i'm just curious if anybody knows.
firstly i don't take issue with the man making money from his books and if he was able to live comfortably from it then i say power to him.
but what i'm wanting to know was just how successful was it and did it allow him to live out the remainder of his years in comfort e.g buy a house, eat good food etc.
It is good this topic (Ray Franz making a fortune out of CoC) is mentioned here. I have heard / read some WTS apologists to use this to discredit Ray. They are trying to show he was not sincere in his decisions.
This is in line with JW logic: "we are the truth, everybody leaving must do it because of demons / money / immorality / ..." - cultish way of thinking.
in short:- tight pants is no longer just a am3 hang up (or is that a hang up on the well hung?
)- brothers who have effeminate body language are flagged up- as are sisters with 'masculine' hair styles or dress- such dress is 'disturbing to the congregation'- the above must heed the (repeated) counsel from the elders...or they get stripped of the right to share on the ministry- however...this will not be revealed (announced) to the congregation.
wow.
I am really surprised with stripping 'the right' to share in ministry. AFAIK this form of punishment has never been used before. Even if somebody was reprimanded publicly, still he was expected to share in ministry, the same for reinstated ones. They were but not allowed to comment during the meetings.
I can imagine funny situations in future: brother Tight-pants stops to share in ministry suddenly (as there is no public announcement of his being stripped of it). Then other members of the congregation will start to encourage him to start again not knowing he is not permitted to go to the service. Is he allowed to explain it? Are elders allowed to disclose this new policy to the one punished?
has anybody read this book?.
https://archive.org/details/merchantsofdeception.
it is story of a man who worked for amway.
Some quotes from the book:
As a matter of fact, within it, we were told there was a "100% success rate and outside of it a 0% success rate."
Is it not similar to WTS?
This is something we all experienced when realizing ttatt:
In my torment, it was by the grace of God that I made a decision that changed my life. I decided to 'unplug' from the system in ways that would be invisible to the group. I stopped listening to tapes every day and reading books from the approved list. I felt they were keeping me from being able to have clear thoughts.
I remember when i read it i started to wonder: 'what would happen if I decided to unplug from WTS?' Amway is keeping people in the same constant indoctrination as the WTS - 'read our books every day, listen to the motivaitonal tapes'.
This looks like KMS meeting:
Kathy and I began studying the follow-up pack that described the mechanics of starting your own business. The literature advised that to have a successful meeting, we needed to invite at least twice the number of people that we expected to come. In the follow-up pack, we also were given "inviting" techniques and instruction on how to handle certain questions that friends might ask. I was very clearly coached to make certain not to use the words "Amway", "products" or "selling" in the phone calls to friends.
In the same manner as in the WTS world Amway instructs its followers to avoid controversial stuff when opening conversation. The same as when JW does not mention shunning, rejection of higher education or some bizarre doctrines as '7 trumpets interpretation'.
It is interesting Amway imposes some rules preventing free discussion among the members:
"Never cross line" was a core principle that referred to not having business-related or personal conversations with distributors that were cross line from you. It was recommended that you had little or no social contact with these people as well. The reasoning was that this could cause confusion and inadvertently damage both of your businesses.
So similar to WTS making taboo sharing of negative information.
has anybody read this book?.
https://archive.org/details/merchantsofdeception.
it is story of a man who worked for amway.
Has anybody read this book?
https://archive.org/details/MerchantsOfDeception
it is story of a man who worked for Amway. It is so interesting the story is quite similar to experiences of JWs - it was mentioned a couple of times here in the forum Amway internal workings resemble WTS.
I went through this book when i was fully believing WTS is the truth and i can recall how much i was distressed: 'what if i am in the same position as the author of MoD, only i am not able to realize it?'. I had really serious doubts after reading this book.
For example his business was not bringing results, but instead of reconsidering the business model, he tried again and again to twist reality into Amway system - perhaps he is not working hard enough, if he will persist, results will come, ...
The same as a jw is able to convince himself repeatedly that doctrine changed so many times and failed so often is still the truth.
hayden c. covington represented muhammad ali when he refused to sign up for the draft.. covington's argument was that muhammad ali was a religious minister.. this argument failed.
it is interesting they omit this story in the news:
http://www.jw.org/en/news/legal/by-region/united-states/dorothy-covington-dies
it is symptomatic for all info on history of JWs given by the WTS. Facts that can result in questions are wiped out systematically. They list important civil liberties cases, but Cassius is not mentioned there.
today i attended a one-day assembly in my hometown.
i knew when it came time to read the afternoon expenses that it would be an incredibly high and ridiculous amount that was nowhere near the real expenses for that day.
sure enough, after lunch came the announcement.
i do not know how they do the trick, but i cannot recall there ever have been a surplus. See it: every assembly / convention they report lack of funds.
