Unbelievable. Three different apartments for all members of the GB all within 90 miles of one another? The spirit of Joe Rutherford lives on!
Sic Semper Tyrannis
JoinedPosts by Sic Semper Tyrannis
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18
Where is the Society headquarters these days?
by rory-ks ini actually find this whole matter a bit creepy.
i find it very hard to think of the watch tower society as a cult in the same mould as jonestown or the branch davidians, and yet their out-of-town facilities increasingly take on the appearance of a cultish stronghold.. where is the society headquarters these days?
is it up in wallkill?
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The Tower of Babel - Languages: Isn't this story unhinged?
by james_woods inbesides the obvious fact that it is historically ridiculous - can anybody make any sense out of this story?.
god was somehow afraid that man was developing too much technology?
just because they were building a tower?.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
In the Talmud (the Jewish collection of traditions and rabbinical discussions), this story makes more sense. It's a not-so-subtle attempt to elevate the religion, language, and culture of the early Hebrews and the Jews who followed over everyone else. The background for this is basically that Hebrew is the true language of God, and he spoke this to Adam. Everyone up to the Tower of Babel incident spoke Hebrew. The real reason for the confusion of the languages was to cast out those who rejected God and isolate them into their own lingual groups and from the true believers who were still to speak Hebrew. Many of the descendants of Shem (Abraham and his family), who was Noah's faithful son, were of this group. The Talmud claims that Shem (who lived 400 years after the Flood and was alive during much of Abraham's life) was actually Melchizedek, the "high priest" and King of Salem (Jerusalem) who bestowed upon Abraham his blessing and passed the knowledge down to him. He also supposedly handed down Adam's garments made by God after he discovered he was naked, and taken by Noah onto the ark. The Tower of Babel story is an obviously embellished account designed to explain the Jews' exclusive connection to God through their language and culture. Alexander the Great found the remains of a huge structure in Babylon, so the tower part of it is likely true. But the real reasoning behind the confusion of the languages was only hinted at in Genesis.
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Scans Of The Legal Procedures Letter
by Bangalore infound these on the gbl blog.. .
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bangalore.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
A very legalistic letter that provides every possible escape route for the Society, while leaving the local elders high and dry. They sent this out so they can protect themselves and enter the letter into evidence while effectively telling litigants to sue the individual involved, not the Society. This should serve as a warning to elders more than anything. You are on your own. If you get manage to get sued for any reason while in your capacity as a congregation elder, then go get yourself an attorney. We're not spending a dime on this if we don't have to. Your problem, not ours.
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Where is the Society headquarters these days?
by rory-ks ini actually find this whole matter a bit creepy.
i find it very hard to think of the watch tower society as a cult in the same mould as jonestown or the branch davidians, and yet their out-of-town facilities increasingly take on the appearance of a cultish stronghold.. where is the society headquarters these days?
is it up in wallkill?
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
I've heard murmurings in the past about people relocating to Patterson when the Great Tribulation came. It does have that whole 'compound' vibe to it that the Brooklyn Bethel never had. The minute you stepped out of one of the Brooklyn buildings, you were smack dab in the center of a huge metropolis. I didn't hear about the GB moving the Patterson, though I'm sure they already have quarters picked out for when they do. I'd imagine that the GB would be one of the last groups to leave Brooklyn.
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NHL Playoffs: who ya got puckheads?
by unshackled ingreetings my fellow fans of the frozen pond and old-time hockey.. it's time for the playoffs beard!.
so let's pick 'em.
who will be drinking from lord stanley's mug this year?
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
I think the sh*t will hit the fan should Vancouver lose to the Kings tonight. They are already behind 3-1 in the series. The LA Kings!? The Gretzky thieves! Talk about adding insult to injury, especially from a team based in a city that thinks a 'hat trick' is something that prostitutes do.
