Posts by factfinder

18

Love believes all things... Comment by a "Duke and Star"!! Today's WT!!

by DATA-DOG in

love believes all things.

what did paul mean??

he meant that if we love jehovah, we believe what we read in the wt magazine.

factfinder

Outlaw-

if the gb did say the moon was made of cheese, my brother WOULD believe it.

26

What did you do with old WT/Awake magazines?

by naazira in

jw
friends

when you were a witness, what did you do with your old watchtower (public/ study versions) and awake magazines?

i know for some throwing away a magazine is comparable to burning a quran.

i never threw them out!

When I was a witness I would leave older issues in the doors of not at homes, especially when we did the few rural areas which were not worked as much. Yes, some ended up in a laundromat, and in hospital lobbies.

I decreased my order when I was not going out in fs as much anymore.

I kept all the issues while I was a witness, but when I discovered the tatt I threw away some older ones. But I wish I had held on to those issues, they were from 1976 and 1977 and are kind of nostalgic to me.

Otherwise, I still have them all down the basement, as well as all of the books. Older damaged books I threw away but have better copies.

I gave away a few older books which I came to regret : Paradise Lost To Paradise Regained, Qualified to Be Mnisters, Your Lamp is a Light to my Foot and the NWT that was released at the 1958 IC which was cover stamped.

When this house is sold I'll have nowhere to go so I have no idea where the literature will end up. I suppose loose copies will be thrown out and I don;t know if I should offer my books to the cong seeing that I know they are a controlling cult. I wish I could get them to a store that buys older books.

Phizzy- that is such a good point you brought out- return to what? Yes, the jw religion now is totally different than it was when I started. Years ago when I was still attending meetings I was mentioning to an elder how much I enjoyed the Truth book. He mentioned of course that it is "old light". I suggested I would study it with someone, since that is the book the witnesses used in my BS. He told me I cannot do that! I told him I have several new copies. The elder said we don't use that book any more for a reason, we have "new light", So I asked him if I was taught lies when they studied with me in the Truth book? This went into a circle about old & new truths. He said we are not allowed to use the Truth book anymore.I was disgusted.

Just about everything in the jw religion has changed a great deal since 1976, it is NOT the same religion.

SafeatHome- good points too! return to the "truth" I was taught, or the ever changing new "truth" taught today which will be gone and replaced soon with another "truth" soon?

89

Poll--How Many Believe In God, Do Not Believe or Are Not Sure Of His Existence?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i believe in god but i'm not sure of anything....what about you?.

factfinder

I'm not sure if god exists any more. If he does and he is as described in the bible he is not worthy of our worship.

Perhaps god is really something beyond our ability to understand, the creator, and thus all ideas of god are just man made and based on our limited knowledge?

Of course, there may not be a god at all, although it seems design requires a designer. Perhaps whoever/whatever created us/ the universe, has lost interest in us and moved on?

Sometimes I still think there is someone out there watching out for me, I don't know. But I do not believe in the god of the bible anymore.

18

Love believes all things... Comment by a "Duke and Star"!! Today's WT!!

by DATA-DOG in

love believes all things.

what did paul mean??

he meant that if we love jehovah, we believe what we read in the wt magazine.

factfinder

I am so glad I am out of that cult!

30

Contradictory geneology of Jesus

by rebel8 in

jw
friends

so i'm reading another carl sagan book and he seems to invariably find a way to slam j-dubs in each one.

(i can't say i blame him.).

anyway, in this one he discusses the fact that the gospels give contradictory geneologies of jesus--differing lines back to david from joseph, and a different number of generations.

factfinder

Crazyguy- that royal line was cursed by God.

It is addressed at www.whatjewsbelieve.com

Look at the link on the right for Jesus is not the messiah.

