Our hall was originally built in the 60's, It was a beautiful PanAbode log cabin style of building nestled in the forrest here in the Pacific Northwest. The inside had arched laminated beams holding up a soaring cedar ceiling. From the inside looking up at the ceiling it always reminded me of a wooden ship (the ark) turned upside down. Visiting Witnesses used to be quite impressed by our hall because it was unique. In the 90's they had a Quick Remodel and of course the Society required it to look like all the new cookie cutter halls so the beautiful cedar beams and walls were covered with drywall and a low suspended ceiling was installed and the nice cedar framed windows taken out. By the time we paid off the loan, the town had experienced a boom and the Kingdom hall was now surrounded by shopping and businesses. The land the Hall was on was now worth millions. We were able to purchase a new piece of forrested land and build a new hall with an appartment and have money left over. It was sad to see the old hall torn down and see those arched Beams exposed like a Cedar Skeleton.The left over money was sent to the society instead of being kept as a fund for future maintenance or building expansion. My question is if a Congregation did dissolve, how could they fairly distribute the funds ( our Hall was worth milions) among those that contributed. There would be no way of doing this without knowing how much each one gave, who they were and also how to distribute it among members who contributed but moved away or died. It seems like the intent of the original contributers was to furthur Kingdom Intrests so it's only logical that the Society would receive the proceeds. The fact that they made a prophit is a bonus to their original goal.
exwhyzee
JoinedPosts by exwhyzee
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19
Let's Review: How the Watchtower Society Uses Quickbuilds to Make More $$$
by under_believer ini posted something similar to this in another thread, but i decided that this is an important subject, and something that a lot of people don't realize, so i expanded it into its own post.
and we can always use a review now and then, so that lurkers, active witnesses, and newly ex-witnesses can catch up.
according to the watchtower society, one of the best examples of god's holy spirit operating on the organization is the building program.
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21
Sloppy brother/sister, always getting in trouble, why does every hall have one?
by Quarterback inwell, we are on a roll.
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i remember the brother that always had that same pair of pants with that grease spot in the same place.
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exwhyzee
and there sits a car parked on the front (dead) lawn of the Witness home.
During a Watchtower study about JW's striving to set a fine example in the community, a brother (also a janitor) who's home was far from exemplary commented on how our vehicles in service should bring honor to our work by being clean and in good repair and our homes should set an example in the neighborhood and reflect Jehovah's fine standards. A young brother in front of me who lived near them, leaned over and said to another young brother quite loudly "What's HE talking about.... his front yard looks like a cow pasture ? " Lots of snickers could be heard.
I guess these folks just don't see themselves as untidy, are in denial or else they are just plain hypocrites.
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Help! My brother wants to hate me.
by strymeckirules intonight i tried to contact my blood brother.
i am 32 he is 30.. he was baptised at 10 and df'd at 12, 22 and now he would have been again but he walked away.. i made no progress with our reunite.
he's hating on me for leaving the family.
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exwhyzee
he was baptised at 10 and df'd at 12,
Can you imagine hearing them announce in front of a Congregation full of people that a 12 year old was disfelloshipped and then being expected to shun him ? Imagine being that kid ?
That sounds like a thread in itself !
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Having a huge disagreement over a very petty matter. HELP!!
by Magwitch inmy best friend and i have come to blows over such a petty thing.
i would love to get the input of other people on this matter.
please give me your honest answer so i know if i am out of touch.. i live in a community with mostly single profession people in their 40's and 50's.
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exwhyzee
Doing something as "familiar" as to borrow something of hers without direct permission might have made her wonder if maybe you were the type that would also think it was ok to go through her things as well and not think of it as snooping. I can understand your thinking on this but I'd have to agree with your friend and BF and say that the woman was justified in not asking you to watch her cat again if that's how she felt. In her house, her rules apply....that's why it's called HER HOUSE.
I'm pretty casual about stuff like this but I would have to say I might be taken aback by having this happen at my house while I was away.
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"You're Stumbling Me"
by Ding inthe wts sometimes turns the "stumbling" concept into a manipulative weapon.. the biblical concept of "stumbling" is that if you know someone else has a weakness you shouldn't do something that will cause him to cave in to that weakness.
for example, if you have a friend who is trying to fight alcohol addiction you shouldn't invite him to go somewhere where everyone else will be imbibing.. i think it's perfectly legitimate for a friend to tell you that he has a drinking problem and that he'd really appreciate it if you would refrain from serving alcohol while he's over.
but i think it crosses a line if the friend tries to manipulate you into swearing off alcohol altogether because the mere thought of you drinking booze will stumble him.. but some jws try to get others to refrain from doing things "so you don't stumble me.
