Of course, the WT would never give it back on its own. If it ever does, I would be unbelievably surprised. But I think there is something to be done as in court.
StephaneLaliberte
JoinedPosts by StephaneLaliberte
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38
I want my donations back!
by Hortenzie ini want to ask wt for my donations back.
i live in canada and i have income tax receipts from them so i can prove how much i gave them.... anybody ever tried something like that or heard about somebody doing it?
what approach should i take?.
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38
I want my donations back!
by Hortenzie ini want to ask wt for my donations back.
i live in canada and i have income tax receipts from them so i can prove how much i gave them.... anybody ever tried something like that or heard about somebody doing it?
what approach should i take?.
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StephaneLaliberte
ShirleyW, you say that buying a product and placing faith in religion are totally different. Well, I believe that in this 21st century, we can argue just the opposite in court.
For instance, the society pushes the concept that we are in a spiritual paradise where, among other things, we have significant less chances to divorce or get sexually abused.
So in order to help foster such an environment, I make regular donations. But then, upon searching for hard facts, I get none from the WT. Instead, I get numbers telling a different story from the country’s census. The WT obviously knows the real number, but are not sharing; I see no other way of describing this then being deceitful.
I believe when there is deliberate lies, there should be room to argue this out in court. Heck, this could be argued in both the civil court and a criminal one. I think that the judicial system is ready to stop the propagation of deliberate deceitful lies.
*** sl chap. 11 pp. 203-204 par. 51 No Harming nor Ruining in the Spiritual Paradise ***
51 The spiritual paradise is not an imaginary thing. It is real and exists today as the spiritual estate of the restored remnant of spiritual Israelites and those already gathered of the “great crowd,” all of these together being the Christian witnesses of Jehovah. (Isaiah 43:10-12; 44:8) In sharp contrast with the style and quality of life lived by the earthly human society of this present system of things, life in the spiritual paradise is blessed indeed. Here there is a freedom from any such thing as harm being done or ruin being caused by the Christlike residents who are filled with the “knowledge of Jehovah.” Here, too, there is spiritual security, such as is described in Psalm 91. The spiritual and moral plagues and dangers that infest this degraded world of mankind are not permitted to invade the spiritual paradise and make the divinely protected residents religiously and morally sick, diseased and subject to God’s disapproval and disfavor. It is a spiritually healthful place, in which the fruits of God’s holy spirit are produced in abundance.—Galatians 5:22, 23.
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38
I want my donations back!
by Hortenzie ini want to ask wt for my donations back.
i live in canada and i have income tax receipts from them so i can prove how much i gave them.... anybody ever tried something like that or heard about somebody doing it?
what approach should i take?.
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StephaneLaliberte
Ginger: if you invest in a company that lied to you, they must give that money back. That’s called white collar crime. People investing money in religion don’t do it to get return on their investment, but do it believing to help a cause, as it was presented to them.
I agree with you that if you do not agree with how the money was used, in must cases, you need to suck it up.
Here however, what differs is that the WT organization is not honest about its history, provides purposefully altered information (quotes out of context or even charts that don’t hold up, holding back on relevant data) and frowns upon seeking alternative media sources.
If you buy a house, here in Canada, it is the house owner who is responsible for presenting the house at it is. The buyer is not even required to call upon an expert to evaluate the house as the current owner is responsible to disclose any pertaining information that might have a bearing on the value of the house.
Hortenzie: You are right that no one held a gun to someone’s head for donation, but it was none the less provided based upon a false presentation of the organization. I remember a story of a girl who pretended to have cancer for years. She got thousands in donation and ultimately, 4 years in jail. You can’t trick people into giving you money.
BTW, if a store sold you a blander in a box, you go home, open the box, and behold, it’s a toaster! You go back to the store and there is now two options: (1) they give you the blander you wanted or (2) you get your money back. There is no scenario where you would be stuck with a toaster!
On this site, there are plenty of examples on how the WT has purposefully deceived people. People give money on the basis of the information they have received. Information that, ultimately, turns out to be false.
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38
I want my donations back!
by Hortenzie ini want to ask wt for my donations back.
i live in canada and i have income tax receipts from them so i can prove how much i gave them.... anybody ever tried something like that or heard about somebody doing it?
what approach should i take?.
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StephaneLaliberte
I believe you should be able to pursue the society in court requesting your money back and even more on the basis that they have lied to you willfully, thus, that would constitute embezzlement.
For instance, when you get baptized, you are not informed of any negative aspects of the society by itself. They make you go through an extensive training period without telling you once anything negative. That, in itself, is lying.
Also, once you are baptized, you are bullied into staying a JW through their shunning policy. That is coercion.
Personally, I'd like to go after them in court, however, I have given too little (about 3000$) and can prove too little (about 500$) to actually do anything about it.
Yet, even with a small amount, perhaps we could group each other and go after them in a class act.
