someone is researching jehovah’s witnesses.
they happen to come on to this site.
do the witnesses have the truth??.
Truth is founded upon Facts and Evidence that will stand ANY scrutiny .
We could spend many hours showing where J.W beliefs do not fit those criteria. It rather behoves the J.W to prove they indeed do have the " truth" than for us to prove they do not, let them put their best proofs before us, and we will show where they fail.
in the year 2000, our congregation decided to split into three separate congregations because of growth.
there were 186 members.
the kingdom hall had only 190 seats.
" sooner or later, the family silver runs out." Yes ! they can only sell K.H's for so long, eventually the Congregations shrink to a hard core who will never leave, and have to have a K.H to meet in.
They are also not profiting quite from these sales so much in an obscure way in some cases. They used to build new K.H's in rough areas of town, slightly industrial, or slightly out of town, and eventually the area would improve, as the town expanded and more houses were built around the K.H.
Now those areas are not being gentrified, many are becoming even more run down, so the Sale Price is not what it was, or might have been.
The Org. has a cash flow problem that is slowly increasing, they have squeezed the faithful until the pips squeak, numbers are falling in the richer Countries, and their Real Estate business lacks any more Billion Dollar sales. The Org. is moribund.
And as the Title of this thread says, many of the older ones particularly must be feeling that they have worked hard all their lives for the org., and have nothing to show for it !
during world war ii when the nazis occupied a large section of the western part of the ussr, heinrich himmler considered various methods to help control the indigenous population.
alexander dallin reports in his book german rule in russia 1941-1945—a study of occupation policies, page 616:.
“himmler conceded that the easterners needed some general system of values, but it was madness to spread nazism among them, and to revive the orthodox or to promote the catholic church in the east was dangerous.
" I can see them not wanting the R&F exploring all the details."
Especially if they were to find a copy of Rutherford's letters to Hitler where he assures him they are not a threat, but the Jews are ! Carrying on a blatant Antisemitic trope. And if the JW's then find out the truth about how the poor Bible Students who had bravely stood up against the Nazis and gone to Concentration Camps felt about Rutherford's actions.
They felt Rutherford had betrayed them, and betrayed what they stood for, being "no part of the World". And so a large number left the Watchtower Org in disgust and loathing, but J.W's were told in the JW Org publications the huge LIE that these Brothers and Sisters left because of " Materialism" !!!!
Oh yes, there is a lot the JW Org do not want their adherents to find out !
we were told we were part of the world if we got involved in politics.
if we had employment that had political involvement we were instructed to get another job.
we were told we might be considered disassociated if we voted and then it became questionable.
jhine has it right. Thanks Jan.
Now I am out and free, I see it as my Moral and Civic Duty to take part in all aspects of politics to make the World a better place, not something JW's ever work for, they see this world as doomed, and simply sit back and do nothing for however many decades they may live, and let the rest of us work for things that will be of great advantage to them.
They are basically Parasites.
in the year 2000, our congregation decided to split into three separate congregations because of growth.
there were 186 members.
the kingdom hall had only 190 seats.
" Except now with no meetings " it will be surprising if the married ones don't have the odd "slip up", what else is there to do ???
One "Sister" in our Congregation, many years ago, excused getting pregnant by saying " It was just one that slipped through the Net ", a Bro. overheard and said " You shouldn't have been using a Net!" LOL.
I am wondering how my old Congregation is getting along now, we too split because we had well over 200 Publishers on our books, officially, though rarely did all of 'em turn up for a Meeting at one time, but we had a lot of overflow problems, as fixed seats were about 180 I think.
So we split in to two, I wonder how those two Congregations are doing ? does the combined attendance ever exceed 200 ? maybe on Memorial night, but that is an exception, lots of non JW's there . Does the combined number of Publishers now exceed 200, some 16 years or so down the line ? I very much doubt it, even in my day, a lot of the "increase" was JW's moving in from elsewhere, I doubt actual converting has become any easier !
so i'm sure many of us here have used the site https://ad1914.com/, apparently the domain had expired.
this site was instrumental to my waking up.
i have been able to use it to direct others to as well since it had a large collection of matters dealing with the validity of the "gentile times" claim.
Rattigan, you are simply trying to be a Provocative Troll! The whole 1914 thing, in its entirety, has been de-bunked thoroughly SO many times !
i can't believe it.
it doesnt even seem real.
my mother told me that the world would gone by the time i was 25. .
Dear Joliette, if it makes you feel any better, my youngest kid is older than you !
Actually 40, when you get there, is not so bad, you can still act like a Teenager and get away with it. Now I am well in to my 70's I get berated because my sense of humour is no more mature or sophisticated than that of a 12 year old kid ! I still laugh at Fart Jokes ! Also I get very pissed (drunk) sometimes, but, what the hell ?
I can be sensible and mature when I am 6ft under, in between, whatever age you are this applies : "Life is for Living, for Loving, for Laughing and for Enjoying."
i recently had an online exchange with an active jw about the blood issue.
he originally wanted to talk about the potential dangers of transfusions but i pointed out that the risks of transfusions have nothing whatsoever to do with the reason that jws reject blood, and therefore i didn’t see any value in debating that topic.. not able to let it go, he then insisted that the blood mandate was a common theme throughout the bible, quoting acts 15:29.. it’s been a while since i looked into the subject, and i admit i’m now a little rusty when it comes to recalling where to find biblical quotes, but i remembered that there are passages in both the new and old testaments that, when read in the context of the time they were written, call into question the watchtower’s rendition of acts 15:29.. i offered to do some bible research and get back to the jw, suggesting that rather than letting our discussion become combative, we could have an informative and interesting exchange of ideas.
i reassured him that i was not looking to undermine his convictions, in fact i was more than happy to be corrected if my thinking was wrong.
" the mention of blood at Acts 15 was a reiteration of the prohibition against eating it in the Law. "
And that destroys any argument that the Prohibition is about Transfusions. Thanks TD, couldn't be more concise.
And if you understand and acknowledge the context of Acts 15, any JW would have to be honest and say this advice was for 1st Century Christians, where fully practicing Orthodox Jewish people, who were also Christians, had fellowship with Gentile Christians. That situation never happens today.
the youngest reference i have come across is in the 1992 watchtower (march 1st page 27) - “in the summer of 1946, i was baptized at the international convention in cleveland, ohio.
although i was only six years of age…”.
i would like to find more examples of this, particularly of examples in more recent times.
Anyone under the age of say, at a minimum 18, is unlikely to REALLY be mature enough to make such a lifelong commitment to an Authoritarian Mind Control Cult, or to realise that is exactly what they are doing !
source - march 2021 announcements - - https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5085868283920384/2021-march-147-english-german-announcements-reminders.
this is a sobering reminder of what happened some 40 years ago when raymond franz and others were literally kicked out from the jehovah's witnesses for having pre-arranged private spiritual discussions.lesson: paragraph 7 is another example of the i and t in dr. steven hassan's bite model of the 21st century cult - information and thought control at its best!!!!
"my gosh, there must be a lot of independent meetings these days.
Let's hope this has the same effect upon some that it did , me included, when similar announcements, or should I say Rules, were made in the past.
It was the September 2007 bit in the " Kingdom Ministry" which did it for me. This, I think was in the form of one of those innocuous looking Question Box sections, where they often hid away dodgy stuff, and it basically said, do NO INDEPENDENT RESEARCH !!!!! and WE WILL DO YOUR THINKING FOR YOU ! Not in all Shouty Capitals like that , but that is what it was really saying.
And that was the proverbial Straw for me, I left for good a short while after. Nobody does my thinking for me !!!
