Posts by Gordy

56

LITERATURE DENIED for NONPAYMENT. Has this occured on congo level?

by uwishufish in

jw
friends

does anyone know if this has happened in any 1st world countries?

Gordy

I was Literature Servant when the "no charge/donation/contribution" system was brought in. As pointed out at the time the literature maybe be without "charge" but not without "cost". In other words it still cost money to be printed and distribute it.

Of course what happened was that brothers/sisters began ordering things like Deluxe Bibles, Bound volumes etc, what were known then as "controlled stock" items. Before the change in the system a Deluxe Bible cost £6. After the change I would be surprised if anyone "donated" that much in the box at the Kingdom Hall.

Eventually I think this must have filtered through to Bethel. That brothers/sisters weren't as "honest" as they thought. I think most congregations in the area were having the same problem. In my congregation I think for every £100 of literature from Bethel we were only getting £50 -£75 in "contributions" if that. Eventually we received a letter from Bethel, I think all congregations did, saying that certain items would again be "controlled". We also received a "cost list" of "suggested prices for items".

I think the magazine side of things suffered more from the "no charge" system. Because many publishers didn't put any money in the KH box until they had actually placed them.

62

What song would you like to hear entering the Kingdom Hall?

by JH in

jw
friends

here i am, rocked you like a hurricane.

Gordy

I Want to Break Free - Queen

I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
Youre so self satisfied I dont need you
Ive got to break free
God knows God knows I want to break free

13

November 11: Remembrance Day / Veteran's Day

by Scully in

jw
friends

pittance of time by terry kelly (music video on youtube.com ).

they fought and some died for their homeland.. they fought and some died, now it's our land.. look at his little child; there's no fear in her eyes.. could he not show respect for other dads who have died?.

take two minutes, would you mind?.

Gordy

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

21

Great crowd in the first century ?

by ninja in

are there any watchtower references to there being any members of the great crowd in the first century?...or were they all of the "144000" until 1935?

...

Gordy

One of the huge flaws in JW doctrine is this idea that from 33 CE to 1935, there were only 144,000 true Christians. If the recorded numbers of early Christians slaughtered by the Romans in just the first couple of hundred years of Christianity are anywhere near accurate, there were actually hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions!

It was always a puzzle to me as well. Yet I remember reading one source of Christian history stating that it was estimated that by the end of the 2nd century, 2.5 million Christians had died from persecution by the Romans. It gave one figure of 144,000 killed in Alexandria.

When I've raised this with a JW the reply is that "They really weren't "real" Christians. They just professed to be"

So all those thousands of people who were killed in the arenas of Rome, tortured, used as human torches to light the gardens of Emperor Nero.

Where only pretending to be Christians.

33

Repulsed by the thought

by serendipity in

jw
friends

yesterday, i was cleaning out the dark recesses of my purse and found the blood card.

i was going to throw it away but stopped.

after doing some research on blood in the bible, i no longer believe in the jw blood doctrine.

Gordy

Three years ago my son (29) was diagnosed with severe anaemia. In fact when his local doctor got the results back from his blood test, he call him at home and told him an ambulance was on its way to pick him up to take him to hospital.

As soon as he was in they started to give him blood, in all he had four units over five days. They said that his blood counts was so low that he could have died within the next few days without the blood transfusion. It was the quickest way to get his blood count back up.

My son also an exJW was not troubled that he had to have blood. I on visiting him in hospital was not bothered on seeing him being given blood. The only thing that worried us was how his strong JW mother would act when she came to visit. Turned out she never said a word or made a comment. I did wonder what she may have said to other JW's about it. But I have a feeling she may not have even let on he was in hospital.

12

Rememberance Day

by OUTLAW in

jw
friends

i was a dub kid..i didn`t celebrate anything i wasn`t supposed to..now i`m an adult ,i`m not a dub..i am thankfull for those who fought for our freedoms..the freedom to say what we want..i wear a poppy in rememberance of those who died for our freedoms..some may not be comfortable with that..that`s ok..think about it..if it was`nt for those people,freedom of expression wouldn`t exist..this board wouldn`t exist...outlaw

Gordy

Though I was at work by myself today. Listening to the radio when 11am came I kept the 2 minutes silience.

I don't agree with war. But I believe we should remember those who died because of it soldier and civilian.

