shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  70

  Pseudo history in Watchtower today 😂

  by Gorbatchov in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  gorby went to the kh for family reasons today.. and landed right away middle in a pseudo history watchtower article.

  just that aspect of the jw belief he is so sensative about.. so 1918 and 1919 are changed with one mark of a pencil.

  the argument of change was in the past the argument of the doctrine.

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  shepherdless

  For some reason, I can not find a link to the Watchtower article. Can anyone point me to it?

  Edit: I think this is it:

  http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2016203

  
  
  
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  20

  Death and Judgement Day

  by Tirisilex in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm having a hard time with this.

  what does the bible say what happens when you die?

  when jesus was on the cross he said to the man that when he dies he will be with jesus in heaven.

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  shepherdless

  What does the Bible say what happens when you die?

  The answer that mainstream Christians would point you to is probably 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 (I think that there are other passages as well.)

  Essentially, according to 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, the moment you die, your spirit/soul goes to the "Lord" and you jet judged on the spot. (No waiting until Judgement Day, for those that have died beforehand.)

  Personally, I think 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 is pretty clear and unambiguous. It contradicts JW theology, but there is nothing unusual in finding contradictions between the bible and JW theology.

  When Jesus was on the Cross he said to the man that when he Dies he will be with Jesus in Heaven.

  The exact wording from Luke 23:43 according to NWT: 'And he said to him: "Truly I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise"'. That comma is a Watchtower add in. "Truly I tell you" is one of Jesus' favorite phrases, and appears a number of times in each of the 4 gospels. In my view, it is obvious that what Jesus actually said in that passage is "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise". This would also be consistent with mainstream Christian theology, but contradict JW theology.

  
  
  
  
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  48

  Dose Wt really have that much cash.

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i realize that wt has got a wind fall of cash through various means.

  so my question is in the greater scheme of things is it really that much.

  for example let's say with all their real estate and cash on hand they are worth about $20 billion dollars.

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  shepherdless

  Are you sure translation isn't a significant cost?

  In short, no, I am not sure (and not what I said, btw). The primary reason is, I don't know how Watchtower goes about it. If it was done in a lean manner, I would imagine that there would be 2 people assigned to each language; perhaps 3 for a major language, and 1 for a language that is really just a variation of a more common language. So for 100 languages, you might have 200 people working on them, and I wonder if there would be enough translation work to keep the 200 fully occupied.

  However, Watchtower probably has some inefficient bureaucratic process where 1000's of people are involved. There must be someone else reading this who knows far more about it.

  My original point was that printing less literature doesn't actually save Watchtower much money. That less pages means less translation work is a good point. I wonder, however, whether Watchtower has just kept the same translation teams, but they have less work to do, now, limiting the savings. Dropping some languages must result in some savings.

  This is a side issue, btw, and I freely admit I have no expertise or inside knowledge about the labor cost of translation work.
  
  
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  48

  Dose Wt really have that much cash.

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i realize that wt has got a wind fall of cash through various means.

  so my question is in the greater scheme of things is it really that much.

  for example let's say with all their real estate and cash on hand they are worth about $20 billion dollars.

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  shepherdless

  In response to DoC, yes I am not familiar with how healthcare works in USA. Just a question: does Medicare cover those elderly who need assistance in their home? Does that cover those who have to go into aged care or nursing homes?

  sbf: translation is another thing I wonder (not knowing anything more about how bethel works than what I read on these pages) that is overstaffed? My personal experience is that if I have to get something translated for where I work, it is not that expensive, and even a 10 page complicated document is back within 24 hours. Obviously the Borg cant do that, but I still suspect the Borg is saving peanuts in this regard, with shorter and fewer publications.

  I don't think any of us really know what is going on in WT headquarters, but the symptoms are of a business with significant cashflow concerns. The biggest puzzle at the moment, is why?
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  48

  Dose Wt really have that much cash.

  by joe134cd in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i realize that wt has got a wind fall of cash through various means.

  so my question is in the greater scheme of things is it really that much.

  for example let's say with all their real estate and cash on hand they are worth about $20 billion dollars.

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  shepherdless

  My 2 cents worth:

  Firstly, I broadly agree with SBF. The most likely explanation for Watchtower's behavior is that they have significant cash-flow issues.

  Secondly, on other threads (which I can't currently locate) darkspilver has given good explanations of why even very cheap labor costs Watchtower a lot of money, and of why donations to Watchtower would be decreasing.

  Prior to 1990, Watchtower had huge income from selling its publications door to door; generating great wealth for Russell and Rutherford so that they could live in luxury with their respective mistresses, build and live in Beth Sarim, buy those Cadillacs, go on expensive boat cruises, etc. According to one source, Watchtower was generating around $2 million per week in the mid 1980's from these door to door sales. Now it doesn't have any of that income. It just has donations from an increasingly old and poor (due to a lack of academic qualifications) rank and file.

  Darkspilver highlighted costs of feeding, clothing and accommodating 30,000 bethelites. It costs more than a lot of people would think. These people were once essential to the main income earner; the publishing business. Now they are just a drain on the borg. Worse for the Borg, they seem to have a lot of retired senior Bethelites to support. Just for example, see the following discussion on Fishkill:

  https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/289472/watchtower-buys-apt-complex-fishkill-ny

  There are apparently 250 retired bethelites there alone. The annual cost of medical care for this lot, alone, must be in the millions.
  

