Husband

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower insisted that members be "approved" by their rbc before going to the disaster area.

  she told me how she went with her husband on that bus and a few other wives of other rbc workers went also.

  she told me how their two children went with them on that bus.

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  OnTheWayOut

  Still Totally ADD,
  I am sure you are correct about insurance money. I wasn't trying too hard to get my mother's husband to realize I had done research, just wanted to share personal experiences.

  MissFit,
  Thanks. My mother would probably not shun me if push came to shove over my own decisions about Watchtower, but if she felt persecuted because of what I said to her husband, she might surely say Satan's machinations are in play.

  joe134cd,
  Same answer I gave above to Still Totally ADD. Might be too much for him to leave it alone. He's already been a study and gone to the Kingdom Hall and doesn't do that now, but wants his wife to be happy. Still, I think that could quickly change if more info. were available.

  under the radar,
  Thanks for the information. Maybe your brother-in-law took his wife and kids on the bus from his area.
• 
  5

  JW Topics w/ Mom and Her Husband

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower insisted that members be "approved" by their rbc before going to the disaster area.

  she told me how she went with her husband on that bus and a few other wives of other rbc workers went also.

  she told me how their two children went with them on that bus.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I was at my JW mother's home this weekend. She does her best to keep away from the JW subject with me, I assume that is so she never has to feel the need to shun me. Well, it works for me.

  So she is on the phone with her JW friends and her non-Jw husband straight up asks me what he has not asked me in all these years that I have been faded. "Why is it that you have nothing to do with the Witnesses anymore? You were so involved."
  
  I have avoided saying things to him for years because of my mother. I always felt that I could convince him in 10 minutes that it's a cult and then he would "persecute" my mother about it, but she would see it as "the machinations of the devil."

  But it's been so long into my fade and he seems more resolved to just let it be with his JW wife, very similar to the way I have had to let it be with mine. Still, I don't want to just say how "it's a cult" because that might be too direct and might still cause him to want to start pushing my mother to drop the Witnesses.

  Instead, I tell him how I have discovered they are no better than other religions. The ones with status use their status to benefit themselves. In the brief time, I gave him 2 examples from my observations.
  1. I was at Hurricane Hugo and Hurricane Andrew relief in the early 90's. People came and volunteered, they sent food and tools and all kinds of stuff. But by the time Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Watchtower had fully figured out how to profit from disaster. The letters started coming out saying "Just send money." Money did indeed get sent. But members in the United States drove down to the disaster area to help out and brought their canned goods and clothing and hammers and chain saws. More letters went out actually chastising the well-meaning efforts and asking that the members work only with Watch Tower's control so that the very best coordinated relief could take place.
  
  Watchtower insisted that members be "approved" by their RBC before going to the disaster area. They said they were particularly looking for plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. They insisted, once again, that the donation of goods ceased and that only money was needed. A call went out for volunteers who could give a week of their time to the relief effort during the winter of early 2006 to continue rebuilding homes and repairing Kingdom Halls and such. I contacted the RBC to get approval.

  Seeing as I was an elder and had experience with two relief efforts in the past, I was approved and given a date in February to report. I would be riding their bus to New Orleans and it all seemed very coordinated. I put in for vacation from work. A few days before the date came up, the RBC chairman phoned me. He said that there wasn't enough room on the bus for me. He told me that they still had a huge need for plumbers and electricians and carpenters, and that willing laborers without those skills were being left behind. I told him that I could follow the bus in my own vehicle and could carry three other people and supplies or that I could simply report there on my own. The RBC chairman said there would be no place for me to sleep. I told him that I knew a family in New Orleans and could stay at their home, or I could do as we did in the Hurricane Hugo and Andrew relief efforts- simply roll out a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor of the Kingdom Hall. The RBC chairman said it simply was not allowed. The effort was supposed to be organized this way for specific reasons, although I heard none of those reasons. He asked me if I could reschedule for another week. I told him I could not change my vacation, especially this late.

  A couple of weeks passed by and this same RBC chairman's wife phoned me. She was still looking for volunteers for another trip. I told her that I had already informed them I wasn't available. She understood then told me what a shame it was that I couldn't make the trip in early February. She told me how she went with her husband on that bus and a few other wives of other RBC workers went also. She told me how their two children went with them on that bus. She said they had a great time meeting people and serving food to the workers and how they stopped work on the last day to have a huge picnic. She described a family vacation to me.

  I was dumbfounded. I asked if her children were plumbers or electricians. She laughed and said they were just little kids. I was bumped off the bus to make room for skilled tradesmen despite the fact that I had experience and a strong back. I wasn't planning on going to have a great time or meet people, but to work. There was no wasted day of picnic at the relief efforts I attended. That's what I did at the other disaster relief efforts. I was bumped but wives and children of "connected" RBC people were not bumped. They had a huge picnic on the last day (of only seven) instead of spending another day breaking their backs accomplishing some good. This destroyed an illusion in my mind. I fully realized that Watchtower was not the place for well-meaning people to fully help others out in times of need. It was a place where well-meaning people could be taken advantage of.