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exwhyzee
If you stumble someone....you're bad,
If you're easily stumbled or let someone stumble you....you're bad.
He who is easily stumbled, becomes overly strict and sets the rules for everyone else and expects everyone else to tip-toe around him.
The super strict overly sensitive ones are usually the ones who are 2 seconds from "falling out of the TRUTH"
The reason they are so sensitive and easily stumbled is because on some level they know the whole thing is a sham.
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Divided Households... Can anyone relate?
by garyneal inas some of you may know, ours is a 'divided household.
' a term use by jehovah's witnesses to describe households where one spouse is in 'the truthtm' and the other one isn't.
in some of them (like mine) the 'unbelieving spouse' (ubm) may actually express a faith in the god of the bible and in christianity and perhaps even go to church.
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exwhyzee
I can relate to so much of Morbidzbaby's story.
My Dad let our Mom rasise us as Witnesses. He studied and pretty much thought it was The Truth but couldn't bring himself to go out in service . He was just too quiet and unassuming and unsure of it all to be able to knock on doors with any conviction, so they quit studying with him. My Mom didn't intentionally undermine him in our eyes but just being taught the JW beliefs was enough to do that. All the harsh words about the "world" "unbelievers" "dogs returning to thier vomit" all applied to people like my Dad. We trusted these clean cut, suit wearing, speech giving, bible quoting men at the Kingdom Hall and what they said turmphed whatever my Dad said because they were coached and well rehearsed.
As kids we knew that Dad had blown his chance to accept the truth and was going to be destroyed at Armegeddon which would be comming any day. This had a profound effect on us all but my younger sister was effected the worst. She would practically be hysterical after meetings when this subject was dealt with. She'd tearfully plead for him to come to meetings because she didn't want him to be "destroyed". She couldn't say that word....she'd say "Stroyed... daddy I don't want you to get STROYED at Armegeddon !"
My mom was treated like a widow and wasn't included in things. She was very blonde, tall slim and very attractive and had a lovely accent. As I got older I realized some of the sisters viewed her as a threat, being an unaccompianied female around thier husbands. We were looked upon as sad fatherless children and whenever that subject was discussed in the meeting, we would get extra pity for a few meetings, even though we had a perfectly great Dad waiting for us to get home from meeting so he could see us before he had to go to bed. Dad didn't invite anyone over to our house for fear Mom would start Witnessing to them. We had no relatives in this country so we were pretty much locked into the whole JW thing.
As I've mentioned before, Dad died from loss of blood after signing the No Blood paperwork before a surgery. (he was assured he wouldn't need blood so he signed the papers just in case the JW's are right) He died violently in my younger Sisters arms and she has been a wreck ever since.
All I know is that kids are pretty black and white about things. For instance, if you tell them that smoking is harmful, what they hear is that anyone who smokes is BAD. If a child is taught that anyone who doesn't believe what he beleives, is wrong, is of the devil and will eventually be destroyed by God, he has no filters to sand the harsh edges off this kind of information. If one of his parents fits this profile, it undermines his trust and feeling of security. Growing up, on it's own is difficult enough without adding these unnecessary burdens to children.
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Sloppy brother/sister, always getting in trouble, why does every hall have one?
by Quarterback inwell, we are on a roll.
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i remember the brother that always had that same pair of pants with that grease spot in the same place.
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exwhyzee
One family in our hall was well known for being (very friendly, hospitable and active in the Hall ) but filthy. Everyone knew to identify and avoid any dish they brought to a congregation pot luck.
Here's a few examples from my files:
- They had a live ant) hill in their hallway. (so much crumbs and food in the carpet)
- The oldest (obese) son had back acne and would always wear the same dingy white dress shirt to meeting that had dozens of ittle red dots (blood) all over the back and shouldrs.
- The second to the oldest daughter mentioned in a group conversation that she was puzzled as to why their dog ate the crotch out of her new jeans. everyone just looked away. A short time later she was hospitalized for toxic shock syndrome. Turns out she didn't know about needing to change tampons during her cycle (sorry if this is too much information)
- At a costume party on a Saturday, the oldest daughter (obese) put on shredded clothes, painted herself green and came as the Incredible Hulk. At meeting on Sunday, the green paint was gone so everyone was relieved to know she had bathed.
