willyloman

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Posts by willyloman

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  13

  More information needed regarding End Time Religions/Sects

  by Prins Vaillant in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this year i am going to write my thesis about the end time, armageddon, ... .

  do you have knowledge of other religious movements or sects who believe in a sort of end of the world as we know it.

  please comment.

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  willyloman

  About a year ago, Time magazine did a cover story on "the last days" and covered this topic very well. I was struck by the fact that JWs were not even mentioned in the article! This by one of the largest news-gathering organizations on the planet(!)

  It just goes to show that despite all the hyperbole within the WTS, the role of JWs in preaching the end of this system is simply NOT common knowledge among the masses. If it were, JWs would have been prominently featured in the series of stories on the subject... or at least MENTIONED.
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  93

  My two week consulting trip to Bethel (the beginning of the end) part 2

  by seven006 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as we entered a door of the administration building we did not head to the elevator to take us up the eight floors to the main administration floor.

  i looked around the room and asked, "what's up with her?

  i was going to work with the elder from hell who ran the photography department.

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  willyloman

  Dave: Fascinating account. You have our undivided attention.
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  29

  biggest WTBTS threat

  by stillajwexelder in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sorry if there has already been a thread on this subject.

  do you think a really big threat to the wtbts is from people like me who are still witnesses and in the organization but also post on this board and have an open mind -- or do you think there are bigger threats -and if so what would they be?

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  willyloman

  He told me not to leave the borg that there aren't enough normal, compassionate people in and if I leave there will be one less. I told him I didn't believe half of what's taught and I can't fake it. He said that's okay, to just filter out the stuff I don't agree with! I asked him point blank if he has doubts too. He said yes. I said how can you stay? He said he has to help the friends. He was very active in helping bros and sis's who were physically or sexually abused in the borg, JWs from all over the world called him for help and if he left the borg, who would step in his place to help them?

  While this is a lovely concept, it just doesn't work that way. There are very few people left in the org who fit this description, and fewer still who would call on such a one for advice. The constant hammering away at dissidence ("Beware the Voice of a Stranger") drives compassionate ones further underground, or away. Friends who get "outside the box" advice from a kindly elder will get so many conflicting messages from the org that they will eventually ask ANOTHER elder for advice, and get a very different response, along with a stern warning not to think for oneself. End result? Publisher no longer seeks advice from compassionate elder, in fact begins to view him with suspicion. The brother you describe above is by now so far underground, the sun doesn't shine.
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  20

  Jehovah's Witnesses reorganize printing operations

  by Dogpatch in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for immediate release.

  september 1, 2003

  printable version

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  willyloman

  Winston pretty much nailed the WT press release statements to the wall, but here's more duplicity:

  ...the facilities in Brooklyn produced almost 50 percent of the books used in the Bible education work for which Jehovah's Witnesses are known worldwide...
  

  ...The Watchtower, has ... the largest circulation of any religious journal and is by far the world's most widely translated magazine...

  There are three examples of spinmeister-ism at play here.

  1. There has been no poll conducted that I've ever seen that proves JWs are known worldwide for "bible education work." I am pretty certain that if you sat outside any office building in any major city and polled everyone who walked out the front door, one of the LAST things people would say they recognize about JWs is that they are involved in bible education work. So they are hardly "known worldwide" for this; the language is designed to reposition themselves.

  2. The word "circulation" is widely misused in the publishing industry. All reputable magazines have their circulation audited independently by huge firms that do this for a living and have reputations to protect, and when, say, Ladies Home Journal tells you their circulation is, oh, maybe 2.5 million, that number's been verified. Also, that's the number of copies they sold; in other words, somebody went out and bought the magazine; they sought it out. Free publications are not eligible for circulation audits for the most part; if and when they are accepted for an audit by a legitimate firm, the audit must be based on proveable distribution; in other words, receipts from Post Office for mailing X number of copies, or some such. No reputable auditing company would ever accept the number of copies that are PRINTED as the same thing as CIRCULATION. They are not the same. Even audited publications print many more copies than they circulate; lots of copies are used in-house, or are returned from news racks, for example. The WT press release wants you to believe this is REAL circulation but everyone on this board and in every KH across the globe knows that many, many of these magazines simply pile up on book shelves, or in the bottom of book bags, and are eventually tossed out.

  3. The term "widely translated" is used to suggest that people are so eager to obtain these precious magazines that all over the world folks are translating them into their own languages. Not so. If you back up a few sentences, the press release acknowledges that the society itself translates and publishes these in many languages. There is absolutely NO evidence that anyone else, anywhere, translates these magazines into other languages (in significant numbers, for general distribution). But that's what the WT spinmeister means to imply.

  That's my take on it, anyway.
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  36

  Transcript: Beware of the Voice of Strangers

  by Scully in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  many thanks go to the following who made this possible:.

  nosferatu for originally acquiring the recording and uploading it for everyone to hear.. hamas for hosting it so that even more people could listen to it;.

  and finally to euphemism and odrade for their help in transcribing the entire talk with me.. without further ado, here is the transcript for the talk beware of the voice of strangers:.

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  willyloman

  Listening to this talk at the convention and knowing what I know, I felt "dirty" just being there.
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  30

  To Jehovah's Witnesses, Jehovah and Satan Are EQUAL

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  jw's always say that we better watch out because satan the devil is always looking at us to try to devour us.

  we are told not to get involved with anything that is against god's will because satan is constantly looking at us to trick us into serving him.

  satan is so powerful that he influences billions of people.

