i have a story to share about my calls to wt ny hq this past week.
i was quite surprised by the level of disinterest and lack of concern from the two contacts that i spoke to.
rather than jumping right in and sharing my experience - and perhaps "poisoning the well," i'd like to read experiences of others on this forum who had the urge or need to call the wt contact number.. btw - mine was not an apostate rant or overly critical of the wt and was presented in a friendly and helpful way.
Outlaw - you win. I withdraw. Obviously you are someone here with enough credibility to judge who's right or wrong. I defer to your judgement. I lose. For whatever reason you feel that Inform Ant's rants and rages should not be critiqued for what they are, then so be it.
I guess you are right. I got what I asked for.
JV
i have a story to share about my calls to wt ny hq this past week.
i was quite surprised by the level of disinterest and lack of concern from the two contacts that i spoke to.
rather than jumping right in and sharing my experience - and perhaps "poisoning the well," i'd like to read experiences of others on this forum who had the urge or need to call the wt contact number.. btw - mine was not an apostate rant or overly critical of the wt and was presented in a friendly and helpful way.
first off i want to say that i'm a teenager which makes my situation interesting.
i don't want to give too many details in case someone i know reads this but i'm between 14 and 18, homeschooled, and i've been awake for around one or one and a half years.
i already have a plan to attend usc or wisconsin university if i'm smart enough to get in and then move to san jose and try and get a job working for a hs football team or with a soccer team, since i want to coach sports or be an agent.. now, this all sounds great in theory but there's one thing i've been thinking about that makes me doubt my plan.
UFCF - I've heard many young JWs admit to having a "learning disability" that holds them back from making a move away from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Most of those were "home schooled." Is there a pattern there? Or is it just coincidence. This same learning difficulty can also be found in home schooled children of Mormons, Mennonites, and extreme right wing Republicans (USA). Seriously.
The best thing for you might be to finish your homeschooling as quickly as you can and then enroll in a local community college. Let the counselors there know that you have been so diagnosed and that you have been home schooled. In California (and I assume you are living there) most city colleges have classes specially designed for students like yourself and they are either free or have very low tuition fees.
As far as dating: make friends with JW girls, but don't date them or consider marrying them. Every single JW marriage I've known that started that way ended up with one or both being very unhappy. There are exceptions, yes, and I've met a few. But jeezus in a pickle jar - you might just as well accept that for a few months of missionary style sex you will live a life of regret that you didn't get out and meet some educated and interesting women who will challenge you as well as engage in enthusiastic love making.
In any case, don't rush into anything except to maneuver yourself into getting a proper education. My guess is that your "learning disability" will resolve itself in due time as you mature and expose yourself to a real education.
JV
i have a story to share about my calls to wt ny hq this past week.
i was quite surprised by the level of disinterest and lack of concern from the two contacts that i spoke to.
rather than jumping right in and sharing my experience - and perhaps "poisoning the well," i'd like to read experiences of others on this forum who had the urge or need to call the wt contact number.. btw - mine was not an apostate rant or overly critical of the wt and was presented in a friendly and helpful way.
Outlaw -
I did see your thread about Ms. Ant's phone call to Bethel and I listened to most of it. Ms. Ant has her own style and likes to try to manage both sides of the argument rather than find a more palatable approach. That is not, and has never been, my style. I guess that makes me a pussy or something.
When you hear my audios of the two calls I made to Bethel you will see that my approach was 180 degrees from Ms. Ant's rants - I was actually trying to be nice and helpful. I know - why would I want to be nice to anyone at the Watchtower? Because they are people too and have personal feelings that can be hurt. Why would I want to hurt their personal feelings just because they have been given the rather unpleasant task of answering mostly anonymous phone calls. And a high percentage of those calls will be from people like Ms. Ant who really want to pick an argument with them rather than ask a straightforward question in a reasonable way.
The purpose of my calls will become clear when you hear them:
1. Your highly touted website (JW.org) doesn't have a contact page or a working email address that anyone can write to.
2. When anyone sends postal mail to Brooklyn or Patterson, even when sent registered with return receipt verified, no one ever gets an answer unless it's all glowing and complimentary and "please send someone to convert me because I want to be brain dead like all the Jehovah's Witnesses I've ever met."
AAWA and Cedars and other groups that take a "let's sit down and have a friendly conversation" approach in their letters are ignored the same as those who send threatening and obscene diatribes. I think Cedars has sent the WT a printed copy of his annual survey every year since he began and never gotten a response. I know I sent off the first couple myself and never once got anything back except the delivery receipt.
So the bottom line is that calling or sending mail to the Watchtower is a fruitless and futile exercise. Emailing is impossible. As you will hear, they don't even care that most Kingdom Halls don't answer their phones or respond to answering machine messages even when those calls could possibly lead to new converts.
BTW - I have heard from Ms. Ant, but she has not provided me with any way to respond directly back to her. Ms. Ant tends to make all of her arguments long, rambling and unidirectional. I'd really love to have a conversation with her over a cup of coffee sometime so that she could see that not all supporters of AAWA have bulging eyes, horns, or claws - and that most of us are not into porn. I'll be passing her neighborhood sometime in April, so if she wants to have a friendly conversation I'll make myself available.
