i was thinking about this last night, in the year book they publish the number or peak and average publishers.
as we know a publisher could simply be a child getting out in service regularly.
if two parents baptized have to small children that are publishers then they are counted as four.
OnTheWayOut, Your comments brought back bad memories for me. I hated being dragged out from door to door and then having to report the time. Then if you didn't put in enough time, I would get a call from the service elder. No matter how much time you would put in it was never good enough for them. You could never live up to their expectations.
I agree that the numbers are somewhat over inflated and doesn't actually reflect the number of hard core JW's.
i have heard a lot of talk over the last year or so if the gb will eventually ditch 1914 and some have even made the claim that most, if not all of the gb do not believe in 1914. ive given this some thought and in the past i wasnt sure.
this annual meeting puts 100%, without a doubt in my mind that the gb do not believe in 1914. id even go as far to say that they talked about that date and have a game plan in mind.. here is why i feel this way:.
there were a lot of changes with the parables at this annual meeting.
There will have to be a point where the GB will be forced to drop the 1914 date. They will wait till most of the older generation has died out and then it will quietly be dropped.
so, even if jws of the great crowd are found faithful and sparred at armageddon, they still have to prove faithful at the final judgement at the end of 1,000 years, right?
or, are jws of the great crowd assured they will pass the final judgement.
two tests doesnt sound fair!.
When I was a teen I was told that after the thousand years that Jehovah would release the devill and his demons for a short period of time to re-test us.
why would the wts want to get rid of fence sitter?
as in, why are weak ones a burden to the cong, isn't that the whole point, to shepherd the flock?.
does anyone know if the gb gets a paycheck, flies first class, how they vacation?
I believe the main purpose is to spread false doctrine, and destroy any shred of faith outside of that religion. I can't think of any other religion that creates ex members who are heavily atheist and agnostic.
Here is one that has had their faith vertually distroyed due to this cult but then again I think regradless of my religious upbringing I would have come to the same ultimate conclusions.
after a one year sucessful fade and no longer associated with any congreation, i was visiting my sister this week (who goes to the meeting to please her husband for now; i am slowly planting seeds though) and they decided to year this weeks midweek meeting via the telephone.
since i was a guest in her house, i sat with them in the living room to hear the meeting.
to my surprise (especially growing up as a gay jw with still alot of anger in my heart over how i was treated), the talks 2 and 3 where on, of course, homosexualiy.
Why would anyone want to be in a religion that does not approve of their life style in the first place? Eventually if they start losing membership over these practices, they will have to rethink their polices on gays.
i lost my mother some time ago.
today my sister throws up 3 john 1:4 "i have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
" don't any of these cult people undestand when something is emotional black mail?
I refuse to stoop to my sisters level. If she brings it up again I will say that if I went back because I was guilted in, I would not be doing it for the right reasons. My mom used to use those tactics on me but the last 10 years of her life she accepted me for who I was unconditionally. I do not believe it to be the truth as I do not believe in man made relgion period. It is all to do with control.
i lost my mother some time ago.
today my sister throws up 3 john 1:4 "i have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
" don't any of these cult people undestand when something is emotional black mail?
I lost my mother some time ago. Today my sister throws up 3 John 1:4 "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth." Don't any of these cult people undestand when something is emotional black mail? If I was to go back to the relgion just to make my mom happy then I would be doing it for the wrong reasons. I just wished they would leave well enough alone but they never stop the cheep black mail tactics. Any thoughts here? Has anyone else here had similar experiances?
Maybe the driver dies in this universe but he still exists in a parallel universe.
friends.. i'm sure you will all be encouraged by this nice story related to me by a brother in my old congregation.
4 year old "jana" (not her real name), is from a witness family in a middle sized city.
she has faced many challenges in her pre-school class.
One of the most terrible things that WT did to me growing up was not allowing me to fit in with the other children. It is very important that we are accepted by our peers but in every aspect of my life growing up I was made to feel different, to not fit in. The religion puts my self esteme down so low it took years to build it up after I left the cult. I only feel sorry for these youngs ones that have to put up with these man made beliefs.
I read once when my hypocritical brother in law was the watchtower servant and then after that he would not use me. I do not know to this day but I think it was because I was not a big brown noser like the other teens that were my age in the cong. I had good news the other day when I found out my dear brother in law now has leukemia. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
