Posts by freddo

24

Do our loved pets come back when we do?

by Nichole in

i have recently started studying and im really enjoying learning all about the truth!

i am a huge animal lover and have my dog trixie for 11 years now, i got her when i was 12 years old and she has been the best friend and companion, i am so lucky and grateful to have her at my side every single day!

i get worried a lot about what will happen when the time comes that she has to leave me, anytime i even think about it i start to cry because it would break my heart not to have her with me anymore!

freddo

Hello Nichole!

My first reaction to seeing you post was overwhelming sadness. You sound a lovely open honest - dare I say naive - young lady and you're asking the sort of question I asked around about the age of ten. With no happy answer.

I hate to burst your bubble and I hope you don't run away but I'm afraid "the truth" is not all it's cracked up to be. I've been baptised over 35 years and have been a min serv, an elder and seen "behind the scenes" of the promises of paradise and millions now living will never die.

I've seen families shun their loved ones because they have put the governing body in place of everyone and everything else including the bible and Jesus and their own consciences. I'm ashamed to say I even encouraged it myself before I "awoke". I've seen parents willing to let their child die for want of a blood transfusion. I even, as a teenager made a "similar stand" myself. I believed it all wholeheartedly.

Please check everything out - it's not lies from Satan - the Australian Royal Commission investigating child abuse case study 29 - Jehovah's Witnesses. The Candace Conti child abuse case.

Read "Crisis of Conscience" by Raymond Franz an ex-governing body member who dared use his bible trained conscience to question hypocrisy and inconsistency.

Please find the 1969 May 22nd Awake where readers were told "young people" needed to face the fact that they would not have a career in this old system because the "end" would be here within a few years. Also the May 15th 1984 Watchtower about the generation that saw 1914 "would by no means pass away."

Do not get embroiled in this sham of a religion. Just google the above.

Run. However nice the smiles; however nice your partner's dad. They are deluded and wrong. If it seems to good to be true then it is.

Please ask any question you like.

20

Statistics - Spreadsheets - Opinion

by berrygerry in

so, spent a fair bit of time on the stats.. the 2010-2015 numbers are available here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0bwv5uvzb3-67axpzavk0m0nttfe&usp=sharing.

also there are spreadsheets of: ratios, peak-pubs, and the best is a combo of ratios, peak pubs & average pubs.. you can play with these by "select all" and "sort" according to your preference.. if you would like any other combination, i would try to create it and post it for you.. of interest:.

as has been noted, the biggest standout of 2015 is the increase of only 18k in peak pubs while having 260k baptized.

freddo

In my micro-climate 40% of the congregation's do less than 5 hours per month immune to any "encouragement" or "guilt trips". I hear that about 10% of are persistently "irregular". About 10% of the publishers "listen in on the phone" and do about an hour or less - put in by the secretary.

We have about five ex elders sat in the audience and I guess half of those are in the 5 hour/ low answering group. The older zealous "1975" generation elders are dying or limited by age.

In the past three years we have had two older ones go inactive, one older one disassociate (apostasy) and five teenagers "not progress to baptism" and leave or become memorial attenders only. I only recall one teenager baptised.

The "zealous pioneer ones" and the "important elders wives" spend a huge mount of time on a nearby city's trolley carts wasting their efforts. This leaves the 40% to do the door to door work which also produces zero.

The only new people we see are weirdos who don't work or who don't wash and the occasional semi-apostate who turns up for a public talk every two months and disappears!

Oh and loads of depression and meds among all age groups. Jehovah's happy people don'cha know!

45

Closest to the truth?

by punkofnice in

i know many jws that state that the watchtower corporation is the 'closest to the truth'.

thus they quiet their cognitive dissonance.. i don't have access to a corporation library any more.

is this a stance that the watchtower corporation has actually claimed?.

freddo

Like some of you have posted already I think it is a phrase used by those (including most of us at one point?) who know something's up but don't want to face it. Often said ruefully or sadly by older "lifers".

E.g. "It's still the best way of life" or "we/they are right about the trinity" ... followed by "where else would we go?".

Some of us get through that phase and mentally check out. And some physically too.