18

Kingdom News No. 37 - What Absolutely Disgusting Hypocrisy!

by Amazing in

jw
friends

my first reaction to this little tract is that it is the same thing we left at the doors in the 1970s during blitz campaigns just before armageddon in 1975. yes, we were told that the end of false religion was extremely close, and that we were stepping up our preaching activity which we expected to bring on a major round of persecution.

we were engaged in the final notification work of condemning false religion so that the few remaining sheep might get out of babylon the great just before the great tribulation was to start.. fast forward over 30 years: the jws are still blitzing the neighborhood with kingdom news tracts saying that the end of false religion is near.

what a sad and cruel joke!

Gordy

As Amazing said this type of tract is not the first , but you don't have to go back to 1975 to see similar.

Watchtower 1996 1st January . p. 11 par. 12 "Jehovah Gives Peace and Truth in Abundance"

"As evidence that the pouring out of these plagues continues, the talk "False Religion’s End Is Near" was delivered worldwide on April 23, 1995, followed by the distribution of hundreds of millions of copies of a special issue of Kingdom News."

69

Did you ever think you'd stop being one of Jehovah's Witnesses?

by sandy in

i'm sure this question has been asked before .

i've come a long way in my thinking.

a very long way!

Gordy

Did any of us ever think we would leave? We didn't become JW's thinking "I'll give it a couple of years to see how it goes."

We probably all had "doubts" about some JW teaching or other. But you could apply that to any other religion a person may be in.

Most times its seems something gives us a "knock on the head" saying "Wake up to this!"

There are those who sit down and actually "read" the Bible, and begin to see things in a different light.

There are those who see teachings like 607/587 dates are wrong.

Others learn about Watchtower history the false prophecies, changes in teachings and things the WT once taught etc. In recent times its been the change in the "1914 generation" teaching, the UN scandal, the paedophile scandal.

Then there are those of us who have suffered personal treatment at their hands. Treatment which made us think "This can't be right!" that led us into doing maybe one or two of the things above. All which eventually led to us leaving the WT.

After all did any of us think we would ever be posting on an "apostate" forum!

121

Mom Died -- and I found out from an old friend!

by BrendaCloutier in

ok, i'm writing this thru tears as i just found out in the last 5 minutes.

my dad died in august, and they had been together just 1 or 2 weeks over 70 years married!

i didn't expect her to last without him, and visa versa.. i just tried to call my sister, and no answer there.

Gordy

Dear Brenda

So sorry to hear about your mother. But even more sorry about the way you learnt about it.

Unfortunately its a common thing. I recall a exJW lady finding out her mother had died when she met one of their mothers neighbours out when shopping. The person said they were sorry to about her mothers death. It was the first she had heard about. When she got home she called her JW Elder brother. He told her their mother had died three months ago!! Why hadn't she been told? The JW brothers reply was that as a DA'd person she had "no right" to know as she was no longer part of the family.

Even after being a JW for 30 years and understanding their thinking. I still can't get my head round this kind of thinking. Just what do they hope to acheive? They think its "love" to treat people in such a way. But they do more damage to how people view them and their "God".

7

World Progress and the Imaginary Watchtower World

by metatron in

jw
friends

i read today about three new scientific developments: british scientists are going to try to restore damaged hearts with the patients own.

stem cells, blind mice regained sight when treated with retina cell implants and the natural chemical resveratrol showed anti-aging.

in a mammal ( mice) for the first time.

Gordy

It's as if the 'outside world' doesn't exist, as if the Watchtower writers are caught up in a private world that is drifting into a kind of psychosis, a dreamy isolated landscape they enjoy, while human progress passes them by.

So true. Scientific advances are ignored because "science" to the WT is nasty evil satanic. Womens equality can't have that, woman are meant to be at the beck and call of men. Keep the house clean and look after the kids. Children are still seen as mini-JW's and its taken for granted that they will become baptised JW's. Ignoring the fact that young ones today can think for themselves.

Brothers, do you really think anyone is listening? If they were, why are you endlessly repeating yourselves?

Again so true. I recently looked at at Watchtower magazine and it was as if I was still reading stuff from when I left 7 years ago or even longer. I sometimes think they just recycle articles.

Everything is rosy and cheery in Watchtowerland - which might as well be part of DisneyWorld ( Fantasyland). Reform? There is no need to reform a fantasy. That's not what fantasies are about.

This the way they want to keep it. There are no problems in the organisation. There was no UN scandal, there is no child abuse. Congregation members are kept in the dark about what is happening , even in their own congregation. Elders keep the lid on any potential problem. The rank and file congregation member sits in their Kingdom Hall thinking how good and clean the organisation is. Yet the Elders know that brother A or Sister B are alcoholics or that brother C is abusing his children, that half the young ones are having sex with each other.

Yes, everything is well in the Wonderful World of Watchtower.