Posts by Gamaliel

45

Jehovahs (Hidden) Message Revealed (Why no TV ministry?) Terry Walstrom

by Dogpatch in

jw
friends

jehovahs (hidden) message revealed

by terry

walstrom

Gamaliel

Great article Randy. Thanks for sharing it.

93

A NEW Flock book has been released, with notes by a Presiding Overseer

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

for several years there has been available a pay attention to yourselves and to the flock book in pdf and html format.

this book has proven to be extremely valuable in exposing the morally questionable activities of the watchtower society.

now we have a new version that is even more valuable because it contains the hand-written notes of a presiding overseer, some notes as recent as late 2005. these notes are frequently dictated to elders by a circuit overseer or district overseer in order to avoid liability (the wts can deny every giving such instructions).

Gamaliel

Elsewhere,

I just read most of the notes and noticed that the same book seems to have gone to school twice. For example, the instructions to include the restrictions in the reinstatement announcement is crossed out completely and replaced with a new statement to NOT announce the restrictions (with a new reference for the "new light").

Gamaliel

42

What is the Future of the Watchtower Society?

by jwfacts in

after reading comments on this site for a while and looking at what happens to other religions i feel the watchtower society has a long future in front of it.

this is bad news all round, sad for us waiting for our families and sad for witnesses waiting for paradise.

the reason i say this is that any organisation with 6 million members, billions in assets and little to spend their money on would find it very hard to go out of existence.

Gamaliel

jwfacts,

I like your initial comments, especially. I'm sure most of us can imagine some scenarios that would "speed it up in its due time" but I just ran an Excel spreadsheet projection for how long it would take to diminish the JW's with a continued 1% loss starting this year, and each year for the next several.

I expect that a 1% loss will be the case in the next yearbook, unless they can baptize and reactivate an extra 60,000 more than usual. Or unless there is another internationally publicized terrorist attack of the kind in 2001.

Disappointing as it may seem, a 1% loss every year for the next 50 years still leaves them with over 3.5 million active members. 100 years from now they would still have well over 2 million. They wouldn't be down to 1 million until the year 2184, which is 178 years from now. (A 5% loss per year would do the same in only 35 years, by 2041.)

Of course it's ridiculous to think they could sustain such a linear string of straight losses. Something would happen to re-enliven their niche in the religious market, or the losses would produce extra depression and questions about whether they truly had Jehovah's blessing, and would force the religion to re-create itself.

The real problem, I think, is that things can easily happen in the world that would make a 1 million person church jump right back up quickly to a 10 million person church all over again. It's happened with many religious and quasi-religious groups with much stranger teachings than JWs.

They have proved to be quite flexible with doctrines, although at the moment they believe in a precarious 1914 doctrine and think it has to hold out. But it won't make ANY sense in 2041, if not before. That's a vulnerability. Trinity and Hell are not vulnerabilities. External pressure from "opposers" highlighting shifting doctrinal information and bad publicity over medical misrepresentation, judicial committe fiascos, shunning and pedophilia and things like this will keep chipping away, especially in the financially secure countries.

I think they have latched onto an interesting niche of religious believers. It's a niche that is interested in spiritual materialism rather than a purely spiritual life. It attracts those who don't feel quite worthy to stand directly in front of God in heaven, but understand that they will have their fleshly desires fulfilled (but perhaps without sex) forever in a paradise of delights. They can thus believe they are humble and godlike while actually being quite haughty and self-righteous. (That is, from perspective of thinking that only they will deserve God's reward of their works by finally satisfying every desire of the eyes.) Making the "not quite worthy" feel worthy is the job of a lot of religion out there, but few religions approach that spiritual "market" or "niche" with such an obvious dual-class system that makes the members easily understand that there is an ideal place for them.

So I would agree that the vast majority are going to be in it for the long haul, no matter the bumps. And if we have relatives and friends there, our best bet is to offer our friendship and support, even as they routinely reject it, so that we might be there for them when and if they finally see the need for it.

