january 8, 1947 awake!:.
excommunication is "altogether foreign to biblical teachings.".
it's an unbiblical roman catholic teaching by which "you are looked upon with the blackest contempt... being cursed and damned with the devil and his angels.".
00Dad,
So it is percieved as apostate material then? I do find it strange how material published by the Watchtower is "the truth" at first, then relegated to past understanding and then to outright apostate material. This, their own publications!
Perhaps I won't send it. I am not sure yet.
january 8, 1947 awake!:.
excommunication is "altogether foreign to biblical teachings.".
it's an unbiblical roman catholic teaching by which "you are looked upon with the blackest contempt... being cursed and damned with the devil and his angels.".
Has anyone used this article with their family? I want to send it to my parents and was looking for any experiences people have had with it.
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Well the time finally came to give it to my parents regarding their behavior.
My parents have not been talking to me because I told them I have a relationship. I came out to them 10 years ago (I was raised a JW but faded after I moved away from home at 21). When I came out (more of a confirmation than a surprise), they had already come to terms with it. However, that didn’t stop them for believing I should remain single forever.
They have a nasty history of family shunning. They kicked my sister out at 17, stopped talking to her at least 2 other times for years at a time. This was the first time I experienced it.
So it’s been about 6 weeks and my dad finally called, shocking because he never calls me. We had a couple minutes of general chit chat and then he tells me they are not mad at me but very sad, including the normal bit about feeling they can’t compromise their principles. I decided this is the time to make it clear how they act toward my sister and I is unacceptable.
I told him I wonder where they learned this because no one they know in the congregation acts this way. I said your mother never did this to her daughter, who chose to have a different faith. (My grandmother brought my dad in the JW religion but my aunt never joined.) I leveraged an example of a sister in the congregation who, although they refer to her as a pillar of the congregation, always talked to her DF’d daughter and had a normal relationship with her. He couldn’t refute these examples, and so he went on saying this is also a matter of conscience.
I responded by saying your conscience is way to hyper sensitive. The apostle Paul had to chastise the early congregation against this exact type of behavior. This comes across as just trying to save yourself! Well accusing him of this seemed to pierce him like a sword; he stumbled for his next words about not trying to save himself and I jabbed a bit harder by saying yes you are. You believe that if you don’t stop talking to me Jehovah will be mad at you and destroy you at Armageddon. I actually think it hurt him enough to stop and think about his actions. Most parents operate with the thought they would do anything for their children, so accusing him of actually being selfish must have a shock. He said it would take some time to think about it all.
I do love my parents though and I want nothing more than for us to be a closer family, and it hurt me to have to turn the mirror on them, to force them to really look at what they are doing. So I ended on a positive note by saying that both my sister and I know they are getting older and we want to spend as much time as we can with them. There is no time to waste on this silliness and we will always be here for you. Ha, I thought one last jab to show we are above this type of behavior.
I think I accomplished some good things in the conversation; I immediately spun it around and made it about them. They have tried to lay the blame for their actions squarely on my sister and me. When the real truth is they have done this to themselves by not being able to moderate their own conscience. Sigh ...hopefully things will work out in the end.
it is a common meme on this board that the leadership of the wtbs is driven by financial considerations.
as my may know, i have been working in financial management, particularly involving real estate for a number of years.
i've been thinking about the society's finances and i've reached a conclusion, either they are not motivated by money, or they've done a piss poor job of pulling it in.
Well there are surely wealthier religions out there. But you forget all of the WT properties are built with minimal labor costs. The mormons don't even have that! They need to take in millions a day to pay for their large churches, cathedrials, colleges, etc.
Plus as we are finding out the Watchtower doesn't pay for renting their district convention sites. They make the Tourism boards pay and then take what has to be the vast majority of contributions back to HQ's tax free. All total they may be closer to "profit margin" as the Mormons, just they have a different business structure.
The watchtower may not be in it for the money (I don't believe so) but that doesn't mean they are poor by any means.
conventions booked till 2008
"armageddon-ain't-a-coming-arm-a-gonna-get-it-on"
jehovah's witnesses plan return to gainesville
It would make sense to book ahead if the Watchtower was actually paying the rental cost.
