Posts by factfinder

18

Beautiful Assembly Halls and Paperback Bibles

by believingxjw in

jw
friends

in the u.s. most kingdom halls and assembly halls are not only very comfortable places to meet but also built to please the eye.

the seating, carpeting, sound systems, entrance floorings, murals and wall decorations, dining areas and even apartments in those buildings for the visiting overseers are not only the best available but also very well cared for.

all of this of course is for the glory of jehovah.

factfinder

I liked it best when the Society was producing burst-bound books. These held together great and looked nice. But the new equipment in Wallkill produces perfect bound books- even the hardcover ones are perfect bound. True- perfect binding has greatly improved over the years, but the burst binding method was the best.

The switch to paperbacks in 1998 was due to very high shipping costs. The bans were being removed against the Witnesses in country after country, in Eastern Europe and in Africa. So demand for books was going way up in these lands now that the brothers had the freedom to place them in the ministry. But the donations from these countries was very low, not covering the cost of shipping the books there. So the society began experimenting with paperback books, to test quality, endurance etc. They felt satisfied and began producing paperback Knowledge books. They could print , bind and ship pb books at half the cost of hc books, solving the problem of covering the costs of shipping to those poorer lands. But the WT felt it would not be fair to give those brothers pb books while giving the other brothers hc ones, so decided to switch more and more books to paperback at a tremendous cost savings. Later, even larger books were switched to pb, and finally the Bibles. ( Most Bibles sold at bookstores are paperback).

But if Jehovah is backing and blessing the organization, as they always claim he is, why are the contributions so low they have to keep switching more and more books to paperback, print far fewer copies of the magazines, and downsize their facilities?

The answer is obvious!

59

Why did God create humanity?

by XPeterX in

what was the reason?.

factfinder

to worship him!

12

Service numbers are gone

by Samuel Thorsen in

jw
friends

i just stumbled over the october issue of our kingdom ministry in norwegian.. the service report numbers are no longer printed.

why not?

and do they still print the numbers in your language?.

factfinder

They discontinued publishing it in the US edition a while back too.

Notice they discontinued over the years : Branch letter, theocratic news, New publications available and Service Report.

They stopped publishing edition figures in the books beginning in 2005. Remember they used to give the total number of copies printed and number of languages, except for cong. books. I always found this information interesting. Since 2005 the books simply state: 2005 printing, 2006 printing, etc.

I think they want to downplay how large a publishing operation they have- perhaps to avoid taxes? It's very rare that they provide even in the Yearbooks, how many books and magazines they printed worldwide for the year. And on occasion when they do, there are contradictions with other figures they had published.

Much is being kept secret that they used to always make public.

And the printing figure for each issue of The Watchtower is misleading. It says in the public edition that 39,600,000 are printed of each issue- but this figure is the total number of copies of The Watchtower for the month- including the Study Edition.

They have been constantly trying to cut down production to save money. Awake! went monthly to cut production in half, then 2 editions of The Watchtower to cut down production further still. Instead of 4 issues a month to distribute door to door, now only 2. Thus magazine production was reduced by about 500 million copies per year as compared to before Awake! went monthly. Before the change about 1.2 billion magazines were printed, now about 900 million a year.

I have a feeling in time even the average printing of the magazines will no longer be provided in the magazines. There will be more and more information kept from the congregation and the public as time goes on.

Remember when the KM used to include a 4 page insert most months? Notice how rare that is now!

4

Where was "gods Earthly channel" before Rutherford and Russell?

by Vachi 8 He Is in

where was it in 1600s or in columbus' day?

and if it was here where did it go, or was it "new lighted" into something else?

this whole religion is based on the interpretation of these two.

factfinder

Good question.

27

Grandma died this morning...satan sucks

by Joliette in

this is what a jw's said on her facebook page this morning?

i was like, soooo, satan caused your grandmother to die?.

factfinder

I agree with Joliette. Jehovan created Satan. By Jehovah "allowing" Satan or his demons or sinful humans to harm or kill people Jehovah is the one responsible. He is the only one who can prevent suffering and death. But He has his bet with the devil and so must let the devil have his way. This is just wrong.

I blame Jehovah for my Mom's death. Just because two people who lived thousands of years ago ate some fruit God that told them not to, for this reason billions of people must suffer and die. My wonderful Mom had to die because two people ate some fruit? Why does God care about what the devil thinks, says or wants? Both Jehovah and the devil have huge egos and to me Jehovah is not worthy of my worship.

