Please do not feed the troll.
Skimmer
JoinedPosts by Skimmer
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2
Charitable Giving/Strange Bedfellows
by Skimmer init turns out that the wtbts got some help in setting up its charitable giving program.
they bought a package deal from the folks at planned giving resources: http://www.pgresources.com/clientlist.html.
i see that there are a couple of hundred organizations on the client list, including the national rifle association of which i am a member.
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Charitable Giving/Strange Bedfellows
by Skimmer init turns out that the wtbts got some help in setting up its charitable giving program.
they bought a package deal from the folks at planned giving resources: http://www.pgresources.com/clientlist.html.
i see that there are a couple of hundred organizations on the client list, including the national rifle association of which i am a member.
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Skimmer
It turns out that the WTBTS got some help in setting up its Charitable Giving program. They bought a package deal from the folks at Planned Giving Resources: http://www.pgresources.com/clientlist.html
I see that there are a couple of hundred organizations on the client list, including the National Rifle Association of which I am a member. I will have to write the NRA and complain that they are having a bad association.
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What the hell am I going to do with these books?!?
by TheApostleAK inwhat am i going to do with all the books (for field service) that i still got??
i got 5 "life" books, 3 nwt's, 5 "knowledge" books, 3 of every brochure, 10 "required" brochures, 2 "creator" books, 2 "family" books and a 12 inch pile of wt's and awakes?
(i got another box of books to got thru in a minute) and i didn't even pay for them!.
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Skimmer
Shortly after I realized that the WTBTS was a big scam, I took all of my WT litter-for-sure and made good use of it on that cold winter night so many years ago.
It all went into the fireplace. I was pleased to at last get a warm feeling from the Brooklyn spewage; the flames lasted for about five hours. Which is somewhat less time than those flames reserved for the WTBTS leadership.
I had thought about selling them to a used bookstore, but I feared that some unwitting person might get them and be swindled into the cult; I didn't need that on my conscience. In a similar spirit, I would advise that anyone auctioning their collection on line to include warning advisories to the bidders just in case they might not know the truth about the "truth".
As mentioned before, I still have a copy of a volume of _Studies in the Scriptures_ with the pyramid chart fold-out; this is reserved for viewing by any JW door knockers.
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new here
by jurs ini've been a witness for 6 years.
when a sweet pioneer sister came to my door and i started studying i never thought i would become a witness.
21/2 years of studying i did get baptized.
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Skimmer
Hello jurs, and welcome to the discussion board.
People were not designed to live in fear or with guilt. Yet so many allow themselves to be motivated by these and so be mind controlled by the WTBTS organization for years or decades.
Many posters to this board rightly condemn the WTBTS as a cult that tries to bleed away any sense of individuality among its members. Less frequently heard are the comments that the members themselves also have some of the blame for allowing themselves to be controlled.
The key question that all JWs should ask themselves: Is the WTBTS God's One And Only True Channel? Think of the 120 years WTBTS history of false prophecies (1874, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, etc), crank science (e.g., dinosaurs and men lived at the same time), quack health claims (e.g., bans on vaccinations, transplants, transfusions), ever changing doctrine (too numerous to mention), dubious revelation sources (e.g., support for chronology from pyramid measurements), brainwashing (the only questsions a JW can safely ask are the ones printed in the study articles), and total lack of humility and candor at the upper levels. Are any of these probable characteristics of God's direction? If they were, then why would that God be worthy of worship?
One a JW understands that the WTBTS claim of being God's True Channel is just as false as the rest of the spew emanating from the Brooklyn printing presses, then the whole Watchtower house of cards collapses. It's just a printing cult pyramid scheme even if some of its members are sincere.
It can be hard to leave the WTBTS if one still has friends or family still inside the Watchtower cage. Losing contact, sometimes for many years, is very rough; many posters to this board have undergone the experience and know how true this is. But being the victim of shunning is not as bad as the alternative of continuing to be a slave.
Now, I'm not saying that you you should give up on Christianity. Indeed, the WTBTS knows nothing of Christianity and so perhaps the biggest crime of the Watchtower is the turning away of persons from having religious faith based on Christ.
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A few question that are leading to some confusion
by anidchick ini am in the process of becoming a jehovah witnesses, but there were a few areas i was still unsure about and i was hopin i could get some answers:.
) what is the exact view of jesus?.
) how is the view of the whole trinity with god, holy ghost, son seen?.
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Skimmer
Hello anidchick and welcome to the discussion board.
First, here's a good web site to start with: http://www.freeminds.org
To answer your questions (very briefly):
1) The WTBTS sees Jesus as a minor god, a created being. (Note that this makes them polytheistic, although they don't like to admit this.) They also teach that he is the same person as the archangel Michael. They deny his physical resurrection as well.
2) The WTBTS denies the Trinity as Jesus is a lesser being and the Holy Spirit doesn't exist as a person.
3) They have no holidays. They do observe an annual day of memorial for the Last Supper, but only about one in a thousand persons partakes of the communion. There are no regular "fun" celebrations allowed except for anniversaries for married couples.
