i've just uploaded the third article in my four-part "under the microscope" series - looking at the society's claims to be god's sole channel with mankind.
a link is below:.
http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/under-the-microscope-the-watch-tower-societys-claims-to-divine-direction-part-3.
Take the 33 countries in your list, subtract Iran, Iraq, and Western Sahara (which is a sparsely populated territory of Morocco anyway) and I think those are probably the 30 countries the society is listing.
Also, if you're really ambitious, you can occasionally find references to the Witnesses in banned countries listed in the Department of State Religious Freedom country reports.
i've just uploaded the third article in my four-part "under the microscope" series - looking at the society's claims to be god's sole channel with mankind.
a link is below:.
http://jwsurvey.org/cedars-blog/under-the-microscope-the-watch-tower-societys-claims-to-divine-direction-part-3.
When I was still in, I used to like looking up past statistics on some of the "Other" countries.
I think if you could see the numbers, you'd find that most of the 26,000+ publishers would be found in China and Singapore. Some of the North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) were listed in early 90's yearbooks, but never had more than 100 publishers each (with virtually no growth from year to year). The last time Somalia was mentioned, they had a whopping 1 publisher.
I also had a friend whose parents went to an international convention in Europe about 5 years ago, and they were told by a speaker that there were currently no Witnesses in Iran or Iraq.
it has taken me almost 2 years to get to the bottom of the watchtower society rabbit hole.
being fully convinced that i was duped....i am still a little ashamed of myself for being so narrow minded.
i have vowed never to close off my mind like that again.
Some good introductory books written for the general public:
Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne
Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
talkorigins has some good information to get you started as well.
i may set all of us back but what the hell.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua-oqyzc1da.
i may set all of us back but what the hell.
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua-oqyzc1da.
It's even better autotuned...
oh, boy!
bible quotes about the nations "not knowing the way out" and one in revelation about the sea turning into blood!
anybody else getting an earful about this from jw family or friends?.
Come on, this has happened before. We have such a short memory, it's ridiculous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmhxpQEGPo&feature=player_embedded
scary similarity to comments on this board previously regarding the attitudes of jws toward df/da persons.... http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091230/wl_afp/iranpoliticsopposition.
tehran (afp) hundreds of thousands of government supporters took to iran's streets on wednesday in a show of force against the opposition, with a senior cleric telling their leaders to repent or be declared enemies of god and face death.... ...without naming anyone, ayatollah ahmad alamolhoda told a tehran rally that "millions of people here are telling the heads of the sedition that since the supreme leader still keeps open the gate of repentance for you, then in a deadline that should be set by the judiciary you must repent and return to the path of the leader.".
alamolhoda, a member of the assembly of experts which selects the supreme leader, added: "if you do not, then this people and the regime will confront you as mohareb (enemies of god).".
If I were a scholar, I'd love to write a comparison between Biblical Ancient Isreal and the Taliban of Afghanistan.
as i listened to the brother giving the public talk.
sunday, he mentioned several times how close we.
are to the end.
I think there is a definite generational difference in how seriously JW's believe this. I think most do honestly believe that the end is coming at some point.
However, I've had no less than 4 younger ones (all very much active 20 year-olds) tell me within the last year that they don't believe the end is imminent. One Ministerial Servant said that he expects the end of the system to come "before I grow old", but coming from a 25 year-old, that's a pretty long way off. I know that there is definitely a lack of "urgency" in the younger witnesses (under 30), at least in my area.
i think if they do they will have to make many revisions now that information is so prevalent on the internet.
and with all that is known about dna and how it proves darwin was right i don't see how they could.
but i guess you can never put nothing past the wt and it's crack smoking writers to dig up something ridiculous to blur the lines of reality for the friends, for sure its got to be way harder to write such a book today and keep a straight face..
I don't think a revision is necessary... Their books are not arguing against evolution as understood by the scientific community. So as long as they lie to the faithful as to what evolution actually is, then they can keep the 25+ year old refutations and it'll be as convincing today as when they were first published.
