Hi Peony, welcome here and welcome to the real world! Along with others; it's so good you escaped with hubby. Greetings to him too. Actually I live just outside Oxford as well... (a beautiful city and a lovely part of the country!).
Half banana
JoinedPosts by Half banana
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Introducing Myself
by Peony ini've finally got round to joining the site (after over 2 years lurking!
i was born into jws, pioneered for 10 years (met my husband at pioneer school).
had health issues that saw me catapulted away from 'the centre of the cong' and wow what a different place that was!
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Clarifying This Weeks Watchtower...CTR Reference
by freemindfade inwhat the sunday watchtard said.... in 1876, an article written by charles taze russell was published in the magazine bible examiner.
that article, gentile times: when do they end?, pointed to 1914 as a significant year.
the article linked the seven times of daniels prophecy with the appointed times of the nations spoken of by jesus.. what gentile times: when do they end?
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Half banana
The formula for Watchtower success was printing books and magazines propagandising their divine prescience in foretelling 1914. Russell was gravely disappointed when the expectations failed to appear, he got it completely wrong. Back then the world was to have been ‘cleansed’ of God’s enemies by 1914 (what a dream of Bible thumping rhetoric!). All subsequent date failures are a familiar history. The remaining Watchtower hope was predicting that Armageddon was to be during the life-time of those who witnessed 1914...and that too is now dead.
The 1914 donkey, has been flogged to death...yet clearly there are plans afoot to have it stuffed and have bright new glass eyes inserted to pass it off as a living animal. There is nothing else the Watchtower publishing company can do in their desperate attempt to create the illusion they are divinely inspired.
Since everything they say is either wrong or misleading, they can only try and revive the lie which helped them in the past. The lie of 1914.
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JW org: all take and no give?
by Half banana injust a thought here, prompted by oppostates thread on magazine money owed to the org..
if an average congregation coughs up $3500 per year just on mags alone... and there are 114,416 congs world-wide; that would mean that jw suckers are feeding the ravenous maw of the org by $400,456,000 (heading towards half a billion dollars) each year.
this does not include other literature, or ...money so cleverly pledged in perpetuity for khs that the punters will never own even if they pay for them and build them, not to mention the vast income from property appreciation and major stock investments... and then there is the shameless raiding of family inheritances plus other sundry monies gifted to them..
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Half banana
Cos £3500 per year x no of congs (114,416) is the amount of WT income from magazines only based on one cong. Iggy's comment is that his congregation gives $1200 per month ($14,400 per year) from all literature and including "pledged" money.
I wonder if this is representative of donations and literature payments for the average congregation?
I assume that even the poorest congs in the third world buy literature at the same volume and price as the richer ones do but are they able to pay the pledged amount at $200 p/m?
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The local hall just got fleeced for $15,000!
by My Name is of No Consequence inthe local hall recently sold some property to the state for a road improvement project that is sorely needed.
they received about $20,000.
guess what?
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Half banana
By promoting the hive mentality, they are not called the Borg for nothing! -
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JW org: all take and no give?
by Half banana injust a thought here, prompted by oppostates thread on magazine money owed to the org..
if an average congregation coughs up $3500 per year just on mags alone... and there are 114,416 congs world-wide; that would mean that jw suckers are feeding the ravenous maw of the org by $400,456,000 (heading towards half a billion dollars) each year.
this does not include other literature, or ...money so cleverly pledged in perpetuity for khs that the punters will never own even if they pay for them and build them, not to mention the vast income from property appreciation and major stock investments... and then there is the shameless raiding of family inheritances plus other sundry monies gifted to them..
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Half banana
I wanted to play it conservatively showing what the org gets just from the mags ...but if your cong is representative Iggy, and all congs send in cash to the society at your amount that would make (1200x 12= 14,400 per year per congregation ( x 114,416 congos) = $1,646,590,400. That means aside from investments, interest and shameless raiding family inheritances, they can expect donations of over one and a half billion Dollars.
This means it is looking more like heading for the two billion Dollar mark when all is added in.
Has anyone got hold of the operating figures as Blondie asks...has anyone further insight into average congregation literature and other donations?
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SOLA SCRIPTURA VS THE MAGISTERIUM
by Nicholaus Kopernicus inthe reinvention of the magisterium.
in catholicism, the magisterium is the authority that lays down what is the authentic teaching of the church.
for the catholic church, that authority is vested uniquely in...... a) the pope and.
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Half banana
The JW org is like a bear which rolls over and thoughtlessly crushes its own cubs.
Btw, we share a love of Isaiah Berlin, his essays in The Proper Study of Mankind make for a great bedtime read.
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JW org: all take and no give?
by Half banana injust a thought here, prompted by oppostates thread on magazine money owed to the org..
if an average congregation coughs up $3500 per year just on mags alone... and there are 114,416 congs world-wide; that would mean that jw suckers are feeding the ravenous maw of the org by $400,456,000 (heading towards half a billion dollars) each year.
this does not include other literature, or ...money so cleverly pledged in perpetuity for khs that the punters will never own even if they pay for them and build them, not to mention the vast income from property appreciation and major stock investments... and then there is the shameless raiding of family inheritances plus other sundry monies gifted to them..
