Senior old woman Jehovah Witness knocked on my door today

[Disciple.Luke]

13 minutes ago, TheGloryLand said:

What I understood of the JW they are like the Catholics, party time after Church… no birthday, just happy hour. 

I think there is some truth to that.

I don't believe that is the case with the majority of rank and file witnesses, but further up the line the rules seem to be different.

I follow a lot of ex jws on YouTube and on online blogs, and the consensus seems to be that morality at "headquarters" is completely different than what is taught.

I have heard many ex bethalites who said that while living and working at the headquarters it is very much a party culture. Not so much with things like sexual immorality but there definitely seems an excess of alcohol use.

After the founder Charles T. Russell passed...Judge Joseph Rutherford took control and by all historical accounts it is generally believed he was an alcoholic.. so I definitely believe alcoholism is rampant in the JWs 

Most JWs live modest lives and are so committed to obeying the organization they don't have little time or money to over indulge.

For most of the JWs existence the Governing Body and WT President's or sort of shadowy figures. The average JWs probably knew most of their leaders by name but their faces were rarely seen unless it was at a huge convention.

That all changed recently with the creation of JW.org. Now they've created their own "news" site with publications and even entertainment. The current GB members seem to like to be seen and now every jw can place a face with a name 

Thier arrogance is on full display to anyone who is looking. Those supposedly humble "faithful and discreet slaves"  make videos with their gold pinky rings, presidential Rolex watches, expensive suits...and live like billionaires from hard working jw donations.

I've heard that there is an unspoken rule for witnesses that work at headquarters that if they see one of GB members you aren't supposed to speak with them  The kings apparently have no time to mingle with the laborers.

I can't figure out if the JW leaders actually believe what they teach or if it's just an elaborate scam so a select few elite men can live lives of wealth and leisure under the guise of "religion"?

 

 

 

[Jim_Alaska]

They will readily "shun" their members, but will think nothing of downing alcohol when they should be "shunning" it.

Proverbs 20:1 (KJV) Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

[Disciple.Luke]

24 minutes ago, Jim_Alaska said:

They will readily "shun" their members, but will think nothing of downing alcohol when they should be "shunning" it.

Proverbs 20:1 (KJV) Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

Yes...it doesn't make sense.

Drink all you want....but if your child needs a blood transfusion to live then he has to die or "Jehovah"  won't bring him back during the resurrection.

They will tell you to sacrifice your child's life for Jehovah (The Governing Body) but at least you have whiskey to try drown their memories.

[TheGloryLand]

I told a JW, you might not make it to heaven. He said why? There are more than 144,000 JW. You can be left behind. By the way, JW will not pray with you. if you ask them. SAD

[Disciple.Luke]

3 hours ago, TheGloryLand said:

I told a JW, you might not make it to heaven. He said why? There are more than 144,000 JW. You can be left behind. By the way, JW will not pray with you. if you ask them. SAD

When I first started learn about Jehovah's witnesses beliefs my initial thinking was that if I could clear up the who goes to heaven issue then they would see the truth.

It took me a few years to realize that the topic of "heaven" was a useless subject in one on one evangelism.

If you read any of the current watchtower publications  from the last twenty years you'll notice that when they are referring to the nature of Jesus now, angels, demons, and the 144,000 that go to heaven are described as "spirit creatures".

So when the anointed die they become some sort of invisible immortal "spirit creature"  who apparently will be "working" while in heaven as co rulers with Jesus.

it took awhile but I eventually realized that MOST JWs DONT want to became some "creature" and prefer the idea of living on a paradise earth with all their resurrected family, friends and loved ones.

[TheGloryLand]

On 3/14/2023 at 1:32 PM, Disciple.Luke said:

At this time if I were having discussions with JWs I would be trying to corner them about why one of their Governing Body members was removed from his position.

This type of change isn't common with the Watchtower Org . Governing Body Members "the faithful and discreet slave" typically keep the position until their deaths.

The Watchtower Society isn't saying much about why this happened but I think at least one of the reasons had to do with a YouTube video that came out s couple years ago.

Governing Body member Anthony Morris III was recognized when he traveled several miles from the JW Headquarters location to purchase alcohol at a liquor store 

Despite avoiding local liquor stores someone still recognized him and began recording him with his phone and even sparked some conversation with him about different whiskeys.