Gamaliel

31

How much is the Watchtower worth?

by dido in

hi, am relatively new on here, so haven`t seen any postings about how much the society is worth, but would really be interested to know.

what i can`t understand is what they are doing stockpiling money, when they could give some to the poor bro`s in africa etc.

give to poor pioneers, and hard up ones in congregations.

Gamaliel

jwfacts,

I saw that, and I'd think your extrapolation makes a lot of sense. I would have put them at only around 5.5 billion ($US) a couple of years ago and I'm surprised to see the amount go up for Australia instead of down last year. I had hoped they would have peaked two years ago and never saw an increase after that, but I haven't watched the numbers closely for a couple of years. The US HQ Branch consolidates a lot of extra value in the headquarters buildings and high KH values in the US, so it is possible if Australia is typical that you would still have to add an extra billion for US property.

I probably sound like I have a bigger issue with this than I really do. I work on the quarterly and annual reports of a company with about a trillion in assets and two billion in profits, so comparing with other corporations is not only fun, it's a small part of the job. The company I'm at is a worldwide financial company, but also has a large US charity division, and assets as varied as art collections, a technology outsourcing company in India, (a travel agency,) French vineyards and wineries, and other unlikely assets.

When I see claims about $202 Billion in US property alone (as I saw in your thread you linked to) I just worry about claims that can get ridiculous, and therefore ridiculed.

Cheers,
Gamaliel

31

How much is the Watchtower worth?

by dido in

hi, am relatively new on here, so haven`t seen any postings about how much the society is worth, but would really be interested to know.

what i can`t understand is what they are doing stockpiling money, when they could give some to the poor bro`s in africa etc.

give to poor pioneers, and hard up ones in congregations.

Gamaliel

greendawn,

You said:

Gamaliel to cut a long story short the WTS is a super rich corporation that made its money by exploiting its members having them sell their publications without pay, and lets not forget the big donations that many made in money and property. The WTS knows how to demand.

I agree. But there is still a lot of mythology and mystery that makes people's imaginations run wild about the financial numbers that make it a "super rich corporation". I'd love to see the WT brought to a full accounting for ALL its practices as much as anyone. How this so-called charity spends and invests the money given by and exploited from gullible members is a huge problem. My focus for the present was just to point out that I've seen the numbers get exaggerated and I've seen these discussions turn into claims that are unsubstantiated. Most JWs, naturally, can only see that their Organization handles money efficiently and that it puts as much as possible back into branch property and support of those facilities.

They've got more than they care to know, and since their overheads are minimal (COs, bethel staff and missionary expenses, accountancy and legal work perhaps done by volunteeres?)and the local dubs pay for KH and assembly costs.

I've often complained about this very issue (members selling their wares for free) but it's merely another proof of "efficiency" to the average JW. I think we should bring it up anyway, but just remember that if we are exaggerating the issue when it comes to real numbers, JWs will sense it and be given an easy excuse to ignore other related issues, like the fact that, as a "charity" they focus on the wrong things, as if selling mags and books really is a charity. And they have their so-called spiritual priorities screwed up and have done very little good in the world from the perspective of comparing other charities.

Many JWs know people at the very top of this WT organization personally. And many JWs have seen and personally know many of the so-called "stockholders". Most JWs, in fact, know how the people who control this money actually live, they have actually visited the most expensive buildings and have seen the "opulence". It's a bit much especially in some shared spaces, but not nearly as outrageous as I've seen it described. Most JWs know that personal luxury is not the driving force of the people who are at the top, nor even the people who make the decisions regarding the expenditures and investments of that money. They are actually driven, I think, by another kind of greed. The greed of "spiritual" exclusivity, power or control over others. They want to be the ones who have a personal part in the exclusive club of "the only ones who are right in the entire world". Being in an exclusive (privileged) position in the most exclusive "club" in the world provides them with an extra level of specialness that the average JW doesn't get, but still respects. That's their luxury, and they'd probably still have it if they squandered $1 billion on lost court cases involving blood doctrine or pedophilia coverups.

