Posts by Juan Viejo2

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.).

Juan Viejo2

I'm with "disillusioned 2" on this. Leaving quietly by simply not showing up is often the better way assuming that you have a truly loving family and minimal JW friends.

First of all, consider what your family members are really like - and do you really have a close relationship with them. If they don't live in your area, then you have an even better chance to just fade away.

Best circumstance for most fades is (1) close JW family members live more than a day's drive away; (2) consider a move to the other side of town or county, outside the area where your current congregation is located; (3) slowly ease out of meeting attendance. Miss a couple every month and then only attend once a month. Then once every couple of months. You've "been ill, involved with family issues, looking for a new job, etc." - in other words, use "theocratic warfare" against the "theocracy." You will slowly fade from the minds of the other JWs and when you do show up they will usually treat you well and try to get you to attend more meetings. (4) If you get a shepherding call, don't invite them in. "I (we) have been sick (sick of the organization!) and can't invite you in. Thanks for calling. I'll let you know when we are better."

#1 best way to get out is to be like most normal families or friends who rarely call each other, rarely write each other, and rarely see each other because (a) you really can't stand being around them, (b) you have your own friends and interests, (3) you live too far away to just drop in for a quick visit. Send them a card every so often: "Love you. Kids are fine. Been really busy. Been down with the flu. New job is really working me to death. See you when the weather improves (too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy).

Make new non-JW friends who don't care or aren't interested. Better if they are not too religious - religious people can be every bit as obnoxious as JWs. Before long you won't miss your family all that much. You can see them at funerals and weddings.

JV

232

Geoffrey Jackson Royal Commission update

by umbertoecho in

hello people.

the rc will still go ahead with it's live stream on friday 14th august.

however, it seem that it will be a video link.

Juan Viejo2

Rumor has it that G. Jackson is also in Australia to connect up (literally and/or figuratively) with his new fiance. So maybe he wants to marry her and bring her back to NY with him? Maybe he wants his father to be around when they tie the knot?

I think there is a lot more to this story than meets the public eye...

JV

15

Did anyone catch the change on jw.org point number 4 who is babylon the great

by poopie in

jw
friends

jw.org changed point number 4 excluding the idea of child molesting.

coments please.

Juan Viejo2

Screen captures? No. This may be a new version of the entire page. I checked web.archive.org (wayback machine) and find no earlier screen captures other than today. That is very strange. I have no answer why earlier versions of that page do not exist.

JV

15

Did anyone catch the change on jw.org point number 4 who is babylon the great

by poopie in

jw
friends

jw.org changed point number 4 excluding the idea of child molesting.

coments please.

Juan Viejo2

Can you be more specific where you saw this?

579

Won't get fooled again ...Moon Landing.

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

so i was fooled by the witnesses.

what can i learn from that?

not to accept things at face value but to seek out opinion and different view points.. hence my question " do you believe man landed on the moon?.

Juan Viejo2

My half-brother worked for TRW Space Technologies in the years prior to and after the moon landings. I actually visited him in his lab in El Segundo, California one time when they were testing the gold drop down curtains that are visible in the moon landing photos and movies. While much of what he was doing was top-secret, some things were not and the lab I visited was not off-limits to related persons or contractors. They were also testing a lot of switches and rotors and other hardware that had to last through a very rough space flight.

He had all sorts of ovens that they would test various materials in to see what level of heat and cold they could stand and also not tear under any expected stress during the flight. I believe that he also tested the clear face-plates on the helmets they wore and the windows. The windows had to be able to handle certain pressures and decompression and also resist fogging up from both sides.

On the night of the first moon landing my wife, 3 little girls and I went to his home in Torrance, CA to watch the moon landing together. We cheered and cried and cheered and cried during the whole thing. Every so often my brother would jump up and go over to the TV and point out something on the moonlander that he had personally been involved in testing. The gold protective/reflective sheeting was one of those things. He mentioned even before they planted it - that the flag they were planting was also something very special. While he did not personally work on that, he had knowledge of some of the materials used and what the specifications had been.

My brother died 14 years ago, but chatting with my nephew I learned that my brother would often bring that whole event up and want to share stories about his small involvement in that project. He retired from TRW after 25 years working there. He was very Republican politically and was an early fan of Rush Limbaugh, so if there was any chance that he would have been involved in a hoax I'm sure he would have given me some clue. When he was buried in a military cemetery, his family buried his medals from his service during WW2 and also a special commemorative pin that he got from TRW in recognition of his personal contributions to the space program and the moon-lander project.

A hoax? Very, very doubtful. If it was, then the whole moon program was a hoax from the very beginning to the very end. Too many other events have happened since then that built off of the moon-lander program. You'd pretty much have to discount everything including the space station and all the landings on Mars as well.

JV

5

Wealth of Documents at Royal Commission Site

by StayedAliveAfter75 in

although i will continue to provide those of you who have subscribed to my distribution list with pertinent documents as they become available, there is a wealth of material just sitting there for you to pick over if you will just take the time and clear some space on your computer.

i suggest that you go to costco, amazon.com, or a local office supply store and pick up a couple of usb plugin storage drives.

i just bought a set of two 128gb 3.0 sandisk dongles for $19 usd at costco.

Juan Viejo2

These are flash drives and on a brief sale. Costco is a heavy discounter store and sells many things in bulk sizes. Most of the time their prices are about 20-30% under list prices elsewhere. I recently purchase a sealed pack of 8 or 10 16GB flash drives for around $30 at Costco.

Full sized 1-3 TB standard USB 3.0 desk drives can be had for around $120-150 USD in many places. A 5-TB drive is now available on Amazon for $129 USD. I can remember buying my a 20GB hard drive for well over $100 just a couple of years ago.

