i'm finding it more and more funny how every wt article for the public or congregation, including jw broadcast talks about all this "growth" and how fast jehovha's organization is speeding up!
yet everything behind closed doors, insider information, elder letters and sales paint a very different picture.
i have news for you gb members!
Thanks Berrygerry
The declaine is obvious in the reddit.com, and the Stockholm meeting was very much advertised to be the s.called big event in scandinavia for this decade.... probably there is way many waited to be babtized here in stockholm. But obviously not enoght to keep the memberstock intact!
Regards
Bugbear
i'm finding it more and more funny how every wt article for the public or congregation, including jw broadcast talks about all this "growth" and how fast jehovha's organization is speeding up!
yet everything behind closed doors, insider information, elder letters and sales paint a very different picture.
i have news for you gb members!
Here is a little contribution to all your figures. In the Nordic conference held in Stockholm 3-4th July, in or about 50.000 persons were present. These people came mainly from Northern Europe. Totally there were there 400 people baptized. These 400 is 0.8% of all attendees.!!! Normally If people wants to become baptized they do it during the summer conference. Meaning that there are very few new left in the area, that will become baptized during the rest of the year. 400 hundred people baptized is in other word a catastrophe… I think that the death rate (at least among JW,s) is quite a bit higher. The organization is definitely declining in the northern hemisphere. And that’s where the the money are.
Bugbear
as with the scribes and pharisees, there are a number of unwritten rules that witnesses are supposed to follow.
here's a couple : "worldly" kids in society depictions are shown quite often wearing their baseball caps backwards.
jehovah's witness youths would not want to imitate that "look".
InquiryMan
I agree with your laid back “Scandinavian” attitude. But it depends very much on in what congs. You were. There was a pioneering couple coming to our “needing” cong. I happened to be very interested in Egyptian history an archeology, and therefore I had some “pictures” from old ancient Egypt. Among my paintings were two plastic pictures covered with “plastic gold”. They were plastic copies depicting probably Nephertite and Cleopatra.
One day when I was at work these two pioneers knocked on my door and my wife with several small kids at home, opened. They said that they would like to discuss some matters with her. They said that they could not accept that we had a Bible study at our home with these two pictures of ancient goddesses on the wall. And then the literary, took down the pictures, and burned them in my garden. This without asking me the owner of the paintings. When I came home that day I didn´t first notice that the “pictures” were missing. But after a few days I asked my wife were they were. She told me the story crying with tears on her cheeks. I got furious but resisted going over to these spiritually strong pioneers, discussing the matter. I preferred to avoid row within the congregation. I was an elder at the time but I know that this was one of mine first awakenings, and the beginning of my fading.
Bugbear
fact: bible chronology says the flood occurred between 2348 and 2370 bce, depending on which scholar you listen to.
fact: the great pyramid of giza was constructed 200 years before, in c. 2560 bce..
so, if you believe in a literal interpretation of noah's flood, you believe that the egyptians built a great civilization, were destroyed by the flood in 2370 bce, and then somehow, they reappeared immediately after the flood, picked right back up where they left off without skipping a cultural beat.. oh, and isn't it ironic that legitimately studying the great pyramid of giza debunks jw mythology now?
cappytan
Your are so right. You can also add to your observation, that since we have been able to decode the hierglyphs (thanks to Champollion), we can estblish quite good kingdom (or Faraho) lines from in or about 3000 years before christ??!! They are not written on paper or Papyrus, they are written of stones in original. They are not transcriptions of translated transcriptions who is translated destroyed and translitterated again.
This is not the only original documents we have found. Late Archeological findings from the kingdoms of the Sumers, f.ex. the Gilgamecsh epos and several thousends of clay plates in cuniform letters. Saddly the Watchtower Soc. totaly ignore these facs, and we know why.
Bugbear
what are the top 5 things you hate most about the jw organization and top 5 things you like most?
Here are a few of my “hate the most” with JW:s
1./ Their total ignorance of facts.
2./ Their moral superior attitude over you when you tell them the facts
3./ Their shunning of people that are trying to explain that they are holding their world maps upside down.
4./Their continuing spreading of lies and asking for money to do that.
5./ Their total absence of economical accounting and statement and where the money goes.
Bugbear
http://national.deseretnews.com/article/4645/why-more-young-women-are-leaving-church.html.
stock photo a kulicki .
faith compiled by massarah mikati sunday, may 31, 2015 why more young women are leaving church.
Thanks for your post Barbara.. Interesting stuff…
There is un organization that makes yearly investigations about what people actually believe and They call are called “world wide survey”. In their latest presentation some countries stick out extremely when it comes to religious believes. You will find that in the northern European countries all kinds of religion is declining. Especially Sweden is on their map extremely secular. Less than 23% of the interviewed persons claims that they had any sort of believing in a “higher power” . Less than 4 % of the populations goes to any church ceremony. In fact those JW:s who are doing their “preaching” work, are looked upon as lunatics. Hence the number of JW,s in Sweden has declined from 25.000 (1980) to about 19000 in the year 2014. I am sure that this numbers 19000 is even that a fake. Lots of “faders” are still registered as witnesses.
