A lot of JW therapists treat only JW's or are advertising to treat JW's. It's all about keeping the things they hear inside the organization, nothing more, nothing less. I wouldn't trust such a therapist for a hair, most therapists know how to handle the average JW/Mormon/... doubter which is the main reason so many need professional help - their personalities are being split in two.
Anony Mous
JoinedPosts by Anony Mous
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Psychotherapy Specialist for Jehovahs Witnesses
by Marvin Shilmer inpsychotherapy specialist for jehovahs witnesses .
today i added a new article to my blog showing a licensed psychotherapist advertising a specialty in treating jehovahs witnesses.
my article is titled psychotherapy specialist for jehovahs witnesses and is available at: http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com/2011/09/psychotherapy-specialist-for-jehovahs.html.
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Telling family / friends about researching JW religion
by dozy inwhen a jw husband of a friend of mine found out that she had been researching online about jehovah's witnesses , he described it as a "breach of trust" and a legitimate reason to break up the marriage (or at least separate , citing the wtbts "spiritual danger clause").. thankfully my own wife has been more understanding but is this kind of reaction common?
and is it in some way justified on the basis that snooping around online , talking to others on messageboards , not from day one telling one's mate etc is perhaps dishonest?
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Anony Mous
Hey punk, same is happening to me. I told her before, about a month after I started coming here what I believed and didn't believe in. She didn't believe me and we went on with life as if nothing happened. It's after I said "I don't want to go to the KH anymore" she started.
"You lied all this time", "You got married for the wrong reasons", "You're not the same person anymore".
I asked her, really think about what has changed about me. I told her honestly, I used to believe the same things you did when we got married. Things have happened in the past and now I can't believe that God would allow this to happen in his organization.
They do not get those ideas by themselves however, my wife didn't get those until she went back to the Kingdom Hall. There is an undertone in the literature and in the Kingdom Hall from others (mainly elders and their elder-wives) that gives them those ideas. They will deny that anybody influences them and you can't make them see - they are truly blinded by false religion.
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Does anyone know the value of NET assets owned by the Watchtower?
by TimothyT ini would love to get my hands on a balance sheet for 2010, 2009, 2008, etc.
i wonder how much money they have.
i wonder if they will ever lose it all.. timmy xxx.
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Anony Mous
They have a lot, they are losing it. There are less and less people in the congregations that want to support the organization because they know something is going wrong even if they don't want to voice their opinion or leave. I have seen a 50% reduction of donations to the Worldwide Work over the last 3 years from our congregation and a small uptake in donations locally but we've also had a growth in numbers (mainly DF'ed people coming back and kids getting dunked). Also, the recession globally hits people worst in the sociological groups the JW's generally find themselves in (low income, low education) so there is less flexible income.
The call for more pioneers puts an even bigger damper on donations per publisher although such people are easier to retain. Locals now have to help them instead of the organization and they themselves (if they are sincere) don't have a full time job, some can't even support themselves anymore and move back in with their parents or other pioneers (several in our congregation have done that).
Also, expansion is majorily in non-affluent areas of the world (Africa, Asia). There has to be massive financial support to further the building of KH's there and that's the only way they are going to get more followers. There is a reason they are putting ATM's in the Assembly Halls and Convention Sites. They are bleeding money even though there is still a big income, the expenses are growing out of control. The RBC arrangement is a ploy to keep the locals in check and generate publicity but they are massively overpriced for every project and even though they have supplier arrangements, locals that are in the trade tend to ignore it and use their own supplier where they usually get a commission which puts the price for those products about 15-25% higher. I've seen one local skim off about $5,000 in commissions on each project (which is not re-donated).
The problem is liquidity however. They're attempting to sell properties all over. One congregation moved into our hall recently (so now we have 3 congregations in 1 building, the real reason why we only have 2 meetings a week now) and others were relocated as well in order to sell 2 buildings locally. They got $12,000 for one (sizable property too) and nobody wanted to buy the other one. Property here is fairly cheap but $12,000 is what you get for a house that is totally run down, condemned by the city and boarded up.
Also, States and Cities are tightening the belt and are giving religious organizations in general less tax breaks, incentives and financial help. They are starting to see it's just another big business and want to get some of that income too.
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The impact of Governing Body policy on higher education: read this!
by Terry inexcerpt:.
does your religion affect your income?by mari cockerell, ktxs newsabilene, texas -- the pew forum on religion and public life recently put out the results of a survey on wealth and religion in the united states.. you may be surprised to learn which religious groups in this country have the most and the least wealthy members.an infographic produced by the folks at www.good.is breaks down information gathered by the pew forum on religion and wealth.
it maps out distribution of income for the 14 major religious groups in this country, charting those whose income is less than $30,000 a year all the way up to $100,000+.. what they found is interesting.the religions whose members earn the most money are jews and hindus.
