Posts by JakeM2012

When the rooming department first came out with the approved lodging lists early 70's I can remember very nice hotels for a greatly reduced price. It made the conventions fun to look forward to as a child, youth, teenager. All your friends stayed at the same few luxury hotels, at night you got to spend time with them at the pool, etc. I believe it was at the 1972 District Convention at the Astrodome and Astrohall. WTBTS expected 70,000 + people...only 40k showed up. They came out with the approved lodging list that did NOT have the AstroVillage Hotel, (Brand NEW and Right across the Street), I had a family member that had many young children stay there. Oh, he was so disobedient.

With so many different situations within the congregation, I never understood why WTBTS was so opinionated on where the sheep slept. You have older ones, younger families with children, etc.I can remember some years that WTBTS would get upset with a hotel over (rumored from brothers that locally did the negotiations) as little as $4-5 a night, and would tell the congregations that they were not on the recommended lodging list. The brothers and sisters had to cancel their reservations and ask for a refund.

So the situation that we now had was a mostly elderly group traveling not only in a city that they are not familiar with but, but had to travel for over an hour to and from the convention from their "approved" hotel. One brother was particularly upset because he had care of family members that required wheel chairs and other issues. Others were upset because they had several young children but couldn't use the hotel next door to the convention center and had to drive an hour away for an "approved" hotel by the mighty WTBTS.

When WTBTS decided they couldn't work with the convention site or hotel because they wanted an extra $5 per person over what the mightly WTBTS wanted to agree to, WTBTS would pull their plug on that site and move to another city requiring the brothers to personally pay out well over the $5 in extra fuel and inconvenience.

Other situations that should be considered; some people that travel alot can get their own free or reduced rates if they stay in the same hotel chain. Some people use the credit cards for hotel rewards they could use for a convention. To get their rewards though, the publishers had to to have the freedom of using the rewards of the hotel chain chosen and not necessarily WTBTS approved lodging. Some brothers cars are in poor mechanical condition, they don't care about an extra few bucks a night if they don't have to drive the car that much. The problem was dumping the hotels and insisting on the "friends" driving for hours on end to "approved" hotels. The brothers were just praying that their cars would make it to and from the convention cities. Several families that I picked up blamed that rotten Satan for trying to keep them from the convention, when it was just their lack of maintenance.

One of the last times I even looked at the list was 7-8 years ago when I was traveling and went to a convention in the Fort Worth, Texas area. I went to the "rooming department" and asked for the approved list. The brother sheepishly gave me a list of Motel 6's with a price of $89.00 a night. Motel 6's are one of the cheapest motels. I immediately checked on the internet and Motel 6's were $59 a night. I thought it was Motel 6's way of telling WT they didn't want them there. For the $89.00 I could stay in an upscale downtown hotel within walking distance of the convention. But I enjoyed my stay in the downtown hotel, walking back to the room for a nap when I was tired, having breakfast in the hotel, etc.

Oh the hoops we jump through with this high control group.

24

THE DC Hotel List

by tresdecu in

jw
friends

so tonight finally had to make a decision about the dc.

we missed saturday and sunday of the one we were assigned to.

i was going to convieniently try to forget (been working most saturdays last few months) but she persisted tonight.

JakeM2012

God Bless Hotwire.com and his simplifying of the arrangement. You can use your smartphone in the car to the convention, at the convention, even at the bar, to book your room.

Oh, and Losingit, yes WTBTS has theocratic arrangements for sending or recommending certain hotels in exchange for money or other favors like rooms. In this day, other than money, why would they go to all the trouble? If you really want to blow your mind check out the threads on why these international conventions cost two to three times more than if you just used a travel agent.

20

had another conversation with my wife this morning

by Crazyguy in

she was getting already for service so i asked her "how do you do it?

" "how do you still go and do all this spiritual stuff now that you know that my research and letter to bethel shows that the jw religion denies us the messiah"?

she got all defensive and disagreed again with what i wrote to bethel and then i had to step in and tell her that its "its them that teaches that we don't have a mediator in christ and were not under the new covenant".

JakeM2012

Crazyguy,

I don't know how long you've been into this scenario, and everyone's situation is different. I don't know if my experience will help. But here it is.

Five years ago I sat down with my wife and told her that I thought that there were fundamental flaws to our beliefs and that I was going to resign my position. She listened to me patiently as I explaned that I felt that we were on a snipe hunt of 130 years, and that now the Society was changing teachings because nothing happened. I didn't hit her with everything I had discovered and kept it simple.

