Posts by GrreatTeacher

90

$5.5 Million to be transferred to World Wide Work from Assembly Hall fund

by Sour Grapes in

a letter was read tonight in our kingdom hall that the money that the circuits in the indianapolis area had in savings to build a new assembly hall will now be transferred to the www to build kingdom halls in lands where they are needed and a new assembly hall for us will not be built.. we had a beautiful assembly hall near downtown indy that was paid for.

it was sold a couple of years ago.

we were promised a new assembly hall to be built in southern ohio near the indiana border but they can kiss that goodbye now.

GrreatTeacher

A bully/abuser will ramp up abusive behavior to test how much will be tolerated until there is pushback.

The longer that takes, the more contempt they hold for you, reinforcing their belief that you deserve it.

Let the reader use discernment.

18

Is it ethical to have children?

by joey jojo in

this was a news article recently in an australian newspaper that caught my eye.. the premise was that to have a child is to inflict an extra human being onto the world and also, to inflict the world (with all its problems) onto the child.. there is a lot to say about this but from jw point of view, i have always believed it to be incredibly hypocritical that jw's have children in 'this system'.

all my life at the meeting i heard how little time we have left, how sick the world is, how i was probably going to be persecuted and end up in a jail cell for being a jw.

why would anyone want to become parents in this situation, particularly if they are confident there is only 'a short time left'?.

GrreatTeacher

It was actually a thing in the late eighties and nineties. Spiritual people did not have kids. The most spiritual people pioneered, but others were pressured to not have children as well, and many buckled under the pressure, lamenting they would wait until the new system.

Three of my closest friends from that time period have never had kids. Only one of them pioneered.

People who had kids were considered spiritually weak.

17

Tattoos?

by Wild_Thing in

jw
friends

if seems to be quite fashionable nowadays for ex-jws to get a tattoo or a series of tattoos to symbolize either their time spent in the watchtower or their escape, and i kind of don't get it.

i don't understand why someone would want a constant reminder on their body of such a horrible period in their life.

on another forum, one woman shared that she was getting 25 bees tattooed all over her body to represent the 25 years she spent in the org.

GrreatTeacher

I had thought about getting one after I admired the demure wreath a friend had tattooed around her belly button.

Then she got pregnant...

57

What to Do....Please Help. Awakening JW for a very long time

by CovertsadJW in

good afternoon , .

i have been having doubts for many years and as most jw's i have certainly not done myself a favor by suppressing all of my critical thinking.

i am married with 3 kids and my wife and i are inactive, but my wife has made it very clear in speech and action that she wants to go to all meetings, field service, and indoctrinate our kids.

GrreatTeacher

I worry about your kids growing up around all of that screaming, yelling, and verbal abuse. I would hate for them growing up thinking that communicating that way is normal and acceptable.

I was glad to hear you stand up for yourself and reject verbal abuse by saying,"Don't talk down to me." That creates a boundary of respect around your communications.

I would respond to any loud, shrill, out of control, or swearing type speech with, "You may not speak to me like this. When you get yourself together, and can speak respectfully, then we can continue this conversation.

Set a boundary around basic respectful speech in conversations. All that yelling, screaming and cursing: You don't deserve it, your kids don't deserve it, and they shouldn't grow up thinking that this is normal and acceptable behavior.

I think that might be a great place to start carving out some basic communication ground rules.

3

Just a story I found of how one family left.

by days of future passed in

while wandering on youtube, i came across a user named trueface.

perhaps you have already watched it.

i liked it because they describe their thoughts on how events and research led them to leave the wt.

GrreatTeacher

Great video. Bump for Sunday evening surfers.

Watch to see how the local congregation treated one of its loyal longtime members upon her decline due to dementia and subsequent death.

21

My final topic

by pomo6780 in

i have noted that the irritable part of me got the better of me when posting about j f rutherford.

i acknowledge that a few on here have pointed out flaws in my reasoning and the way i reason.

and i agree with them.

GrreatTeacher

No, silly. I was talking to PORNO. Apoarently he's on number 6780. I guess he's now off to #6781.

Kevin's always late.

21

My final topic

by pomo6780 in

i have noted that the irritable part of me got the better of me when posting about j f rutherford.

i acknowledge that a few on here have pointed out flaws in my reasoning and the way i reason.

and i agree with them.

GrreatTeacher

Is that you, Kevin??

17

Are You Spending More Money This Year With The Economy Being Better?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i see more people this year in an optimistic mood because of the economy.

will you be spending more money 💰 this year, or less or about the same as last year?.

GrreatTeacher

Ah, I bought a new car last year, so I'm spending plenty of money on car payments for 4 more years.

Somewhat ironically, my first payment disappeared out of my account on Christmas day last year. It made me kind of dislike automated payments.

34

I am grateful for leaving the watchtower corporation. Innit!

by punkofnice in

i dislike long topics......so here it is.. i suffered for my religion, now it's your turn.. when i first left the corporation my life exploded into a suicidal chaos.. my family broke up.

i lost my so called friends.. luckily, i had worldly friends from all walks of life that supported me, even though they had no idea why i was so suicidal.

in as much as they hadn't left cults.. i went from the corporation to a baptist church.

GrreatTeacher

I know I'm a weirdo, but I kinda enjoy the fact that life's meaningless.

It frees me from the struggle of trying to find meaning in everything; trying to make all the pieces fit.

I'm no longer interested in even creating a coherent meaningful story to explain the events in the arc of my life.

Yeah, work sucks. It's work, it's supposed to. But, my weekends are mine and if I don't have anything more meaningful to do than look forward to a good cup of coffee in the morning and a perusal of the internet in the afternoon, then that's fine by me.

Oh, and some good quality laundry time. God, I love the smell of laundry soap and bleach!

30

Another reason Watchtower may be hurting financially

by shepherdless in

i don't think anyone else has raised this point.

below i set out the case that the jw demographic in usa has a steadily decreasing combined income, and as a consequence, has less money to donate.

not only is the flock not growing, the flock is producing less wool for the borg to fleece.

GrreatTeacher

Does Watchtower somehow aggregate financial data about its members?

It would make sense that they should if they are depending on donations now rather than the sales of literature.

Any good corporation would have information on the demographics of its customers in order to market to them and adjust their business model.

So, my question is: does Watchtower know how much income its members have and the liklihood of their spending some of it on WT?

Does anybody know?