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Anony Mous
Religious people in GENERAL are less wealthy than their atheist counterparts. That doesn't mean there are no rich Catholics or poor atheists but religious people generally give out money to be at church (gas, time, tithing, donations) and are less educated (beyond High School) while the more educated portion of society doesn't believe in God thanks to their education and are more balanced in where they put their money (instead of giving directly, some make investments with the proceeds going to not-for-profits, most are simply more careful in giving their money away without any research)
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For the board atheists....
by Jack C. inthis is a personal observation and certainly not representative of all atheists.
i enjoy discussions with folks of this persuasion; in general they appear well read and somewhat more educated than many believers.
as a group most atheists cringe and become insensed when discussing the existence of a deity with believers especially fundamentalists.
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Anony Mous
I think it was GrapplingIgnorance or Darkmatter2525 or one of their friends on YouTube that put it something like this:
Why do Christians insist on using the Bible for us to disprove your God exists? Not that it's impossible but don't you think it's a somewhat biased source?
Can you prove your God exists without relying on a biased source like the Bible? If God did write the Bible then why does it require believe in the Bible to be of holy sources to believe in God?
Anyway, I have read the Bible and the more you read it the more the issues in it show that the God of Israel and Jesus were very human, very insecure much like the JW leadership is about their 'flock'. Read Judges and ask yourself would a loving God require women to be cut up into pieces or in Leviticus/Deuteronomy would a loving God require women and children to be stoned for certain transgressions (such as rebelling, rape, results of child abuse, extramarital affairs) but not apply this to the men? Also read the apocryphal books that were included in older (1st century) canons, most Christian religions have rejected those books because it didn't fit in with their particular flavor of a God-person but that doesn't make them any less valid.
Also the scientific part of it doesn't match. You have to do a lot of interpreting to match accounts like Genesis, Job, Jeremiah, Daniel, Revelations to anything that could remotely happen in this world, they're just a collection of myths and tall stories (including unicorns, manticores and a bunch of other mythological creatures).
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The impact of Governing Body policy on higher education: read this!
by Terry inexcerpt:.
does your religion affect your income?by mari cockerell, ktxs newsabilene, texas -- the pew forum on religion and public life recently put out the results of a survey on wealth and religion in the united states.. you may be surprised to learn which religious groups in this country have the most and the least wealthy members.an infographic produced by the folks at www.good.is breaks down information gathered by the pew forum on religion and wealth.
it maps out distribution of income for the 14 major religious groups in this country, charting those whose income is less than $30,000 a year all the way up to $100,000+.. what they found is interesting.the religions whose members earn the most money are jews and hindus.
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Anony Mous
For the black churches it's about race, the JW's didn't want to comment. A little bit of research can fill in that content for the journalist. Journalists are not what they used to be.
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2011 November Our Kingdom Ministry-PDF!
by Atlantis in.
credit goes to anonymous2011 november our kingdom ministry (and more).http://www.megaupload.com/?d=eq03rgzoatlantis
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Anony Mous
The text says " If you are given approval to discard the book Organized to Accomplish Our Ministry, ensure that the covers are removed and the books are shredded."
That is the case for books that are yellowed, damaged or otherwise not presentable. They want to make sure no-one outside the organization gets to that book by dumpster diving or by buying it on Amazon or downloading it from somewhere else. The supah secret sauce that makes the organization run is not to be scrutinized.
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The Alpha and Omega-God has no beginning and no end /as opposed to the universe having no beginning and no end ?
by smiddy ini would like some more enlightened beings than me to thrash this out.. to start the ball rolling with my small intellect.
i was always taught from my jw days that nothing came from nothing,and i accepted that.. all of creation had a start,and reproduced itself according to it`s kind according to genesis.
and of course we now know their are life forms that are a-sexual that reproduce.
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Anony Mous
I don't believe God is necessary. If you listen to Kraus, Hawking et. al. they have mighty good explanations for universes without God. God is hard to quantify and filled in the gap of the unknown. There will always be the unknown but it's no reason to get superstitious about it.
If you want to quantify God, you would look at it's effects. So far I have seen no effects (and James Randi would give you a million dollars if you can prove otherwise).
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Watchtower Still Has 2 NGO's
by sizemik inbut for the benefit of new ones and browsers .
from a link in the following site .
hope the links work for those interested.
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Anony Mous
I know Marcel Gillet personally. He used to be sincere.
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2011 November Our Kingdom Ministry-PDF!
by Atlantis in.
credit goes to anonymous2011 november our kingdom ministry (and more).http://www.megaupload.com/?d=eq03rgzoatlantis
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Anony Mous
Most do not know yet. This is about the credit card terminals at Assembly Halls (2-day and 1-day meetings). The full instructions aren't even given to all the elders, only the Assembly Hall overseers and those immediately working with them regarding finance. They're people like me, uber-dubs that you can't convince otherwise. Oh wait, never mind.
Trust me, once you get to that level, people stop caring about the flock and more about who can line their pockets (COBOE and up). I lined my own pockets once in a while too.
By the way, don't be surprised if the password will be 9494 (YHWH) or something similar (JHVH). Common code among dub installations (eg. alarms). Go ahead and refund yourself.