7

I can not find the recording of Fred Franz talk at Bethel about Governing Body being unscritual

by Greybeard in

jw
friends

i thought it was on youtube.

did them big cowboys at the top remove it?.

factfinder

marked

30

Publisher Statistics

by lurkernomore in

i was watching a couple videos on youtube earlier and always like to peruse the comments at the bottom of the page.. i'm no sure if this has been discussed recently, but one indivdual made the claim that the societies numbers are massively over inflated, as he/she believes that they include inactive, df'd and da'd in their figures.. does anyone have any information to confirm this or i this just another assumption made without evidence?.

(also has anyone heard from witnessmyfury lately?

i had a pm chat with him a few days ago but not had a reply to my latest msgs.

factfinder

lurkernomore- you're welcome!

30

Publisher Statistics

by lurkernomore in

i was watching a couple videos on youtube earlier and always like to peruse the comments at the bottom of the page.. i'm no sure if this has been discussed recently, but one indivdual made the claim that the societies numbers are massively over inflated, as he/she believes that they include inactive, df'd and da'd in their figures.. does anyone have any information to confirm this or i this just another assumption made without evidence?.

(also has anyone heard from witnessmyfury lately?

i had a pm chat with him a few days ago but not had a reply to my latest msgs.

factfinder

I agree, most baptisms are most likely children of publishers who are encouraged/pressured to get their kids baptized.

It is inconsistant to try and compare the number of studies and pioneers now with, lets say, the number in the 70's. As was mentioned, pioneers now put in 70 hours per month instead of 90, aux pios put in 50 or at times 30 instead of 60 per month.

As for studies, we used to have to conduct a study with someone for an hour at least 3 times a month to be able to report the study.

Now, they report "door-step" studies of 10-15 minutes!

If held to the older standards, how many pioneers and studies would there be now? A lot less I'd say!

And if small children and 15 minute pubs were not included, how many publishers would there be?

Any increases actual taking place must be very small.

30

Publisher Statistics

by lurkernomore in

i was watching a couple videos on youtube earlier and always like to peruse the comments at the bottom of the page.. i'm no sure if this has been discussed recently, but one indivdual made the claim that the societies numbers are massively over inflated, as he/she believes that they include inactive, df'd and da'd in their figures.. does anyone have any information to confirm this or i this just another assumption made without evidence?.

(also has anyone heard from witnessmyfury lately?

i had a pm chat with him a few days ago but not had a reply to my latest msgs.

factfinder

steve 2-

The brother from Bethel was refering to the total publishers, which at that time was 2.9 million, wheras the PEAK publishers was only 2.6 million as reported in the YB. Thus there were around 300,000 publishers in the congs who went out in service at some point in that SY but did not report FS.

Yes, The yb always shows the average and peak pubs. But I was referring to the TOTAL as reported by the CO's to the branch offices. The lower number of 2.6 million was published as the peak pubs that year, while the 2.9 million figure was not used.

30

Publisher Statistics

by lurkernomore in

i was watching a couple videos on youtube earlier and always like to peruse the comments at the bottom of the page.. i'm no sure if this has been discussed recently, but one indivdual made the claim that the societies numbers are massively over inflated, as he/she believes that they include inactive, df'd and da'd in their figures.. does anyone have any information to confirm this or i this just another assumption made without evidence?.

(also has anyone heard from witnessmyfury lately?

i had a pm chat with him a few days ago but not had a reply to my latest msgs.

factfinder

The elder who studied with me was the cong secratary. He would not include anyone in the reports who did not hand in a FS slip that month.

Hours may be exagerated, but the number of publishers reported is acurate. Many don't report and are not counted.

The increase reported is very small, most countries have none and a number show decreases.

There is a difference between the publisher figure that appears in the YB and the one the CO reports.

For instance, back in the early 80's I was told by a brother at Bethel that there were 2.9 million witnesses! But I was disappointed when the YB reported 2.6 million.

The brother told me the reason for the difference was because the YB figure includes only those who reported, the higher figure was the number the CO reported to the branch based on publisher record cards.

So in other words, the CO reports indicated based on the number of publisher record cards in the cong that there were 2.9 million pubs associating with the congreagations, but the peak publisher figure in the YB of 2.6 million was the number who reported FS.