Listener

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  4

  WTBTS Assets and Individuals Australia 1943

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  the 1983 yearbook pg 97 talks about a time in australia where the brothers were acting inappropriately and needed to be cleaned up.

  this is from the yearbook.

  "the commercial activities of the previous five years now began to take their toll.

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  Listener

  M

  Read Enlarge

  Page of 181

  Copyright

  
  

  Page 101 of 181

  ore information regarding the WTBTS commercial activities in Australia in 1941
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  1

  Request for free Visa's for delegates

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  page 32 of 181 .

  </form> it is so interesting going through the australian national archives in regards to the jws.. http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/searchnretrieve/interface/detailsreports/itemdetail.aspx?barcode=7122198&isav=n.

  i've come across this letter (and response) from the wtbts to the australian government requesting that they consider providing free visa's to delegates from indonesia.

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  Listener

  It is so interesting going through the Australian National Archives in regards to the JWs.

  I've come across this letter (and response) from the WTBTS to the Australian Government requesting that they consider providing free Visa's to delegates from Indonesia.
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  83

  Convention new book reveals "GROUP 2" of the 1914 generation...the horror.

  by Witness 007 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  gods kingdom rules!

  the convention book released yesterday....say hi to group 2 of the 1914 generation!!

  a graph shows group 1 being fred franz john barr etc...with a group 2 consisting of the current young faithful slaves we "met" the "group ones.

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  Listener

  Yes, I agree Greener. Pushing the beginning backwards just makes it look more ridiculous, it is just so confusing to consider the idea and presenting this idea to a JW would stop them short, there is no logical answer, they are stuck with one line of thought as presented to them by the GB.

  They are having so much trouble with this teaching that they have to keep explaining it. Part of their problem is that they want to make it seem that Armageddon is coming soon and so they have put their own time scale on their idea. There is no limit to the generations of anointed since 1914, who is overlapping with who and why stop at two generations?
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  83

  Convention new book reveals "GROUP 2" of the 1914 generation...the horror.

  by Witness 007 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  gods kingdom rules!

  the convention book released yesterday....say hi to group 2 of the 1914 generation!!

  a graph shows group 1 being fred franz john barr etc...with a group 2 consisting of the current young faithful slaves we "met" the "group ones.

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  Listener

  Welcome Greener, nice to hear from you.

  I find their reasoning on 'this generation' to be so ridiculous that it hardly merits any thinking on their idea.

  It would appear that the 1st generation didn't start with Franz. It started with any who were there in 1914, including Russel and Rutherford. I think they are trying to impress the idea that the 1st generation ended with Franz.
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  4

  WTBTS Assets and Individuals Australia 1943

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  the 1983 yearbook pg 97 talks about a time in australia where the brothers were acting inappropriately and needed to be cleaned up.

  this is from the yearbook.

  "the commercial activities of the previous five years now began to take their toll.

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  Listener

  Here's another interesting document from the Secret Service Department in Australia. Of particular interest is the fact that individuals were withdrawing the money belonging to the WTBTS and transferring it into personal accounts. Also of interest was the fact that they were broadcasting the national anthem on their radio stations.

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  26

  W.W 2 - 1940's Australia Bethel helps out war effort!!

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  australia bethel had from 1938 began to make big money!

  they employed many brothers.

  they opened a saw mill, bakery, 20 kingdom farms, and an engineering company.

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  Listener

  Thanks W007.

  I am starting to think that using WTBTS Assets and properties to help support the war effort was a deliberate ploy to protect their ownership. The Government had banned their books and confiscated some of their property, in particular there was once property in Sturt Street, South Australia, a large Kingdom Hall that could seat over 200 people and accommodate two families. It was worth approximately 3,000 pounds in 1943. This property was taken from the JWs and used as a storage unit by the Government until a later court case restored ownership to the WTBTS.

  By becoming involved in the war effort, I wonder how much it helped in getting the bans overturned and being able to retain their assets.
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  4

  WTBTS Assets and Individuals Australia 1943

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  the 1983 yearbook pg 97 talks about a time in australia where the brothers were acting inappropriately and needed to be cleaned up.

  this is from the yearbook.

  "the commercial activities of the previous five years now began to take their toll.

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  Listener

  The 1983 Yearbook pg 97 talks about a time in Australia where the brothers were acting inappropriately and needed to be cleaned up. This is from the Yearbook

  "The commercial activities of the previous five years now began to take their toll. During the years of war and ban, they had provided a means of supporting many former full-time servants who could not carry on their pioneer service because of the ban. However, the organization had actually gone too far by establishing commercial enterprises, and this had had a disturbing effect on many brothers.

  RESTORATION OF JEHOVAH’S BLESSING ON THE BRANCH

  As soon as he was in a position to do so, Brother Rees took steps to liquidate these enterprises. But it was a very hard process, involving the lives of many who had accepted this kind of service in support of the organization. The adjustments were made, however, and by the time Brother Rees was called to the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead in 1946, the enterprises had been completely cleared out."

  I was wondering where they had gone astray and why the Society felt the need to report this. There is a National Archive which makes available a lot of documents about the JWs in the early 1940s. They were being investigated by the Government and declared an illegal organization due to their stand against the war and their view of the Government. The Government was in a position where they could confiscate all their Assets.