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Cedar's 'Why The Watch Tower Society Is Already In Decline"
by Dogpatch inwhy the watch tower society is already in decline.
good article, cedars.. http://www.freeminds.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3236:why-the-watch-tower-society-is-already-in-decline&catid=31:governing-body&itemid=346.
it's also on the front page of freeminds.org.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
This brings up an interesting point. When I first started reading sources from the "dark side", naturally I focused on Ray Franz's accounts. In both of his books, Ray went relatively easy on Knorr and reserved most of his criticism for his uncle Fred. In fact, in COC he mentioned his view that he sincerely doubted that Knorr would have gone along with the actions from the GB relating to 1980 and his own expulsion. However, everyone I have spoken to either personally or on the net who knew Nathan Knorr at Bethel has an unmistakably negative viewpoint of the man as a person and as a leader. From many accounts, Knorr was a very petty man. He loved to focus on homosexuality and masturbation. He was cheap and made comments that people should be using the stairs rather than the elevator. He did everything he could to make Bethelites' lives more difficult, from demanding that they not wear jeans at any time to making them work a half-day on Saturday in order to not give them a full weekend. Furthermore there have been some comments made about the state of his marriage, with some mentioning that his widow, Audrey, re-married not long after his death. I had personal conversations with my uncle, who was prominent in the organization and knew all of these men personally, but who later faded and became inactive. Though he personally liked Fred Franz and had told several amusing anecdotes about him, he had an unmistakable contempt for Knorr. Knorr was a demanding and irrational man. Randy's post seems to add weight to that viewpoint. Franz was more of a 'lovable idiot' in the view of some. Dogmatic and strange to be sure, but personable and friendly. My question is this... Are these perceptions true? Ray Franz seemed to be more on the Knorr side and more critical of his uncle, but everyone else seems to be of the opposite persuasion. Perhaps this was due to a personal bias against his uncle for being so instrumental in his dismissal. I'm always interested in what people who knew these men thought about them personally.
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2005 - The year the Society began its decline (without anyone noticing)!
by cedars ini've just finished an article for randy over on freeminds.org, which i've submitted to him for review.
hopefully it should be online soon, so please keep checking!.
the article discusses the fact that the watch tower society is already in decline, and suggests the year 2005 as the turning point.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
At the time, certainly. But 1925 is barely a blip on the radar anymore, and it will be extremely difficult to find any Witness alive that even remembers 1925. The failure of 1925 exists only in the minds of JW critics. Even 1975 barely rates a mention from most active Witnesses. It's safe to say that the Society has weathered both storms. In both cases they quietly moved on from a doctrinal standpoint and the movement grew (though in the 1925 instance it took a few more years to recover). I think it's safe to say that the Society has learned their lesson the hard way regarding date setting and is unlikely to set another one other than the usual "last days" spiel. What point was made in this thread was that the Society can't play by the old rules anymore, and the guts have been ripped out of its once impressive publishing empire. As soon as this goes, so does the movement.
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Italy invades Ethiopia
by designs in77 years ago the evil complexities of war were on full display when mussollini and his fascist government invaded the still slave trading nation of ethiopia under emperor halle selassie.
italy's aim was to form a colonial empire in africa which included ethiopia, somalia, and eritrea.
the emperor sought help from the league of nations whose members voted mainly to support mussollini, only 5 nations voted for ethiopia, britian supported the fascist government.. japan recognized italy's soverign rule and italy in kind recognized japan's rule of china in the manchuria region.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
Il Duce thought he had his Empire as soon as his troops entered Addis Ababa. Later his troops barely took Albania, and when they invaded Greece from there they were pushed back and were on the run. It took his buddy Hitler to bail him out, and he was never the same after that. The British eventually expelled him from Ethiopia and Somalia, and he died as the puppet ruler of a rump Italian Republic.
Are you suggesting intervention in Syria?