JV
did this quietly go away?.
details, please.
.
When I lived in Dallas-Fort Worth in the late 1980s-early 1990s Tilton was all over the TV every day. I was there when the aforementioned expose was released. He was such an actor and so clearly a fraud that even hardline Christians I worked with hated him. They felt that he was an embarrassment to them all.
One person that I knew and worked for me for a while, told me that he was employed in Tilton's "counting house." Each day they would get a number from Tilton's assistant (typically over 5, but less than 10) that would represent the number of random envelopes that would be pulled out of every 100 received the previous day. Those envelopes would be left sealed and sent directly to Tilton. He thought they went to Tilton's house, but could not confirm that. The envelopes would go through an automatic opener (slices one edge of the envelope so cleanly that the contents are not disturbed) and then dumped in the middle of a room and into a huge dry baptismal font.
If he was in the mood, Tilton would go into the room, select a half dozen at random and then pray over the others in the tub. (Tilton's prayers were often just gibberish he'd make up along the way.) He would take out the notes inside and the money and set the checks aside and put the bills in his pocket. The checks would be "for Jesus" and the cash would be for him. He'd glance at the first few letters and then tell his assistants "read the others if you have time" and pull out the checks and cash. They would put the cash on a table to be counted and the checks would be collected to be taken back to the counting house. Tilton would get the cash later in the day. He'd often say something ridiculous like, "Jesus bought my lunch today!" or "All good things are green, and today Jesus sent me a lot of green."
It was thought that it was those empty envelopes that came from Tilton's home that ended up in the random dumpsters around Dallas. Although not confirmed, it was reported that the TV reporters had camped out near Tilton's home and then followed an unmarked van as it weaved around and backtracked through Dallas, finally coming to a rest at a dumpster at the back of a grocery store where old vegetable, rotting meat and leaking cans of tuna and pork and beans would be dumped. Apparently they had gotten a lead from some hobo that was digging through the dumpster looking for dinner.
A few years before while working for a telephone installation company, I had the opportunity to go into Jan and Paul Crouch's Faith Center in Santa Ana (Costa Mesa), California. They wanted additions to their existing phone system installed in their new "counting room." The sign over the door was fairly large and very clearly stated, "Absolutely NO ADMITTANCE." The person who took me through that door very carefully escorted me around the glass enclosed room where about a dozen people were stacking money and entering the amounts into tabulators. I asked my guide if he had any idea how much money came through there each day. His response made me smile: "If I told you, I'd have to kill you. But just know that you or I could retire to the Bahamas for the rest of our lives very comfortably on what comes in here every week - and maybe just on what is deposited every day."
The person who took me through that door very carefully escorted me around the glass enclosed room where about a dozen people were stacking money and entering the amounts into tabulators. I asked my guide if he had any idea how much money came through there each day. His response made me smile: "If I told you, I'd have to kill you. But just know that you or I could retire to the Bahamas for the rest of our lives very comfortably on what comes in here every week - and maybe just on what is deposited in the bank every day. The Crouches live very, very well..."
That was before I moved to Dallas and learned about Tilton. Sounds like they all sang from the same hymn book. I wonder if the Watchtower has a counting room...
JV
as a jehovah's witness:.
two things finally struck me:.
for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now i know in part, but then i will know fully just as i also have been fully known.. _______________________.
Terry, I noticed the same thing when I was just a young teenager going to the KH. I'd look up the scripture references (not directly quoted) and read them and the scriptures around them to try and get the context.
I soon realized that like many evangelical preachers, the Watchtower was "quote mining" phrases - just for the phrase - even when the surrounding text was non-comforming and often disagreed with the premise of the original argument. When I pointed these verses out to my parents, they would just tell me not to worry about it or consider it as, "the brothers writing the articles are far more knowledgeable about these things than we are."
Seriously, if I was ever insane enough to go back to the Kingdom Hall on a regular basis (never will be that insane!), that's probably how I would pass my time even though the meetings are only half the length of the ones I sat through as a child.
Remember when the public talk was an hour? The break was 15 minutes and then the Watchtower Study was a full hour. On Thursdays the Ministry School was an hour and the Service Meeting was an hour. And then we had a one hour book study one night a week at someone's home. Regular service was 2 1/2 hours on both Saturday and Sunday and for a while we did evening service before the book study for 45 minutes.
Times have changed, but the Watchtower still sticks in weak scripture quotes as if they were "hanging participles" to almost every article. I loved the way the Awake! magazine would write about floods, or crime in big cities, or an earthquake in the Phillipines and then hang a Bible scripture onto the end of the story. Geez...
JV
i have a story to share about my calls to wt ny hq this past week.
i was quite surprised by the level of disinterest and lack of concern from the two contacts that i spoke to.
rather than jumping right in and sharing my experience - and perhaps "poisoning the well," i'd like to read experiences of others on this forum who had the urge or need to call the wt contact number.. btw - mine was not an apostate rant or overly critical of the wt and was presented in a friendly and helpful way.