  2. I told him of the training elders received to excuse many of the minor sins of fellow elders and keep it quiet, While those sins may seem "minor," they never let it go when a non-elder confesses to the same.

  We stopped talking about it as my mother came back. I don't think he will lash out at my mother's religion based on our conversation.

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  My wife arrived and my mother was all anxious to tell her about a recent "preaching" experience. Apparently, the local congregation members (not the congregation itself, but those who manned the tables) paid $250 to have a table at a Senior Citizen Expo at the local mall. She had pictures of them sharing the literature. They had just over 250 "placements" of sorts and started 4 studies.
  
  Just a quick calculation- seniors with time on their hands. Just 4 studies started and they got the privilege to pay for the whole thing.

  Still, it looked like "EASY TIME."

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  Anyway, wanted to share my day.
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  25

  Does the Average R&F JW understand what grace is in Christianity ?

  by smiddy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i`m showing my ignorance here , not being an active member of any church before joining jw`s as a 19 yr old ,whenever i was ever confronted with the question of "grace" i was always at a loss to give an effective answer from a jw point of view.. was it just me ?

  or did anybody else have a similar experience ?.

  (ps , i dont think i ever heard the expression " grace" in a religious sense in all my 33 years in the borg.studying the wt.).

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  OnTheWayOut

  JW's are all backwards on "grace" thanks to the Watchtower training.

  To a JW, "grace" is a worldly term that has to do with Christendom. They assume it heavily means something to do with "being saved."

  The Watchtower equivalent to free blessings from God is "Jehovah's undeserved kindness." And that has been sullied in definition so much that JW's are pretty sure that they have to earn, therefore be "deserving" of "undeserved kindness." Yes, that makes no sense but that is what it is.
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  45

  What do You Think About Hybrid and Electric Cars?

  by Village Idiot in

  1. social
  2. current

  battery technology has been making leaps and bounds in affordability and energy output throughout the past decade.

  while pure electric cars currently have limited range, the near future holds prospects for longer ranges.

  hybrids, and recently plug in hybrids, have a mileage of up to 50 mpg* giving them a range of 500 miles from a ten gallon gas tank.

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  OnTheWayOut

  We are on our way toward a future where fossil fuel is gone. But as long as the powers that be stay rich on our use of fossil fuels, the progress will be slower than it should be. We could already, with current technology, have awesome all-electric autos and rely exclusively on renewable energy (primarily solar and wind powered electricity) and save our fossil fuels for the airplanes until we figure out that technology also.
  
  We could even have faster electric trains and ships to minimize air travel.

  I am glad some people are driving hybrids so that the demand for improvement will come. I am still not ready to spend nearly the same amount of money on a car that isn't as good as a non-hybrid, but that could easily change as the cost of fuel in the future changes or as the cars get better.
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  20

  Has anyone else experienced this?

  by ToesUp in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my spouse and i have faded 4+ years ago.

  we know the jw rumor mill has gotten back to our family that we no longer attend.

  most of our family is out of state.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I am faded and my JW family knows I never attend. My JW mother and my in-laws never ask. In my case, they want no reason to shun me, so it's a good thing.

  My mother reached out of her comfort zone about 2 weeks before the Memorial and just threw the stray question out- "Are you going to the Memorial this year?" My one-word answer with a certain tone to it ended that discussion- "Nope!"
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  40

  Do you air on the side of caution?

  by compound complex in

  1. social
  2. humour

  well, that would be an airer.

  it's all in how we hear the spoken word.

  when a little boy, one fellow thought "world peace" was "whirled peas.

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  OnTheWayOut

  I hate to tell on myself. Like many, I started Kindergarten before SESAME STREET was a thing and my parents were not really helping me to learn how to read. (That changed later when Mom became a JW.) So I didn't know how to read until I was past Kindergarten.
  So they started out teaching us the alphabet one letter each day. When day 17 started, I excitedly told another kid that I was thrilled to learn "elemeno" today.

  I was in gifted class by 4th grade, so imagine if I could already read before Kindergarten like many kids today.
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  40

  Do you air on the side of caution?

  by compound complex in

  1. social
  2. humour

  well, that would be an airer.

  it's all in how we hear the spoken word.

  when a little boy, one fellow thought "world peace" was "whirled peas.

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  OnTheWayOut

  So I was the school overseer. This teenage boy was going to go up and introduce the Service Meeting for the first time as the segue after the school. I walked to the back of the hall and he had notes and was nervously reading them. I heard him say "With nothing further to do..."
  
  As a die-hard JW and the school overseer, I couldn't let him do it, although it would have gotten some laughs.
  
  I said "...it's 'Without further ado.' " He didn't believe me, so I said, "Well, it is. Say what you want then." He said it my way. I wish I just let him say it wrong.