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  willyloman

  On March 26,1918, Satan the Devil was thrown out of heaven , according to the "Your Will Be Done" book.

  Yikes, that's my dad's birthday. You don't suppose....? Whoa!!!
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  21

  Elder Arrangement -- PROVEN WRONG!!!

  by proplog2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "in the congregations of christendom the term "elder" has become a title and "eldership" has become a position or office to which men are appointed.

  in support of this, the religious organizations having such elders and elderships appeal to acts 14:23 (as), which tells of paul and barnabus as founders of congregations: "and when they had appointed for them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, the commended them to the lord, on whom they believed.

  " also titus 1:5 (rs): "this is why i left you in crete, that you might amend what was defective, and appoint elders in every town as i directed you.

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  willyloman

  I wasn't around then but folks who were tell me the whole concept of a body of elders was supposed to offset the influence of some very powerful congo servants who ran their personal congregations with an iron fist; if the guy was unbalanced in some way, the whole congo suffered. The "body" of elders was supposed to diffuse this kind of behavior.

  Well, you see how well that's worked.
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  34

  In Search of Christian Freedom

  by berylblue in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  franz stated something in this mind-blowing book which was definitely true for me.. he stated (this is a poor paraphrase) that very early on during a "study", witnesses can easily show what's in the bible regarding god's name, the condition of the dead, living on paradise earth, etc.

  once these are proven to a person's satisfaction, when the study moves on to more complicated matters, it is just easier to accept what isn't understood on the basis that so far, everything has seemed true.

  by now, there is an emotional investment -and everything up until now seemed fine, so.....................................let's swallow it all, and what is too difficult to swallow comfortably (blood?

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  willyloman

  Life revolves around Satan when you are a JW. It may sound a bit radical to say that but in reality how often did you think about Satan before you were a JW?

  Umm, let me think. Oh, I know. The answer is... never!

  You make a very good point.
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  9

  For current/former elders & CO's - A day in the life of a service report

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this question is especially directed at those who dealed with field service reports.

  i have yet to read a post which describes in detail the life cycle of one of these annoying slips of paper.. so.... at the end of the month, we put our fake hours into the box at the back of the hall or give them to the congregation book study conductor overseer.

  who is responsible for tabulating the hours/books/rv's etc.

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  willyloman

  Former secretary weighing in here...
  

  A brother someplace created software to help secretaries record all this stuff, and we had our copy and used it exclusively. The cards were collected and telephone calls made to those who didn't turn in cards. An attempt was made to get a report from every publisher, but usually about 80% turned in time in a given month; the rest were irregular or inactive or couldn't be reached. The ones you reached on the phone were, for the most part, clearly making up some numbers. On occasion, a secretary would refuse to accept zero ("You must have put in SOME time, brother, perhaps informally? Reading to your children?") This pleading usually resulted in a one or two hour report from said publisher.

  The numbers were dutifully entered into the computer program. It calculated all the totals required for the pre-printed form that went to the society. Printed copies of the summary report (all totals) from the computer went to all the elders, along with a break-out report that showed the individual totals for each member of their respective book study (for those who conducted one). This was considered a management tool.

  Elders, and circuit overseers, were primarily concerned with: Are the numbers up from last year, month, CO visit? What percentage of congo had five hours or less? What percentage 6-10 hours? More? How many pio's and how does that number compare to the past? How many irregular, inactive, and how's that compare? Is there improvement/growth in the number of publishers? pioneers and aux pio's? How many inactives have been reactivated? Basically, it's all about how do we compare to the national average and the rest of the circuit and our own past performance.

  None of these figures were considered to be "official" until they were entered by hand onto the individual publisher cards. Rarely a CO would ask for the computer printout, but most of them insisted on the actual cards along with a copy of of the form sent to the WTS which contained the totals. What they were looking for is the same as the elders, above.

  This, to best of my memory, is the process, which may have changed some by now.
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  6

  Small congregations, lots of work

  by JH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

  did you ever belong to a book study or even a congregation that had limited resources, and you had to do most of the work, like reading at the book study all the time because there was a lack of brothers, having to make more comments than the average, because no one else would have answered, or even saying the prayer more often than your turn.

  did you ever feel as if your congregation or book study didn't have enough depth?.

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  willyloman

  What metatron said!

  This is precisely why the change a year or so ago to the "new" book study arrangement, where groups are limited to 15 and the conductor is now an "overseer." In the elder's "school" outlining procedures for all this, it was made perfectly clear that the BSO (that's book study overseer, in case you're confused) would review all the cards and keep the pressure on his small, manageable group so they report time, get out in service more, and never, never miss meetings. How well this has worked depends on the congo you're in, but my experience is that it's like a lot of other "make work" projects; it is widely ignored in practice, although paid much lip service theoretically.

  As for the topic of your post, yes, I was in a small congo once where there were only three elders and a couple of MS among 50-60 publishers and it was a whirlwind. You're on the platform every single week, often twice, and are giving public talks at least once a month. With three elders, two of us had to hold two of the "permanent positions" such as Secretary and School Overseer. It kept us extremely busy and looking back I have two thoughts about that:

  1. We were impatient with problems in the congregation and those who caused them (I used these terms advisedly) and a lot of mistakes were made.

  2. We learned to be quick on our feet and developed very good public speaking habits. To this day you can wake me out of a sleep and I can do a five minute talk with nothing more in my hands than a piece of lint from my pants pocket.