Include me there. One problem I see with the antiwatchtower movement in general is that the message is in English and that it is neglecting to bring the message to other languages, especially Spanish which may be the first language of possibly millions of JW's . I don't have much extra time, but I can put my tiny effort to produce/translate the message to Spanish. You can count on my support in every possible way I can do it.
Call me Winston Smith (recently I feel that way when I am surrounded by all my JW family member and friends) It's becoming a nightmarish experience.
Feel free to PM me. I can exchange email addresses with you guys. I live in California and own a small copying business. Use my niche if you find it useful
with cedars release of leaked watchtower new light "adjusting" understanding of "who" the faithful and discreet slave is.....i am struck by something which similarly struck me back in 1967.in 1967 i had just been imprisoned.
being a male jehovah's witness during the viet nam war meant certain "issues" arose affecting a decision to respond to the military draft.i have told the story before.
but, i'd like go at it from another angle in view of the above mentioned new light about the fds fora different reason.it was first in 1967 i began to discover that there are two watchtower societies.let me explain why i say this and for what reasons.first of all, anybody standing in a kingdom hall or sitting in a seat at a vast international assembly saw people they would identify as all on the same page.
I get what you are saying. It's easy for me to avoid looking at the big picture about life because I learned about the "secrets" of the WT leadership only few months ago. Even as a non-JW, learning what I know about the WT angers me, and digging more about them absorbs so much of my time, but I realized, that I have to move on. I selfishly want the Terry's, the Leolaoia's and the Farkel's to stay a little longer to feed me everything about the WT, but I realized that they also should move on.
alameda county administrator's premium pay end hearst/article/premium_article_tools_480.tpl end premium_story_header.tpl article/types/premium_story.tpl hearst/common/author_name.tpl by matier & ross.
e hearst/common/author_name.tpl article_timestamp.tpl march 25, 2013. alameda county supervisors have really taken to heart the adage that government should run like a business, rewarding county administrator susan muranishi with the wall street-like wage of $423,664 a year.. for the rest of her life.. according to county pay records, in addition to her $301,000 base salary, muranishi receives:-- $24,000, plus change, in "equity pay" to guarantee that she makes at least 10 percent more than anyone else in the county.. -- about $54,000 a year in "longevity" pay for having stayed with the county for more than 30 years.. -- an annual performance bonus of $24,000.. -- and an additional $9,000 a year for serving on the county's three-member surplus property authority, an ad hoc committee of the board of supervisors that oversees the sale of excess land.. like other county executives, muranishi also gets an $8,292-a-year car allowance.. muranishi has been with the county for 38 years, and she's 63. when retirement day comes, she'll be getting a lot more than a gold watch.. that's because, according to the county auditor's office, muranishi's annual pension will be equal to the dollar total of her entire yearly package - $413,000.
she also has a separate executive private pension plan, for which the county chips in $46,500 a year.. "and she's worth every dime," said supervisor scott haggerty, who was on the board when it promoted muranishi to county administrator in 1995, voted for her and joined in approving her base pay and perks.. "we're lucky to have her," haggerty said.. he likens the job of running the county administration to being ceo of a $2.4 billion corporation, with 9,000 employees.. granted, the $2.4 billion is taxpayer money, and the county isn't set up to turn a profit.
with cedars release of leaked watchtower new light "adjusting" understanding of "who" the faithful and discreet slave is.....i am struck by something which similarly struck me back in 1967.in 1967 i had just been imprisoned.
being a male jehovah's witness during the viet nam war meant certain "issues" arose affecting a decision to respond to the military draft.i have told the story before.
but, i'd like go at it from another angle in view of the above mentioned new light about the fds fora different reason.it was first in 1967 i began to discover that there are two watchtower societies.let me explain why i say this and for what reasons.first of all, anybody standing in a kingdom hall or sitting in a seat at a vast international assembly saw people they would identify as all on the same page.
