Posts by JakeM2012

24

Goodbye and thank you.

by wallievase in

jw
friends

it's come time for me to leave.

i honestly feel at this point continuing to visit this site and others like it is starting to hinder me from moving on by keeping all the feelings of pain, resentment, regret, etc fresh.. i haven't posted a lot since i have been on here but to those of you that replied when i did, i appreciate it very much.

you helped me through a very rough time that is affecting me to this day.

JakeM2012

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, Live the life you've always imagined.
~ Henry David Thoreau

96

21 Years as an Elder, 5 as an MS, I will never be that guy again.

by James Jack in

i was deleted as the cobe after i let my adult child move back home and he admitted that he fornicated under my roof while my wife and i where away on a rbc project.

of course the elder mode in me kicked him out of the house.. the elders moved quickly to remove me because i was too involved in "theocractic activities", i had neglected my adult son.. i accepted this primarily because i didn't want to serve with a boe that did not want me.

i was devastated however because it was the only life i knew.

JakeM2012

Welcome to the forum, James Jack.

92

GB says, "Our way of worship will soon be altered."

by Separation of Powers in

my mom called me yesterday to ask how i was doing.

i hadn't seen her in a while, so it was nice to hear her voice.

we went through the motions of jw small talk and then she started telling me about her co visit from last week.

JakeM2012

There was a C.O. that said 15 years ago, "We (meaning WTBTS know's) know that there are things that we must change, please be patient with us while we make these changes for the better". "(+/-)"

My question is, "Have the WTBTS "advisors" or who ever is really running this corporation told them that IF their followers, who are increasing in discontented followers, believe there will be changes in the future that they can maintain better control over the followers/believers?

This would be Similar to an alcoholic, wife abusing, white undershirt wearing husband, that is cheating on his wife promising her, "I promise things are going to change" and the woman will hang on and stay around?

The WTBTS has always marketed and sold "uncertainty" just like a weather forecaster does, (although the weather forecasters have a stellar reputation compared to the WTBTS), and WTBTS are just twisting it a bit saying there are changes coming, Nothing New Here. Same pricks in charge. Same BS.

18

What's so great about the Elder's School???

by DATA-DOG in

i have a friend who is an eldub and he just completed elder's school!

what did he learn?

as far as i can tell, he learned:.

JakeM2012

Why is it so great? The last one that I went to I learned in an eight hour day one thing and I heard it about a cadzillion times: "Call the legal department". Where else can you get such "spiritual" insight and direction.

5

It's Saturday morning and I'm not out doing this...

by freemindfade in

who else is happy to not be doing this?.

.

JakeM2012

Oh yes, Saturday's "God Bothering"

39

Trashed WT's found in Dr.s' waiting room Friday. Do you trash literature you find?

by Wasanelder Once in

took the magazines in the waiting room and dumped them in the trash.

was a great feeling.

to think many witnoids wont dare throw out the surplus magazines they have in stacks around the house is amazing.

JakeM2012

Yes, working out of town I visit the laundry and have found tracts entitled, "Comfort for the Depressed", I thought, that religion will cause you to be depressed and promptly threw them in the waste basket. BAMM, That's what I'm talking about.

54

Separated from a loveless Marriage

by PLAYGROUND in

i don't know where to start.

i got married a year and half ago.

some months into the marriage things where discovered.

JakeM2012

Playground, welcome to the community, sounds like you are in a tough situation. I'll relate a similar experience I had but it was not in a marriage but in a family business with a fleshly brother. My fleshly brother was constantly lying and unknown to me, was executing a unrelenting character assassination on me. Oh, he knew what he was doing. Some of his actions are nothing but evil. Proverbs 16: 27-27 says:

27 A worthless person concocts evil gossip[l]—
his lips are like a burning fire.

28 A deceitful man stirs dissension,
and anyone who gossips separates friends.

29 A violent man entices his companion

and leads him on a path that is not good.

After nearly five years of trying to work with him in a second generation family business, I was devastated when I found out the extent of his lying and his execution of my character. His mischief had been going on since Dad had died about five years before. The elders talked with me several times about allegations and I explained my point of view and tried to correct the fantasizing stories that my brother had but the elders would not believe me. They just looked at me like I was crazy.

I talked with a family counselor that was not a witness, and they skillfully and professionally explained the situation I was in. Basically, to make this short, I was dealing with a fleshly Witness brother who was a psychopath. The counselor indicated that there was little I could do, but protect myself and family by having no contact with them at all.

Here is a link you might find beneficial. http://psychopathvictims.com/psychopath/psychopathic-character-assassination.

So, There was nothing I could do to push back at the overwhelming false stories he had started about me and my wife, so we left our home of which I still love and started over. It was very costly financially to do this. Besides that, I lost all previous friends or people I thought were my friends, and god knows what was said after we left. But we are happy today and life is so peaceful without the cesspool of soap operas not only in my witness family but the congregation.

One final thought, a quote on the news tonight from Omar N. Bradley, "This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.

Omar N. Bradley

Again, welcome to JW.net

63

LDC Semininar

by Sour Grapes in

jw
friends

ldc semininar @ patterson nov 15-18, 2014 .

entire ldc dept included remote workers/design/legal/real estate/purchasing.

oversight.