Some methods were mentioned here: putting not only real numbers into balances; adding artificial 'rent' etc.
I suspect they report 'n-1' number - they report amount collected before the convention started during the afternoon part, what was collected during the lunch is not counted there. And as in the morning crowds are running for good seats, perhaps not so many are contributing before the program starts.
hi this is for the lurkers.. please start reading from another translation and use tools like www.biblehub.com to verify the differences you find.. biblehub has an interlinear and a strongs concordance and heaps of dictionaries and commentaries.. you don't have to be a translator but you can clearly see how the watchtower bible and tract society has changed the bible to devalue jesus, to support their idea of a paradise earth hope for christians and many other false doctrines.. i could never understand why the jw's where attacked when they chose to translate the bible - now i know.. seriously people, there are a lot smarter people than me on this forum and heaps of research.
.
don't be afraid of the truth!.
A couple of notes on YHWH vs. NT:
1, The Jews stopped to pronounce the name before 1st century. Why we cannot find any criticism of this custom in the Bible? Majority of Septuagints used Kurios instead of the tetragrammaton. But there is no discussion of how bad is to use 'Kurios' instead of YHWH anywhere in the Scriptures. So it seems the 1st Christians accepted usage of Kurios.
2, Standard WTS claim somebody replaced YHWH in the centuries after Jesus: I have not seen any hard facts provided by WTS supporting this theory. Historic science simply does not work this way - I cannot simply state something happened but I need to provide proofs or strong indications for it.
3, Christian heresies in the first centuries are documented - Docetists, Ebionites, ... We have also good traces of Gnosticism, discussions with Jews, various discussions among Christians. But we do not have any trace of discussion of Kurios / YHWH. Why?
4, At the end of 1st century there was apprx. 1 million of Christians spread across the whole Roman world. How did somebody manage to replace YHWH with Kurios in this geographically dispersed realm? How did these conspirators manage to leave no trace of this big change?
5, George Howard and WTS - GH says a) it is a theory b) he is not supporting 237 places changed by the WTS. Try to google him.
6, How is it possible we do not know exact form of the name? If it was widely used then at least one Christian or even enemy of Christians would use it - but there is no form preserved in Greek / Latin form. Why did not secular historians from that era say 'Christians... those people using the name...'?
7, This step done by the WTS is not a small thing - it is completely changing meaning of some scriptures - for example Rom. 10, or Acts 7:59,60
hi this is for the lurkers.. please start reading from another translation and use tools like www.biblehub.com to verify the differences you find.. biblehub has an interlinear and a strongs concordance and heaps of dictionaries and commentaries.. you don't have to be a translator but you can clearly see how the watchtower bible and tract society has changed the bible to devalue jesus, to support their idea of a paradise earth hope for christians and many other false doctrines.. i could never understand why the jw's where attacked when they chose to translate the bible - now i know.. seriously people, there are a lot smarter people than me on this forum and heaps of research.
.
don't be afraid of the truth!.
they claim NWT committee cannot be shown because they do not want to shift praise toward the committee members, but if you look to instagram you see tons of photos with gb members - literally worship of these rock stars...
okay, i know the royal commission hasn't started yet.
but i'm confident enough that he will be telling some whoppers.
so i thought i'd be the first to get a thread started for something that will begin... very soon now!.
@all: thanks for welcoming me.
i can recall letter from our branch office in 1990s after the new light on alternative service: A lot of people were df'd due to 'compromise' in their neutrality done by accepting alternative service (in those years, army was not professionalized and the state required either to take military training or to perform this alternative work). Then the new light came (1996) and afterward a special directive was sent to the congregations.
It was explicitly stated in the letter elders should not apologize to those df'ed based on previous understanding when they ask for reinstating. This demonstrates very well how humble the Society is when an apology is needed...
(unfortunately, this letter is not included among the docs in jwleaks. Perhaps it was issued only in countries with mandatory military service. Here is Czech version of the letter)
okay, i know the royal commission hasn't started yet.
but i'm confident enough that he will be telling some whoppers.
so i thought i'd be the first to get a thread started for something that will begin... very soon now!.
Q. Is that something that you foresee might happen ‐ in
other words, that an apology at least be considered?
A. The Governing Body has apologised on other matters, so
for me to say ‐ I can't speak collectively for everybody,
but we have apologised on things in the past, in other
areas, so it is perceivable.
Do you know when they apologized? I have not seen it over decades in "the truth".
BTW. This is my first post... the RC stuff compelled me to register
