freddo

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Posts by freddo

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  14

  Elder School Video

  by dontfitin in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hope you guys can help me find something.

  there was a video circulating about three years ago showing a sample judicial meeting, which basically ended up with the other elders slamming the one guy who was trying to be somewhat merciful.

  of course the person was df'd.. my husband said at the meeting they actually had a talk saying that now the elders look for any reason not to df, etc.,etc.. i am trying to find that video.

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  freddo

  I saw that video. I think your husband has rose-coloured glasses on.
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  61

  New here

  by MarkofCane in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hello and thanks to everyone for participating on this forum it has really been of much value, for those of you that post here know that your words are not lost you never know who is reading your expressions, lives are being changed and nonsense challenged.

  i’m not much of a writer so excuse my untrained writing style and grammar but i want to share my story to help anyone who is visiting here to see that we are real people, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who have come here for answers, there is no agenda, just searching for truth.

  i hope my story will help others as so many here have helped me..

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  freddo

  I remember posting on here - as in actually typing - a few months after resigning as an elder when the phone rang and it was a very sincere, misguided but kindly ex-fellow elder I'll call "J" who wanted to pick my brains about a judicial case we had been on together as the third man had also resigned as an elder and moved away and he, that is "J" - couldn't remember the details.

  So there I am, feet up on the desk one afternoon, this site open in mid-post and he says "Young XXX is having problems again, confidentially can you remember "the steps leading to his sin" last time?"

  Anyway I offered some help stressing that the young man came from a difficult background and needed kindness and he agreed.

  He says "Of course he went on unauthorised websites didn't he?"

  I nearly choked on my cup of tea!

  Then he says "I really miss having someone with a bit of common sense on the body, it's not the same since you and YYY stepped down!"
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  34

  How far will they go?

  by careful in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've been drawing back lately and looking at the big picture going on in the org, somewhat like slimboyfat has also been doing, but i am wondering about different possibilities.

  so the current gb has modernized recently in various ways.

  they have done a strong and sudden about-face regarding the electronic world, from viewing the whole thing suspiciously and condemning bros. use tablets from the platform to suddenly embracing them and causing the r&f to do so to such a degree that old ones are spending hundreds of dollars to buy devices that they have no clue how to use; they have heavily embraced this media for their message, very much like the churches have been doing for years, especially with their jw broadcasting and their caleb and sophia animations.

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  freddo

  They want Control, they want Adulation, they want Dollars. C.A.D. This is the holy trinity of the present governing body today.

  The dollars are draining away through their publishing empire costing more than it makes. They are becoming a property empire instead.

  So how do they maintain C. A. D?

  Control

  As has been mentioned CO's (and the service desk) are the enforcers. As long as they have enough of these they can control the empire. So all the printing and support staff can be kicked out. All the paid special pioneers can be downgraded to regular pioneers. DO's are history.

  What next? Maybe super circuits?

  Two circuits (40 congs - maybe reduced to 36-38 if congs amalgamated) under one CO and one visit a year from him and another six months later from a bigger pool of substitutes CO. This keeps control and gives incentive for position to the wannabe elders, ex-bethelites and special pioneers. Saves dollars too.

  Adulation

  More GovBodTV electric church. More jw.org. with them in the focus of the camera. Keep regional assemblies for them to visit, hold up a (virtual) publication and use as money spinners. Trumpet on about their HQ lakeside retirement complex.

  What next?

  I haven't a clue. It's all at a new level of crazy.

  Dollars

  Keep selling KH's and pruning bethels in the short term - mid-term. Longer term I think they have big big problems with lawsuits. Watch out for changes to procedures that will save money.

  I cannot see them having a good money spinner after from when the hi-value property gets sold off and the funds used up.
  
  
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  15

  Fisticuffs Erupts Between Mormons and JWs at Montreal Airport... WTF?

  by Room 215 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  apologies if someone else has posted this before: .

  http://vaticanenquirer.com/canadas-mormons-and-jehovahs-witnesses-brawl-trying-to-get-to-refugees-first/.

  sorry, meant to say "fighting erupts" ... my bad.

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  freddo

  Vatican Enquirer - look under the religion section and see a photoshop of Pope Francis with a shovel and black sack cleaning up a dead angel that flew into the Sistine chapel window!