I bring up my objection to exaggerating the money issue because I honestly believe that the money issue will soon start to show as a serious problem on the low side before it shows up as much of a problem on the high side. By that I mean that they give evidence already of a small problem with money. A few building sales can cover them for a while. But if there's a shortfall of wealthy people bequeathing fortunes and the literature sales don't rise with costs, and converts keep slipping in the wealthier countries, then they'll keep downsizing until JWs themselves notice the problem.

Look carefully at the Canadian and British records posted in the set of financial links from the link above. Add to that the recent sales and consolidation at Brooklyn. Watch the downsizing already in progress. I don't doubt that their worldwide assets could be a few billion, but growth of that amount appears to me to be not sustainable. And there is no more expansion at present in financially self-supporting countries. Still, they could probably coast for many years cannibalizing what they have.

Cheers,
Gamaliel

43

Why did Jews cut their willies?!!

by Spectrum in

what demented person came up with this idea?

they could have just cut their cheeks like the west africans did?

Gamaliel

Narkissos,

Good point about the time of un-cleanness mentioned in Lev 21. That's what I meant when I said: "(But there are other religious-based hints in the Mosaic law that made day 8 seem appropriate...)"

But still, that doesn't explain why they got it done so early when others went for a puberty-related rite of passage. Spectrum mentioned that trial and error could have led them to find the eighth day as optimum if it were really based on blood-clotting, but the combined levels of all bloodclotting agents are likely higher at puberty in my opinion, and much less risky based on total blood volume. (I'd be interested in whether that can be verified.)

Cheers,
Gamaliel

62

Mary Magdalene

by I-follow-the-narrow-path in

if it was proven that jesus, in fact, has a bloodline.

what do you think this will do to religions?

and is it at all possible to prove that mary magdalene and jesus had an intimate relationship?

Gamaliel

jw,

OK. I understand. I agree that there should have been more talk and more interest in his wife, etc, if he actually had married. But there is also a lack of evidence about much of Jesus' life. Someone already mentioned that his own brothers would have been expected to marry and have children. We also know very little about them. (Actually, Eusebius gives us hints that the early church thought about Jesus "bloodline" to the extent that he claims they considered ALL of Jesus' brothers as possible candidates for the position of leadership that his brother James took in Jerusalem - just a few weeks after the Gospel accounts had labeled him an unbeliever.)

Some books about this in the past 30 years have argued that it would have been more of a scandal had Jesus NOT been married. But Paul seems to explain this with the idea that centrist Christianity was already putting a value on LACK of marriage, "EUNUCH's for the Kingdom", marry only if inflamed with passion, husbands with wives be as though they had none, etc. The story of Paul and Thecla (early Christian "novella" that came out of the 130's or so at the earliest gives more evidence that some Christians valued celibacy. Of Peter, James and John at least, it would appear that only Peter was married, or at least only Peter brought his wife down to Jerusalem. Perhaps he only meant that the others may have left theirs in Galilee, perhaps as Rutherford left his in California "for the sake of the Kingdom" (Bethel).

We know very little of Jesus' life from birth to age 30-ish. We don't know for sure about whether his father had died. We don't know if his wife had also died and Jesus own strict beliefs about no remarriage had in fact suited him perfectly for his ministry. If he had had a wife who was still alive at the time, would she have necessarily been a follower? Didn't Jesus say that his teaching had produced a sword in families, and divided husband and wife, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

By the way, some of the proponents of Jesus' supposed marriage in the last 30 or 40 years have offered the idea that the wedding of Cana is actually a reference to Jesus own wedding, but that giving all the specifics of this wedding would have drawn too much attention to Jesus' personal life. It would have invaded the privacy of his family. It would have distracted from the real import and meaning of his public ministry. That would be the same explanation as to why we don't have much secular information about Jesus life and family. Mentioning anything secular would have just resulted in a lot of unnecessary selling of "Christian" relics and artifacts. As it was, you could still buy a "guaranteed to be real" piece of the "cross" he died on up until the 1400's.

