I’m not opposed to governments going after scam church registrations for tax purposes. Even if Italy were to pursue a group because religious reasons, that would be something that may be bad, but it is allowed in Europe. The EU does not guarantee freedom of speech or religion, you must overthrow and redraw the constitution for that to happen.
Anony Mous
JoinedPosts by Anony Mous
-
17
Italy goes after Protestant religions re taxes due
by blondie inhttps://cne.news/article/4320-small-church-in-rome-goes-to-the-big-court-in-strasbourg-to-find-justice?push=null .
the evangelical church in rome will move to strasbourg to seek justice from the european court on human rights (ecthr) to eliminate the huge tax burden.
in the meantime, protestants all over the world are amazed by what is happening in italy..
-
-
-
100
The August 2024 Watchtower controversy and potential further changes
by ukpimo inas an educated guess, the august 2024 watchtower may be delayed because 2 complicated subjects need to be discussed in this issue which haven't yet been approved to be included in the revised shepherding textbook.
perhaps the revised shepherding textbook must be finalised before this watchtower is released publicly.. the 2 subjects may be as follows:.
how to shepherd and appoint brothers based on the removal of the hour requirements, getting to know the brothers instead (does this mean prioritising appointing men who have auxiliary pioneered during the co visit and campaigns or men who are regular pioneers?).
-
-
Anony Mous
@slimboyfat, any reduction in congregation is huge as each congregation consists of about 75-100 people. 2% of thousands is a big number, multiplied by 100, that is a ton of people that aren’t being replenished.
I know back in the day, it was a huge blemish on the reputation of the elders and a scandal if their congregations shut down, as it was almost always for gross misconduct and a loss of blessings was to blame. Every time a congregation closes another 10 or so elders and servants are forever “marked” to many of the older generations.
-
12
Consequences for actions. A high fat / sugary diet
by joe134cd ini want to illustrate my point about where many x-jws go wrong.
to illustrate, imagine a morbidly obese person goes on a calorie restricted diet.
subsequently he loses the excess calories and his health improves.
-
-
Anony Mous
I don’t agree with your prior example of someone becoming addicted to meth. If you actually ever left the organization, then you would find you lose everyone instantly. Your friends, family, support structure, perhaps even jobs and business opportunities, you literally become one day to the next alone in the world. Now some people will react to that by doing drugs or other things including suicide.
You say, if only they adhered to JW’s standards, that wouldn’t be a problem, sure, but then you also have to accept all the other things. It is the no true Scotsman fallacy however, because as soon as anyone makes a mistake, they are no longer JW and you say they should’ve just been perfect.
People being pushed into destructive life choices because they are being shunned by their family is at least partially blamed on the same policies you say are inherently good. Even worse, the constant pressure to ‘be good’ to the extent that even normal relationships are suppressed (whether those are sexual or not) is the cause that some people react by ‘being bad’. You don’t find such moral swings in other religions, you stop going to church is rarely if ever the cause of an immense psychological swing, except in cases of severe abuse. And there is plenty of scientific evidence to back up the fact that prior persistent abuse at any age is the cause of self-harm and destructive life choices.
My opinion is that the overall morality of JW’s is lackluster and is the cause of many harms, including the idea of ‘good’ things, the emphasis on not smoking, the emphasis on not having relationships with unbelievers is the cause of many problems, it is not virtuous, because you’re not doing it for the right reasons and obviously, when those reasons disappear, so do the restrictions. If you are told your entire life, your family will abandon you and our god (the WTBTS) will judge/kill you if you do this bad thing, then if your family and god does abandon you, there are no more moral restrictions on the bad behavior.
In other religions, you are told the same thing, but not because your family will stop talking, but because God will be disappointed, but forgiveness being the key there, they actually encourage people to come forward with their issues. It is why most churches have support groups for various things from abuse to smoking to alcoholism and drug use, that is their role in society after all and is a net benefit, you will be accepted and have a road to recovery if you make a mistake. JWs will let you or even cause you to fail and then they will curb-stomp you for whatever problems you may have as a result, people that made a mistake in JW-land are often permanently marked even women and children that are abused by a husband/father often are marked ‘damaged goods’ or having been the cause of the abuse.
