Posts by 88JM

324

Is this new donation arrangement for real?

by nugget in

just read a post on jwsurvey about the new donation arrangement.

congregations are to pledge a monthly amount to be sent to the society to fund the building of assembly halls and kingdom halls.

congregations who already have a loan from the society will no longer have to pay back the loan but the amount pledged should not be less than the current monthly repayments to the society.

88JM

Seems like this would pretty much be tithing, by any other name.

Why don't they just cut to the chase and merge with the Mormons now?

EDIT: Whoops - sorry I just saw Comatose already had the same idea!

27

New NWT - what's the REAL reason?

by wallsofjericho in

one thing i have learned over the years is there is a clear, distinct purpose to everything the wts does.

everything is done to accomplish a defined purpose.. did they really print millions of new bibles just to be more accurate?

after decades of toughting how much better the nwt was than any other bible?.

88JM

Yeah I have to agree it was almost certainly was for $$$

Here it was also just before the special assembly day - elders were still handing them out to congregation members who hadn't been to the AGM meeting the previous weekend. The donations at the Special Assembly Day must have been the highest I've ever seen.

26

What JW beliefs did you used to hate trying to defend?

by DuvanMuvan in

as one of the jw "young ones" i was always expected to witness to my friends at school if i wanted to make god's heart glad or whatever but i didn't.

the closest i ever got was just explaining why we didn't celebrate christmasetc.

even then i was just reciting things i read in publications.. one topic i always tried to avoid talking about was birthdays.

88JM

I always had trouble defending the need for an organized religion - I never really felt Hebrews 10:24, 25 was enough to justify a huge corporate structure like the JW's. I met very well-read people in the ministry who were happy being free to believe what they wanted, and didn't see the need for a religion to tell them what to believe. I just couldn't argue with that, and never felt it was my place to be the master of someone elses faith.

27

Ireland Bethel up for sale

by Mattieu in

jw
friends

http://www.wicklowpeople.ie/news/jehovahs-witnesses-hq-goes-on-market-2910987.html.

whenever a new branch or k/hall is built, its always proof that supposedly j is blessing his people and speeding up the work.

does that mean when they have to close a bethel branch it means he is pissed off with "his people"????.

88JM

The old Bethel in Ireland is being used for the Bible School For Christian Couples for the UK - a couple from the congregation here just went through it there.

It doesn't sound impossible that they sold it and are now renting it back, but quite surprising.

55

Oh come on!!! seriously?? This weeks wt study!

by stuckinarut2 in

i'm sitting here at the mtg, and i can't believe the mind numbing stupidity of this weeks wt "study"...( i use the word study loosely too by the way...).

how many dumb repeated questions can be posed to try and make a point?.

the opening paragraph illustration re blindness is classic!

88JM

I hope the microphone handler wasn't peeking too close at me reading JWN!

11

Cong issues

by Batman89 in

jw
friends

its seemed like in my old hall(im still in just leared tthatt) evey other local needs part we had was about either gossip or needing more effort in the ministry.

also about brothers needing to step up and "reach out".. were/are there alot of gossip,lack of ministry support or lack of brothers in your hall when you were a jw?.

88JM

Local needs part here was about hospitality, even though there is a part on it next week as well anyway.

Guess what? The C.O. visit is coming up here and they are looking for somewhere to stay...

12

Scary College Graph (or Why JWs Are Freakin' Broke)

by metatron in

jw
friends

http://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-and-salary-graduates-and-non-graduates-2014-4.

the contrast is quite dramatic.

otoh, you have all that student debt to pay off.. .

88JM

I was discussing with a JW about a couple in the congregation here who are really struggling financially at the moment. They're a young-ish couple in their late 30's, basic education, self emplyed, on less than minimum wage, and their car which they took a loan out to buy less than a year ago had just failed it's M.O.T. test so they can't get to meetings at the moment, even if they could afford the fuel. I seriously doubt they have any kind of retirement plan at all, and their remaining aged parents are getting on as well. The JW lifestyle is certainly coming back to bite for some I have no doubt.

55

Oh come on!!! seriously?? This weeks wt study!

by stuckinarut2 in

i'm sitting here at the mtg, and i can't believe the mind numbing stupidity of this weeks wt "study"...( i use the word study loosely too by the way...).

how many dumb repeated questions can be posed to try and make a point?.

the opening paragraph illustration re blindness is classic!

88JM

In the past these types of articles would at least try to throw you some statistics (albeit mis-quoted or cherry picked) to attempt to prove their point from some sort of emperical perspecive.

I find this article particularly horrible because there is now not even any attempt to prove things empirically - hardly any statistics - it's all subjective arguments and appeal to emotion, or insulting you if you don't agree with it (para. 10): "Can anyone reasonably deny that things have got much worse?"

One comment from a sister in the first paragraph about blindness at the hall here mentioned: "people in the world being blinkered, like horses, to things getting worse around them". Surely with articles like this there can be no-one more blinkered than JW's! They even admit to it in the last paragraph, for JW's "not be distracted by the noise from Satan’s world".

Just to top it off, I was thinking how this article is like the most unsavoury parts of the Daily Mail newspaper here in the UK, and then lo and behold the brother reading the WT whips out a clipping from - you guessed it - The Daily Mail, and then reads it out from the platform!

55

Oh come on!!! seriously?? This weeks wt study!

by stuckinarut2 in

i'm sitting here at the mtg, and i can't believe the mind numbing stupidity of this weeks wt "study"...( i use the word study loosely too by the way...).

how many dumb repeated questions can be posed to try and make a point?.

the opening paragraph illustration re blindness is classic!

88JM

This is really bad having to sit through this. Nauseating.

29

kingdom hall insurance....??

by punkofnice in

i seem to recall that there was an assistance fund set up for insurance on kingdom halls that were essentially set up as insurance.. where you were not to insure the khs by normal insurance companies.does anyone know about this and does any kh claim againt the fund i.e.

the watchtower?.

sounds like a scam!.

88JM

This reminds me of the Kingdom Hall fire in Scotland a few years ago in Auchinlech. Do any of the members here from Scotland know if they claimed from the Kingdom Hall Assistance Arrangement? Seems just like the sort of thing it is supposed to give cover for - I assume they claimed and that's how they were able to do the quickbuild re-build?