NotFormer

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Posts by NotFormer

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  8

  Halloween

  by NotFormer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  just a bit of idle speculation.. on another thread, a publisher was reported to the elders for smoking 🚬, when all they were actually doing was holding a drinking straw in mcdonald's.. is it plausible to be questioned by elders about wearing something that looks a bit too much like a costume on the 31st of october?

  🧛🧜.

  for that matter, wearing red and green on the 25th of december?

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  NotFormer

  jonahstourguide, sounds like walking on eggshells. 😱 Almost anything could be a smoking gun.
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  266

  Where is Tony?

  by Athanasius in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on february 22, 2023, anthony morris iii was officially removed from the governing body of jehovah's witnesses.

  a few months later it was revealed that the watchtower bought him a house in lumberton, north carolina.. however, and correct me if i am wrong, since leaving the gb nobody has reported seeing tony attending jw meetings or participating in field service.

  in fact nobody has reported seeing him anywhere, not even at a local liquor store.

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  NotFormer

  jonahstourguide, a carefully choreographed and scripted event, then? Did someone hold up a LAUGH sign when he dropped that joke? 🙄

  From my understanding, the GB has their own special staff that help keep them on track. Wouldn't part of their job be to vett GB talks, if not outright write them?
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  266

  Where is Tony?

  by Athanasius in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  on february 22, 2023, anthony morris iii was officially removed from the governing body of jehovah's witnesses.

  a few months later it was revealed that the watchtower bought him a house in lumberton, north carolina.. however, and correct me if i am wrong, since leaving the gb nobody has reported seeing tony attending jw meetings or participating in field service.

  in fact nobody has reported seeing him anywhere, not even at a local liquor store.

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  NotFormer

  From the thread:

  "At the start of this talk Lett talks about how for 50 years his wife came on every trip with him but she has had alzheimers for 12 years now so isn’t with him."

  "He joked that he's ‘trying to keep her alive till the end, because he's too old to break in a new wife.’"

  "The audience laughed."

  Well, this Australian wouldn't have laughed; please don't judge all of us by that audience! 😱🙄

  What a moronic, completely tone-deaf thing to say about your ailing spouse!

  I find that a lot of JWs don't possess a lot of simple empathy. This quote suggests that that extends all the way to the top!
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  1

  Halloween, Part 2

  by NotFormer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i seem to recall that some zealous witnesses would go door to door on christmas (some decades ago) 1. because they had the day off anyway.

  2. to show that they had no special regard for that day.

  3. it was one day they could be sure to catch people at home.. i imagine that witnessing on the 31st of october is probably seen as a bad idea for reasons of it's own.

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  NotFormer

  I seem to recall that some zealous witnesses would go door to door on Christmas (some decades ago) 1. Because they had the day off anyway. 2. To show that they had no special regard for that day. 3. It was one day they could be sure to catch people at home.

  I imagine that witnessing on the 31st of October is probably seen as a bad idea for reasons of it's own. Did you ever know anyone who actually did field service on Halloween? What was their reasoning?

  What would be the reasoning for not going door to door on that day?
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  8

  Halloween

  by NotFormer in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  just a bit of idle speculation.. on another thread, a publisher was reported to the elders for smoking 🚬, when all they were actually doing was holding a drinking straw in mcdonald's.. is it plausible to be questioned by elders about wearing something that looks a bit too much like a costume on the 31st of october?

  🧛🧜.

  for that matter, wearing red and green on the 25th of december?

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  NotFormer

  road to nowhere: were you actually questioned about those things? 😱 Those are pretty much the sort of thing the question is about!

  "I imagine it is plausible to be questioned by the elders for just about anything"

  From what I've read hear, I would believe that nothing would be off the table if they were determined to make a case about something.

  And it's pretty far fetched as asked. But a hospital worker wearing scrubs on their way to work on that particular day...?
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  18

  Were JW Celebrities Ever An Asset To The Organisation?

  by NotFormer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just wondering if the rich celebrities that occasionally were aligned with the wt gave enough to the 'tower to be a worthwhile presence within the organisation?.

  my gut instinct is: "no".

  i imagine that the jackson family gave a fair bit, but it was obviously never enough to buy michael the right to be held as being in good standing.

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  NotFormer

  Actually, having read what little is written about M.J. "disassociating" himself, I'm not entirely convinced that he wasn't disfellowshipped. A few paragraphs written by a third party about what was a P.R. disaster. Did he choose to disassociate or was he "disassociated by his actions"? WT words are often weasel words.

