Posts by redvip2000

6

this was kind of sad

by stillin in

jw
friends

a newly interested study gave his first bible reading on the school the other night.

i used to be filled with emotion and hope for ones like him: found "in the field," given real hope, the discipline of "the truth" at work in their hearts.

this guy is a good guy and i have no plans for raining on his parade, but i sat there while he did an excellent job with the reading.

I feel the same sadness when i see my mother. She is not the most healthy woman, yet she still gets up early on Sunday and goes preaching. The little energy she has is wasted on working for the Org. Sometimes i think to myself that i almost don't want her to come to the realization that most of what she believes in, in a bunch of horse sh*t. It would be devastating to her, and i think that the paradise bliss dream, is really what keeps her going and gives her some hope.

Sometimes i find myself engaging her about fallacies inside the Org, to which she is clueless about, and rarely has a answer for it. And then i simply back off - realizing that it's simply not worth it. At this point, i rather her spend the rest of her days with that glimpse of hope, even if leads to nothing.

22

My first experience as a Householder.

by Flat_Accent in

and it wasnt even on the platform!.

i got a knock on the door this morning from a jw in another local congregation.

it's the first time this has happened since i left in october.

redvip2000

I hope you made a point of not keeping the magazines. I dont mind entertaining them for a few minutes, but i never keep the magazines.

From what i have experienced, when most JWs are preaching, they are not used to having a real conversation, so when they find someone who is willing to discuss a few points, they are completely caught off guard and unable to converse.

The last time that happened to me, a young man, walked in my garage while i was working on my car, and hit me with a typical pre-packaged introduction for the magazines and drop them on the top of the trunk and said " well , thank you. Have a good day". I told him "wait" and i questioned him about a few things, he was so caught off guard , that he just looked at me with nothing to say..

I honestly think most witness are not really that interested in having long conversations. They want to just say a few words, drop a magazine and move along to the next house. Preaching has truly become an obligation, and as long as they can fill out a report card at the end of the month, they are happy.

84

Kingdom Hall remodel - scam

by Dagney in

jw
friends

i was wondering from any here in the know, does it seem like there is a lot of "remodels" going on?.

in the last week i had the occasion to talk with two jw's in different halls, about 10 miles apart.

they both are undergoing major remodels.

redvip2000

I believe the costs of running an assembly are available to be consulted and i've heard the president of the session, go through them from the platform. It's hard to comment on whether 10k is too much or not, because sometimes we don't really think of EVERYTHING that needs to be purchased. It's not just Electric and Water. There are all sorts of supplies that need to purchased and i'm sure they probably even break down other costs of general maintenance by each assembly.

The Org is definetely filling it's pockets by different means, but this doesn't seem the way, or if it is, it's not that significant.

37

Jehovah's Witnesses can donate blood

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

jehovah’s witnesses can donate blood.

today i added a new article to my blog that answers the question of whether watchtower doctrine forbids jehovah’s witnesses from going to their community blood bank and donating some of their blood to help replace all the products from blood accepted on a daily basis by the community of jehovah’s witnesses.. .

my article is titled jehovah’s witnesses can donate blood and is available at: http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com/2012/03/jehovahs-witnesses-can-donate-blood.html.

redvip2000

I think the biggest issue here, is really the letter itself, because in reality if there is nothing else printed that says that donating blood is ok, the only support you have is from this letter. So, along come these questions:

1- Where is this letter? How can i get it? How genuine is it?

Even if you can download it somewhere, the elders will also ask you where you got it, and this is another issue. Are you going to reveal that it was on a website which is not Pro-Watchtower? How much validity will they give to it?

What i personally would do, is to first write a letter to Bethel asking for clarification on this issue. I would include the letter and say that a friend who was involved in that case had given it to me, and i simply wanted to know if the Watchtower society stood by those words previously mentioned.

My guess is that assuming the letter is real ( and they can verify this), they will confirm that position for the sake of consistency. I would then take that reply from Bethel and use it to support my position. With this, you would have a pretty strong case to stand against the elders.