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Half banana
Just a thought here, prompted by Oppostates’ thread on magazine money owed to the org.
If an average congregation coughs up $3500 per year just on mags alone... and there are 114,416 congs world-wide; that would mean that JW suckers are feeding the ravenous maw of the org by $400,456,000 (heading towards half a billion Dollars) each year. This does not include other literature, or ...money so cleverly pledged in perpetuity for KHs that the punters will never own even if they pay for them and build them, not to mention the vast income from property appreciation and major stock investments... and then there is the shameless raiding of family inheritances plus other sundry monies gifted to them.
We must be talking here about a billion Dollars a year and rising, that the Jdubs themselves are giving, (it was revealed to be a touch short of one billion Dollars income back in 2003).
Isn’t that enough money to satisfy even the greediest tax-exempt cult who produces the highest print run of the world’s most unreadable and unread magazines?
Who needs money if you REALLY believed Armageddon was on the doorstep?
What does this tell us about the WTBTS?
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If God exists ....
by iconoclastic inif god exists, he must be a god of freedom.
because he has endowed us with free-will, and never interferes with it (as confirmed by our own experiences).
that means he wants everyone to make their choice and reap the fruits accordingly.
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Half banana
If god exists: then we live in a terrifying world of arbitrary magic.
Freedom is knowing that god is irrelevant.
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what happens when one informs elders that one's baptism was invalid?
by quincemyles inis it possible to move from baptized publisher to unbaptized status perpetually?
what do elders do when you inform them that your baptism was invalid?
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Half banana
Have you thought Quincemyles that by desiring to have your baptism annulled you are giving it some credibility as a contract?
Sorry friend but I think later on you will see that it had no meaning in the first place.
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SOLA SCRIPTURA VS THE MAGISTERIUM
by Nicholaus Kopernicus inthe reinvention of the magisterium.
in catholicism, the magisterium is the authority that lays down what is the authentic teaching of the church.
for the catholic church, that authority is vested uniquely in...... a) the pope and.
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Half banana
Let me congratulate you Nicholaus K on your determination to stand up against JW ‘authority.’
I say you are reading the Bible on “face value” because it is the instinct of the Bible reader to do that, to believe what he or she is reading... and not to find fault. It is what you do if you are a believer.
Having had the luxury (and pleasure!) of not being a JW for many years, I look back and cringe at my gullibility in the past. I too looked at the Greek language to try and gain some insight. But it is like praising a piece of glass cut deceptively into the shape of a diamond. We fussed over the details and facets and meaning of words as if to get at some supernatural truth, to enjoy closeness to some invisible force at the heart of the universe. If you will forgive me being so blunt; it is an illusion, a fraud. It was the Roman Church which compiled the Bible and labelled it ”sacred.” There is no divinity behind it otherwise it would not be so full of contradictions and grotesque inhuman behaviour passed off as divine will. If the Bible was from God it would not repeat vivid folk legends and elevate them to holy truth. Only in the rear view mirror is all of this apparent...it is hidden from the ’true believer’.
The antidote is critical thinking. Instead ask: Why was this written? Which earlier documents is it copied from? When is the first time in literature or art that we hear or see this concept? Where did this idea originate? Why is this story being told? Who actually wrote it first (as opposed to the conventional attribution)? Is it possible that this actually happened? Is there any corroboration of this episode from reliable eyewitnesses or secular reports? Do we have a history of handwritten texts covering the same matter, with which to compare? Are our sources impartial and scholarly? On this last matter there are many who are called Bible scholars...don’t listen to them! Consider instead the researches and arguments of the textual scholars of ancient history in the Middle East who spend their academic careers immersed in the languages, archaeology and historical evidence from that area.
”Bible based scholars” on the other hand, can never arrive at a goal of understanding because they are looking in the wrong place namely: the Bible. The life and political bluster of the Israelites and their gods is small fry compared to the great political and religious forces of the region, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt and later Persia. These are the true sources of the Hebrew Bible and its texts, not the bovine idol Yahweh, the son of El.
Early Christianity is best described from a knowledge of social history and the sociology of the period (what they had, what they did and why they did it)...This includes an understanding of the mythology of the earlier Christ cults especially the Dionysian and Orphic cults and the Christian eschatology which is drawn wholesale from Mithraism. A knowledge of Gnosticism and Greek philosophy of the time is very revealing and also familiarity with the contemporary Roman religious ethos. It is shocking to find that the Bible is almost entirely UNORIGINAL.
However we are all on a journey out of the Watchtower and we are at liberty to take any path we wish but I am suggesting that most of us realise eventually if not sooner, that the Bible does not stand up to any serious scrutiny as a divine work; it is entirely human in origin.