  Thirdly, Watchtower may well $20 billion in assets (probably more) when you count the value of all the Kingdom Halls. However, as most accountants could tell you, most businesses that go broke, do so because of a lack of liquidity, not a deficiency in assets. Sure, they can sell Kingdom Halls, but they can only sell a few at a time, and only in a way that limits the loss of membership.

  Another minor point to add. Printing less literature doesn't actually save much money if you have your own expensive printing presses already. In the early days, when printing involved a lot of manual labor, it made perfect business sense for Rutherford and others to take advantage of the deluded slave labor available. I have no doubt that if Rutherford was running the Borg today, he would throw out all the printing presses and bethelites relating to that, and outsource that part of the operation, or print nothing. I suspect that the operation and maintenance of expensive underutilized printing presses, these days, is just another drain on the Borg.

  Overall, I think things will only get more interesting. I suspect they are already burning through the money raised from the Brooklyn sales at a pretty quick rate.
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  23

  Moscow City Court JW Restriction Verdict Today - 16-Jan-2017

  by Da.Furious in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  on jw.org this is the first paragraph on the 12 january news on russia:.

  on january 16, 2017, jehovah’s witnesses in russia will again seek to counter the decade-long tightening of restrictions on their religious freedom.

  they will ask the moscow city court to rule that a warning against their national headquarters be rescinded as unlawful and unfounded.

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  shepherdless

  If Russian gov. succeeds in shutting down the WT and the other churches that compete with ROC, the move will have an extremely powerful negative impact on Russia and eventually on ROC; the rest of the modern world is looking and may correspondigly act upon Russia accordingly.

  Are they shutting down "other churches" as well? I thought it was just Scientology and Watchtower.

  Most of the "rest of the modern world" knows very little about JW's. They just see JW's as annoying wierdos who knock on doors at inconvenient times. Those who care about principles of religious freedom tend to be from the liberal left, which doesn't have as much influence at the moment, especially since the recent USA election.

  
  

  With a new gov. pending in America that favors trade with Russia...

  The new Govt may favor better relations, not trade. (Russia has nothing to sell but oil and military equipment.) Another reason that there may be little fallout.

  if WT wins in that Court if it has to go that far ( and WT can't loose )...

  Long story short: It is very hard to predict what the European Court of Human Rights might do.

  Overall, I don't think anyone in the West will be that interested. I doubt the issue will get much media coverage.
  
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  40

  Wife is Awake

  by freemindfade in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  following the news of stuckinarut2, over the past few months my wife has completely mentally woken up.

  i've been meaning to post but haven't had the time.

  i saw stuckins post and i figured i'd add my news too.

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  shepherdless

  Congrats from me as well!
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  123

  Why do some Jehovah's Witnesses choose to be atheist or agnostic?

  by Cassaruby in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "traumatic as the initial transition may be, it can lead to the development of a truly personal relationship with these two greatest friends [the father and the son] .

  .. "whatever sense of 'belonging' that membership in some religious system may create, it can never compare with the power and beauty and strengthening benefit of the intimate personal relationship the scripture presents .

  from reading joseph campbell i've come to understand that there are functions to religion or mythology.

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  shepherdless

  I noticed that from the data in the Pew Report of 2014, statistically you are more likely to turn into an atheist if you were born a JW, than if born in any other religion. I don't know the reason, but I suspect if you end up working out that one version of Christianity is just a scam and fraud, it is not much of a leap to think that all versions are.
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  17

  How many JWs still have a personal conscience?

  by contramundum in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in conversation with an old jw friend today, it struck me that most jws have replaced their personal conscience with a collective one.. instead of training their own mental powers to distinguish right from wrong, as the bible encourages, they are content to shift personal accountability away from themselves and onto the impersonal org.

  whatever behaviour may prompt an ordinary person to have serious misgivings ( such as ignoring glaring misapplication of scripture or rejecting basic human decency in favour of unchristian shunning ) they prefer to have those decisions made for them.. history teaches us, however, that there is no absolution for people who behave unethically or cruelly by allowing the excuse of 'obeying orders' to override what their inner voice should scream is inherently wrong..

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  shepherdless

  I think religion generally tends to do that; some religions more than others. They fill you full of behaviour rules when you are young. Most of those rules are self-evidently right. Then they try to maintain their relevance or control by telling you that you need to keep listening to them so that you know what is right or wrong.

  It is a classic marketing trick, because they in effect have created a need for their product, and sell you the cure. I suspect that is one of the major factors that keep religious people loyal to their chosen religion.
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  23

  Clearly, they're hunting down irregular publishers

  by ILoveTTATT2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  look at this graph:.

  it has the % difference between the peak number of publishers and the average number of publishers for that year.

  this number can only be positive.. what the graph tells us is that there is a clear trend towards hunting down inactive and/or irregular publishers.

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  shepherdless

  Just to be "devil's advocate", another interpretation of the OP's graph is that, as growth slows, the difference between Peak Publisher and Av Publisher shrinks.