The fact you can find a few good pieces on a maggot infested slab of meat does not make it a good steak. You’re basically arguing that if the outcome of an action is good, the action is good, then let me give you the example of the people that go in the justice system or police because one of their family members was murdered, outcome good, therefore murder good?
-
12
Consequences for actions. A high fat / sugary diet
by joe134cd ini want to illustrate my point about where many x-jws go wrong.
to illustrate, imagine a morbidly obese person goes on a calorie restricted diet.
subsequently he loses the excess calories and his health improves.
-
-
Anony Mous
But if you still adhere to the so-called principles, don’t you by extension still fall under the power of the GB? These rules were invented by men, they have no grounds in reality, obviously you rejected the men and some of the rules, so you must reject everything that is connected to that. This is interesting, because you adhere to a religion as a snapshot in time, eventually you will fall outside the acceptable (outside the Overton window so to speak) as the men make up and adjust more rules. So the question is which snapshot do you accept and if so, why?
If you reject the principle that the current GB is appointed by God (which you must, since if you accept they are appointed by God and reject them, that is worse than an unbeliever) then you must reject the principles that go along with that.
To go with your analogy, you find out the doctor has been giving you advice on diet that benefits his family’s food and drugs company and is actually providing you with toxic substances instead. You decided to reject that doctor, but still keep shopping at his company. If you think the Bible or even JW at some point had good advice, or a kernel of truth, you must investigate fully what is and what isn’t introduced by the GB for the sake of their own benefit.
-
12
Consequences for actions. A high fat / sugary diet
by joe134cd ini want to illustrate my point about where many x-jws go wrong.
to illustrate, imagine a morbidly obese person goes on a calorie restricted diet.
subsequently he loses the excess calories and his health improves.
-
-
Anony Mous
@Joe: who says it is not advantageous? Smoking both weed and tobacco can be advantageous, tobacco, cigars and marijuana have long been recognized for their medicinal properties. There is a link between smoking certain types of cigarettes and increased chances of lung and other cancer, but it is not a guarantee and only relevant if you live past 60 which back when the ban was passed wasn’t that high of a chance.
Christmas is not about gifts for most, it is for children to learn positive associations with religious traditions, for adults it should be about Christ, denying the birth of Jesus or preventing people from the mass and communion with Christ is a rather big sin for most Christians and is antithetical to both first century Christians and the teachings of Jesus (communion is supposed to be done by all Christians at least weekly and on all holy days, not reserved to 144,000 for one day in the year).
The thing you are hitting at is that because JWs make certain issues taboo, they are encouraging especially young and curious people to see what the fuss is all about. Both inside and out, JWs are much more sexually aggressive, have more affairs and divorces than the average religious person in ‘the world’. That is caused by restrictiveness rather than compassion on the issues, so it is better to hide behavior which creates secretiveness and snowballs into risky behavior. I was more worried about getting caught with condoms than that my partner would talk, so we didn’t have condoms, I knew the other person would remain quiet, but a box of condoms is condemning outside of the parties with the secret. There are societies where you can be sure that your secret sex life will remain hidden, these are again, more risky than just picking up a regular person at the bar.
-
12
Consequences for actions. A high fat / sugary diet
by joe134cd ini want to illustrate my point about where many x-jws go wrong.
to illustrate, imagine a morbidly obese person goes on a calorie restricted diet.
subsequently he loses the excess calories and his health improves.
-
-
Anony Mous
It depends on the restrictions and their motives. You are talking from the assumption that because you can find some good in a set of rules, that all the rules are making sense or that some rules maybe have a desired outcome, therefore the rule is inherently good.
As other people point out, there are other Christian and non-Christians that RECOMMEND the same set of rules, they do not REQUIRE the rules.
For example, smoking weed or talking to people that do “bad” things, has a strict rule in the JW org because they do not want you socializing with people at large and bring bad advertisement to the organization, not because they care for your health or safety, because that is belied by other rules (blood, field circus etc). If you can’t smoke because it may kill you but you can’t also save your life in an acute situation, those rules contradict each other logically and morally.
