Somebody should send these guys Dave's recently posted "travelogue" summarizing his own faith-strengthening two-week trip to Bethel.
willyloman
JoinedPosts by willyloman
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Do you need a vacation? Have you ever considered Bethel?
by jayhawk1 inhere is a copy and paste from www.bethelcoachtours.com as to why you should go see bethel for your next vacation.
has anybody done this, any experiences good or bad?.
bethel branches all over the world.
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Playing The Hand You Are Dealt
by jst2laws inmy wife and i were df'd about six months ago as apostates after our combined 88 years in the organization (i love borrowing wt methods of making figures impressive).
if it were not for the wt perhaps i would have gone to college as i had planned instead of to bethel for six years.
perhaps i would have started my business a decade earlier in life rather than spend ten years in the 'fulltime preaching work'.
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willyloman
Good for you man. I wish you the best, hope you can reach a few of those you love.
Thank you for the nice thought. It's too soon to go public with details, but since you mention it: Things are going remarkably well in that area. Right now, a whole new world is opening up for our family. Virtually all of us had been having the same doubts and suffering silently. Now we're talking to each other. It's been pretty amazing so far.
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Question about Raymond Franz and the C.K.I.
by Motema Bolingo inaccording to the following chart - in french, but easily understandable : .
http://www.finalkeno.freesurf.fr/temp/tj/html/origines3.gif.
(picture can be enlarged by clicking on the icon appearing on the right - bottom).. raymond franz was the founder of the "christian koinonia international" - 1981.. is this information true or a lie ?.
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willyloman
Why don't you just ASK him?
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Playing The Hand You Are Dealt
by jst2laws inmy wife and i were df'd about six months ago as apostates after our combined 88 years in the organization (i love borrowing wt methods of making figures impressive).
if it were not for the wt perhaps i would have gone to college as i had planned instead of to bethel for six years.
perhaps i would have started my business a decade earlier in life rather than spend ten years in the 'fulltime preaching work'.
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willyloman
Steve:
This is a wonderful post and expresses my own thoughts on the matter as a guy way in his 50s who sat on the edge of a lake in 1990 and wondered why the hell he was doing this and is only now doing the fade.
Many thoughtful replies have appeared here and I just want to second the emotion.
A friend once told me: There is always another opportunity coming; you just have to have the courage of your convictions. That courage is sometimes slow in coming, but the important thing is that it you act on it when it comes.
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Comments You Will Not Hear at the 10-5-03 WT Study
by blondie inwt article quotes are in
quotes from other wt publications are in
we have been encouraged to do everything possible (a "do more" phrase) to promote true worship so that we may walk in god's name forever.. .
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willyloman
What about today? Do we not see similar conditions? Like Micah, we are surrounded by a lack of justice, an atmosphere of distrust, and a breakdown of social and family life. (and that is only in the congregation!)
Your footnote is precisely what I was thinking when I read this!
Just a comment about your excellent series, O Blonde One: At our house, we've come to view it as a movie review of sorts; if it sounds like crap, we make plans to do something else; if it sounds harmless, we decide to go and keep one oar in the water (although we are getting closer and closer to selling the boat).
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This is the GOOD elder thread
by jwbot inwell, after thinking about all the bad experiences, i just wanted to know, did you know any good elders, and what were they like?
probably unconventional, right?
one of the only elders i knew that i truly thought was a wonderful person is my father.
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willyloman
jwbot wrote:
A little after that, my dad stepped down from being an elder...not sure if this had something to do about it. He is still in good standing though, and I was under the impression that is was the stress that got to him, can't be to sure though.
From your post, including the above, I feel like I "know" your dad. I don't really know him, but I know the type. Your instincts are good. There are many, many men in the org who have stepped down from this position because they felt they were being forced to compromise their integrity. Some leave or slowly drift away, but many stay and go about their business, learning to "do the truth" their way, on their own terms. Thus, your dad feels free to talk to you like a daughter and doesn't toe the party line. The man is out; he just hasn't left yet. Perhaps he has no place to go. Count your blessings, girl.
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ratio of active to gone
by kgfreeperson inif there are 6 million active baptised jws in the world, how many inactive, df'd or da'd jws do you think there are?
what effect do you think this number of not-active-for-whatever-reason has on the potential growth of jw?
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willyloman
Building on what Mac said:
So that's 3 million non-active JWs; in addition to that, how many close calls are running around out there? I think back on all the kids who never got baptized and just disappeared from the org when they grew up and figure that's got to add another 1 or 2 million. I don't buy the 15 million memorial attendees; these include a lot of unbaptized kids, relatives, acquaintances, "unbelieving mates," whack jobs, walking wounded, mentally feeble and other assorted hangers-on.
Best guess: 6 million JWs; another 5 million near-misses. It boils down to: the preaching work isn't THAT effective. You'd think 6 million people loose on the planet in posession of the ultimate cosmic truth would each be able gather a crowd far in excess of their number. Imagine, for example, how many people would follow you home if you merely stood on the crowded corner and passed out hundred dollar bills. Wouldn't the authentic answer to life's mysteries be worth more than money?
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What Was Your Reputation In The Congregation?
by minimus inwere you considered a "troublemaker", a "complainer", a "fine" brother or sister?
were you always being called before the elders for one thing or another?
is your reputation the same here as it was in the congregation??
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willyloman
People like Mulan and Simplesally would have come to me with any problems and felt relieved that I was so understanding and helpful, if not a bit surprised that I didn't diagnose spiritual weakness and prescribe the "do more" pill. People were in awe, or said they were, of my prowess on the platform and my "teaching ability," which simply means I translated from Watchtowerese into every day language and made it make sense (for which I will almost certainly burn in hell forever, unless they got one thing right). Perfect family, everybody settin' the example, our house was Hospitality Central. Still got the perfect family. I'm now setting a much better example for my kids. House is pretty quiet.
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Isaiah's Prophecy and it's fulfillment in 1919 (yeah right).
by integ ini have been reading the isaiah book part 2, the book the witnesses are studying right now at the book study.
in this book they everything has a modern day fulfillment...with them.
just as in the revelation book, where the 7 trumpet blasts are referred to as being bible student conventions in the 1920's.
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willyloman
Runningman: This is a profound argument; nice work:
The events of 1919 regarding the imprisonment of the governing body were so insignificant that even Witnesses would not even know about them if it were not drilled into them... if the Bible's major prophecies can be fulfilled in such an insignificant event, what does it say about all of the other prophecies... They are falling all over themselves to reinforce their ideas, to the point where they have no perspective.
The Isaiah book(s) are partly responsible for my current fade. One day I asked myself, what kind of thinking goes into a decision to get 6 million religious adherents to spend almost THREE YEARS doing a word by word study of this dribble? Aren't we supposed to be studying the BIBLE? Instead, we get pretend bible study... See this book? It's about the bible, only better.
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Comments You Will Not Hear at The 9-28-03 WT Study
by blondie incomments you will not hear at the 9-28-03 wt study
reviewer comments are in black and parentheses ().
wt article quotes are in
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willyloman
But the OT has much payoff for the officers of the corporation: Control. It is hard to threaten the faithful with the NT; Jesus is just too forgiving, and even Paul wouldn't disfellowship the ones who disagreed with him.
Precisely why there was never a second verse-by-verse study of NT writings following the publication of Commentary on the Letter of James, and why that book is now out of print; it made people too uncomfortable.