Looks like Watchtower is threatening to pull out of Gainsville now and the real truth is coming out.
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20111119/ARTICLES/111119420?p=1&tc=pg
With negotiations involving the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Alachua County Visitors & Convention Bureau and the University of Florida ongoing, the goal is a long-term agreement to keep the convention here. But there is, at this point, some uncertainty that the convention will even return in 2012.
Alachua County Visitors & Convention Bureau Executive Director Roland Loog said the rising cost of renting out the O'Connell Center, which is primarily paid for by the county tourist development tax, or bed tax, also have become a concern.
(OMG the Tourism Board pays for most of the rental?)
For the first conventions in 2005, the county's costs were $7,500 for each three-day event. In 2011, the rate was approximately $19,100 per event. Loog said the proposed cost for 2012 could be as high as $23,000 for each convention, combining for some $46,000. By comparison, the entire Visitors & Convention Bureau annual budget to draw in conferences and conventions is in the range of $90,000 to $100,000, Loog said.
(The Watchtower has stated half of the cost increases have come from overtime paid to Univeristy Police, a service the Watchtwer says is not needed for JW conventions. )
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Tourism board picking up most of the tab for convention facility rental. However, it seems really shady that is not mentioned. I guess most of the money really does just get shipped off to HQ's. Someone once said that these conventions were really just great revenue generators for Watchtower. I guess that really is the truth.
in the 2/15/2012 koolaid there is an article about finding happiness in a divided household.
i found this to be particularly offensive: .
"when facing a challenge, it is important to seek scriptural counsel from publications of the faithful and discreet slave class and from the elders.
Well the Watchtower long ago conceded that no one would arrive at the Doctrinal positions of the Society by reading the Bible. You can only learn those from "Slave" publications.
It does seem to push the line that the bible isn't even useful now for general life principles.
how many of you have ever visited one of the branch offices or world headquarters of jehovah's witnesses?
i was an active witness for nearly thirty years and was associated with the cult for more than thirty-five before finally walking away for good last year.
during all those years i never made a trip to brooklyn bethel.
This post by Theocratic Joker over at "Letters From the Governing Body" made me laugh when I first read it.
"You see, most religionists are impressed and moved by what is appealing the eyes; whether it be large ornate temples, huge cathedrals, or the visual presence of the Vatican. Jehovah's Witnesses are no different. They are impressed and wooed by large printing operations and shipping depots. They are moved by large sprawling branch complexes which house the people who operate the printing equipment."
LOL how true
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my mom cant stop talking about this brother, vic gundotra.
One has to think that educated JW's and those that don't quit their jobs to pioneer just choose to shut out and not even think about what the Watchtower is saying. It should be only a matter of time before they leave. Or perhaps because they aren't paying attention they don't notice all of the idiotic changes as each new governing body takes over and chooses to make up their own doctrines? haha its really an interesting case study I guess. I'm sure there is no satisfying answer to my question of why.
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my mom cant stop talking about this brother, vic gundotra.
But what exactly do these people see in Watchtower land that attracts them? Everything the Watchtower espouses goes against what they know to be real. It’s like a gay person who still wants to be a JW. Doesn't this cause a level of cognitive dissonance?
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my mom cant stop talking about this brother, vic gundotra.
My mom can’t stop talking about this brother, Vic Gundotra.
Looks like he put a Wikipedia article about himself:
Vivek "Vic" Gundotra(born June 14, 1968), is Senior Vice-President of Social Business for Google and was previously a general manager at Microsoft.
You Can read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Gundotra
This guy worked some unassigned territory near my parent’s congregation and ever since she swoons him as an example. Today she sent me a youtube link where he did a commercial for BMW. I guess his $90,000 car prevented an accident when he was inattentively driving.
I have tried to get my mom to see you can’t get to where this guy has gotten without education. He should be held up as Conventions as an example of how to manage career and religion. But no she can’t see that she uses him as an example of someone using his talents for Jehovah.
