this weekend was the convention for the southern san francisco bay area.
it was held at the santa clara convention center in the silicon valley http://www.santaclara.org/conventioncenter/ which is an improvement over the old s.f.
cow palace which is still used..just not as much.
Just to give some background information, Brother G.A. who gave the District Convention baptism talk is a long-time pioneer elder. He also serves as a substitute circuit overseer, and has even visited a congregation I used to attend as a sub CO. I don't know him personally.
I also heard of a special talk given to the North Fremont congregation on a Saturday a few weekends ago by a WT attorney regarding the Conti case. I don't know the content of the meeting but hopefully will find out more.
according to the recent 2010 mexico census, people 5 and older who identified themselves as jehovah's witness grew by 42%.. .
.
year 20002010% total 1,057,7361,500,98441.9% population 84,794,454106,427,63625.5% ratio, one jw to:8071 .
How are the statistics exaggerated or made up? I thought it was established that the WTS only counts active publishers while these secular surveys (like the Pew forms ones) count everyone who is associated with JW's.
(pdf) plaintiff's response to wt's request for new trial:.
.
http://www.mediafire.com/?di4bry8su9tn1ft.
For any active JW's who regularly donate reading these case documents should chill them to the bone. I haven't dropped cash into a box in a long time now but one of my biggest regrets is all the money I've donated in the past when I was still a true believer. The WTS comes across as just so arrogant, almost spiteful really. It's like they can't believe someone would have the audacity to sue them and actually WIN. In their minds it cannot possibly be their fault, it has to be the elders/parents/prejudiced jury. It's really sickening.
On a more positive note, if I'm ever involved in a civil case I want Richard Simons on my side!
do you plan to apply in your life?.
the world book encyclopedia: a man and woman.
jw parents are allowed to request a bride price for their daughters..... .
Is "perverted practices" in paragraph 10 code for oral and anal sex? At the meeting I attended our WT conductor just glossed over that. It's awesome how there's absolutely no scriptual backing for that rule.
are there any active elders/ms or higher out there who can advise if one of the requirements for appointment is that the person's fs time is equal to or greater than either the congregation's average or the national average?
this used to be the case, but may have been relaxed.
also is the branch still approving appointments?
I can definitely attest to the fact that the 10 hour rule is still in effect. I know, because I recently lost the "privilege" of reading the WT on Sundays and carrying mics around (I'm not a MS or elder). When I was informed of this the elder told me it was because I wasn't meeting the congregational hour average. I asked him what the quota was and without blinking he said 10.
For a while I was thinking of putting some fake time in to bump up my hours. I actually didn't mind being a mic runner because it was a distraction from the boring meetings parts. I couldn't bring myself to do that though, just felt wrong.
To be honest, I'm not sure what the goal of taking away my "privileges" was. Is it supposed to motivate me to increase my hours? It's actually had the opposite effect, because now it makes it easier to miss meetings knowing that I have no responsiblities to care for.
is this recent?
http://www.silentlambs.org/oaklandlawsuit.htm.
i havent seen anyone post about it, the link has a pdf on it of the court documents, and it looks like the stamp is from 5/12 but its blurry.. .
The story is now up on SFGate.com (San Francisco Chronicle), which is the biggest newspaper in the region. Some additional details that other articles didn't have.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/15/BAUQ1P2PH2.DTL&tsp=1
It's also showing up on the main page:
Sorry, have no idea how to insert links on this board so you'll have to copy and paste.
is this recent?
http://www.silentlambs.org/oaklandlawsuit.htm.
i havent seen anyone post about it, the link has a pdf on it of the court documents, and it looks like the stamp is from 5/12 but its blurry.. .
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but the story is now in the local Bay Area papers:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_20867874/jehovahs-witnesses-must-pay-20-million-fremont-sex
Hopefully the NY Times will pick this up soon.
how can we imitate the loyalty.
in our loyalty to our marriage.
your marriage mate.
It's amazing how the WTS glosses over David's numerous sins, and love how Blondie hammers this point over and over. I actually never thought about David's ignoring his daughter's rape before in that context.
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normally i don't go in for these conspiracy theory ideas, but a comment by kurtbethel on another thread got me to thinking.
might this latest dvd actually be proof that there are operatives inside watchtower hq who are deliberately sabotaging the society's material?
Being around sincere JWs most of the time, they'll eat this up no questions asked. It's ingrained in their culture.
As far as producing such a short DVD, it's purely for profit. It costs the WTS pennies per DVD to produce. Remember, most conventions (at least in the Western word) are money makers. The average JW on their way out will total it up in their head, "Let's see, I got two brochures and two DVDs, I better donate X amount of dollars".
mp has asked which country has lost the most publishers, and i decided to investigate.
one thing led to another, and i decided to produce another world map, this time showing the net reduction in publishers for each country.. this has been calculated by means of the following equation for each country:.
2011 total no.
As far as I'm concerned, it's settled. As I've tried to explain, I use the term "net decrease" in its broadest possible sense, i.e.
Net = after deductions
decrease = a reduction in figures
In this case, the 'deduction' is the baptism figure, or my "growth indicator". In most countries, once this is taken from the gross increase (difference in publishers from one year to the next) you have a "net" (after deductions) "decrease" (the number goes down).
I think the above methodology is what confused most people, including myself. I visualize it like this:
Let's say you have a congregation of 100 publishers at the beginning of the service year. For simplicity's sake let's say no one dies or moves. During the year little Johnny and Susie become publishers. However, Bro. Fader becomes inactive and stops turning in time so he is no longer counted as a publisher. At the end of the service year the congregation now has 101 publishers, which is a 1% increase. It is a net increase of 1 in the number of publishers.
Now during this same service year 5 people in this congregation decide to get baptized. They are teenagers and progressive Bible studies who had become publishers in previous years. At the end of the service year the congregation still has 101 publishers, a net increase of 1, or a 1% growth rate.
However, using your methodology and terminology above you would take the 5 baptisms in the congregation and deduct it from 1, the "gross" increase in publishers, resulting in a "net" decrease of 4 for the service year. That makes no sense. How can a congregation which grew in publishers (from 100 to 101) have a net decrease in publishers?