JakeM2012

Thank you Brother Sour Grapes for passing your notes. Excellent

It is amazing the "Brazen" manipulation of the scriptures that this non-profit* real estate development company will stoop to.

The seminar was concluded with this thought and promise:

We are Guaranteed Success for these reasons:
1. Jehovah wants it done
2. Spiritual people will do it

You will see the “pillar of cloud & fire”

They asked: Will you go on this journey with us??? If you do, You will see the Red Sea part!!!!!

A few random thoughts:

I guess since armageddon has not come, although promised by WTBTS so many times, and Christ's has been invisibly enthroned since 1914 and Jw's are now "celebrating" his invisible enthronement and 100 years of "he, The King, hasn't accomplished anything whatsoever yet", that WTBTS might as well part the Red Sea also along with all their other "successes".

My opinion for the reasons they are supposedly dramatically reducing the free work force like Gideon's 300 as stated by the comments ""Right now the Regional Building Committee has 275,000 people in Builder Assistance – we are reducing that to a handful? Ridiculous? Do we really believe that Jehovah is in control?"

1) The work force they have used for the last 30 years is aging and dying and there are few "qualified" replacements. Perhaps they know that the true publisher numbers are showing a drastic negative growth as many here suspect. Just attend a Regional/District convention and see for yourself a "Sea" of an audience of gray haired people.

2) You can cut 20% off of a Kingdom Hall design which may cut some donated hours of labor but let's admit it, there is a "Brazen" amount of wasted labor on "Quick Builds";

They will cut mostly material cost of 20%, which you could probably cut the size of the Kingdom Halls by at least that by not providing a room for a Kingdom Hall book study, which is now obsolete, and removing the doubting/fringe/thinking elders making the body of elders smaller so that the remaining few super loyal elders won't need as big of a room. (edit, I'm glad I never made the P.O. I would have had the elders meetings at Hooters, or a nice bar that had a restaurant.)

(Many commercial buildings have flat roofs with no problems. The usual commercial method in most retail stores is metal "bar joists" with galvanized decking, then 2"-3" of insulation on top of the decking and then a preferably white reflective membrane roofing material. Some large companies take water reclaimed from the roof and use it to provide water for toilets, i.e. the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee reclaims their water and it provides water for 750,000 flushes per year.) Cost savings with this worldly system over the traditional wooden framed structures is that the Fire Marshall dictates the building codes which many RBC have tried to battle and have lost. Now that's Holy Spirit in Action.

The Fire Marshall wants a building that can remain standing before collapse for at least an hour which cost more with a wood structure. The Fire Marshals thinking is that they want enough time for people to evacuate and/or be rescued. (But JW's don't smoke, we don't need that extra fire protection). If the Fire Marshall even lets the wooden framed building be built, RBC's have been made to install a double layer of 5/8 fire code sheet rock on the bottom of their little wooden trusses and then JW's love that hanging acoustic ceilings to give the finished look. They used to even build without any sheetrock on the bottom of the trusses and very little insulation. The new architecture is open ceilings with exposed bar joists.

Further, even at taking a discount to the 275,000 Builder Assistants for the labor waste of how quick builds operate, my suspicion is they are either planning on:

1) Subcontracting the work done on the Kingdom Hall to outside contractors who have a more controlled labor cost and do this type of construction all the time hence very low profit margins , and then expecting the congregations to pick up the tab with a lot of donations and just a little free labor given. The last Kingdom Hall Construction Projects that I was involved in had food costs over 15% of the total cost.

OR,

2) WTBTS is not really planning to go through with the massive expansion plans they speak of, .... I don't think it is so much a "Watch the Red Sea Part" as it is "Watch the elderly JW's die in the overlapping waves of the generation in the Red Sea of humanity.

The one point that they are not going to pick from land that is available and on the market, but make offers on developed property not for sale, but which they need in a given area, took me as odd. Sounds like to me, "if we are going to spend money we are going to spend it in the "hot" real estate markets. I just remember how they built the 30 story building on 90 Sands, in Brooklyn New York not that many years ago and then recently sold it but have until 2017 to vacate. Ooooh, the end must be sooooo close!

*Non profit meaning the WTBTS does not pay taxes, but they obviously make a profit.

26

Ever tried "Dry January"? Join Ms. OM & me for a 30 day liver vacation!

by Open mind in

jw
friends

there are a few things i picked up from watchtowerism that i still find value in.

(although, i could have easily picked them up elsewhere.).

one of these is the 30-day test to abstain from all booze.. .

JakeM2012

Well done Yoda, I've decided to not to have any iced tea (especially with sugar or lemon) for 30 days in January. Previously in one of the congregations there were ones that felt they were addicted to tea.

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

JakeM2012

Internet Troll

An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Internet+Troll)

At Bethel we used to use the Theocratic Warfare Expression, "Shit Stirrers" for someone like Doc House , but we cleaned it up and abbreviated the expression and just called them S.S. er's, so we would not stumble any newbie's or publishers touring WTBTS factories and offices. Sometimes we would just call them to their faces axsholes.

Just Saying