-
13
Kingdom Hall Insurance
by NotFormer inthat the wt "self insures" kingdom halls has come up in occasional conversations on here.
how exactly does that work?
do they* actually set aside a portion of the monthly remittance from each kingdom hall and save into a pool to cover damage etc.
-
-
Anony Mous
Self insurance isn’t exactly a bad model but yes, the WTBTS abuses it. They do not pay for insurance but sure will claim government payouts in case of natural disasters and the like. And yes, when damages happen, there will be a call for donation for the repair, which often is met and then completed with free labor.
-
11
Dating in the KH-funny stories.
by QuestioningEverything inmy 28y old nephew was dating a 'sister' from another congregation.
he recently bought his own home.
i stopped by there to drop off something.
-
-
Anony Mous
With my first wife, we had some great chaperones as well, the first time we were together they basically dropped us off at the mall and told us not to do anything too bad, one time her mother made her ‘worldly’ sister chaperone us at home she basically said - you guys do whatever you want once the mother had left for work. I spent the night at my cousins home that also was worldly, same “you want to sleep together, awesome”. I arranged one time for a tourist spot that we ‘missed the last train’ and we didn’t ‘stay in the train station for the first train’ and the hotels were all full (but there are other places besides hotels, I remember a very squeaky metal bed above a bar).
One girl I dated for a summer after that we ended up meeting behind her grandparents house in a cemetery on a nightly basis. My second wife was slightly more strict, but by then I was more adult so I had my own place and we both had jobs that we did lots of ‘overtime’ (unpaid lol).
Actually dating ‘worldly’ people, I think was much more behaved than JWs. You set boundaries on when, what and where on the first date. JWs just bring so much attention to it it becomes exciting and taboo to the point you try to find a spot to ‘experiment’ any chance you get. -
17
How has 3 years of inflation affected WTC?
by ThomasMore inthe current u.s. administration and the fed says inflation is hard to tame.
it was over 9% at it's peak.
one of the greatest increases is price of food, something that everyone feels to some extent.
-
-
Anony Mous
You’d think they have enough money with all the stuff they have been collecting and not spending. Also, inflation compounds and is still at 4-5%, food inflation was higher than 9%, it went to 15% in one month, whereas overall inflation came to 30% in the past 3.5 years, food inflation has gone over 50% in the same time period.
I thought these days they were using temporary workers that have to bring their own because of it.
-
15
WTS NEW USE OF TECHNOLOGICAL, SATELLITE ACCESS
by blondie inhttps://freshangleng.com/34262/how-jehovah%e2%80%99s-witnesses-are-making-content-available-to-people-with-limited-or-no-internet-access .
satellite and others for those who cannot access internet!
spread the word (ha).
-
-
Anony Mous
They are paying for them. That is how the WTBTS works, the congregation is told what it costs and must raise that amount of money, then that goes towards the World Wide Work and is earmarked so the branch knows what they ‘purchased’. If you cannot or do not raise the amount of money, then you don’t get the equipment. And that is true for everything, the projectors/TV, the audio equipment, chairs, lecterns and table on the stage, they all have a price tag, you want it, there is a price list. Even the publications had a price tag, despite the donation, internally they handle a price list which must come from donation, if you didn’t provide the money (I was in a poor black inner city congregation, donations to the WWW averaged $1000/month for 120 publishers), your literature counter would be frequently out of stock for things like bibles, while you could go to another congregation and find they got boxes with the stuff every month.
Again, I have seen the accounting, I was doing it and this was part of my awakening, the previous brother that did the job had also left “for apostasy” and so was my assistant recently reinstated after he had been running accounts before that (I assume he came back for his family). If you ever want to wake up honest hearted people, make them do accounts at the Kingdom Hall, RBC or Conventions - the last one was what gave me the most evidence, I personally oversaw the second day after lunch counting money session (this was still 3 day conventions) and we counted over $10,000, a quick deduction is that you collected more than $15-20k at that point. Day 3 they told us we had collected $8000 and were short, the CO then sent a ‘bill’ to the congregation for the expenses through the elders.