Gamaliel

31

How much is the Watchtower worth?

by dido in

hi, am relatively new on here, so haven`t seen any postings about how much the society is worth, but would really be interested to know.

what i can`t understand is what they are doing stockpiling money, when they could give some to the poor bro`s in africa etc.

give to poor pioneers, and hard up ones in congregations.

Gamaliel

I have a feeling there is a lot of inaccurate information and guesswork involved in some of the numbers that get quoted. (And ideas about profit levels, stockholders, etc.) Newsday once ranked them high among NY corporations, but not based on the usual financial factors of other companies.

I think the Watchtower followers sometimes run as high as 1% of certain city populations and therefore they have access to a lot of human resources but not always as much as they might wish in monetary resources. But each member tends to give a percentage of voluntary support and monetary support that would have come from a more centralized fund in other organizations. Time is money in this sense, since the WT does not have to advertise its publications through expensive media outlets. Voluntary or partially voluntary professional work by lawyers, doctors, builders, press workers, etc, is also "money".

There is a certain amount of profit in the sales of the literature and a lot of property value around the world in land and buildings. The average value of Kingdom Halls alone in the US could be getting close to a million dollars apiece. That already puts them in the billion dollar range. There's another billion-plus in New York alone.

There is a certain amount of profit (or incentives for extra contributions) in the creation and financing of Kingdom Halls, Assembly Halls, Conventions themselves. I'm pretty sure that when contributions get raised at times of disasters, that the WT encourages that giving to be flexibly offered to the general fund rather than specific to the disaster.

But the WT probably does not keep large amounts in liquid assets. When Newsday looked at them, they probably raised some attention because they were relatively flush with bank assets and stock at the time. Accounts with cash are probably marked for legal funds (both realized and anticipated), property purchases, self-insurance, KH loans, etc. There is not likely any piles of excess stashed away as many people have imagined.

In my opinion they are probably a bit worried at present that the funds are kept with enough liquid assets for ease of operations. Selling a few places in Brooklyn, or consolidating into new buildings can provide a few million here and there and help them keep tabs on the current values of their property assets. But new growth in membership is more often from poorer countries at present, while it is getting more expensive to continue to run the business as they once did.

It's easy to imagine that this 0.1% of the world's population somehow represents 0.1% of the world's monetery assets, but it's nowhere close. That doesn't mean that they aren't sitting on a couple billion in property assets, but I think it's too easy to imagine an exaggerated "flow" of money. It's too easy to imagine a group of people sitting around enjoying material luxury because of this "flow". But the type of people who make it to the top in such types of organizations will never find it easy to divert any of these assets into personal luxuries. Most will be managed back into shared property or invested into expected growth. Without growth however they will have to begin cannibalizing their assets. This could always keep them going for an extra 50 years even with substantial loss of current members and new converts.

But the amassing of wealth even into shared facilities is not really in accord with their non-profit charter. I think that a lot of JWs would prefer to have someone pick them up in an old "church-bus" rather than have their story bragged about in some Yearbook that they walked 150 miles through African jungles and dangers of war just to get to the summer assembly.

Gamaliel

43

Why did Jews cut their willies?!!

by Spectrum in

what demented person came up with this idea?

they could have just cut their cheeks like the west africans did?

Gamaliel

After receiving a PM on this I wondered if anyone here has done any study of this matter.

I know that there has always been a believing audience for any science or pseudo-science that supports the Bible. At the back of our Hall, they once posted up a magazine article that proved that astronomer/scientists had found the lost day of Joshua when he prayed for the sun to stand still. This has long been proven to be a hoax, but it still gets trotted out as proof by some believers from time to time.

But on the issue of circumcising on the 8th day, any "Marvin Harris"-type sociologist might understand that some ritual practices were based on pragmatic reasons, and perhaps, over the years circumcisers noticed that far less babies bled to death on day 8 than on day 6. (But there are other religious-based hints in the Mosaic law that made day 8 seem appropriate. Yet there is evidently a South American tribe unrelated to Jews that also practices 8th day circumcision.)

