Posts by John Aquila

37

Seems very easy to leave now, why do people hesitate?

by Xanthippe in

when i see people on here saying they've looked on several sites before this one, jwfacts, jwstruggle, youtube, etc., and then they make friends here, sometimes meeting up with ex-jws, it seems incredibly easy compared to leaving in 1989. .

no internet, no amazon to find ex-jw books, no facebook to link up with ex-jw groups.

still people find it so hard to leave.

John Aquila

No internet, no Amazon to find ex-JW books, no Facebook to link up with ex-JW groups. Still people find it so hard to leave.

Actually In the 5 years prior to 1975, the number of publishers was increasing at an average of 15% per year. Now Jehovah's witnesses are increasing at about 2% per year. So people are leaving by the truck loads in a manner of speaking.

The experiences you read about, regarding people having a hard time leaving the WT are going through a process. Like any other process, the more you put into researching, the quicker a person gets to the point where it won't matter who he/she leaves behind. Some because of family and work don't have as much time to research, so it take longer to build up the fortitude to leave. Others with very little family or retired have more time to research and are gone within a year.

35

behind the curtain: literature offer for the month

by Magnum in

i was an extremely sincere, zealous pioneer.

i really cared about the people in the field.

i thought their lives were in danger.

John Aquila

Oubliette
John Acquila, wow, a book burning! That's ironically chilling.

That picture is cracking me up, LOL.

35

behind the curtain: literature offer for the month

by Magnum in

i was an extremely sincere, zealous pioneer.

i really cared about the people in the field.

i thought their lives were in danger.

John Aquila

Driving Force
If I can remember rightly from my time as literature servant, all publications produced before 1986 should be removed from stock in the congregation and be destroyed.

You are right, I was the literature servant and the CO whose name was Larry Punko made us go at night to the Kingdom Hall and we gathered at least 1000 books and took them to an isolated place, poured gasoline on them and burned them. He made sure we all stayed there until they were completely destroyed. Then he made us go to each publisher and demand any of the old books on the list he gave us. Then we burned those to. I never thought anything about it. Till now.

23

Are the writers in the writing department purposely misquoting people?

by paulmolark in

after reading that great post about the june 1 article on science i got to thinking.

although it is great to believe there is this huge group of guys in the jw writing department that are constantly looking to mislead us by twisting the words of scientist etc... i really think it is more likely they are google researchers that do not have the ability to grasp the thoughts that are being expressed in the scientific article they quote mine from.. i honestly believe the reason that this happens is because of the individuals they use to write these magazines.

these are not college educated men.

John Aquila

Famous Scientist Author's original text;

The world in general is getting better. People are living longer because healthcare has improved. Immunization has eliminated many of the diseases that racked havoc in times past. The percentage of teenage girls getting pregnant is dropping. More young people are wanting to pursue an education first and get stabilized before getting married and having a family. More countries are winning the war on famine as they implement new farming techniques. The gloom outlook that the world is close to the end because of war, crime and pestilence, is a thing of the past.

Watchtower quoting Famous Scientist Author in one of their publications;

Mr. Famous Scientist Author had this to say about conditions in the world today, “The gloom outlook that the world is close to the end because of war, crime and pestilence

35

behind the curtain: literature offer for the month

by Magnum in

i was an extremely sincere, zealous pioneer.

i really cared about the people in the field.

i thought their lives were in danger.

John Aquila

Hey Magnum

You brought up some memories that make me shiver and cringe. I’m picturing in my mind walking the neighborhood streets on a Saturday morning peddling orange colored books with crazy names like “Everlasting something” which even I didn’t read most of the time.

It was so freaking embarrassing doing that while at the same time watching normal people going to breakfast with their families and just enjoying the weekend.

I believe I’m in some type of denial that I was a book peddler for years.

Hell I could have been a freaking surgeon like my uncles wanted me to be. But noooo____ I wanted to be a book peddler.

16

WT cash flow speculation

by campaign of hate in

jw
friends

so it was reported that the wt made $60,000,000 in canada last year (?).

working on the assumption that this figure is from not only donations, but from property revenues and other ventures from the branch, we get a figure of $528 per publisher, per year.

the calculation: 60,000,000 / 113,617 (2014 av pubs) = $528 a year per publisher.

John Aquila

One poster made this comment;

Terry A tax-exempt religion is just a playground for malfeasance.

We need to think along those lines. Remember, the Watchtower does not have to answer to the SEC or the IRS or anyone that will investigate if they paid their share of taxes. “They are exempt” They have a Free get out of jail card.

They are publicly asking for money from the rank and file and “They are getting it.”