What made this a big deal when the video was uploaded to YouTube was the large amount of alcohol he was buying a ong with how expensive  the brand was. 

While I'm not an expert on whiskey and how much price difference is between them - others who seen the video calculated he was spending several hundreds of dollars.

Since the JW leaders supposedly take a vow of "poverty" and simplicity and have no other employment I'm sure some JWs were angry to see so much money wasted considering how many local kingdom halls were being shut down and sold and the constant begging for donations even after selling all their Brooklyn properties for billions of dollars.

I'm not sure if the "Bottlegate" video is why he was removed but I'm sure it didn't help. 

Officially it doesn't appear that the leadership wants to provide many details for this change but with all the sexual abuse lawsuits they are drowning in his removal could be the Organization trying to get ahead of some coming legal issue.

If you could get a JW to watch the "Bottlegate" YouTube clip there isn't anyway for them to justify the amount of spending by one of their "anointed" . My guess is Jesus would be flipping money tables over at Watchtower headquarters calling them thieves instead of making them "co rulers" in heaven with him.

I have an update regarding the Jehovah witnesses. They are no longer knocking on doors. Now, I see them in the public park walkways with a stand with hand out flyers stuff, but they don’t approach you. They are letting you approach them, so you can just walk by and say hello, and they’ll say hello back, that’s all. Now,if you ask them regarding what is on that display, now you open the door to them to minister to you. The Jehovah witnesses are doing something, that we are not, that is reaching out in public places. I was wondering if we can do the same thing, but have the display full of Christians tracts, free information. We might be able to learn something from them? What do you think. In the area of reaching out with the gospel.

[Disciple.Luke]

25 minutes ago, TheGloryLand said:

I have an update regarding the Jehovah witnesses. They are no longer knocking on doors. Now, I see them in the public park walkways with a stand with hand out flyers stuff, but they don’t approach you. They are letting you approach them, so you can just walk by and say hello, and they’ll say hello back, that’s all. Now,if you ask them regarding what is on that display, now you open the door to them to minister to you. The Jehovah witnesses are doing something, that we are not, that is reaching out in public places. I was wondering if we can do the same thing, but have the display full of Christians tracts, free information. We might be able to learn something from them? What do you think. In the area of reaching out with the gospel.

They have been using cart witnessing for a few years now. They don't do it here where I live but I know people would volunteer from the congregation to go to Indianapolis and preach that way.

It's only a matter of time before they abandon paper in favor of online materials which I think will greatly effect their door to door work here in the United States. It will be cheaper for them but it will be a little awkward at the doors as no one will be willing to download Watchtower witnessing material. But I believe the Cart witnessing is a way to conserve publications since only someone really interested would approach for them. I agree with you though that this is a way to get far more people's attention out in public but I sincerely doubt it will increase interested people.

JW.org seems to be where they want people to go to read their publications. They advertise it on the road signs of the kingdom halls and publications. The internet has done a lot of damage to the organization with numerous ex JW sites that point out false prophecies and beliefs but has been a tool for them to cut expenses as well.

I believe they are shifting to digital downloads to not only save money but also as a way to protect their members.  Before JW.org the witnesses would encounter people at the door that would tell them something about the Watchtower and they would go and Google search it. This leadto many witnesses leaving when they found these websites exposing their beliefs and errors. Now JWs will go to their own website to look for doctrinal issues and questions. For many of them JW.org is the only source they use to learn about world news as anything out side of the org is owned by "Satan".

 

[Disciple.Luke]

46 minutes ago, TheGloryLand said:

I have an update regarding the Jehovah witnesses. They are no longer knocking on doors. Now, I see them in the public park walkways with a stand with hand out flyers stuff, but they don’t approach you. They are letting you approach them, so you can just walk by and say hello, and they’ll say hello back, that’s all. Now,if you ask them regarding what is on that display, now you open the door to them to minister to you. The Jehovah witnesses are doing something, that we are not, that is reaching out in public places. I was wondering if we can do the same thing, but have the display full of Christians tracts, free information. We might be able to learn something from them? What do you think. In the area of reaching out with the gospel.

But I absolutely agree that we could learn from their zeal to preach their faith.

If only a third of church members would do public witnessing there would be some fruit. If JWs can baptized hundreds of thousands each year with lies... surely the truth can win souls and add to the local churches.