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2005 - The year the Society began its decline (without anyone noticing)!
by cedars ini've just finished an article for randy over on freeminds.org, which i've submitted to him for review.
hopefully it should be online soon, so please keep checking!.
the article discusses the fact that the watch tower society is already in decline, and suggests the year 2005 as the turning point.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
I do agree with your contention about 2005 being a notable year. To limit the Awake! to one magazine a month, and to designate one issue of the WT as a "study" magazine available to only Witnesses is a huge deal. What it effectively did was give the public only two magazines a month to be pushed on them, while allowing the Society to cut down on printing not only for the deleted Awake!, but also in volume for the study magazine since it was not to be distributed. I was just thinking that the changed literature arrangement 15 years before that was a natural pre-cursor to this event. I read Ray Franz's comments on the voluntary donation scheme, and I have to say that I didn't agree with his point about how the Society now made double off the literature since the change. No matter how honest a person is, things change when they do not have to pay up front for things. It's like giving credit card users the option to pay when they want to rather than monthly. Many Witnesses were and are of limited means, and would naturally procrastinate with donating for the magazines they receive, thinking they would pay more later, which they probably wouldn't do when they got around to it. The Society took a huge hit from this arrangement, and once their considerable savings had started to dry up years later as a result, they started looking for more ways to become fluid. Thus they started selling off expensive properties in Brooklyn, cut down substantially on their printing costs, and now are even closing down branches and selling these valuable assets.
The reduction of the public editions of the Awake! and WT to 16 pages each is no coincidence either. They both had a much higher circulation rate than the study magazine, and the Society is going to save themselves a ton of overhead in printing and material costs. It will also help them to downsize staff. The 2005 change was a matter of things finally catching up with the Society, and the GB decided to take harsh measures to combat it. The change this year is another outcropping of that decision. The next change will probably be as you noted, where the Society would send the congregations the literature as PDFs, and then force congregations to buy high volume and expensive printers to produce them locally. I would imagine the effect of that to the rank and file (if it is not already noticable) would be to take a bit of the shine off the Society. Witnesses view the Society itself as a first class and professionally organized enterprise. All of these changes only contribute to the sense that they are not what they once were, regardless of how many times they are reminded of how Jehovah is simplifying things.
A very insighful article, and I look forward to reading your next one. Thanks for sharing.
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2005 - The year the Society began its decline (without anyone noticing)!
by cedars ini've just finished an article for randy over on freeminds.org, which i've submitted to him for review.
hopefully it should be online soon, so please keep checking!.
the article discusses the fact that the watch tower society is already in decline, and suggests the year 2005 as the turning point.
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Sic Semper Tyrannis
Jimmy Swaggart getting sued in California in the 80's and the advent of the internet in the 90's did more to bury the Society than 1975, the Great Apostasy of 1980 and Ray Franz combined. I noticed the general decline with the new literature arrangment and eventual discarding of the entire notion of feeding people at assemblies. During assemblies, eating the food the Society provided was a big deal and kept the social bonds tight among Witnesses. Once the food was gone, the life seemed to drain out of those assemblies as people were forced to go out for lunch or bring cold and unappetizing food from home. I still have fond memories about the frozen pudding, Shasta cola, orange juice, the assembly burritos, and the hoagies. Now they are just a part of the ever-distant past related by the old-timers. They have gone the way of the seven-day conventions. The only life in the assemblies now are the groups that travel together and meet for dinner at the hotels. The lunch break is now a forced and awkward event, almost like they are letting you have a toilet break.
I too see the growing possibility of decline in numbers. As the "Baby-Boomer" generation in the US starts to die off, those numbers will become more apparent. While it is still a large enough organization to see them continuing well into this century, they will start to become something more fitting of a remnant - a rump organization. Another sign to look for would be them "simplifying" the assembly arrangement, possibly shrinking it to one event a year, and maybe even only meeting as a circuit. I wouldn't completely discount the possibility of some sort of eventful collapse in numbers and hours. Unfortunately, there will be plenty of die-hards in every family, and I can count on at least two in mine. What other life do they know? I can see my father packing up and moving to Patterson if they even hinted at it. I just share a sense of deep regret that this inevitable decline couldn't have happened a lot sooner and before my time. Perhaps this organization would have not had the detrimental effect on my life as it did.