10

KH and Gold Scam part 2

by iamwhoiam in

at our hall..we were given a 0% loan for remodel as long as we paid it back in a very short period of time.

and even though the building has long been paid for by the congregation and yet our reserves were low, inorder to get that loan, we were to turn over hall ownership to the society.

since the congregation had to vote on it, and no one is going to raise thier hand against, it got passed.

redvip2000

Well, in reality unless you donate a huge amount of money to the organization, this is not going to affect your tax return. Donating a couple of thousand in Gold (lets say) will still be less that the standard deduction that the government gives you on your taxes, so it will not benefit you in any way.

27

Has Anyone Been Present When a Dissident Spoke in KH?

by Band on the Run in

jw
friends

i know some dissatisified members have planned to "throw caution to the wind" when they exit and break the news as a stunning revelation of lies.

some of my funniest memories were of teachers and others terminated but since they had to finish their contract, they decided to share their insights and horrors.

in normal life, there is a certain allowance made under the circumstances.

redvip2000

We once had a woman, who was either a visitor or a study attend the meeting, and during the Watchtower study she apparently tried to answer a few times and the conductor didn't give her a chance, so when he ended the study and asked everybody to stand, she yelled at him, complaining that she had tried to answer a few times and he didn't give her a chance. I'm curious on what she had to say...

34

Ridiculous Memorial Invitation!

by PrincessCynic in

has anyone seen this year's memorial invitation?

maybe someone could post a picture.. on the front is a question to the householder, 'how do you view jesus?'.

then it gives multiple choices with accompanying pictues: .

redvip2000

Just amazing how a billion dollar publishing company can make such "amateurish" mistakes.

12

Watchtower Library 2011

by goddidit in

jw
friends

i'm not religious but i am a theology student.. why does this cd instruct me to close my antivirus program before running the executable?.

innocent mistake?

i can't remember ever seeing this instruction on a legitimate executable, and i've been using computers for a long, long time..

redvip2000

Someone already said it here, but it's because the installation file has the extension .exe .

What the developers at the Watchtower society should have done was to build a MSI package which uses the Windows installation engine and thus use a trusted way to install a program.

45

Can I bring my own stuff to the memorial?

by outofthebox in

jw
friends

let's say i am an anointed one, but i don't like the taste of the crackers and wine the congregation got the last time.

can i bring my own wine and crackers to partake tonight?

yes or no?

redvip2000

I so wish i had the b*lls to go the memorial and make a parody of the whole thing.

Maybe bring my own bottle and bottle opener and open it in the middle of the talk and drink from the bottle. Or maybe go to a random hall and drink the entire glass of wine as it's passed to me, and bask in the attention of the horror faces looking at me.

I personally think that those who partake are somehow disfunctional - probably narcissistics who can't help but view themselves as being special.

The few that i have met, never seemed to be all there.

70

If the WT dumped 1914 tommorow ...?

by faithfulslavedriver in

this is my first post here.

i've been a lurker for awhile but had no particular desire to join until the other day.. anyways, do you think that if wt decided to face the fact that 607-1914 is an indefensible pile of crap that has been artificially kept steaming for way too long, would it really kick off a mass exodus or anything?

in the short term the fds/gb might lose some authority, but they are hemorrhaging people anyways keeping it around (607 started me on the road to this place).. if wt stopped talking about 1914 for awhile then later killed it, blaming it on "further research" or something, and acknowledged some uncertainty in 607/587, i really doubt that very many of the r&f would think much about it.

redvip2000

The great majority of JWs already don't know how the date of 1914 is reached or see any importance in it, aside for the fact that it is the start of the last days.

IMO opinion, at this point it's mostly a matter of pride. Think about it.... if the GB decided to say that the correct date is 587 BC after all, they could just say that the last days started in 1934, and that the generation of 1934 has not died yet, so they could bring some validity to the generation belief.

The flip side of the issue is that they would have to relinquish the 1918 date. They could say that this happened in 1938, but this doesn't match with any JW leaders going to jail. Another issue is that in 1934 nothing important happened, and WW1 is probably too important to let it go to waste.

I also think that there would be another layer of JWs - some of the brighter ones, who would finally realize that the Org is full of sh*t. But if i was the GB i would take those losses and change it anyway, because i think in the long run it would be the more beneficial.

Also, let's not kid ourselves. The issue has come up dozens of times already in GB sessions, i'm absolutely sure that it has even gone to voting, but just didn't pass. They probably have a list of pros and cons of changing this, and decided that it would be wiser to keep things as they are.