Bugbear
so after 20 years a convert, about a month ago i decided to start listening to my doubts and to do independent research about the wtbts teachings (naughty me).
as a result i have consolidated my position on various points and these are my major issues with the wtbts teachings, i am posting these to help myself figure things out (with your assistance) and hopefully to hear from others at their stage of drawing away from the gb - newbies' especially.
in the form of notes so hope you dont mind...child abuse.
Thank you for your contribution. Interesting reading and many thoughtful thoughts. Every one of you seems to have “Christian basic” thoughts, and that the Bible, if correct translated, and or interpreted must be “the wholly word” from God. So does many other religions, but they don’t accept the Bible. They are using other “religious” literature to support their believing’s. But actually very few of us does by ourselves understand what is written in these “wholly scriptures”. Hence a number of “thinkers”, claim that they understand “their wholly scriptures”, and are “the only one” that can explain the absolute “nonsense” texts that often appears in these books. This is the way they get power over us. We, the week and humble people, does not dare challenge, these vise men. If we do we will be dismissed from our society, for being rebellious, or weird, odd or having a to low IQ.
This is the way the Mullahs, Priests, Popes, suppresses new ideas, new thinking and scientific based knowledge. All new ideas are dangerous and a peril to their society. As Paul wrote “you must choke their mouth”, so that we who have the truth, don’t get lost.
If you actually read your Bible, specially the old testament, you will find “horror” stories, about death, diseases, blood sacrificing, killing of babies and un obviously paranoid, psychopathic god.
Just listen to one of the ten commandments: “Though shalt not have any other god, than me”…?
The texts in the bible as well as in the Tora or The Koran, comes from an ancient time, and cannot be interpreted into “modern thinking and moral, ethics”, this is a prove that god is dead, or not even ever had existed. The thinking from all these books is coming from an old “tribe” thinking –we –them, based of un evolutionary idea, we have to stay together and hit the other tribes before they hit us.
Bugbear
i made a thread on reddit regarding questions jw's can't answer.
was wondering what you guys can add to it..
The basic Christian issue is “Jesus – Gods son was sent to earth to offer his life as a random so that we earth living humans will be forgiven and have eternal life. When he comes: we spit on him, we torture him, we drag him in the mud, he dies, goes up to his father, and say now they are ready to be forgiven…???!
Bugbear
i have recently been studying the myths and legends of other pre- jewish cultures.
such as babylonian, egyptian and greek.
these stories and beliefs are all pre dating the writing of the jewish torah and the new testament.
I have read “history of Ideas and science” on an University level. And one of the understandings I found was that most of Bible content only is a repeating of older stories, sometimes distorted from old tales and explanations. Many of these stories has been found in cuneiform letters from the ancient Sumers. Even since we have been able to understand old Egyptian hieroglyphs (thanks to Champillion), we have been able to document our history down to 5400 years bc. This documentation is not a translation of old paper rolls that has been translated, transformed. Written again, translated, destroyed, reformed over and over…..
They are actually written in original letters on stone……
An idea of what makes the “wholly Bible” fallacy obvious, are the s.c. Parallel scriptures. The books of Chronicles, Kings, the books of Samuel and others are practically copies. You will find that many of the different chapters are identical. Sometimes they makes mistakes and mention another name than in the in the previous. If these books are run in a computer, you can immediately se the similarities, thus if you were using them in un University essay your examination will fail. You would probably be accused of fraud. And suspended from the university. Why is this obvious not holly scriptures, why do they repeat themselves on and on again.
The obvious reasons are they were not written by god inspired men. They were written by copying men who were looking on older rolls. And these older rolls where not the only rolls, there were 100 of rolls with similar texts. The copyist did not understand that other versions of the text were stored in other synagogues. When Athanasius of Alexandria compiled the books of the bible, he could not see these obvious mistakes.
If you would like to se more literature and Bible criticism, I would recommend as a starter SAB.
or http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Here you can see lots of commentary’s to Bible texts. God luck in your studies…
Bugbear
nice try brother lett.
you moved the cups around the table and thought we would not see the slight of hand you were handing us.
you begged for money but you have failed to show yourself capable of handling the monies already provided .
Doc
I agree with you. The question that always pops up in my mind is…. how do they dare ask for more money. Don´t they understand that this money begging and real estate selling will reduce the will to donate, amongst those who have economical capacity to give. In fact it will work contradicting to what they really want, more members, more founds, more real estates
Bugbear
