Posts by Chaserious

9

Candace Conti: WTS Appeal Info.

by DNCall in

jw
friends

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Chaserious

It's fairly common to get an extension on the initial deadline. Although I was hoping to see the paperwork on Monday.

To answer the earlier question, I don't think that the WTS appellate lawyers are JWs. Looking at the website bios of the two attorneys at the firm:

Boudreau "e njoys public service through volunteer assignments on the Board of Directors for Father Joe's Villages and Mater Dei Catholic High School."

So he's obviously not a witness

Nothing quite as obvious on Williams' profile. However it does say that he " enjoys spending time with his wife and two young sons, cycling, and surfing. He has also trained for and completed fifteen triathlons in the last six years." Somehow I doubt that someone would have time to be a JW, practice law, cycle, surf, and do 15 triathlons. After all, bodily training is only beneficial for a little... lol.

48

Bethel perfection bubble burst

by redvip2000 in

just got back from florida where i spent the holidays with family.

about half are jdubs.. this year the prevalent atmosphere of superiority from the jw side of the family was totally toned down.

one of my cousins, a bethelite in upstate ny bethel along with his wife, found out that the wife was having an affair with a young bethelite "brother".

Chaserious

Anyone who could refer to a young person commiting suicide as a "cleaning" is... to borrow a phrase... mentally diseased.

Of course sleeping with someone else's spouse is a problem regardless of religion, but the sick thing is they probably rationalize the suicide by saying "Well, if we were in ancient Israel, they would have just taken him outside of the village and stoned him." I know of some particularly pompous elders who used to say things like that... disgusting.

92

Your earliest doubt?

by Apognophos in

this might be an unfair question for those who have been out of the organization for decades, but i'm wondering if any of you remember your earliest doubt -- maybe something odd that occurred to you as a kid (if you were a jw then).

please try to limit to two doubts at the most :-).

i think my first "doubt" was simply realizing that at the time of the flood, every animal that wasn't in the ark died (well, besides the fish, supposedly).

Chaserious

The first time I can recall thinking independently was when I was about 10 or 11 years old and I was hanging out in the coat room with some other kids after one of the meetings. This other boy, who was the same age as me said to the rest of us "What would you do if one meeting the Elders all got up on the stage and said 'Ha ha, it was all a joke! Everything we've been telling you all these years was a big joke.'" I think the kid meant it as a joke himself, but I remember thinking to myself that really there is no way to know if everything the elders taught us is true or not except that they say so and my parents and the literature say so.

I wouldn't say that was a real doubt, but I have always recalled it vividly since it made me think. My first solid doubts were when I was in high school and I learned hard science and I could see the proof myself that the human race was not 6,000 years old and there was not a worldwide flood 4,000 years ago that killed everyone except for 8 people and all of the animals in their floating box. I did extra research on my own outside of the school textbooks and read the Creation book and other literature on the subject and I was fairly sure at that point that a hoax had been somehow perpetrated on me, at least with respect to the WTS inventing its own "science". Unfortunately it took me until my mid 20's to realize the full scope of what was going on, but I definitely never argued the literal Genesis account or the flood with anyone out in service.

10

Obamacare and how it affects JWs

by Rattigan350 in

jw
friends

while i think that obamacare is bad for forcing people to get health insurance by penalizing them for not having it; it is going to hit jws hard.. so many brag on the assembly parts that they quit corporate jobs to pioneer, but they don't get insurance after that.. there are many that are pioneer couples or single pioneers that are just doing small jobs like cleaning that can't afford insurance, so they don't get it.

they will want to be obedient to caesar and have to get it next year, straining their budgets.

or if they don't get it, they will have to pay the penalty.. we will see how that plays out next year..

Chaserious

Sammielee - The hardship figure is about $19,000 a year for a married couple with no kids. Those earning more will have to pay the penalty. I imagine that even most pioneer couples make more than that combined. And I don't think pioneering is going to count as a religious objection.

10

Obamacare and how it affects JWs

by Rattigan350 in

jw
friends

while i think that obamacare is bad for forcing people to get health insurance by penalizing them for not having it; it is going to hit jws hard.. so many brag on the assembly parts that they quit corporate jobs to pioneer, but they don't get insurance after that.. there are many that are pioneer couples or single pioneers that are just doing small jobs like cleaning that can't afford insurance, so they don't get it.

they will want to be obedient to caesar and have to get it next year, straining their budgets.

or if they don't get it, they will have to pay the penalty.. we will see how that plays out next year..

Chaserious

The penalty was struck down as unconstitutional by the supreme court, last I heard.

This is not correct. The ACA was upheld in its entirety by the Supreme Court. "[T] he Supreme Court found that penalties the law places on people who don't buy health insurance count as a tax protected by the Constitution."

source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/05/politics/scotus-health-care-tax/index.html

Edit: Sorry, I didn't see your edit!

