Posts by NameWithheld

37

Other religions are abusive too.,

by wednesday in

jw
friends

i know jw's are abusive psychologicaly to their members, however so are other churches.

case in point, i knew a woman who would not marry b/c the pope said not to use birth control.

she did not want children, and she could not find it within herself to go against the pope.

NameWithheld

Wednesday,

The JWs are no better and no worse than many other groups - you have to remember that they are human led, and humans ALWAYS do the same things to one another - power hungry people find a way to use a system to control other people. That has always been true, and doesn't seem to be changing. That is actually a truth that the JWs don't want you to discover, that they are the sme as everyone else. It exposes the man behind the curtain as it were. As to the line "Well where are you supposed to go?" that is a question that cannot be answered. Because there is no place to go if you are looking for the solutions to all of life's problems neatly wrapped in a package for you. It doesn't exist.

Given the chance, men in power will use religion (and gov't) to control and obtain money from the masses. It doesn't matter the label you put on it, christain, muslem, hindu, whatever, it's all the same result wrapped in a different package.

You have to determine YOU OWN thoughts on what you think is god/spirituality/etc. Until (if and when) Sky-Daddy decides to make his/her presence known in some manner, the is no single human on this planet that can claim to represent/define/channel god to others. Anything else is BS created by a human with an agenda.

63

Computer games are from the Devil

by ignored_one in

sorry guys.

but the old guys in brooklyn have decided that you're spending far too much time enjoying yourself.

see aw 12/22/02 for details.

NameWithheld

I'd like to know where they got that demon possesed looking little evil dude for the front cover. Looks like he's about to have an anurism

8

Is 'Accuracy' Really Their Goal?

by metatron in

jw
friends

while i have a lot to do, some watchtower deceptions are so galling, i am compelled.

to report them herein.. the dec. 2002 km has a full page article called "do you contribute to an accurate report?".

the introduction begins with a blatant lie to deceive simple-minded witnesses.. .

NameWithheld

"C'mon ~~sister~~brother, you MUST HAVE put in SOME time, this month!".

I had this exact phrase asked of me many times during the last couple of years of my JW imprisonment. I'd make up a few hours to get them off my back.

How much Pretense Maintenance is the Society willing to do to keep it's fakery alive? 5 minute publishers? Da'ing the inactive? Creating new congregations where no growth exists?

Actually, that is exactly what they are doing. DF'ing the inactive is and will continue to happen. COs and by extension elders hate having inactive ones on the rolls (makes them look bad) and will often go to great extents to force a decision from those ones - "You are either for us or against us". And at least in the US, the hall building work just keeps on happening, but now they are just in the business of replacing existing halls for no reason. Not growth inspired at all - in fact many halls are re-combining. Or they split a 120 pub hall (usually with 80 or so at each meeting) to two 60 pub halls, and now you have 30-40 people at the meetings.

Good point on the $$$ accuracy. They got burned a few times with theft and now they are real careful with their money. But they don't mind hour inflation.

13

Really Downsizing? Then Howcome....

by CaptainSchmideo in

jw
friends

.

at tonight's service meeting (u.s.), another one of those "thank you for your continued contributions (hint hint, beg beg)" letters was read.. in the text, they talked about needing funds to renovate/remodel the squibb and 107 (i think that's the right number) in an effort to bring them up to building guidelines that match the other branch facilities.

this doesn't sound like shutting down in ny and retiring to patterson, as i saw in an earlier thread.. anybody in the know want to add some insight to this?.

NameWithheld

Why would they solicite $$$$ from the rank and file to renevate Brooklyn buildings? Because it's a win-win situation for them. There is no downside. They get yet more $$$ from fleecing the flock and get to improve their lock stock and barrel owned prime real estate (of course, all labor being 'donated' slave labor too).

When all is said and done, they have a wonderful nice new facility that they can a) get good PR for in the mags (don't think they won't praise themselves up one side and down the other over their pretty new kitchen either), and b) a great improvement to a property - increasing it's resale value even more, and c) lulls the JWs back to sleep ("You're getting sleepy, everything is fine here"), makes them feel good about the JW movement since it's 'ever increasing' and needs so much work. Rank and file JWs equate building up Brooklyn with success. Of coure, they won't blink an eye when the GB starts selling property. I'm sure they will spin that into a blessing from Jah too.

They would do this even if there were only 300 people in brooklyn and the buildings were empty. It's all about the image and the $$$.

30

2002 Service Year Report

by ignored_one in

jw
friends

.

not sure how well these come out.. .

.

NameWithheld

Each year it is droping, but the numbers say otherwise

Yep, they're using the Enron auditors on their service stats

30

2002 Service Year Report

by ignored_one in

jw
friends

.

not sure how well these come out.. .

.

NameWithheld

That's really striking me too Met, from all reports, and from people's experiance in local halls, meeting attendance is at an all time low. Halls that previously split into 2 congos are rejoining, splits that were planned are now put off, yet they still countinue to build new halls at a constant rate in the USA - sell the old, build a new. Repeat every few years. Good cash flow.

It's funny they don't publish meeting attendance figures

33

Fat people suing McDonalds

by Adam in

jw
friends

aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

fat people are suing mcdonalds because they ate fast food and, guess what?

they got fat!

NameWithheld

Maybe they can attack like they did tobacco - prove McDonalds is a highly addictive substance, and that they knew they were addictive - then we can sue them for <austin powers voice> 3 beeeeeeelllllion dollars

33

Fat people suing McDonalds

by Adam in

jw
friends

aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

fat people are suing mcdonalds because they ate fast food and, guess what?

they got fat!

NameWithheld

How does one sue somebody for being just plain stupid? rocky220

By god this is the US of A - we will find a way to sue for stupidity!

21

WTS and donations

by freedom96 in

jw
friends

many christian type religions, organized or not, believe in giving 10% like was done in the old days in the bible.

you even have the mormons, who must give 10%.. as money hungry as the wts is, why have they not gone for that as well?

they can always justify anything for any reason.

NameWithheld

CG, no they can't and don't. I regularly took books/mags and never dropped a dime in towards the end of my Jw-hood. Couldn't stomach paying for crap I knew was going to end in the dumpster, but had to take some mags to 'look good'. I would suspect this is true for a lot of people, which is why you see the WTBTS's bottom line being hurt so badly from the 'donation arragement'. I suspect a lot of people take advatage of it. After all, JWs are trained from youth up to be as cheap as possible!

17

Getting Married as a Catholic

by teenyuck in

jw
friends

my husband and i got into a discussion about joining the local catholic church, signing up for 2.5% of our income and getting married by a priest.

never went to church until 5 years ago.

we agreed to look into it.

NameWithheld

They're not gearing up to build a new church - they need $$$ to pay out all the abuse cases they are about to lose.

Sound familiar?