Nickolas, Terry may have made a factual statement regarding the WT leaders. I have never been hurt by the WT since I have never been a JW, and yet I agree with Terry's description of the WT. It seems that you are inferring more than what the statement describes.
with cedars release of leaked watchtower new light "adjusting" understanding of "who" the faithful and discreet slave is.....i am struck by something which similarly struck me back in 1967.in 1967 i had just been imprisoned.
being a male jehovah's witness during the viet nam war meant certain "issues" arose affecting a decision to respond to the military draft.i have told the story before.
but, i'd like go at it from another angle in view of the above mentioned new light about the fds fora different reason.it was first in 1967 i began to discover that there are two watchtower societies.let me explain why i say this and for what reasons.first of all, anybody standing in a kingdom hall or sitting in a seat at a vast international assembly saw people they would identify as all on the same page.
Regarding the two brains, I found your comment so true. Just yesterday I asked my brother, a JW who has been in the Org for 25 years.
Me: "Do you believe in the literal flood"
His response without even making eye contact. "I do".
My follow up question: "What about the geological, the archeological and the historical record".
His response: "It is of no interest to me". At this point he was turned away from me.
My brother does great work and can have very intelligent conversations in any other field that does not touch his religion. This experience was quite surprising for me. I thought he would be the first JW who would try to debate me. NO!. I tried at least five times before to engage my JW's relatives and even an elder. They all ran away.
today has been one of the most aganizing days since i woke up.
my family has been pressuring me to show up at the memorial for the past week.
it became very intense today with my dad texting me constantly to get me to confirm and when i didn't answer he would call my wife and then she would constantly nag me to answer my dad and so on and so forth.
Even as a never JW I feel for you, and I am doing my own effort to help people such as your wife wake up and live better lives outside the cult. I hope everything is resolved in the best possible way.
I am surrounded by JW's (brothers, wife, children) and for some strange reason they become nicer to me after my rantings against the arrogant liars in the WT. I guess they don't want to confirm what I call their cruel shunning doctrine, so they are really nice. But I am not pushing my luck.
So, in a nutshell, what can some of you long-time members tell me about all this?
Apognophos,
I have no idea about Larsinger claims regarding VAT4956, however I can assure with only .00001% of doubt that VAT 4956 corresponds to year 568/567 BCE and no other year. I have personally spent weeks doing the research using an astronomical program. I found about 18 planetary matches (this alone nails it to 568/567), 7 time interval matches (lunat threes) and 10 lunar position matches, the solstice and a lunar eclipse. Only two lunar positions don't match. I believe those are the ones that Lars and the WT use to make their arguments for their own years. The problem is that they ignore all the other observations (more than 30)
I liked your quote from Ecc 1:18. It's similar to the good Brahmin, but much better because it comes straight out of the Bible. Perfect to use next time...[editing next] Maybe not, it is in the "wisdom is vanity" section.
I certainly will keep in mind your words for next time I initiate another e-mail conversation. We have done it several times before, and never before did he write as much as he has this time. Your comment supports his rather unexpected willingness to respond to my emails. I just received his last email few minutes ago. Pretty much is a brief response to my desire to continue the conversation some time in the future and his agreeing with that proposal.
Thank you all for your great advice. As some of you suggested, I backed off and said I hope to resume the conversation in the future. It is rather strange that he actually answers my e-mails. We have exchanged in the last 10 months (since my daughter's baptism) about 30 emails each in subjects ranging from creation to failed prophecy. I threw a number of insults including one where I said directly that he "lacked critical thinking skills and should read COJ, RF and J. Penton's books". His response was: "I see".
It is as if he is probing the enemy to concoct the "antidote" to prevent an apostasy disease to run wild in my JW family and the congregation. Who knows, maybe in the probing he gets the disease himself. Even as a non-JW I still am very much exposed to the effects of shunning. That's why I should act wisely. I have a great deal of interaction and emotional and financial interdependance with all the members of my large JW family (wife, my children, nephews, brothers, many in-laws in my side and my wife's side)