Perhaps the real creator is nothing like the Bible or the jws or any religion makes him out to be?

23

Do You Consider Yourself An "Apostate"?

by minimus in

jw
friends

even by watchtower's standards?

?.

factfinder

Moshe- same here!

54

Oct. 15th WT ( JW Version ) - Don't Trust your Own Viewpoint - it's Distorted

by flipper in

jw
friends

once again our lurking jw friend sent us the oct. 15th jw study version for the wt studies.

in this article you'll observe the wt society really making jehovah's witnesses question themselves, doubt themselves - even if what they are observing the organization doing - they are not to doubt jehovah or the organization, but their own imperfect human judgments.

in other words : " don't trust your own mind - it's skewed ".. under the article titled, " keep on seeking first his righteousness " on pg.8 it lays the groundwork in stating, " seeking his righteousness includes trying to live according to his values, and perfect standards, not our own.

factfinder

Essan- yes- what a good point. I had not thought of that before either.

Remember though- even though the gb are imperfect, their thoughts are controled by holy spirit! So their thoughts are never distorted but every thought they have comes direct from Jehovah!

This is amazing. This new gb gets bolder and bolder. I can't believe I used to believe in all this crap.

WT is 100% a mind controling cult.

14

Goodie night

by PYRAMIDSCHEME in

jw
friends

i was reading through another thread and this was briefly mentioned.

i remember goodie nights, i also remember how they just kind of faded out.

was that an unofficial thing or was there official direction from the fds in the form of a letter/article or local needs talk that put a stop to it?.

factfinder

I remember cake and coffee being served after the book study. At one brother's house it was done every week! It was nice. At a sister's house it was once a month or so. Then at the KH BS ( in the library/kitchen) it was once a month. But I rarely had opportunity to stay for it as the people I went to the meeting with did not think witnesses should have any kind of "party" so they left right after the BS ended.

I also remember congregation picnics. But that was a long time ago.

And of course the coffee break during FS. It started as 20 minutes and over time expanded to almost an hour! Then it became an after FS lunch! something to look forward to. But of course, the cult does not want witnesses doing these things as you never know... they may start discussing different ideas or asking questions and you know what that might lead to...!

27

Hello!

by factfinder in

jw
friends

i'm new here, this is my first post.

have been reading so many comments from you guys over the past few months and now i can finally comment too!.

it is amazing how long it took me to see that jw's are not god's organization and that their teachings do not really find support in the bible.. now i'm not really sure what i believe.

factfinder

Wow! thank you everyone!

Thank you for your encouragement and kind words.

I guess the elders ignoring me is a blessing although in the past it bothered me a lot. I never hear from anyone in the congregation. They never even asked why I stopped going. I just do not matter to them. The congregation never really accepted me and made me feel like an outsider. I was a witness for nearly 30 years. Yes, I am very glad to no longer be controlled by a religion. It created much trouble for me at home and many disagreements and arguments and hurt feelings between me and my Mom. Especially not being able to celebrate my Mom's birthday or Mother's day hurt her and as she died ten years ago I can't in any way make it up to her.

Why did I let the witnesses control me like that?

I was told I won't see my parents in the resurrection and this makes dealing with my Mom's death harder to bear.

I appreciate all of the comments on this board. Most of you have experienced similar situations as I have and it is a help to me to see that in time I will be able to deal with all of this and (hopefully!) have a normal life!

Thanks again for the warm welcome and encouraging words, I'm glad to be here!

27

Hello!

by factfinder in

jw
friends

i'm new here, this is my first post.

have been reading so many comments from you guys over the past few months and now i can finally comment too!.

it is amazing how long it took me to see that jw's are not god's organization and that their teachings do not really find support in the bible.. now i'm not really sure what i believe.

factfinder

Hi everyone!

I'm new here, this is my first post. Have been reading so many comments from you guys over the past few months and now I can finally comment too!

It is amazing how long it took me to see that JW's are not God's organization and that their teachings do not really find support in the Bible.

Now I'm not really sure what I believe. I just want to be free of religion and its control. And yes, I feel like I have no future now, after realizing how false the paradise earth teaching is.

Sadly, I have a couple of relatives still trapped in the organization and since we disagree on the new generation teaching they no longer communicate with me.

I am not disfellowshipped or dissasociated yet the cong has been ignoring me the last 5 years since I stopped attending any meetings.

I am so glad I discovered this website and the eye opening info it provides!

Thanks everyone!