  So I'll change my original "they dfed him anyway" to "they pressured him to resign* anyway".

  *It's the same effect as disfellowshipment anyway; his family that were still in would have shunned him.
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  18

  Were JW Celebrities Ever An Asset To The Organisation?

  by NotFormer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just wondering if the rich celebrities that occasionally were aligned with the wt gave enough to the 'tower to be a worthwhile presence within the organisation?.

  my gut instinct is: "no".

  i imagine that the jackson family gave a fair bit, but it was obviously never enough to buy michael the right to be held as being in good standing.

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  NotFormer

  I always thought he'd been dfed. Disassociation is exactly the same in effect. They must have pressured him to that point. Who's to say that he wasn't asked to disassociate by them, to divert public attention away from their disfellowshipping practices?

  Small factual error made while asking a question about something else aside, the WT relationship with their celebrity members must be uncomfortable, from both sides. To be honest, the relationship between the WT and its ordinary members isn't always comfortable. Look at the joy with which the non-reporting of hours and the right to grow beards was received!
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  4

  Any JW's been “debaptised” in Belgium?

  by was a new boy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  'the belgian church, facing rising protests after a television film on sexual abuse and cover-ups in its ranks, has appealed against a government data protection agency ruling that the diocese of ghent must let a person be “debaptised”.

  the church considers baptism a permanent act that cannot be done away with, but the agency ruled in december that the plaintiff’s personal data record overrides the church’s interest in preserving its records.. .

  the number of “debaptism” requests had been falling since a peak of 5,237 in 2021, when the vatican said it could not bless same-sex unions, but they have reportedly spiked again after the television series gotvergeten (“forgotten by god”) last september depicted the scandals in belgium.

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  NotFormer

  "They would save a lot of energy, angst, and money if they simply got Elders out of the spy and cop business"

  That's pretty well where the rubber hits the road. They probably don't realise it, but they are only one P.R. disaster away from serious scrutiny and consequences. Of course, it may never happen. They have been extraordinarily lucky over the years (Jehovah's blessing, and all that 🙄). But luck has a way of running out eventually...
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  18

  Were JW Celebrities Ever An Asset To The Organisation?

  by NotFormer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just wondering if the rich celebrities that occasionally were aligned with the wt gave enough to the 'tower to be a worthwhile presence within the organisation?.

  my gut instinct is: "no".

  i imagine that the jackson family gave a fair bit, but it was obviously never enough to buy michael the right to be held as being in good standing.

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  NotFormer

  "Now we have it the entire GB want to be celebrities"

  It's theoretically doable. Change the rules, become a member of the right kinds of groups, get invited to and hold the right kinds of dinners, hold the right kinds of events; it might work. Become celebrities by association.

  But the true visual is probably more like that of that idiot Herbert W Armstrong, getting himself filmed with various leaders while jetting 🛩️ around the world 🌍🌎🙄
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  3

  Article: Jehovah’s Witnesses Release Digital Brochure to Mark World Holocaust Day

  by Tahoe in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as the world com- memorated the 97th international holocaust remembrance day (also known as world holocaust day or ihrd) yesterday, one of the groups targeted by the nazi regime, jehovah’s witnesses, has said it should not be lost on the world that they were among the first to be sent to the death camp.. accordingly, as conferences and exhibitions related to the 79th anniversary of the auschwitz liberation take place around the world, jehovah’s witnesses have released a 32-page digital brochure titled: “purple triangles – “forgotten victims” of the nazi regime”.

  in a statement, the national spokesman of the witnesses in nigeria, mr. olusegun eroyemi said the group then referred to as bible students, suffered inhumane treatment at the auschwitz- birkenau concentration camp by the nazi regime “solely on the basis of their religious convictions.. “during its nearly five years of operation, auschwitz expanded to include a concentration camp, a forced-labor camp, and an extermination camp, as well as over 40 subcamps.

  here, the nazi regime carried out some of the most agonizing human rights abuses against millions of jews, as well as poles, slavs, roman and sinti, homosexuals, and people with disabilities, among others.

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  NotFormer

  "What JW won't tell is that first Rutherford placated Hitler, claiming they had mutual goals and when Rutherford didn't get what he wanted from Hitler, he antagonized him, leading to the imprisonment and killing of JWs"

  My personal gut feeling is that Rutherford may well have wanted Hitler to win, and sucked up to him because he wanted to be on the winning side. I can't prove anything, but Rutherford strikes me as exactly that kind of person...