StephaneLaliberte

Joined

• started 117 topics
• posted 2,116 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by StephaneLaliberte

• 
  9

  Relief Efforts for Typhoon in Manila (Philippines)

  by StephaneLaliberte in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i find articles like this (click very frustrating to read.

  when i read reports on how charity was delivered, i am expecting to read numbers that will give me an idea of how money was used for such relief.

  unfortunately, the information provided is simply not enough to provide any ball park idea of what was actually spent.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  StarTrekAngel, this is quite interesting. Is there anyone else who has heard of a "Special Relief Fund" set up on the fly for a specific disaster?
• 
  9

  Relief Efforts for Typhoon in Manila (Philippines)

  by StephaneLaliberte in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i find articles like this (click very frustrating to read.

  when i read reports on how charity was delivered, i am expecting to read numbers that will give me an idea of how money was used for such relief.

  unfortunately, the information provided is simply not enough to provide any ball park idea of what was actually spent.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  I find articles like this (click very frustrating to read. When I read reports on how charity was delivered, I am expecting to read numbers that will give me an idea of how money was used for such relief. Unfortunately, the information provided is simply not enough to provide any ball park idea of what was actually spent.

  The report states that almost 750 homes were repaired or rebuilt.  “Or”? Really? Obviously, more efforts are needed to rebuild a house rather than simply repair it. How can we make an estimate of time based on this? Let’s use an example here: You are asked to know if you have enough water to fill a pool with 750 bottles of water and “5 Gallon” containers. It doesn’t make sense. The actual quantity could be anywhere between 580 to 14,214 liters!

  So, let’s go with the worst possible scenario and claim that ALL 750 had to be rebuild. With a 5 days per 5 volunteers (as stated in the report), we can conclude that it would take a team of 16 volunteers to do the work in one year. Provided that they worked 5 days per week and had 4 weeks’ vacation!

  So what about the 612 volunteers mentioned in the article? Obviously most of these worked for short periods of time and very for the entire length of the project.

  As the article admits, most of the work was done by locales while 90 Witnesses from other countries also assisted. What did they do? How long did they stay? We don’t know.

  With so little information, we may come to this pessimist conclusion:

  A small amount of funds was indeed made available to the witnesses when the disaster occurred. However, most of the work and resources reported in the article has in fact been provided for by the 190 000 publishers in the Philippines. This conclusion is based on the fact that not all of the Philippinos live in poverty.

  With this in mind, it would not be surprising to hear that all the donations spent on this disaster had in fact been covered by local donations within the year in their respective “World Wide Work” contribution box.

  You think this conclusion is unfair? The simplest way to rebut this is to provide clear numbers: How much money did the Watchtower

  1)      provide for the relief effort?

  2)      receive in donations from the Philippines in the last 10 years?

  3)      spent in their preaching work in the last 10 years?

  Why should we care?

  Articles as this one remind to the reader that donation are also used for charity. As a result, this article links to a FAQ article named “How is the Work of Jehovah’s Witnesses Financed? In the third paragraph, the reader will notice that the first example of expense covered by the donation is “relieve victims of natural disasters”. Does the order of that list represent the order of priority for the expenses?

  http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/work-financed/
• 
  38

  ARE WATCHTOWER SOCIETY STATISTICS REALLY TRUSTWORTHY?

  by TerryWalstrom in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  of these, over 2,000 were admitted to concentration camps.

  1,000 died in prison and concentration camps.

  another 1,000 of jehovah's witnesses died in prisons and concentration camps.".

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  This level of innacuracy is in large part due to the fact that an estimated 1/3 of the JW became innactive and left during the war. As a result, active JW could have thought that they had died when in fact, they had "left the truth". In that sense, it might not be far fetch to say that they had not inflated their numbers on purpose. They were likely surprised by how many people actually left instead of holding up to their beliefs. 
• 
  32

  2014 Watchtower Publisher Statistics

  by jwfacts in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the 2014 grand totals page has been released onto facebook.. .

  .

  i have started updating the statistics and graphs at jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php, and will release highlights as i work through it during the rest of the day..