Nice thing about Flash drives is that they write almost instantaneously unless the files are very, very big. Stick it in, save, pull it out. Done. Standard drives have to wind up and get the mechanics moving, but then can do a lot of complicated work quickly. But I have a ton of dead mechanical hard drives around here, and I keep using the Flash drives again and again and again. Amazing little creatures they are.

JV

5

Wealth of Documents at Royal Commission Site

by StayedAliveAfter75 in

although i will continue to provide those of you who have subscribed to my distribution list with pertinent documents as they become available, there is a wealth of material just sitting there for you to pick over if you will just take the time and clear some space on your computer.

i suggest that you go to costco, amazon.com, or a local office supply store and pick up a couple of usb plugin storage drives.

i just bought a set of two 128gb 3.0 sandisk dongles for $19 usd at costco.

Juan Viejo2

Good one, wifibandit! How cool is that?!!

JV

25

Did you know that President Jimmy Carter used to be a Jehovah's Witness?

by AndersonsInfo in

jw
friends

http://www.christianpost.com/news/jimmy-carter-says-jesus-would-not-support-abortion-revealing-only-conflict-between-his-politics-and-christian-faith-141881/.

carter said that as a young man he used to be a jehovah's witness before he was a baptist christian.. .

"it's hard to grow up with such a foundational system and just let it go.

Juan Viejo2

According to several sources, however, Eisenhower did take the oath of office as President on a Bible given to him by his mother that was printed by the Watchtower Society.

JV

24

Who oversees the money for the WT?

by John Aquila in

when the wt sells property for a billion dollars profit, who decides what that money is going to be used for?.

when all the money comes in from all the kingdom halls bank accounts worldwide, did all that money go into one big account and who has authority to spend it and cut some checks to whoever?

when all the monthly donations come in to the watchtower headquarters, who decides distribution, and to who?

Juan Viejo2

After the Menlo Park federal lawsuit / debacle, it was made pretty clear that all Kingdom Halls, including those bought and paid for by members of local congregations (as was typical prior to 1990), now belong to the Watchtower (Pennsylvania Corp, I believe). The elders are required to add a clause in their deeds and corporate paperwork, that upon dissolution of any congregation, the property and all buildings transfer to the WT. Nothing is retained or controlled locally.

So that explains why the WTB&TS has been merging congregations. Once everyone has moved into a new location and abandoned the old - the Watchtower takes it over and sells it - and keeps all the money. This has been the general track in the past ten years:

1. Kingdom Hall A built and paid for by local congregation in 1950-1970s.

2. Kingdom Hall B built and paid for by local congregation in 1960-1980.

3. Kingdom Hall C built and paid for by local congregation with some WT financing in 1980-2000.

4. 2005 - Kingdom Hall A undergoes a major refresh. 2008 - congregation relocated and merged with KH B.

5. 2008 - Kingdom Hall A sold to a commercial buyer, any remaining loans paid off. Net goes to WT HQ.

6. 2009 - New Assembly Hall and Kingdom Hall built in the area. All members of Kingdom Hall A/B moved to new location. Kingdom Hall B sold off and all proceeds go to the WT HQ.

7. 2011 - New quick-build Kingdom Hall built (D). A large number of former KH A and B members are reassigned to (D) leaving KH co-located with Assembly Hall underutilized. Relatively new KH C is abandoned and members are moved to KH at Assembly Hall location.

8. 2012 - KH C is sold and all funds go to WTBTS.

9. 2014 - New Kingdom Hall built (E). A majority of members of old KH C and some from surrounding communities are reassigned to KH E.

10. 2014 - KH and Assembly Hall site repurposed or sold. Proceeds go to WTBTS. Circuit assemblies held in rented convention facilities.

This has been the pattern all over North America over the past 15 years. The real estate crash of 2008, set some of these projects back until property values began to increase substantially in 2012.

This constant relocation and reassignment of members has created hardship for older JWs. Some who could call a cab or get a ride to the local KH, must now arrange transportation to towns and locations that are more distant and in busier neighborhoods. Many KHs now have up to 4 congregations (some foreign language groups) made up from the base of original fully packed KHs.

It must be hard for some JWs to have to jam into 80 seat KHs with growing membership, while others share a 120-seat Kingdom Hall with a moderate number of English speaking JWs and 2-4 smaller foreign language congregations spreading their meetings across the whole weekend and three nights a week.

What your rank and file JWs don't realize is that they are just pawns in a big Monopoly style real estate game being played by the WT Penn and WT NY. Similar situations exist in the UK. Some JWs have never moved their personal residence but have attended up to 5 or 6 different KH locations in the past 15 years.

JV

25

"Crisis of Conscience" and "In Search of Christian Freedom" in stock at Amazon.

by ScenicViewer in

- crisis of conscience (hardcover), $29.95 here.. - in search of christian freedom (hardcover), $29.95 here.. - in search of christian freedom (paperback), $29.95 here.. all sold by cynthia franz..

Juan Viejo2

Most of the ones now available are used. Even so, well worth the investment. I've never had a problem ordering used books from Amazon.com - doesn't show up, just complain. If the ad says good condition and it comes to you in pieces, just let Amazon know and they will fix it for you.

Funny story: My first copy was an original version. A few years later, Ray put out a new edition with some corrections and minor additions. The facts and tone of the book did not change at all, but just time for an update. So I ordered a new edition from Amazon (about $21-29) at the time. The one I got had an insert in it with a list of about 100 minor changes from the early version.

I go to a meetup with some recently out JWs. I took the old book and long with and old copy another famous book, "Apocalype Delayed." I was going to just give them away. The meetup group was mostly gay and newbie JWs that had recently left. Not a single request from any of them. Blew me away. Here I was giving away copies of probably the two most famous critical JW related books - and no one wanted them.

JV