As long as people continue to donate to their cause they have free reign to scrape every last cent from willing participants. If they ever get caught doing illegal things with that money, then they will get a couple of JDubs to be scapegoats, disfellowship them, and print in the magazines that Satan infiltrated the ranks to mislead many. It will be Big News for a few months and then people will forget about it and get on with their lives. Some will leave the WT but many will stay faithful and be willing to go down with the ship.

Example: Enron Scandal, lost $74 billion. Thousands of employees and investors lost their retirement accounts, and many lost their jobs. Before they got caught, Fortune Magazine named Enron, “Most Innovative Company to invest in six years in a row” Penalties; two people were sentence to prison, one died before serving any time.

Example: Lehman Brothers, hid $50 Billion in loans disguised as sales.

Went bankrupt. Penalties; SEC did not prosecute due to lack of evidence.

And life goes on!

25

So Why Do They Need The Money?

by konceptual99 in

so, as well reported, the latest jw broadcasting show is all about giving money.

as far as the wt society goes they have been pretty candid about there not being enough funds to meet the expenditure.

there are plenty of views on if this is really the case or not but underlying this is why are they spending so much money?.

John Aquila

Finkelstein 21 hours ago

At a time when the WTS has never been richer in its entire history, this can we have more money is a bit disconcerting

I've seen it said they are short on cash flow. But cash flow for what? They are not liable for any federal taxes, or sales taxes, They don't have salaries to pay because all workers are volunteer. They don't provide insurance for their workers, They don't provide a retirement plan for anyone. All their properties are paid for by the dubs. They are not worried about pedo-related court losses. They had a big financial victory with the Candace Conti lawsuit. From 28 mil to a few million. The rest of the lawsuits are peanuts. A million here, two million there, just normal business operations that all corporations anticipate. The lawsuits which are some millions can be paid in a month easily out of collections from the congregations world wide. Their publication cost are nil since they are using jworg more and reducing print material.

The call for more money is something else not related to running the corporation. It has nothing to do with lawsuits. It's something outside the box of what we are assuming. If they need cash flow then it has to be for something else not mentioned above. Something unusual that no one is thinking about or considering. Something outside the box of normal business operations.

Terry
A tax-exempt religion is just a playground for malfeasance.

16

WT cash flow speculation

by campaign of hate in

jw
friends

so it was reported that the wt made $60,000,000 in canada last year (?).

working on the assumption that this figure is from not only donations, but from property revenues and other ventures from the branch, we get a figure of $528 per publisher, per year.

the calculation: 60,000,000 / 113,617 (2014 av pubs) = $528 a year per publisher.

John Aquila

They are not worried about tusnami pedo-related court losses. They had a big financial victory with the Candace Conti lawsuit. From 28 mil to a few million. The rest of the lawsuits are peanuts. A million here, two million there, just normal business operations that all corporations anticipate.

The call for more money is something else not related to running the corporation. It has nothing to do with lawsuits. It's something outside the box of what we are assuming.

16

WT cash flow speculation

by campaign of hate in

jw
friends

so it was reported that the wt made $60,000,000 in canada last year (?).

working on the assumption that this figure is from not only donations, but from property revenues and other ventures from the branch, we get a figure of $528 per publisher, per year.

the calculation: 60,000,000 / 113,617 (2014 av pubs) = $528 a year per publisher.

John Aquila

I've seen it said they are short on cash flow. But cash flow for what? They are not liable for any federal taxes, or sales taxes, They don't have salaries to pay because all workers are volunteer. They don't provide insurance for their workers, They don't provide a retirement plan for anyone. All their properties are paid for by the dubs. The lawsuits which are some millions can be paid in a month easily out of collections from the congregations world wide. Their publication cost are nil since they are using jworg more and reducing print material.

If they need cash flow then it has to be for something else not mentioned above. Something unusual that no one is thinking about or considering. Something outside the box of normal business operations.

16

Giant fruit in Canaan/TNS

by rebel8 in

jw
friends

ok bible scholars, do i have this right?.

jehoopla promised the israelites lots of great stuff in the promised land, but they didn't believe him so they sent spies to check it out.

they came back with fruit so large it had to be carried on a branch by 2 men.. from this, dubs believe they are going to have strawberries the size of king king's skull when they get to their own promised land (the new system).

John Aquila

In comparison to Israelites, the people of the land were giants. But the grapes were normal size.

Numbers chapter 13:32,33all the people whom we saw in the midst of it are men of extraordinary size. 33 And there we saw the Neph′i·lim, the sons of A′nak, who are from the Neph′i·lim; so that we became in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and the same way we became in their eyes.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHm7oItkdA