10

Obamacare and how it affects JWs

by Rattigan350 in

jw
friends

while i think that obamacare is bad for forcing people to get health insurance by penalizing them for not having it; it is going to hit jws hard.. so many brag on the assembly parts that they quit corporate jobs to pioneer, but they don't get insurance after that.. there are many that are pioneer couples or single pioneers that are just doing small jobs like cleaning that can't afford insurance, so they don't get it.

they will want to be obedient to caesar and have to get it next year, straining their budgets.

or if they don't get it, they will have to pay the penalty.. we will see how that plays out next year..

Chaserious

The penalty really isn't in full effect until 2016, so it won't have its full effect until many who are affected file their tax returns in spring 2017. So it should be a while until we can tell. It's an interesting point you raise, however. A married couple with no kids and no health insurance would pay about $1400, and about $2100 if they have kids. That would be a pretty hard sock to a lot of pioneers. (In 2014, the maximum penalty for a family will be under $300, which is why I say it will be a few years before we can tell). I suspect that an increasing number of pioneers of working age will begin working full-time jobs, now that you can "place" literature virtually. They can write a bunch of emails on their lunch hour and after work and count time that way. Or maybe they will reduce the pioneer hours again.

42

Interesting District Convention News.....

by Pyramid Scheme in

jw
friends

i wanted to share some news from a family friend (he is my wt mole - still an elder, hates the shenanigans, but is still hanging on for all the reasons often discussed on this site) i know the various rumors have been discussed on here, and unfortunately the rumor about the conventions being eliminated weren't true!

(what a burden on the jw community - financial hardship for a good portion of them, guilting people into actually quitting their job to attend, physically exhausting for many, etc...etc......).

anyway, he told me that the district convention is being moved to 11 weekends at the jw-owned circuit assembly hall, and they are no longer planning on renting stadiums/large facilities in our area (northern ohio/southern michigan).

Chaserious

Also, this is old, but it's about the same convention city as above. I found it interesting that "the group [WTS] requested that the city provide between $3,000 and $5,000 to underwrite the cost of renting the Sun Bank Center." Seems pretty cheap considering that a non-JW in this article estimated that the conventions would bring $6 Million in revenue to the city of Trenton. Maybe they aren't getting kickbacks from the municipalities like they used to.

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/02/jehovas_witnesses_to_hold_conv.html

42

Interesting District Convention News.....

by Pyramid Scheme in

jw
friends

i wanted to share some news from a family friend (he is my wt mole - still an elder, hates the shenanigans, but is still hanging on for all the reasons often discussed on this site) i know the various rumors have been discussed on here, and unfortunately the rumor about the conventions being eliminated weren't true!

(what a burden on the jw community - financial hardship for a good portion of them, guilting people into actually quitting their job to attend, physically exhausting for many, etc...etc......).

anyway, he told me that the district convention is being moved to 11 weekends at the jw-owned circuit assembly hall, and they are no longer planning on renting stadiums/large facilities in our area (northern ohio/southern michigan).

Chaserious

They still manage to get their "cleaning up the dirty sports arena" stories in the news from time to time, like this one:

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2012/07/jehovahs_witnesses_to_give_sun.html

In my area, it seems that they still locate them in large arenas, except they are on their third different rented arena in this region in the last 8 years. I wonder if they wear out their welcome, or if they are just trying to get better deals. Also curious if in the next few years, they will all eventually end up in CA halls.

25

AWAKE! misquote concerning Higher Education

by DATA-DOG in

check it out.

first, the article...... awake!

where can you get the best education?.

Chaserious

I noticed that when they trotted this quote out many years ago, they actually gave the context:

The American educator William Lyon Phelps once said: “I thoroughly believe in a university education for men and women, but I believe a knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without the Bible.” And ex-President Herbert Hoover stated: “The study of the Bible is a post-graduate course in the richest library of human experience.”

wt 6/15/56

However, since then they have used some variation of this quote at least 5 other times in the literature, never including the part about "I thoroughly believe in a university education for men and women." Perhaps they are getting worse over the years with the misquotes.

28

2013 District Convention Headquarters Addresses, Dates, List!

by Atlantis in

2013 district convention headquarters, addresses-united states and canada..this list is 10 pages long containing the addresses and above some of the locations you will see dates, such as, (june 15-18) or something like that.

i think those dates indicate when the convention will be held at that location.

help me out if i am wrong on that.

Chaserious

What's the deal with the DC overseers who are using their employer e-mail addresses for company business? I wonder how their employers would feel about not only using company e-mail for religious business, but providing their e-mail addresses to a controversial organization that is so careless with this information?

For example:

[email protected]

xxx @unitedtesting.com

xxx@federal-insurance.com