Posts by Cadellin

135

Latest Leaked BOE letter to Elders Oct. 4th

by Watchtower-Free in

october 4, 2015. to all congregations.

re: new provisions announced atannual meeting.

dear brothers:.

Cadellin

This is rebranding to save a sinking ship. But wow--I never expected it to be so drastic. Yes, no doubt that this part of the continued abatement of any participants' creative thinking skills. The Theo. Min. School used to be the most interesting part of the meeting, esp. when someone would (occasionally) get creative and then the counsel was always interesting, esp. when it was actual counsel instead of a pat on the back. Now, packaged videos from Mother and a pretty coloring book. Yikes.

And how in holy hell could the Bible Teach book get any more simplified??? It's already at about a Grade Four reading level. The target audience must indeed be developmentally disabled persons or those who are completely illiterate--those least likely to see through the craziness. So sad.

61

Today's Special Day Assembly Expenses and the $10,499 Deficit. Silent Majority?

by Tenacious in

today i attended a one-day assembly in my hometown.

i knew when it came time to read the afternoon expenses that it would be an incredibly high and ridiculous amount that was nowhere near the real expenses for that day.

sure enough, after lunch came the announcement.

Cadellin

Interesting comment from the Assemb Overseer about the Branch raising the "expense" per publisher from $3.50 to $10.50 to reflect the equal balance for the Branch "as a whole." I wonder what that means exactly? At first glance, I took it to mean that English speaking congs. need to pay more to offset the lesser means of foreign lang. congs., who, as we all know, are far outpacing them in growth. Spanish congs. have many impoverished attendees and could probably never afford to pay the "suggested" or whatever cost per pub.

But--I don't know. It would be interesting to know more about this...

Let me add too, that, even though it's been years since I had to attend an assembly, it was ALWAYS like that--a stratospherically high expense report and a reported deficit. This, too, was for an assembly hall that had been in use for years and years and HAD to be paid for by then (Surrey, BC, Canada). It had a full-time caretaker who was in "special service" (read: minimal monthly allowance aka Bethel-rate) and any major repairs were done by brothers for free, naturally. I could never figure out why it cost thousands of dollars to pay for lights, water and heat for one or two days. And, yes, of course those things are kept on all the time, but this assembly hall was used every single weekend, plus there were two or three KH in the same building, whose publishers would also be paying each month. Crazy, crazy.

60

New light from GB member David Splane!

by Island Man in

in the latest jw broadcast splane is quoted as saying:.

"suppose there was a man who died 10 minutes before joseph was born.

would he be part of joseph's generation?

Cadellin

What's even more interesting (and mindbending) is that he is suggesting that if a baby was born 10 minutes BEFORE Joseph died, then they would be of the same generation. By this logic, a child born 10 minutes before Fred Franz died in 1992 would be of the same generation as Franz. In other words, someone 23 years old right now is of the same generation as someone born in 1893.

The WT's use of the Joseph generation scripture is really quite ridiculous. Joseph and his brothers were of the same generation not because their lives overlapped, but because they were all brothers, born of the same man. Moreover, given that a woman's procreative timespan is relatively short (less than 40 years) and given that their four mothers were all contemporaries of each other (Rachel, Leah, Bildad and Zilpah, if I have that right), the brothers would not have been dramatically far apart in age--less than 40 years from the oldest to the youngest--in all likelihood. Again, fitting with the Biblical generation.

210

TV.JW.ORG (September 2015) - Generation explained again

by Designer Stubble in

guess the overlapping generation concept is difficult for most to comprehend.

david spane does his best to explain it again.

the cutoff date for this generation has now moved to 1992 (was once 1935), the year that fred franz died.

Cadellin

It's not just stupid--it's depressingly stupid. At one point, long ago when I was active, I could take a certain pride in the (quasi) logic of our theology, believing that it was at least somewhat defensible from the Bible. This new nonsense isn't even close.

30

Debating evolution, intelligent design and cosmology with a JW

by Thestumbler83 in

ive been having an email exchange with a jw family member and the discussion seem to have become a bit heated and im not quite sure why.

i dont think ive said anything obviously offensive and ive been very careful with my wording.

but i think im sometimes a bit tone deaf with these things.

Cadellin

Your last email is pretty good. However, speaking from experience, I've found the best way to have any kind of discussion is to keep the topic narrow and focused. It's too easy for a JW to bounce from topic to topic, skimming the bare crown (because most of their knowledge is less than wading pool depth) and moving on. If you discuss one thing and one thing only and keep bringing your JW back to that topic, you might get somewhere (similar to the example of an earlier poster).

For example, I had a recent email exchange with a JW whose email covered about ten things that were supposedly evidences for creation. My response focused only on one of them and pushed her to look at it a bit more deeply (critically). It was a fool's errand, anyway(!)

Welcome, by the way.

83

What woke you up?

by Israel Ricky Gonzales in

in march of 2014, i was a very active jw, a ministerial servant, gave a public talk, was an attendant for the memorial, and one of 4 cleaning captains for an international convention of 40,000+ attendees.

so what woke me up?

an innocent comment from a co-worker about the candice conti court case rang a bell that could not be unrung.