I have a story to share about my calls to WT NY HQ this past week. I was quite surprised by the level of disinterest and lack of concern from the two contacts that I spoke to.
Rather than jumping right in and sharing my experience - and perhaps "poisoning the well," I'd like to read experiences of others on this forum who had the urge or need to call the WT contact number.
BTW - mine was not an apostate rant or overly critical of the WT and was presented in a friendly and helpful way. But the lack of interest was overwhelming and I found that I was mostly talking to myself.
Oh well. I needed something to do while reloading software and cleaning the spam off of my two active computers. I just didn't realize that a call to NY WT could be so sleep inducing for them and for me.
Please share your stories.
JV
did this quietly go away?.
details, please.
.
The Menlo Park elders tried to do too much with too little. I tried my best to give them the publicity they needed and to find some financing to help them with their case. But they tried too hard to both fight with the Watchtower and to stay within it. They really needed someone who had some experience in these kinds of cases as their lawyer, but even those I spoke to on their behalf made it clear that the state and federal government really don't want to get involved in property disputes with churches. They just assume that if the sign on the door says "Catholic Church" or "First Methodist" that ultimately the church owns that building. If it said Fred's First Baptist, then the court might consider Fred as part owner, but even then the Baptist Church might still be able to grab the property upon his death or if he left town.
The fact that the Cobbs had no ownership rights to the building (they felt they were representing the congregation members), made their case weak. They tried to fight the case based on banking irregularities, slanderous accusations, and corporation law - but their case was too weak to win.
I think the Menlo Park case was one of the factors that caused the Society to change their Kingdom Hall ownership and donation guidelines to make all Kingdom Halls corporate branches by default. Any privately owned KHs were (or will) be sold and congregations merged or moved to new KHs.
While I supported the Menlo Park elders and their Quixotic quest to poke holes in the Watchtower's windmills, the lack of time, money, and qualified legal assistance doomed them to failure. It would have made a good story and I would have gladly helped them write it, but my interest in them and the ultimate demise of the Menlo Park Kingdom Hall expired months ago. Even the members of the Menlo Park KH just wanted them to stop as they realized that the Watchtower would win no matter what and that their actions were just creating deep divisions within the rank and file.
JV
1 chronicles 28:9 "and you, my son solomon, acknowledge the god of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought.
if you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever.
is the word "forever" literal or figurative?
When I was growing up in the late 1950s, there were many half-hour TV shows (most locally produced) that used short stories from older radio shows, comic books and small anthologies . These shows were typically 1/2 hour, but a few were an hour or 90 minutes. Some of the stories were later rewritten and adapted for shows like Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and similar. Many of these stories had a general plot line that showed some doofus wishing and hoping for success, lots of money, love, or whatever - only to be destroyed by the very thing desired and gained.
One episode (was probably just produced locally and never archived) was about a man who wanted to live forever. Somehow he came across some secret potion that allowed him to achieve his goal. He gets hit by a car in one scene and everyone is standing around saying, "Poor guy never saw it coming and doesn't stand a chance" - and then two hours later he walks out of the Emergency Hospital in perfect shape and he barely remembers what happened. Another show that was adapted for a more modern episode 40 years later had a selfish and greedy scientist and his partner develop an injection that would prevent death under any circumstances - a "live forever pill." Not wanting to share the fortune that would surely come from such a discovery, the scientist kills his partner before that fellow was able to take the injection. He realized that in that state, even if you are convicted and sentenced to death, if you don't die during your execution you are granted a pardon. The twist is, of course, that after he is convicted the court takes pity on him and commutes his death sentence to "life without the possibility of parole." Nasty twist to a perfect scheme that backfired. And he can't even commit suicide.
This got me to thinking about how JWs think about "life everlasting in a paradise earth."
Think about it for a moment (I've posed this question to several JWs who have come to my door)... While the first couple of hundred years might be fun and full of work and play, I'm wondering if you'd get tired of walking your tiger around the block every 4 hours for the next 2-300 years. Would your pets die? Or would they live forever too. After the earth has been turned into a perfect paradise and no one goes hungry and everyone is fit and healthy in a body that is equivalent to a 30-35 year old, what do you have to look forward too? What do you do after 1000 years? One million years? One billion years? Eternity is a freaking long time! Life can get very boring if everything is perfect and has no challenges left to face. While no sickness, war, accidents, or aging will kill you, would there be a point where you just finally say, "Please shoot me. I've had enough!"
JV
to all those who frequent this discussion board:.
we just wanted you to know that an investigative public radio program named reveal, produced by cir (center for investigative reporting) and prx, will present today, saturday, february 14th, the results of new investigations uncovering hidden stories.
in this weeks story, there will be three different topics covered.
You can listen to this program now. Go to the main link and you will find the audio link off to the right. It is now live. Be sure to listen and share with your friends.
JV
