Posts by Phizzy

7

Beard quote from WT 1975

by joey jojo in

extreme hair styles can easily lead one into a trap of the devil also, and cause others to stumble.

for example, a young man in the united states was making fine progress in his study of the bible, and he was moved to share with an experienced witness in preaching to others about the good things he was learning from the bible.

from early youth he had let his beard grow, and since some in the business community wore beards, he felt that his wearing one in preaching to others would be acceptable generally.

Phizzy

I remember that Article well, and being in the U.K that seemed so USA centric, the example of the fictitious lady, that I decided to grow a beard ! I kept it for well over a decade, all the time serving as an appointed man here, with never a comment from Elders or visiting C.O's.

I was invited to give Public Talks in nearby Congregations too.

It was different here, then, in those days, I'm not sure if the attitude changed some years later, but some Elders had beards then. And even in recent years guys with beards were appointed as Elders, long before the current relaxation of rules took place.

It always amused me, and still does, how the Org. and its members use the old "stumbling" rubbish, one wise Elder said to me he had been accused of "stumbling" someone ,wrongly, it was an excuse for the family to stay away from Meetings, but he said " I do not expect perfection from them, they cannot do so from me"..

That put that "stumbling" nonsense in perspective for me, and boy, gave me some freedom !

26

Norway didn't fall for it

by Jalisco in

la norvegia non è caduta nella trappola della torre di guardia di agosto.. https://files.accessjw.org/s/sdzfgcgk4bi48jb.

Phizzy

Indeed the Court was NOT fooled ! They saw through the obvious obfuscation of the truth of how utterly horrible and inhumane is the J.W Disfellowship practice.

For too long the J.W org has got away with speaking out of "both sides of its mouth", presenting a seemingly mild face for Public consumption, and then imposing evil rules and practices on J.W's themselves.

As a young person, especially a teenager, who was brought up in the J.W's, usually has no friends outside of the org. that she or he is close to, the normal loving contact with family is removed, AND all support from the kid's Social network !

Such harsh isolating of an individual, who finds themselves alone in the world, rejected by all family and friends, has resulted in some young people, and some older ones, taking their own lives. The Disfellowship practice also is against internationally upheld Human Rights, however the Org. tries to dress it up. All they have done is sprayed a Dog Turd with glitter, in an effort to fool the Courts, so that they can still get $$$ from Governments.

The Court has made to right decision.

31

Where do you see the Organization in the next 10 years?

by ukpimo in

realistically, between now and 2034, what do you think watchtower will change or reform to appear more mainstream?

what business opportunities do you see watchtower getting involved in?.

my predictions are as follows: .

Phizzy

I agree, and in fact doubt they will abandon Sunday Meetings, but will still count as "attenders" those who join on Zoom etc. and therefore will have no way of knowing if their Mind Controlling spiel is really working on such people, many of whom wish to appear to attend, as they wish to keep the J.W's as their Social Club.

But they make many a silly move, so abandoning weekend Meetings is still not something it would not surprise me to see.

It will be fascinating to watch their desperation as numbers of actual believing J.W's wither away !

Of course the "Social" members are highly unlikely to donate, or at least not much, so Cash Flow will be an on-going problem, you only sell Kingdom Halls for so long.

31

Where do you see the Organization in the next 10 years?

by ukpimo in

realistically, between now and 2034, what do you think watchtower will change or reform to appear more mainstream?

what business opportunities do you see watchtower getting involved in?.

my predictions are as follows: .

Phizzy

Tonus OH said : " Having one meeting during the week and none on the weekend seems unusual to me. A one or two-hour meeting on a Sunday morning would be pretty typical for most Christians, wouldn't it? "

Unusual yes, but anachronistic, stemming from the days when people worked long hours, six days a Week, and Sunday was the only time they had to go to Church.

It may in fact be a good move, conventional Churches have a dwindling attendance at Weekends, for obvious reasons, people don't want to waste a Sunday, or Saturday.

"Unconventional" has never bothered the J.W Org. In fact, it was a selling point as far as Rutherford, and later Knorr and Franz were concerned, an identifying "marker" that the "true" religion was different.

In can easily be spun as a "Loving provision from Jehovah, leaving time for families to be together, to Study together, and to have some leisure time together, isn't our loving god wonderful brothers ?".

I put nothing past them in their efforts to retain members.