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  Don't you find it strange that the reported average hours per publisher is 20.6 hours per month?
• 
  59

  At This Point In Time Would You Ever Subject Yourself To A Judicial Committee?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i certainly wouldn't.

  and if the elders wanted to have a meeting with me, i would respectfully decline.

  if the elders wanted to deal with you, would you talk with them?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  Yes, I would. And once the committee would be over, I would automatically appeal. I will not go out without a fight and telling them what I honestly believe. My argument would be simple: By disfellowshipping me, you are accusing me of not worshipping God anymore. I do not believe this to be true and true and would argue on it. I have been raised a JW and have given many precious years to that organization, I would take the same pleasure Jesus had by calling them hypocrites.
• 
  26

  Children calling jw adults uncle and auntie, when did that start?

  by awakening in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i cant figure out when the auntie and uncle thing started or why.

  it sure is a peadophiles dream to have a kid they dont know call them uncle!

  they are now in a special relationship.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  I don't consider my self a witness anymore and yet, I get my kids to call my best friend "Uncle" for the simple fact that he is a brother to me. Always been there, always will.
• 
  16

  My Marking Talk

  by jws in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  back to august of 1988. my brother and i were the ones being marked.

  at the time, my father had clued us in that it was coming and had gotten a recording of it.

  are we not also obliged to act on wrongs being committed by a family member or members?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  I enjoyed the reading, thank you. This shows how they use the scriptures to display a lack of love.

  thanks.
• 
  9

  Relief Work: Alberta Flooding

  by StephaneLaliberte in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  summary:.

  jehovahs witnesses claim to use portion of the contributions given to the world wide work funds for relief work.

  unfortunately, as shown by the alberta flooding video, they seem to have a greater interest in reporting (or advertising) it than they are in actually releasing funds for such work.. introduction.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  JimboJones, you have just confirmed what I have said above: The Watchtower encourages people to give financial contribution to their organization stating that they will use some of these funds for Relief work. Then, go on to produce a highly professional videos to advertise the relief work that was carried out at a local level. If they made it an habit of releasing actual funds for the relief work, then why would they have the urge to produce such a video for an event where they obviously did not assist financially?

  My point is that the Organization does much less then what seems to be conveyed by the montage, words and music of the videos produced.

  All those who actually did the work are without doubt good people and such actions are to be praised. My problem resides in how the Organization takes most of the credit by stating that without organizing this effort under Jehovah's spirit, the volunteers and equipment they used could not have been coordinated in such little time and have achieved the results they have.

  Sentences like this let the viewer believe that the equipment was provided by the bethel, that trained experts were funded by the organization and that other organizations taking actions without Jehovah's spirit did not, or could not have come close to a similar result.

  What about the sentence displayed at 1:14 :

  "Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada provided both physical relief and spiritual comfort to victims of the disaster"?

  With such a sentence, how could the view come to the conclusion that most of the help was essentially provided by the local community of brothers and sisters?

  Such video is truly misleading as an individual could easily be pushed to give away his inheritance to a charitable Organization that, in reality, does not use its funds at it leads people to believe.
• 
  9

  Relief Work: Alberta Flooding

  by StephaneLaliberte in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  summary:.

  jehovahs witnesses claim to use portion of the contributions given to the world wide work funds for relief work.

  unfortunately, as shown by the alberta flooding video, they seem to have a greater interest in reporting (or advertising) it than they are in actually releasing funds for such work.. introduction.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  Hoser, do we have any actual proof that witnesses have signed over their insurance policy to the Watchtower for work performed by local volonteers?
• 
  9

  Relief Work: Alberta Flooding

  by StephaneLaliberte in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  summary:.

  jehovahs witnesses claim to use portion of the contributions given to the world wide work funds for relief work.

  unfortunately, as shown by the alberta flooding video, they seem to have a greater interest in reporting (or advertising) it than they are in actually releasing funds for such work.. introduction.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  StephaneLaliberte

  SUMMARY:

  Jehovah’s Witnesses claim to use portion of the contributions given to the World Wide Work funds for Relief work. Unfortunately, as shown by the “Alberta Flooding” video, they seem to have a greater interest in reporting (or advertising) it than they are in actually releasing funds for such work.

  INTRODUCTION

  Jehovah’s Witnesses generally have a sense of security that comes with belonging to an international spiritual family. From time to time, they receive reports on how brothers and sisters in distress have received timely assistance and have been blessed by Jehovah himself through his people. In most cases, they are also convinced that such help would not be possible without Jehovah’s organization and the guidance of his holy spirit.