  These documents can be found by following the links here

  http://guides.naa.gov.au/records-about-south-australia/chapter3/broadcasting.aspx

  I've come across some Australian government archived documents in relation to individuals and the WTBTS.

  http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp

  [URL=http://imgur.com/0bUp3aY][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/0bUp3aY.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

  This is a statutory declaration made during wartime by a brother who was personally selected by Rutherford to run HQ in Australia. He is basically confessing that the WTBTS gave him the money to buy a radio company and to put it in his name. He held 2002 shares in 1931 that cost 2,002 pounds and valued at 3229 pounds the next year.

  Other documents show that individuals made declarations that all their monies, shares and properties held in their name were owned by the WTBTS. It appears that they did this when the WTBTS put assets in the individuals name for which they (the WTBTS) had paid for.

  We already know that the WTBTS ran several radio stations for witnessing but why would they make individuals put shares in their own names and sign declarations to say that everything they owned belonged to the WTBTS? The reason is because these Radio Stations were run as a business on a commercial basis, they were probably earning money by renting air time and advertising. Other documents showed that they made profits, paid wages and even taxes.

  Also in these archives is a list of Assets that the Security Department believed the WTBTS owned in Australia in 1943. At that time there were only about 3.500 JWs in Australia.

  
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  35

  JAN 2015 Awake - Yet More Fallacies and Disingenuous Statements re Evolution/Creation

  by konceptual99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so the new awake is up.. first question..... "how did life begin?.

  how would you complete the following sentance?.

  life is the result of..... a. evolution.

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  Listener

  Thanks MasterBob. From that same article came the statement

  Their teaching that the earth and even the universe are less than 10,000 years old contradicts all the findings of modern science. They are so far out of step that they invite ridicule from scientists.

  Yet at that very point in time they were teaching that each of the creative days were only 7.000 years long.
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  35

  JAN 2015 Awake - Yet More Fallacies and Disingenuous Statements re Evolution/Creation

  by konceptual99 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so the new awake is up.. first question..... "how did life begin?.

  how would you complete the following sentance?.

  life is the result of..... a. evolution.

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  Listener

  I'm trying to get to the bottom of this idea that they do not believe in creationism.

  This is from the Watchtower 86 9/1

  Questions From Readers

  ▪ Is there a distinction between “creation” and “creationism”?

  Yes, there is. The word “creation,” appearing some 18 times in the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, properly refers to Jehovah’s creative activity. (See, for example, Romans 1:20; 8:21; 2 Corinthians 5:17) The term “creationism” is not found in the Bible.

  Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1971) defines “creation” as “the act of creating,” and “creationism” as “a doctrine or theory of creation.” The same dictionary defines “ism” as “a distinctive doctrine, cause, system, or theory—often used disparagingly.”

  In these 1980’s, “creationism” has become a true “ism” because of its adoption by political pressure groups, such as the Moral Majority. It is no longer a neutral term, but embodies extreme fundamentalist views of the Bible, such as the view that God created the earth and everything upon it in six days of 24 hours each. There are now more than 350 books in circulation setting out such “creationism” dogma. Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the unreasonable theories of “creationism” in favor of what the Bible really teaches about “creation.”

  For a more complete answer to the above question, please see the article entitled “Evolution, Creation, or Creationism—Which Do You Believe?” on pages 12-15 of our companion magazine Awake! dated March 22, 1983.

  This is the Awake article that they refer to

  Flaws in “Scientific Creationism”

  From the testimony given in the trial, it is manifest that the scientific evidence for creation was not really presented in clear confrontation with evolution. Instead, it was lost to sight in clashes over side issues, particularly two tenets of creationism that had been written into the law:

  1. That creation took place only a few thousand years ago.

  2. That all geologic strata were formed by the Biblical Deluge.

  Neither of these dogmas is really crucial to the central question of whether living things were created or not. They are merely doctrines held by the members of a few churches, notably the Seventh-Day Adventists, who form the core of the group that sponsored the law. When these sectarian beliefs were written into the law as something that must be taught in public schools, that law was foredoomed to be declared unconstitutional.

  Wikipedia has this to say about Scientific Creationism

  Creation science or scientific creationism [1] is a branch of creationism that attempts to provide scientific support for the Genesis creation narrative in the Book of Genesis and disprove or reinterpret the scientific facts, theories and scientific paradigms about the history of the Earth, cosmology and biological evolution. [2] [3] ... The main ideas in creation science are: the belief in "creation ex nihilo" (Latin: out of nothing); the conviction that the Earth was created within the last 6,000–10,000 years...

  So the clowns in the writing department, in their haste to discredit others beliefs, have decided that they will deny creationism (in it's true definition) whereas in reality they simply do not believe in the creationism branch of Scientific Creationism.
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  15

  Doctrine, Disfellowshipping and the IRS

  by OrphanCrow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i watched an episode of "lie to me" on netflix that piqued my curiosity.. .

  in the episode truth or consequences, a cult leader is investigated by the irs to determine if his cult has tax exemption or not.. one of the criteria that has to be met in order to be a legitimate 'church' or 'religion' in the eyes of the irs is that the members have to display "genuine belief'.. here is the portion of the script that speaks of this:.

  http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=lie-to-me&episode=s02e02.

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  Listener

  It is interesting to note why the Governments provide non profit and charity status to religions. It is not because they are being benevolent. It is all about control. It is a vehicle in which the Government can bind these organizations with a specific set of laws, it is for control. In order for an organization to qualify for tax exempt status they must comply with these specific and seperate laws, specially created. If the organization chooses not to be bound by these laws then the only choice is to become taxable entities. In many incidences the Government wants religions to qualify, it gives them the advantage of controlling them.