But I waited, took a job that made it easy to miss all the meetings, and I stopped cold turkey attending meetings. She continued for about a year attending on her own, going by herself with our daughter, before she herself stopped. This was the part that really killed me, seeing her march off to the meeting like a good christian sister.

I thought that it might be a case that I don't have to convince her of much, if she got away from it long enough she would see the light. By my not attending meetings it made it more her decision to keep going. She got tired of the elders hounding her about my not coming, and she changed congregations, and then she stopped.

This last week we had a nice discussion about some recent conversations with her mom and dad. They are still active as witnesses as is all her family. But she has been more outspoken to them about our situation than I thought.

It has been a slow process, and I know that there are conversations that I talked too much, disclosed too much, etc. It was better for me to say just a little and then change the subject. There have been several times that she has corrected me about my attitude, and I knew then that I needed to shut up.

14

My Story So far

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

i hope i have not fully screwed up, it seems like my friends whom i have told my true feelings realy, really, deep down inside, love me, and that's why they have not gone to the elders.

also probably because they know that i love them and would never tell them something if i wasn't 100% convinced and knew that it wasn't true.. .

i guess i can tell you a bit of my story so you can help:.

JakeM2012

IloveTTAT, I appreciate your story, from my experience, don't try to process it in one setting. I'm still trying to read Hannsens book.

I'm only in my fith year of non attendance/support of JW's and I stuggle with who to talk to about what. My wife has not attended in years either, and she is beginning to recognize things that we have not even talked about but she will bring up, and I don't believe she is reading any outside material either. But when I talk with her its best to keep it to a minimal, if it comes from me it's "negative" but if she thinks of it it's ok.

I have a sister that I would love to wake up, but I have pushed too hard in some emails lately, and she replied about "the organization being made up of imperfect people trying to do the best, don't give up on the organization."

I'll agree, once you know the TTAT, it is hard to keep a lid on it. But as mentioned, too much talk will get you DF'd for apostasy. That is an individual decision that some are ready to make, others, maybe not. For me, I'm not so concerned about wakeing elderly witnesses up, with much of my family, it is a waste of time. But if someone is young I'll take extra time to try to get them to think and do research so that they don't complicate their lives anymore with falsehoods and subsequent decisions.

Thanks again for your story.

48

watchtower tones down apostate talk at august 3rd convention!

by nowwhat? in

no mention of them being mentally diseased or using "lies" to deceive god's people, just that they are out to attract followers for themselves!.

p.s.

i was cringing at the thought of sitting for 3 1/2 hours for the afternoon session but fortunately my one kid got sick!!

JakeM2012

I agree S&R, I don't want any followers and I don't believe there is any large crowd of ex witnesses that want them either. They made their selling pitch, hooked my family in many decades ago, time has proven that they don't have any special knowledge of the scriptures or channel of communication with God, so I'm done, the relationship is over.

They made false pretenses about themselves and their qualifications to us to get us to believe, (don't bring up how the organization is made up of imperfect people blah blah blah with some new light idea). What bothers me is that WTBTS just doesn't handle rejection very good at all, they are like the ex-girlfriend from hell. WTBTS needs to quit their trash talking, name calling, hate ridden talks and printing and just get over it, not everyone is buying their con game any longer! And if they believe that this kind of talk will draw people that have doubts to the organization they are misinformed.

Much of my family is still actively involved in the JW "way of life" as I've been told it is. On the negative side, NONE of my JW active family, absolutely 0 of them get along with anyone else in the family. There are several circuit and district heavies, and a few are in Bethel. It has for decades been the family of "hate". But this has been a positive thing for me, because, at least I know that my belief in the religion is not what has divided the family. What has divided the family is that they are immitating the hateful ways of their "mother", WTBTS. They just don't know how to behave like a loving family.

62

7/15 WT- Insane, Far Fetched, Narcissistic "New Light " about the FDS

by flipper in

jw
friends

i know this article has been discussed, re-hashed upside down in past threads.

but there were at least 2 points i discovered in here that i felt were pertinent and important to bring out concerning the total control and narcissistic tendencies that these wt leaders possess on the governing body, i.e.

alleged " faithful slave " .

JakeM2012

Flipper, Bump to Top

140

Why So Many Young People Are Leaving The Watchtower

by Jeremy C in

i have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.

last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.

one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.

JakeM2012

Data-Dog, writes, " When the individual needs help the most, they are cast off. No wonder most never return."

Thanks for highlighting this problem with JW's. For years I have felt and have witnessed that JW's stop their "assistance" of people just when they need it the most. The problem is like a hospital's doctors and nursing staff rejecting people to only go on the street when they still have broken bones, just because this particular hospital "expertise" is in another field and they don't have anyone qualified to do the surgery to repair.