Cadellin

The first big thing was discovering the gross misrepresentation of quotes in the Creation book. I was an uber-diehard JW, longtime pioneer, foreign lang. group, etc., married to a former Bethelite, elder. The whole schmear. I always had this vague knowledge that we, as JWs, had our "own" timeline of events from "creation" onward which was a source of discomfort, but I was always able to rationalize it. Then I started re-reading the Creation book and actually tracking down the sources. What an eye-opener. I remember just sitting and sobbing my eyes out. But the shock got me to start researching other things and I quickly discovered the UN NGO lie, and that was the end of any kind of allegiance to this stupid religion.

I was mentally out but had to do a long, slow fade to accommodate family. Now, I'm happy to say I'm OUT OUT OUT! And never going back--and never been happier!

78

I believe that the greater percentage of JWs-You Will Not Be Able to Help, no Matter What Facts You Show Them.

by John Aquila in

so i ran into this brother whom ive known for a while and the conversation led into me being invited to come back to the kingdom hall.

we talked for about an hour during which time i explained to him 607 being the wrong date and a lot of other stuff including the child abuse cases in australia.

but what i wanted to relate was the last few minutes of our conversation.

Cadellin

Actually, that witness gave a very eloquent and intellectually honest response as to why he chooses to remain in. I say "intellectually honest" because he is admitting indirectly that facts, logic, empirical evidence, etc. are not the cornerstone of his belief. His belief system creates a very comforting space in which he exists and he is consciously choosing that (well, relatively consciously). Hope is a powerful force and for many JWs, their religion supplies them that in spades. One of the most difficult things I had to face when learning TTAT was that "truth" is not necessarily cosy or pretty or silver-lined, that just because something was true did not make it emotionally palatable. Or, to put it another way, just because something was emotionally uncomfortable or unsettling did not diminish its truth value. There's no cosmic law that says life is peachy and if this life isn't peachy, then you'll get a better one in the future. The fact of the matter is that life has no inherent meaning embedded within it. We have to create meaning for ourselves; we have to imbue our lives with meaning through our own endeavors and thoughtful ethics--and that's not easy. Of course, it can be done and life can be rife with meaning but it doesn't just happen. And that's hard for a lot of JWs to take. It's so much easier to go with the sweet, comfy, adorable paradise hope, and honestly, if I had lost a child in death, I might be willing to close my eyes to the crap and cling to the hope of seeing that child again.

37

Can You Really Become Inactive Instead of DA'ing and Keep Your Family

by truth-or-consequences in

oz branch coordinator terrence o'brien opined a number of times at about 1:00:00 until about 1:15:00 of his testimony, that a dub does not need to da, they can become "inactive.".

i sent our beloved angus stewart my personal experience, as well as observations about official borg teachings.

(he replied in short order.).

Cadellin

You can do it but it's walking a tightrope. You have to make sure you aren't caught doing anything that is a d/f offence. So, if you have Xmas decorations or are seen celebrating a birthday, you could be called to a JC. You can't join another church, vote or do anything publicly that would put you at odds with official JW teaching. It's kind of like spiritual limbo. My family has mostly kept in touch with me (I'm inactive), but one close aunt has shunned me. Ditto my JW friends. So it is not entirely true that you can just simply go inactive and everything will remain peachy-fine. You could say that what dear Terrance has said is a half-truth, or maybe a white lie or just a wee fib. Or theocratic warfare or gross exaggeration. But not "The Truth."

40

JW EXPERT WITNESS FLOORED BY COMMISSION OF INQUIRY LAWYER

by steve2 in

much has already been written about dr monica applewhite, the expert witness hired by the jw organization.

her job was to provide "expert" testimony to the australian commission of inquiry into jehovsh's witnesses' policies and practices on child sexual abuse.

astonishingly, dr applewhite was unprepared for the inquiry lawyers' questions.

Cadellin

Dr. Applewhite's lack of preparation is startling, as others have mentioned. It should be noted that, from what I've seen/heard in the recording, it appears all that she was hired to do was to review the material that the Society had already made public, which is essentially WT propaganda meant to convey the appropriately upstanding, empathetic, loving, etc. image that they so vigorously protect. As such, it is--and I think the Commission can see this--essentially worthless, as the material NOT made public is what matters. Elders are routinely told to destroy letters and other records, for example. Applewhite would not be given access to confidential files or even the Elders' manual (although I guess that is publicly available now).

Also, she's coming up short in academic rigor, as I cannot imagine any report worth its salt not identifying, for example, those religious organizations to which WT standards supposedly favorably compare and offering instead a wildly generalized statement like "worldwide religions" or whatever it was that her report said. It's interesting that she's pointing out her own errors while on the stand (and of course, the Commission is doing so as well!).

35

Article: Reveal News Organization: JWs Cover-Up of Child Sex Abuse and Oust a Victim

by AndersonsInfo in

https://www.revealnews.org/article/jehovahs-witnesses-cover-up-child-sex-abuse-and-oust-a-victim/.

jehovahs witnesses cover up child sex abuse and oust a victim.

topics: criminal justice / religion .

Cadellin

Thank you so much for posting this, Barbara! This is absolutely staggering. The ploys by WT HQ reveal exactly what their big concern is--protect the corporation at all cost. I hope this gets wide coverage.