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A thought!
by qwerty in"if you are going through hell, keep going.
" .
- sir winston churchill (1874-1965)
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Skimmer
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
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for those who missed it, a JW headline
by Mommie Dark incommon sense triumphs occasionally.... !
http://www.mcall.com/html/news/pa/a_pg001a1_jehovah.htm!
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Skimmer
I agree that a monetary award was appropriate. I can't see arguing over the relatively small amount; the real point is that not just the JW should have been found liable. Both the JW and the Kingdom Hall that trained her are acting under the direction of the WTBTS and are their authorized agents. In the United States, it is a long held legal doctrine that a corporation can be held responsible for its agents; this helps prevent deep pocket organizations from hiring "judgement proof" agents to do their dirty work.
We who have had the experience know that "no soliciting" signs are not much, if any, deterrent. The WTBTS knows this as well and I suspect that the JW involved was told to fib about not seeing the signs lest an honest admission result in hauling the Brooklyn Boys into court.
If I had been the aggrieved party, I would have hauled in the elders from the Kingdom Hall and shown how they follow the official WTBTS sales training exercises every week. I would have used their own literature to give the real truth about the publishing cult's activities.
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New member....
by poohbear1962 in....this is only my second post, so please be gentle!!!
thank you all for such a wonderful, supporting, loving, caring forum... where the truth at last can be spoken!!!
...i have soooooo many posts to make, and soooooo little time!!!
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Skimmer
Hello poohbear1962:
Welcome aboard.
Please feel free to tell us your story, just as so many of us have already posted our own.
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Why Another 1975 Scenario is Unlikely
by Stephanus ini note that (the brothers) some are speculating that 2005 now exists as the dubs' next "final" date to work towards.
at this point in time, i can't see it being an effective carrot for attracting people outside the witnesses.
basically, things are too good.. 1975 probably looked like a great date for the end, because so much had gone wrong in the early 70s; the post wwii "long (economic) boom" came to a screeching halt, the first of the "oil shocks" occurred, the us was losing the vietnam war and looked like it could lose the cold war with the ussr.. interestingly, while the jws were getting off on bad events in the world at large, so were certain elements of mainstream "christendom".
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Skimmer
The 1975 scenario will not happen again for several reasons:
1) Too many people still within the WTBTS remember the disasters of the 1975 prophecy such as the great membership turnover and drop in growth following the failure of the Big A to arrive on time. The absolute numbers are far greater from the 1975 debacle than from the earlier debacles (1942, 1925, 1918, and 1914).
2) The 1995 "new light" on the generation teaching makes it hard for many to accept any "new light" dealing with new dates or re-interpretation of old dates. A lot of older JWs/xJWs are justifiably annoyed that they have been the victims of a fifty year bait and switch (the old generation teaching) and so will not be too eager to take a bite at the next bait.
3) Any attempt at replaying the 1975 false prophecy for a new date runs up against the massive amount of evidence on the Internet and this can all be used against any new proposed schedule for the Big A.
4) In general, people are more skeptical today than decades ago.
5) It may be that the governing body has learned a lesson; also, they are probably justified in the fear of one or more members bailing out with another tell-all book.
6) The WT corporations may just refuse to propagate any fanciful predictions from the governing body that will cut into their bottom line. Who will bother with the charitable giving program if The End is just around the corner?
7) Any definite predictions will make the "dangerous cult" label stick even more tightly, and they can't afford being banned or curtailed in revenue rich countries.
With the above in mind, how might the WTBTS milk the innocents with their traditional Big A scare? It has been so profitable for them that it would be hard to come up with a substitute. So I think they will try again, but in a different way. They will use a whispering campaign. Specifically, they will start controlled rumors about the new schedule that will have an air of authenticity and these will be passed quietly from Brooklyn to all the rank and file. The WTBTS will not publish any exact information on this (might show up on the Internet), nor will they explicitly announce it at any public assemblies (too many tape recorders). Yet it will get out all the same, some date or maybe a short range of years that soon all will know while never allowing hard evidence for opposers. The sad thing is that the strategy will work; the governing body knows that most JWs are rumor lovers and the GB will use this to their advantage.
The literature will go out, the money will come in, and when the date(s) flop yet again, all the blame will be given to the rank and file for the sin of untheocratic speculation.
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Urban Legends!
by ISP inits amazing the extent these circulate in the wt world.
i am not so sure, but it develops a powerful folklore amongst jws....often with a moral at the end!
typically these circulate as experiences given in talks and are then adopted by the masses as truth.. for example, anyone hear the ul about the married couple where the wife had to have a routine blood check.
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Skimmer
The following is not really WTBTS urban legend material; it's better filed under the topic of speculative beliefs:
1) It is sometimes possible to detect demon possessed people because they had a visible extra shine to their eyes.
2) With regard to planetary orbits, Newton, Kepler, and Einstein had it all wrong. Each planet has an angel assigned to it that provides guidance and motive power.
Did either of these have some initial cause in WTBTS literature? They both were known by word of mouth in the early 1970s United States.