25

Wanna take a trip to Wallkill and Bethel?

by Bonnie_Clyde in

jw
friends

just got my annual advertisement from illinois international travel (apparently run by jws).

for $1,199 i can take a tour from september 17-25. why are they printing so much bible literature if the witnesses are supposed to be using tablets?.

saturday: first stop at new yorks newark airport, then transferred to a marriott hotel.

freddo

@lovesjehovah

Why?

Amos 5 v 5

25

Wanna take a trip to Wallkill and Bethel?

by Bonnie_Clyde in

jw
friends

just got my annual advertisement from illinois international travel (apparently run by jws).

for $1,199 i can take a tour from september 17-25. why are they printing so much bible literature if the witnesses are supposed to be using tablets?.

saturday: first stop at new yorks newark airport, then transferred to a marriott hotel.

freddo

Charabang/Charabanc - it's an old open bus typically used to take Brits to the "seaside" in the 1920's. It would be single-deck with a canvass roof.

Comes from the French Charabanc (pronounced Sharabanc with a silent "c" at the end) which was originally a horse drawn carriage with bench seats for a few dozen people.

As time went by and coaches (aka motorcoaches) with enclosed roof and windows came along only the poor would use the charabangs which British pronunciation of "Sharra-bang" (hard "g" at the end) also gives a nod to an old banger or old clapped out vehicle.

Google images to see them.

edited to say: Stan says so much more with fewer words!

25

Wanna take a trip to Wallkill and Bethel?

by Bonnie_Clyde in

jw
friends

just got my annual advertisement from illinois international travel (apparently run by jws).

for $1,199 i can take a tour from september 17-25. why are they printing so much bible literature if the witnesses are supposed to be using tablets?.

saturday: first stop at new yorks newark airport, then transferred to a marriott hotel.

freddo

I'd rather push cocktail sticks under my fingernails.

I love the "private motorcoach" sounds like 1930's British English.

Cockney Lad: "Yay! We're off to Clacton wiv a bucket and spade in a Charabang!"

Lord Snooty: "Oh, how ghastly! We're going to Sandringham for cucumber sandwiches in a private motorcoach."

44

The Lion Awakes

by eric hendrickson in

my name is eric hendrickson.

i have been on a journey led by the holy spirit which has brought to this point that has allowed for me to open the seventh seal and understand god's master plan.

i am the lion from the lost tribe of judah who has come to the world and be the messiah king.

freddo

Haile Selassie has been resurrected?

45

Google, Apple & how Next Gen INTERNET will DECIMATE the Watchtower Society

by jwfacts in

think the early 80's.

one of the most important events in watchtower history was the release of crisis of conscience by former governing body member f. franz.

slow distribution of this "apostate" book lead to a minor loss of members.

freddo

He certainly did didn't he?

42

News Which UK J.W.'s Won't Get in their Kigdom Ministry!

by The Searcher in

a source tells me the following: .

for shropshire uk by the name of anthony manning has been removed and judicially reproved.

portishead congregation in north somerset is being merged or disbanded on sept 1st 2015 due to "aging elders, poor attendance, decrepit kingdom hall and landslip" - of course the suspicion is wt just wants to sell the hall off.

freddo

We had Anthony Manning as a CO. My recollection was that he was the last "decent" reasonable CO that everyone warmed to - including me - we've had far worse since. He used to go out with the elders to the pub after the CO visit elders meetings and probably spent too much time in coffee shops (for the borgmasters' liking) with the brothers and sisters in the ministry.

I think he has an aged mother still alive living near the English/Welsh border west of Birmingham that he used to go back and visit straight after every CO visit. I did hear that he had a girlfriend who died when they were young and "courting" and he threw himself into "Jehovah's service". Very sad if true.

Yes, he did seem a bit camp but I don't think it fair to speculate why he was removed and reproved. Who knows? Perhaps he knows the TTATT but keeps his head down?

42

News Which UK J.W.'s Won't Get in their Kigdom Ministry!

by The Searcher in

a source tells me the following: .

for shropshire uk by the name of anthony manning has been removed and judicially reproved.

portishead congregation in north somerset is being merged or disbanded on sept 1st 2015 due to "aging elders, poor attendance, decrepit kingdom hall and landslip" - of course the suspicion is wt just wants to sell the hall off.

freddo

@snugglebunny

Ha ha. But in Clevedon only if they can swap zimmer frames first.