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48
Do you pray over your meals? If so why? If not, when did you stop and why?
by BU2B into answer my question, no i do not pray over meals anymore exept for when i am with other jws i do a 15 second head bow for appearances sake.
i just came to the realization god had nothing to do with whether i ate or not.
many believers are starving right now whilst many non-believers are eating like kings.. also why should god give me food while he lets little children in dprk concentration camps starve to death.
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StephaneLaliberte
Cofty, now come on.... adam and eve ... that was just 6 000 years ago. ;)
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48
Do you pray over your meals? If so why? If not, when did you stop and why?
by BU2B into answer my question, no i do not pray over meals anymore exept for when i am with other jws i do a 15 second head bow for appearances sake.
i just came to the realization god had nothing to do with whether i ate or not.
many believers are starving right now whilst many non-believers are eating like kings.. also why should god give me food while he lets little children in dprk concentration camps starve to death.
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StephaneLaliberte
I still believe in God. However, I stopped when I came to the conclusion that it didn't make sense to pray him all the time. And when you look at the unanswered prayers all around us... it makes it harder to believe he would listen to my prayers two, three + times a day.
So, when I pray (once in a while), I try to make it meaningful.
Where is it in the bible that christiens or true worshippers would pray before every meal?
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22
Two Years of Repentance
by Nosferatu inthis is a story about a (former) elder in my kh.
this was the po for many, many years.
he used to always call me when i didn't turn in my fs report.
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StephaneLaliberte
Meanwhile, JWs are wasting 1.7 BILLION hours a year , thousands of hours per baptism, to gain one baptism, while the same number (or more) of JWs are walking out the KH door with barely a nod or a care from the Org. What a monumental waste of effort hat is soo true
That is so true!
I know of a guy that is still going to the meetings on and off for about the last 5 years... still not re-instated.
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15
The finances of the JW in Canada
by StephaneLaliberte inyes, revenu canada now has a service to display all of that information for free: click here!.
you can also have the finances of all the circuits, congregations and assembly halls over there.
wonder how much your kingdom hall is worth?
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StephaneLaliberte
Listener: That is indeed strange for the least. They already have millions of dollars in the WT organization, why stash that much monney over there? Perhaps they are planning a particular project like a new assembly hall. The WT is obviously making monney in the construction business, so check it out: they will deem that some assembly hall in the country needs expension by assigning a greater number of congregation to it. Then, they will sell the old one and re-invest that monney with interest to the locale JW dubs.
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The finances of the JW in Canada
by StephaneLaliberte inyes, revenu canada now has a service to display all of that information for free: click here!.
you can also have the finances of all the circuits, congregations and assembly halls over there.
wonder how much your kingdom hall is worth?
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StephaneLaliberte
I’ve been looking at the numbers here and there for a few hours and I must say that I am fascinated by what I am finding.
For instance, here is the congregation of St-André Avelin in Québec. This congregation used to have a Kingdom Hall that had become too small for their needs. Therefore, plans were made and brothers and sisters brought their resources together to build a new hall, much to the appreciation of the local brothers who saw that the hand of Jehovah was not too short to help them out.
Now, what the numbers show:
- The old Kingdom Hall was sold for 162,000 $
- Before the construction project, there was 40,000 $ in the bank.
- The new Hall is now worth 241 000$
- Labour was free.
Trying to get a sense of how much was paid for the new hall (Knowing the labour was free), lets say they paid 70% of its actual worth; that is, 170 000 $. So, before the construction project, the locale congregation had 202 000$ in the bank, thus, an excess of 32,000 $ in regards to the actual cost. And yet, now, they are back to 3 000$ in the bank and the same as usual “occupancy cost” they will need to pay.
Now, the following is interpretation, but it looks like the society has played with the number with this congregation and a few others to achieve the following result: Take the proceeds of the sale and the money in the account and send back 177 000$ of that money back to the congregation at interest so that now, the local brothers and sisters are paying interest on their own money! And as for the 30,000$ Looks like it was used to fund some other renovation projects in other halls.
If I was not still a Jehovah’s Witness, I think I would bring this up to the attention of Revenue Canada and ask some questions about it.
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15
The finances of the JW in Canada
by StephaneLaliberte inyes, revenu canada now has a service to display all of that information for free: click here!.
you can also have the finances of all the circuits, congregations and assembly halls over there.
wonder how much your kingdom hall is worth?
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StephaneLaliberte
Yes, Revenu Canada now has a service to display all of that information for free: Click here !
You can also have the finances of all the circuits, congregations and assembly halls over there. Wonder how much your Kingdom Hall is worth? Well, the information is there! You can do searches right here!
Is one of you a developer? it would be nice to automatically crawl through theses records and get numbers like:
- The total value of the kingdom/Assembly halls in Canada.
- Is there one of these accounts that is used to funnel monney in some suspecious way?
- The organizations to which monney are given, are they all recongnizable JW organizations?
Enjoy!