  "It seems to happen every week"

  "at time of going to press the Bishop of Rome was scraping a dead angel off the popemobile's windscreen"

  "usually they die instantly by breaking their neck when they hit the stained glass window but if they are twitching a bit I find it best to put them out of their misery with a shovel."

  Brilliant.
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  12

  BOE 2016-01-13 Britain Branch Visit & 2016-01-18 Correct Use of jw.org Inboxes

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  2016-01-13 re: visit of headquarters representatives .

  as part of their visit, a special three-hour programme will be broadcast to all congregationsin britain, ireland and the falkland islands.

  the programme will be streamed from bethel, and will be available from saturday afternoon, april 30, at 1:00 p.m.. 2016-01-18 re:correct use of jw.org inboxes.

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  freddo

  Part of a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. Book your holidays now!

  Thanks for this info. I love dropping knowledge like this into conversations and then "it comes true". If I then am asked how I know I just say "bethel contacts". And in a way it's true!
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  56

  Any former elders brains I could pick?

  by BarelyThere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i posted in another topic a few hours ago.

  it is my first time on here or any website like this, ever.

  i was dfed back in september for adultery.

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  freddo

  The fact your mother is willing to go under the radar and associate is a huge bonus. Approximately how old are you? Is the man you had a relationship with around or in touch?

  Not being nosy just trying to gauge the situation. Don't answer if you'd rather not.
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  74

  Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

  by TMS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

  we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

  some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

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  freddo

  I can vouch for TMS's feel of the congregations in the mid-late 70's.

  Here in the UK one of the elders in my hall who is in his 70's now actually gave a circuit assembly talk as a young up an coming elder sporting a beard. Unfortunately he is still deep, deep in but has no beard largely I suspect because he likes his "high profile" and assembly items.

  It was great - we late teenagers wore loud check sports jackets, wide ties, wide-collared, coloured shirts, flared trousers, big clumpy shoes and hair over our ears! And there was that article about women wearing "pant-suits" too. Though no-one did.

  And of course the "generation that saw 1914" doctrine ruled as king.
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  18

  5th Columb : We need a signal to identify each other

  by Deltawave in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have been thinking, it is a lonely place in the real world knowing ttatt but if we have a phrase we can unite, support and help each other.

  the question we will ask is:.

  what's your favorite bible verse?

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  freddo

  Luke 21 v 8, a beard and tight pants. But not metrosexual.
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  49

  The wonderful things you hear AFTER you step down as an elder!

  by redpilltwice in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  well, well, that was quite a heartfelt welcome on this site four days ago.

  thank you all for the encouraging replies.

  one of them was this one from magnum: "hey now, don't just pop your head in and disappear.

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  freddo

  @broke the chains

  Something doesn't add up. At the time I posted this you had posted twice. Once three months ago and once about an hour ago. As far as I can tell the description of yourself varies greatly between these two posts.

  This last post of yours intrigued me so much I thought I would look at your post history to read more.

  Care to explain? Or am I overlooking something obvious?
  
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  22

  A lot of "forbidden" talk is going on among witnesses

  by nevaagain in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  me and my wife are still "in".

  we had the "talk" a couple of times, but shet is not ready to leave yet.

  while a couple of years ago she started crying on the thought that i am an "apostate" and even gave me an ultimatum until she would rat me out to the elders (never happened), now i sense that she might is a little bit more open to the the thought to leave one day .... anyway, all out friends and family are still in the truth and whenever we are meeting with other witnesses topic #1 is always the recent changes to the meetings / conventions (reduced to one day) which always lead to the changes to the magazines and the recent lay offs of the special pioneers and bethelites.

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  freddo

  I have had "very interesting conversations" in the last two months with two elders I used to serve with and one who is a relative in a different circuit. They are all in their 60's - about ten years older than me.

  Elder 1. "We'll probably die before Armageddon" was one comment I got in response to my ""I don't know if I can follow this "overlapping generation" stuff ... ""

  Elder 2. "Strange that they need all this money when there is all that property to sell off in Brooklyn and London and they've (he said "they" not "we") stopped building."

  Elder 3. "My son got out of Bethel just before this cull (he actually said cull) began; he's so glad he did. He told me he was talking to one of his mates up there (London) who said that the atmosphere was awful."

  I tell you - if you know one of them well enough to put a drink in their hands - they don't stop blabbing ...

  In vino veritas!