The claims about blood-clotting factors being high on day 8 are quite common, but most of the references are to "one study" and a few different people who have requoted that "one study". Are the study's findings easily reproduced? Do all these studies stop at day 8? Is it true that babies have no bacteria in their intestines until after they are born? (as sometimes claimed) Is that bacteria from mother's milk? And if bacteria development is not the reason, then what about babies born 1 day prematurely, or 1 week or 1 month prematurely? Should they wait for the extra day, week or month, etc.?

Also, I notice that the study seems not to compare health risks when the child is 12 or 13.

Personally, I have tended to think that Israelites once did this at puberty earlier in their history, but changed to the 8th day (or thereabouts) at a time when they decided it was for ALL males, and therefore should be done as early as possible so that no one would be missed, or put it off. Perhaps they wanted to do it as early as possible, when memory of the pain would not be possible. But it was obviously not a thing to do while the mother and child were still in the first hours or couple days post-partum. Letting the child live a week before attempting it seems to me just a way of proving that the child was "viable", that it would live. After all, this was back in times of high birth-related mortality. Also, I think there would be less outrage at a priest/rabbi who performed a circumcision that led to death of an infant than there would be if he caused the death of a 12 year old boy who was already proving useful in his field chores. The first could be blamed on consitutional weakness of the infant (or God's will), the latter would be obvious malpractice by the priest/rabbi.

I have found some info such as this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH135_1.html

but it seems relatively weak as far as argumentation goes:

Claim CH135.1:
The Bible, remarkably for its time, notes that the eighth day after birth is the safest time to perform circumcisions (Gen. 17:12; Lev. 12:2-3). When a baby is born, they have no bacteria in their intestines for the first few days. By the seventh day, the bacteria multiply and produce vitamin K. Without vitamin K and prothrombin protein (which is produced by the liver using vitamin K), the blood will not clot properly and the possibility of severe bleeding as well as infection would make circumcision dangerous in a primitive medical situation.
Source:
Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1985. Life--How Did It Get Here? Brooklyn, NY, p. 205-206.
Response:

1. Although the danger of severe bleeding is worst in the first week, it can occur any time in the first month (Zipursky 1999). According to most medical experts, the best time for circumcision is never (Ritter and Denniston 1996). The procedure is medically unnecessary at best. The procedure is painful, and there is some evidence that pain in early infancy makes one more sensitive to pain throughout life (Ruda et al. 2000).

2. Attributing a requirement of some special knowledge for this insight assumes the ancient Hebrews were stupid. Classic hemorrhagic disease of the newborn is usually seen on days two through five (Zipursky 1999); it would not take a lot of observation and thought to conclude that it would be best to wait until the worst danger is over.

The Susus near Timbuctoo and the Guemos of South America are also said to perform the rite on the eighth day (Hirsch et al. n.d.).

3. Accuracy on one point does not show overall accuracy.

Does anyone know if there is a reliable source of information on the subject that goes even deeper into the issue of medical benefits, or lack thereof on day 8.

62

Mary Magdalene

by I-follow-the-narrow-path in

if it was proven that jesus, in fact, has a bloodline.

what do you think this will do to religions?

and is it at all possible to prove that mary magdalene and jesus had an intimate relationship?

Gamaliel

jw,

You said: "Well if Jesus had done it with Mary Magdalene then there would have been no need to complete GODS plan to die as a perfect human being to give us life back."

The logic is not complete, though. Jesus could have been married and had no children. Jesus could have been married and had children. Or, Jesus could have set an example by choosing to live as a eunuch for the sake of the Kingdom. Or as Paul said once, husbands with wives could live as though they had none. Perhaps you are aware that the Watchtower publications claimed that Charles Russell lived this way with his wife, Maria. (The WT indicates that they never had sex.)

Your statement doesn't include this, but even if he had children, what would stop a perfect man with children from dying on the stauros to provide the ransom? It seems like it's just a guess, or you are merely parroting back an old idea from a WT that was never explained.

Gamaliel