hi there people.. i was listening to a public talk recently and in it the speaker said that the wts is not chargeing money for the magazines to make it easier for people with little money to receive the magazines.
i told my wife "thats crap".
there are some countries who are still charged money for magazines, and i beleive most of these countries that are still charged money are from the poorer nations.
Hi Little Toe,
What I meant was that its 7 years since I had anything to do with it all. I knew the "donation" arrangement came in during early 1990's. Not long after we moved into our new Kingdom Hall.
You're right about getting a list to "help" with the costs.
Yeah I remember about the tapes as well. One brother ordered the complete Bible on tapes plus the cases for them. I think I worked it out to about costing £50-60 at the time, but of course there was "no charge".
my jw girlfriend was here for coffee this morning, and gave me the assembly report.
her husband told her not to tell me one thing because it would give me "ammunition", but of course she told me.
there were no baptismal candidates.
I was wondering the other day if there actually was any assembly that never had any baptismal candidates. Now I know.
I know my old circuit baptised 7 at one assembly this year, 5 of them were children of JW's.
my jw girlfriend was here for coffee this morning, and gave me the assembly report.
her husband told her not to tell me one thing because it would give me "ammunition", but of course she told me.
there were no baptismal candidates.
What puzzled me when I went to the Circuit Assembly was when the Accounts servant, always said there was a deficit. Yet my congregation sent £100 every month and there were about 12 other congregations in the circuit, so if each congregation was giving the same thats £14,400 in a year, and we only use the place twice a year. Plus other circuits also used the same Assembly Hall. But we always semmed to be just that bit short of covering the cost of the assembly.
hi there people.. i was listening to a public talk recently and in it the speaker said that the wts is not chargeing money for the magazines to make it easier for people with little money to receive the magazines.
i told my wife "thats crap".
there are some countries who are still charged money for magazines, and i beleive most of these countries that are still charged money are from the poorer nations.
I was Literature Servant when the "donation" arrangement was brought in.
The Presiding Overseer asked for a meeting with the Secretary, Service overseer, Accounts and Literature Servants, beforehand.
Where he proceeded to hand out letters from the WT telling us about the new arrangement. The letters were full of how they had decided it would be more beneficial not to make any charges for literature. That after much thought the Governing Body had decided it was what Jehovah wanted, as it would make the disciple-making work move forward. Well You get the picture.
I was given a lift home by the accounts servant. He said he thought the real reason behind it was tax. At that time in Britain it looked like that VAT (Value Added Tax) could be placed on the sale of publications from newspapers to books, which was 17.5% at the time, I think. It has never come about up to now, though pressure from the EU may make it so. Anyway if it had it would have meant that on sales of literature in Britain at that about £6 million a year, they would have to pay £1,050,000 in VAT.
Another consequence of the change, was within the congregation. The way it was demonstrated was that you got the "donation" off the householder, kept it separate, then put in the box "Worldwide Work Fund" at the Kingdom Hall. But it was also said that brother/sisters should when they get there literarture, they should put the cost of it in the box. It didn't take long for brothers to realise this meant a double payment, one from them, then one from the householder. Also as some brothers pointed out what if they got a book from literature, put a £1 in the box for it, but a householder only gave them 50p for the same book. Also if they paid a £1 for a book and the householder gave them £2 wasn't that making a profit and they were supposed to be a non-profit making organsation.
Another thing that happened was that brothers/sisters started ordering items like "deluxe Bibles" which were £6 at the time. Also bound volumes, Insight volumes, etc. The whole attitude was "well its all free, now and I'm having one". A couple of years later the WT must have realised what was happening and started to restrict "deluxe" items. Also over time the older publications were stopped, and everything was pared down to "basics", hardback books are becoming paperbacks. Lots of items became "out of stock".
