http://www.expatica.com/fr/news/french-news/europe-court-to-hear-jehovah-witness-tax-case-against-france_99836.html.
europe court to hear jehovah witness tax case against france 9-29-10. the european court of human rights said wednesday it had agreed to consider a case brought by the jehovah witness christian sect against the french government over taxation of donations.. in its request, the group alleged an infringement of the right to religious freedom saying the french government had tried to curtail its activities by demanding in may 1998 taxes on donations from its followers.. the sect said the move was an attempt to end the autonomy of religious communities.. french authorities say the donations were not raised from a religious source and so were subject to the same rules as other donations.. the 1998 demand was for 45 million euros (61 million dollars) at the time, but this amount had since reached 57.5 million euros, according to france.. it involves donations from 250,000 people over four years, an average amount of four euros per person a month between 1993 and 1996.. the court, based in the french city of strasbourg, however rejected a case of religious discrimination against the jehovah's witnesses.. .
2010 afp.
French authorities say the donations were not raised from a religious source and so were subject to the same rules as other donations.
I am not entirely familiar with the subject, but does this mean the JWs are not registered as a religion in France? I can totally see them doing that, it wouldn't be the first time they play with words to deceive the local government, but what would be the purpose here? The only real reason they do that is usually the money.
so what silly things have you been counselled on or simply been told off for?.
back in my early 20's, i had a pair of comfy old jeans that started to tear in about 3 places on the leg.
it was the fashion at the time so not only did they feel great to wear, they also looked 'in', not that i cared for that, but it was a bonus .
Oh my!!! Yes! I totally forgot about Proctor & Gamble, what was it connected to?
What was the reason?
There was an urban legend about Procter & Gamble being involved in satanism.
http://www.snopes.com/business/alliance/procter.asp
The president of Procter & Gamble announced on a popular talk show that he donates a portion of the company's profits to the Church of Satan.
it just hit me ..... it's 1:17 am and i'm a worldly guy no love for a god or religon.
so why when i was a jw if i had time alone.... porn was on the tv?.........
and now i'm wordly havin time alone and i'm on the internet talking about jw's???.
Tell your wife to spank you every time she catches you... just to bring back the fun in being caught
i wonder how many disfellowshipped ones there are out there who still believe or claim to be jw, but know they cant get re-instated for whatever reason?.
obvious examples being those in a loving relationship but not able to marry.. i suppose we will never know, it being unlikely they would be reading this site, probably regarding it as apostate.. what a lonely place they must be in..
I think most of the DFd ones still believe in their heart they are JWs, just made a grave sin. Which is why they will go back to the cult asap. At least in my experience DFd people rarely forget their "spirituality" (i.e. the slavery in the WTS).
And you are right, they have it the worst. They don't have the community of the JWs, and they can't move on with their lives either. It's a sick cult forcing people into this position.
the november 2010 issue of awake (downloadable here: http://www.jw.org/index.html?option=nbzr) contains an article about a czeck scientist (frantisek vyskocil) who became a jw.. he relates that one of the things that made him rethink his position about evolution was something he was told by an unnamed famous russian scientist and professor in the early 1970s.
the argument runs like this:.
simple bacteria can divide about every 20 minutes and have many hundreds of different proteins, each containing 20 types of amino acids arranged in chains that might be several hundred long.
It's the most basic mistake the Awake and just about every creationist makes when trying to be smart: evolution did not rely on chance! Since that guy made this mistake, I highly doubt he has any basic idea about evolution, probably he is a math scientist Did you notice that his credentials are missing? Or even his name so that we can check it? Why should we care about a mathematician's oppinion about evolution?
Using the pregnancy analogy, it's like saying the baby can't be born, each proto-cell could evolve into hundreds of different type of cells, just calculate what are the odds that exactly the right type of cell is born at the right location. Math shows you that you sir do not exist
There, debunking over.
please, as per burntheships, share recipes from your corner of the world - a delicacy, a tradition, or just plain old comfort food.. i look forward with gustatory delight to your offerings.
thanks.. mine is listed below.
flatwoods plantation pork tails.
Here's my favourite recipe, this was the first I ever cooked, and it's so tasty I fell in love with it Not sure how region specific it is (it's missing our cuisine's main ingredient, paprika), and I will try to translate it, so bear with me...
Drunk chicken
Ingredients for 4 persons:
Put salt on drumsticks, roll them each in half slice of bacon (the bacon I usually buy are quite thin, feel free to use a full slice). Grease a pan with oil, put the meat in, and put smoked fat bacon pieces between the meat. Pour the wine under the meat. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, put it in 350 F (180 C) hot oven for about one hour. Take off the foil, and let it cook for about 15-20 min until it's properly cooked. Mix the sour cream in the sauce and let it in the oven for about 5-10 more minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes.
i wanted to realise a book based on bethel but a fictional account of bethel.
would i get sued for this?.
About publishing: just bought my first Kindle, and as I see it, it's a haven for new writers. You can easily find the books right from your device, Amazon is a very popular shop, hundreds of thousands are using it daily from all over the world, and I think publishing your book there is much easier than on paper, and you get a much better exposure. It's sort of like iTunes for books.
about an hour ago i was awakened by a noise at the front door.
i went to investigate.
the door is of the glass pane type.
My mind wandered off to 4:20, and I thought this is yet another weed post...
.
the meetings used to be three times a week and totalled five hours.. the public talk on a sunday was reduced from one hour to three quarters of an hour whilst we were still attending and then following our fade we were aware that the tuesday night group book study was stopped.. does this now mean the meetings total three and three quarter hours?.
my husband was asking me this morning and i wasn't sure so wondered if anyone can help me out here.. thanks.. li.
The official reason is that it's a loving arrangement to not overburden the "brothers", and let JWs have more time for personal study. Personally I think the high dropout rate scares them, so they try to ease things up a little - there are lots of such small changes, like pioneer hours dropped, less literature, shorter assemblies, etc.
I still can't believe how they can talk out of both sides of their mouths. Just weeks before the announcement about dropping the book study, the elders were still talking about how important it is to be present at every single meeting. Two weeks later that same elder says "what a loving arrangement to have one less meeting". I was the only one in the audience who was not clapping, (which is a paradox, because I was probably the happiest to have less meetings), because the hypochrisy was just so shocking.
Not long after that I realized that if dropping one meeting is loving, then dropping all five is five times better, so that's what I did
letter regarding academic researchers.. .
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bangalore.
I laughed out loud at this: "we certainly want to avoid having publishers expressing personal viewpoints" - it's sad really, but I can't help now but laugh at such display of cult characteristic.