Example, a young woman gets pregnant out of wedlock, and is consequently disfellowshipped. Now the family has pressure put upon it to further push the young woman out on the street. Instead of behaving like a normal family and welcoming the child and daughter into the family, and the (grand) parents help their daughter get back on her feet, finish school, etc. Then at a more mature age, the woman possibly marries. But a little bump in the road, is not treated with total failure, and people are not discarded if not perfect.

Another example, I know of several men who served conscientiously as elders and really went out of their way to help people. As the years rolled on and their expectations and hopes for the end drifts into the oblivion, they find themselves on the other side of a bottle of alcohol, trying to drown their sorrows of reality fighting with false expectations.

After all the people that they helped and spent time with they themselves are thrown to the curb. I'm not talking about time spent being in an elder meetings, I'm talking about quality time spent working with people. The brother crosses the "line" in his drinking, but, at this point it is just an a momentary indescretion. The other elders respond by having to purge this "evil" out of their midst immediately. The congregation of JW's are very capable of metting out the judgement, providing the jury, judge and punishment. After disfellowshipping the elder, he feels even lower and even further abuses alcohol.

The fundamental issue is there's no assistance to get anyone back to a balance, there is absolutely no support structure or culture. It's like a quality control person rejecting a third or more of the product made, but there is effort to look at the manufacturing process. Witnesses are just messed up.

15

Would You Have Agreed to Get Baptized IF:

by Perry in

they would have told you beforehand that jesus was not your mediator?.

JakeM2012

Interesting question Perry, because WT does not have a specific paragraph that comes out and says this but maybe once in 20 years.

It is a very well hid but basic truth of Jehovah's Witnesses. WT will dance around using terminology like the ransom sacrifice and how all mankind will benefit from it, or that the term mediator is a legal term that applies to the ones purchased from the earth, but then they will indicate that all of mankind is basically purchased from the earth. Many unsuspecting readers will assume that Christ is the mediator for all men, as Timothy says, but you have to read the fine legal print that Watchtower does not include everyone as they put in brakets {but Not ALL men}.

62

7/15 WT- Insane, Far Fetched, Narcissistic "New Light " about the FDS

by flipper in

jw
friends

i know this article has been discussed, re-hashed upside down in past threads.

but there were at least 2 points i discovered in here that i felt were pertinent and important to bring out concerning the total control and narcissistic tendencies that these wt leaders possess on the governing body, i.e.

alleged " faithful slave " .

JakeM2012

Thanks Flipper, good shake down. I'll agree, when the FDS applied to all the annointed, we all knew that basically it was the 8-12 men that had control over the presses, but it fit well and was believeable that God was working through the remnant of future kings and priests, no glory seekers in JW land. It makes me wonder now, how many years are we from hearing the WT teach that Brother So-N-So, who is "Closely Identified" with the Governing Body, is really the Faithful and Discrete Slave?

I was discussing with Brandt Jones a few weeks ago on this same broader subject that 20-30 years ago the WT "truth" fit together even though there were many missing pieces in the jigsaw puzzle. However, with the passage of time, the stretch of believability has been increased to the point that the believability factor "snaps" like a guitar string thats been tightened too much.

For instance, in the 1900's whether the generation teaching applied to worldly people or the annointed, or to 10-15 year olds in 1914 or infants in 1914-1918, it wasn't that big of a deal because you knew a generation could only live for so long, 80 years with diminishing returns. Even after the debacle of 1975, without the "generation" completely deceased it was difficult to doubt with confidence that JW's were absolutely, 100%, incorrect, and full of it. But then the generation gets older and older and eventually the generation so talked about is dead and gone.

In 1994-95 Watchtower quietly disconnects from the generation teaching saying that the generation cannot necessarily be determined by a certain number of years. However, they still preached and encouraged expectation would come before the end of the millenium. That "evidently" bought them a few more years of still further stretched believability of "well there's a possibility". But this latest asinine "timely spiritual food" from the "Faithful and Discrete Slave" of overlapping generations is just absurd. JUST Unbelievably ABSURD!

I know for a number of years before waking up to the real truth, I found myself with a wait and see attitude. Carry on, endure, wait and see. Well, I have waited patiently like many others, and feel confident now to whole-heartedly dismiss the teachings and beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses as completly and totally false. JW's basic premise is incorrect, so nothing built upon their castle "paradise of sand" can be true either.

I think that WT is at the stage of let's "wait and see".... how it slowly implodes. The GB is there own worst enemy. Keep those presses rolling boys, your doing more damage than all the apostates could.

Thanks Flipper