That was going back 7 years so don't know about how it is today.
the great pyramid has been stardated 2 2478 bc(approxiametly) b4 noah's flood.. joshua victory(when the sun didn't set) 1404 bc.
amos written about june 15 763 bc.
a reasonable proposal; y not examine the great pyramid 4 signs of the global deluge, if such an event occured
One thing that makes it difficult to look for signs of flood damage on the pyramids. Is what we see today are not the outer stones of the pyramids. They where originally cover in a layer of white limestone, giving the sides a white smooth flat appearance. Some archaeologists suggest that they may even have been painted with figures. These outer stones have disappeared, and may have been used for local homes.
Also some archaeologists believe that the Sphinx shows sign of extensive water damage. Claiming that at some time there must of been a periods of heavy rain in the area, which is now desert.
can someone give me a sensible explaination as to why the jw's have banned beards?
i was df'd in '90 just as this was becoming a big deal and at the time i thought it was completely rediculous what with jesus probably having a beard.
it was one of the many things that led me to seeing that the gb make arbitrary rules and that the organisation has more to do with control than religion.
There isn't any actual ban on beards, they are just discouraged.
I remember a Circuit Overseer coming to the Kingdom Hall about 25 years ago. He was discussing a picture in the Watchtower and asked what was wrong with the picture. A sister said that the men had beards. Quick as a flash the CO said "There is nothing wrong scripturally with a man having a beard." You could hear the sharp gasp of breath from the Elders all over the hall
But years later I watched and heard an Elder say to a brother who was growing a beard, "As long as you have that neard you will never work with me on the feild service."
Also to add to the confusion I have attended Elders and Ministerial Servant schools, were I have seen Elders and servanys WITH beards!!
Heres is a link to an article about JW's and beards.
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,8215848,00.html
getting a foot in door
by heather low choy .
I don't see the youth of today falling for the JW line as much these days.
They're having enough trouble trying to keep their own youth's in the organisation.
What with most homes now having computers and internet access, the amount of information now available about the JW's is far greater than when I became one 32 years ago.
Youths today are a lot more questioning of anything that tries to impose any form authority on them.
like all non-jws with jw families i have to endure constant pressure to "accept the truth" and their latest effort comes from "ammunition" contained in two articles in the awake of 22 january 2004.. the article starting on page 3 "god has a name" is supposed to present evidence that gods name is jehovah but i can see no evidence of this in the article.
in fact the article is quite balanced and clearly says on page 4 that ".....the name jehovah is widely accepted as the vernacular equivalent of the tetragrammaton".
this is the extent of the articles assertions.. i find nothing wrong with this statement but it is an entirely different thing to saying that "gods name is jehovah", even though all of the language used in the article is steering the reader to accept this thought.
Just a point like Metatron's above, on use by Jesus of God's name.
The JW's always go on about how Jesus was supposed to have made God's name known.
Yet when the disciples come to him and say "Teach us to pray" here is a good chance for him to put this into practice and use the name Jehovah.
So what does he do instead of starting the prayer, " Jehovah, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name." he decides to start with "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." . To me this was one of the biggest chances of making the name "Jehovah" known but Jesus decides not to. So if Jesus thought that not using the name Jehovah, in a prayer he was using to teach how to pray, wasn't important. Why do the JW's seem to think it is.
a long one at 3 hours!
i was extremely tired at the end, however, probably due to lack of sleep the night before.
found it interesting, we opened with a prayer, thanking jehovah for drawing me here today.
My son 20 at the time wanted to do the same thing check both sides out.
He told the Elder (it was the PO) who was taking the study, that he wanted to check the WT teachings against what others said. The Elder said he could, as there was plenty of material he could look at in the WT publications. My son said he wanted to go to other outside sources to do so. . My son said that if he was studying any other subject he would research other material to test if it was right. The Elder said that he couldn't do that as other sources only told lies and not the truth about WT teachings.
My son said if they were so sure it was the truth then it should be able to stand up to any other research he did. The Elder still said he would not find any help outside the WT. My said in that case he had to conclude that the WT was hiding something if he could not check things out. So he stopped the study. Because of that his mother in his word, "Started to treat more like a lodger in the home , than a son" so eventually he came to live with me.
Celebrating birthdays as well.
Boy! Have you blown your chances.
HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY DANSK.