  This concept of an international brotherhood - helping each other - is also used when requesting funds to be assigned to the World Wide Work. Witnesses will explain that most of these funds are used for the preaching work while a smaller portion is used for the relief work. It is with this understanding that many brothers and sisters give greater contributions, some even signing the Watchtower as the sole beneficiary of their heritage! (Rom 15:26).

  Driving home this idea is this quote from the Watchtower 2002, November 1st , p. 29.

  Finding the necessary funds to finance our growing printing activities, relief efforts, and numerous other services performed around the globe may at times seem overwhelming. Recall, however, that the task of repairing the huge wall of Jerusalem also seemed overwhelming. (Nehemiah 4:10)
  […]

  The box “Ways in Which Some Choose to Give” shows several ways in which the Kingdom work can be supported financially. During the past year, many among God’s people have given such support, and the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses would like to use this opportunity to express their deep gratitude to all whose heart impelled them to share in this voluntary giving.

  Through the years, as contributions have been made generously, the Watchtower has reported on how they have provided relief work. And recently, a sub section of the tv.jw.org is now entitled “Relief Work”! Though some of the work reported is truly remarkable and could bring you to tears, we are provided with vague information leaving us to make educated guesses as to exactly what amount was provided by the Watchtower for these particular disaster events.

  ALBERTA FLOODING

  For instance, we may review one of the videos: “Alberta Flooding”.

  The video is also available through the “About Us” section of their web site at

  This video reports on the relief work that Jehovah’s Witnesses have done in Calgary, Alberta (Canada) in June 2013. At first glance, we see that Jehovah’s Witnesses swiftly responded to a natural disaster and provided assistance to those in need. That being said, let’s review the actual help provided:

  When the flood occurred, the Witnesses called each other to make sure everyone was safe. The following morning, they went to their local Kingdom Hall and coordinated the relief work to be provided; essentially, cleanup after sinister. In the meantime, local brothers and sisters gave away food, clothes and basic supplies. The video does not provide information on the number of houses cleaned, nor the actual period of time allocated to such work. Hence, we are left with making an educated guess. From the footage provided, it appears that three or perhaps four houses, belonging to other witnesses, were cleaned in one day. As explained by Brother David Jensen (at the end of the video), most of the help after this was emotional and spiritual support: “Some of them continued to get assistance from the brothers on the shepherding side and encouragement that way, spiritually.”

  HOW MUCH WWW FUNDS?

  With the above in mind, we may ask: How much of the World Wide Work funds were allocated to this operation?

  In order to answer this question, we must acknowledge the great amount of work that have been done by the local Witnesses (and those of the surrounding congregations). They have provided food, clothes, and basic supplies. The relief work was carried out by 120 volunteers. We may also safely assume that most, if not all, the equipment used was local as a great number of brothers work in the construction industry and are affiliated to the Regional Building Committee (RBC). In additional, most of the coordinating work was obviously carried out by local Elders and ministerial servants.
  With the above in mind, we are left with the following actual expenses: Brothers from bethel who have kept an eye on the situation fora few days. We also have the expenses possibly incurred for equipment that were not locally provided for. Hence, you may guess for yourself how much funds from the World Wide Work were actually used to help with this crisis.

  Yet, before reaching a conclusion, you must also consider the efforts involved in producing this highly professional video that reported this event. As the Watchtower society produces its own media contents, the cost of producing this video is fully funded by the World Wide Work funds. Special filming equipment, skilled camera man, professional film editors and their respective equipment are part of the production cost. Then, there are also the bethel members assigned to monitor the content of the video and request adhoc changes. And impressively enough is how the video has been translated in 30 languages! Such strenuous work can easily be demonstrated by the fact that such videos generally take weeks, even months before reaching their final cuts. And finally, the distribution of such video also has its own price!

  WAS IT WORTH MAKING THE VIDEO?

  In the end, we could safely assess that a greater amount of money received from the World Wide Work funds were allocated to reporting the relief efforts rather than being spent in providing it. And so we must wonder why? If such funds were readily used to assist brothers in needs, then why give so much attention to such small scale disaster relief response? For instance, other organizations such as ARES, Red Cross, Mennonites, Salvation Army, and the St-John Ambulance all offered their services to the thousands of victims of the flood mentioned in the beginning of the video (0:40). In contrast, local Jehovah’s Witnesses assisted a few of their own and their Organization took most of the credit while spending considerable resources to brag about it. One must wonder where exactly this really fits with Jesus teachings (Matthew 5:46-47; 6:1-4).