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Unsafe Cars in Field Service
by NewChapter intell me your stories.
i used to get quite pissed when i was pressured to ride in an unsafe vehicle for fs.
when my daughter was little, i was under constant pressure to let her ride without a car seat.
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exwhyzee
New Chapter...you hit on a subject that has always been important to me. Because of accidents I've witnessed and had to investigate, seatbelts and Kids in car seats are must in our household.
I could go on at length about this but I won't, I'll just make a short list.
We were talked into letting our 6 year old son go to a Baseball game with an elder and his family. We were told later by someone who saw them on the freeway that they had propped our son up on the front engine compartment, sitting backwards up next to the windshield inside the van they were riding in ...no seat, no seat belt, no child car seat, just flying down the freeway at 55-60 mph unharnessed and at the mercy of whatever might have happened. I shudder to this day at the thought of our little boy in such danger while we were so stupid as to trust that clod with his life. (this Elder is on the Blood Liason Committee by the way)
There is a very prominent Elder in our area who's family is full of missionaries, regular pioneers, Bethelites etc. and he plays a large role in putting on the District Assemblies in our area. Two of his Grown Kids have left "the truth" and one of them actually frequents this site. Anyway we were recently at dinner with the elders son and daughter and in the course of the conversation they mentioned that even though their Mom is a long time regular Pioneer and hauls car groups in service all the time, they never had Auto Insurance and would often even let their vehicle registration lapse...constantly getting tempory ones so that they could save money. They said he refused to pay for insurance and his wife never warned anyone that they were riding in an uninsured unlicensed vehicle. She did this for decades.
As a kid, I was riding in a car group and the drivers pretty little 4 or 5 year old girl was just standing between the two front seats. The driver made a sudden stop and the girl flew face first into the dash board and was hurt quite badly. Not long after that she had to have one of her beautiful big blue eyes removed because of a tumor. I often wonderd if it had something to do with the time she hit the dashboard. When I see her today I'm reminded of that incident.
Another Sister I know who's non Witness husband is a Doctor, was quite shocked...nearlly stumbled, when she got into a fender bender in Service. She somehow believed that Jehovah wouldn't let anything happen to her while she was in the ministry. This woman is a LPN and is not what you'd call stupid ...but it amazes me how gullable some people become when they become Witnesses.
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Was The Internet The Clincher For You To Mentally Leave The Organization?
by minimus ini think it was for me.. i knew a lot of the history of the bible students, russell, rutherford and the "old light".
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once i could see all of the overwhelming evidence right in front of my eyes, there was no ignoring the reality..
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exwhyzee
The internet confirmed my resolve to leave the organization and help remove much of the residual guilt for having done so.
(side note) Ironically enough, one of the developers of the first "Web Page" was a friend of mine who was disfellowshipped by the backwoods elders in his hall for playing Dungeons and Dragons and went on to become a multi millionaire after he and his wife who I grew up with here in "Techie Town", went back to school in their 30's and got their degrees. His wife is a high level designer for a international company and travels the world with her dream job, shopping the worlds markets in search of unique items to decorate public buildings. He is extremly scientific and can go on at length about string theory and the like and no longer believes in the existence of God. He is a very warm kind and honest person and despite his wealth, lives a nice but simple life and does free lance work for Bill G. and Paul A. etc. He and his wife shake their heads at the thought of ever having believed "THE TRUTH" and are amazed that anyone could fall for the current overlapping genertaions nonsense. His wife realized after taking the required" World Religions 101 in College, that she had been mislead and promptly left the organization.
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"Ancient Whale Bones Found Atacama Desert, Chile!" Creation or Evolution
by AvocadoJake inhow did those whale bones get into the atacama desert, if you have been there, it is a barren wasteland.
i belive it might have been caused by the flood, but again i am one who belives in god.
what do you think of this find, jesus or non-intelligence?
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exwhyzee
As there was little corresponding evidence from other Pacific coasts, it is concluded it was the result of a large off-shore earthquake. That can make one hell of a flood legend.
Nope...the Bible says there was a flood...so it happened...end of story. These whale bones prove that everything the Watchtower has taught us is absolutely true and we're all gonna die at Armageddon for sure !
(Wink !)