11

Parliamentary question on paedophilia among JWs in Italy

by Achille in

(google translation).

question to the chamber by m5s mp stefania ascari to the ministry of the interior on paedophilia among jehovah's witnesses in italy, starting from the recent case in florence, with references to the various cases that have broken out around the world.. i sense a certain creaking at the italian bethel in rome at via della bufalotta 1281, the italian branch of the watch tower bible and tract society of pennsylvania.

will this have future implications for the italian jehovah's witnesses exponential body, the christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses and for its branch committee, which represents the interests of the governing body in our country?https://aic.camera.it/aic/scheda.html?numero=4/03795&ramo=camera&leg=19.

Phizzy

Thanks for the Info !

The credibility of the Org. seems to be crumbling daily, and it is good that their efforts at obfuscating the various issues are no longer working, informed Politicians ,Lawyers and Judges etc. can now see that the Org. is a terrible Organisation that cares only for its own reputation and for its $$$.

As Biahi says above, they show not one bit of empathy, compassion or love, or even concern, for the Victims of their conduct.

51

2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

by Sanchy in

jw
friends

watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

Phizzy

Whatever the true membership figure, J.W's are taught to think of themselves as being the True Religion as decided by Jehovah, and yet even at 9 or 10 Million, they are still just a small religion in relation to the Big Boys, why ?

Surely Truth should appeal to many more millions around the World ?

You have to engage in a peculiar line of reasoning to dismiss the above.

It is my humble opinion that all organised religion is moribund, as Education improves in tandem with Internet Access, people no longer feel the need to have membership in a Church of any kind.

The J.W Org. is always re-inventing itself in an effort to stem the flow of those who no longer wish to be active members, but so far their attempts have not had any notable success.

They are now withering away as did the various groups SBF mentioned above, attend any K.H in the Educated World and observe the overall demographic of attenders and you will see what is happening.

51

2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

by Sanchy in

jw
friends

watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

Phizzy

And publish this entirely Fictional figure to hide the exodus of active members that is occurring.

33

Historian and former JW Jim Penton dies

by slimboyfat in

i don’t know a lot about james penton but i think he deserves a better thread than the one currently on offer.

james penton, who died recently, grew up in a jw family in canada and served as an elder.

unusually for a jw, he studied liberal arts at university and became a history professor.

Phizzy

Thanks SBF and others on this Thread that have given me more insight in to the Jim Penton, the man.

I agree that he was a bit, as we say down here in Kent, "full of himself", and that came over somewhat in his writing on occasion.

I think the accusation of "Bias" against the J.W Org. is a bit misleading, yes, Jim did not present his work in the way most Academics do, hiding their feelings by "balancing" criticism in some way, often Academics are afraid of criticism from their peers and community, so do not express their true opinions, I see this time and again, but Jim knew his Work would be quote mined by the Org. if he did that.

His contribution to those who wish to investigate the Org. was immense.

Condolences to all who knew and loved him.

18

Meeting attendance

by Farmer Jim1 in

jw
friends

for those still in the organization what is your meeting attendance like these days?.

when i left in 2017 there were around 80 publishers and the average meeting attendance was 70..

Phizzy

I too have wondered what physical attendance at my old K.H is like now, two Congregations use the Hall, and I have no way of knowing what the official Publisher count is for them. But back when I was in there was always 25% of that number missing at any one meeting, different folks each time, but that figure was about constant.

What is of greater interest to me is the number who have left since I did, over a decade and a half ago, others have died of course, and I cannot think they have been replaced by converts, so I am thinking the two Congregations in reality are no larger than when I left.

6

Apostles

by peacefulpete in

hear the word "apostles" and immediately the mind thinks of the contradictory lists of 12 men in the gospels.

however, the word (apóstolos) had a much broader usage in the greek speaking world, pagan, jewish and christian.

for simplicity i'd copy a few definitions.. the word apóstolos occurs only in the lxx in 1 kings 14:6, where it is used in a non-technical sense to represent the heb.

Phizzy

Agreed ! It seems that Paul used the word of himself in a new way, and later Writers like "Luke" picked up on the idea, and invented the Apostles of the Christian Movement.

K. Lake in the Books "Christian Beginnings", writing in the 1930's observed :

" Thus we have the extremely interesting linguistic fact that a Pauline-Lucan branch of Christian literature seems to have popularized and given a technical meaning to a word which was otherwise scarcely used, except in a different sense, in the whole course of previous Greek literature".