I mean, look at the title... "How Did Life Get Here? By Evolution or Creation".... If you tried telling a JW that evolution doesn't attempt to explain the ORIGIN of life, they wouldn't believe you. Or that evolution doesn't explain anything about the origin of the universe/solar system/sun/earth/rocks, etc. There is so little understanding as to what evolution actually DOES teach, that it doesn't matter what they print anymore.
the missoulia montana paper of 12/30/02 carried the following news report.. two jehovahs witness elders, dale a. erickson and darryl k willis pleaded no contest to charges of fraud, amounting to 6 million dollar theft from an aged lady, una anderson.. it is the biggest single theft case in the history of montana, according to the prosecutors.
this is quite a long interesting news release.. it can be found at "missoulian.com" http://www.missoulian.com/display/inn_news/news01.txt.
this theft occured over a seven year period.
I hate to bump up such an old thread, but I was just thinking about this and found this thread through Google when looking up the story...
I grew up in Una Anderson's congregation in Deer Lodge, Montana and knew her personally. Obviously this story was a big deal for the Witnesses all across western Montana. I thought I could just drop in a few other details that weren't mentioned above.
1. were Willis and Erickson elders when they perpetrated this scam on Una in 1995?
2. Was Una a member in good standing of the congregation - an active witness - or was she someone's bible study in 1995?
3. were Willis and Erickson forced to step down as a result of their crime? If so, when did they step down? Before conviction? After conviction? If they were not forced out of being elders, do you know why they gave up their positions? Have they been disfellowshipped?
Both Willis and Erickson were elders the entire time they were defrauding Una. I think at least one of them was the PO, but I may be wrong about that. Una had been a Witness for as long as anyone can remember. I know she was very much active even when my parents were young, back in the early 70's.
She died a few years after all this happened at age 103. I don't think she stayed with the Witnesses after this all went down, since our family left shortly after; she did not have a memorial at the Kingdom Hall when she died. Naturally, her family did not have any trust in the JW's after this (actually from before, as I'll mention below).
Both elders were DF'ed after conviction. I remember the front page of a local paper had a huge picture of the two of them crying like babies as their verdict was announced. Their wives were beside them the whole time. Both were sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Here are some quotes from an article published in the Butte, Montana paper that are a bit more telling as to what happened, in relation to the Witnesses in general...
...Although neither of the white-collar criminals belonged to the local congregation, they were introduced to Anderson — who was a church member for more than 50 years — by a mutual friend from the Deer Lodge group. That introduction led to an elaborate befriend-and-betray scheme spanning several years, court records show.
Aside from a $400,000 brokerage fee for illegally and secretly selling Una Anderson's $5.3 million Powell County ranch for $4 million, and more than $2 million used to finance a failed effort to establish Montana's first foreign capital depository off-shore banking set up, numerous loans, large and small, were made to church members and relatives of Erickson and Willis, records show. Only a few were repaid. Those records say Willis and Erickson convinced Anderson that entrusting to them the fortune she amassed during years of hard ranch work and frugal living would be "more in line with her spiritual beliefs."
As time went by, Anderson was influenced by other church members who became progressively more involved and controlling in her care and daily life, records show. During a sentencing hearing earlier this month, Janel Pliley, an Adult Protective Services social worker, told the court that Anderson's finances, activities and associations were closely monitored by several church memberswho caused a division between Anderson and her family members.
"She was under watch 24 hours a day," Pliley told the court. "She was basically held prisoner in her own house. " ...... .....Sarah Kelson, Anderson's niece who lives with and cares for her, sees things differently. She says church people literally ran family members offat Anderson's modest one-story home on the outskirts of town when they tried to visit.
"There certainly was a lack of trust," Kelson said Wednesday. "But there was no lack of communication. (Murphy [an elder in the Deer Lodge congregation]) himself ordered me out of this house. He told me I should leave and the church would take care of everything." ..... ....Murphy said members are also distraught over the loss of Anderson's companionship.
"She has very close friends in the Deer Lodge congregation who still consider her close friends," Murphy said. "Now they are not able to associate with her because of what these two men did."
Again, Kelson offers a different perspective.
"I'm sure they are distraught," Kelson said Wednesday. "They were all sucking money off of her. The piggy bank closed."
Anyway, she was always nice to us kids, and didn't deserve to have this happen to her. A sad, sad story.