Everyone now a days is more afraid offending people more than winning souls.

[TheGloryLand]

You seem to know very much about them. If they go digital, how can they get money from their members, when their members have to pay for all the handouts they share. I believe this is the way they support the ministry. They don’t do weekly tithing and offerings , correct.

[Disciple.Luke]

1 hour ago, TheGloryLand said:

You seem to know very much about them. If they go digital, how can they get money from their members, when their members have to pay for all the handouts they share. I believe this is the way they support the ministry. They don’t do weekly tithing and offerings , correct.

So the members actually pay for publications they give out for free. While it isn't mandatory...it is still encouraged that a witness donate for a publication they have given out .

Also while they have always been critical of churches who demand a weekly tithe they still practice it by just calling it something else. Several years back every congregation was asked to announce a new way of giving and the members were asked to anonymously write down what they could afford to give monthly. This was then added up and whatever the giving amount in each congregation was ended up being what the Watchtower expected monthly. So whether they call it donating, giving, or tithing they still get money from it's members in a regular basis.

Another source of getting money was that even after a congregation has paid back the Watchtower loan it was given to build the congregations they still "encourage" members to continue contributing the same amount monthly except a few hundred dollars a month that is reserved for building repairs or expenses. I believe this was discontinued but not positive.

The congregation loans are complete scam to begin with because even though the congregation pays the Watchtower back the Watchtower Society takes complete ownership of the building. This gives the Society a higher net worth and the ability to sell congregation buildings whenever they want. This has been a recent move by the Watchtower because of the money they are out from losing sex abuse cases. They started selling Kingdom Halls and  having 2-5 congregations worship at different times in the same buildings.

Here where I live there used to be three congregations with two kingdom halls. The West and South Sharded a building and the North congregation had its own building. But they sold one building a few years ago and combined three congregations into two and  meeting in one building.

It is absolutely unbelievable to me that JWs don't see the scams and so easily believe everything the Watchtower teaches and requests. JWs spend hours each week preparing and attending services while also being pushed to go door to door as much as possible and donate as much money from what little work hours they have to work.

They are the Societys slaves and workforce. The Watchtower parades as a religion but is really a pyramid scam that sells publications and  brings in probably billions a year. I haven't even brought up money that JWs members "donate" to use buildings for regional conventions that have been paid for years ago.

As long as the majority of JWs remain "sheep" the Society will always find a different way to get money.

They will most likely always have some paper publications like tracts and hard copies of their Bible. For America and other countries that have the same digital technology as us I believe will mostly become digital. Obviously in poor countries in Africa and South America they will have to continue using paper so they will always have some form of printing available...but I believe they will push into into mostly online material as printing continues to get more expensive and less popular here.

Edited April 13, 2023 by Disciple.Luke

[Jim_Alaska]

And now their members are highly encouraged to do actual letter writing instead of door to door witnessing.

[Disciple.Luke]

17 minutes ago, Jim_Alaska said:

And now their members are highly encouraged to do actual letter writing instead of door to door witnessing.

Yes. They started that during COVID but is complete waste of time if you ask me.

I'm not sure where they are finding names to match to addresses but they sent two different letters to my house but the names were people I had never heard of. They couldn't have lived at this address in the last ten hours at least..if ever.

I believe that many of the activities that the Watchtower tasks JWs with is far more about keeping them obedient than actually witnessing to others. I imagine during COVID the letter writing was more about keeping JWs "active" than anything else.

I watched a few of their Zooms serves during that time and what struck me was how the Watchtower pressured them to keep their video feeds on so the congregation could see each other. The witnesses were literally dressing up just like a in person meeting for every meeting. That is a high level of control...when you can manipulate what people wear even from home.

[Invicta]

On 1/2/2023 at 7:51 AM, swathdiver said:

She's leading people to hell, providing a false gospel to insulate them further from the truth.

 

I knock a leg off their stool of beliefs by asking them why the two guys in Brooklyn (New World Bible Translation Committee) who wrote their bible had two Jesuits help them write it?  It's right there in the first printing of their 1961 bible.  They pulled their names in the second printing as I remember it.

One can also ask them where was God's Word from the time of the apostles until the New World Translation Committee begin writing the bible in the 1950s?  How does that jive with Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31 and Luke 21.33?

 JWs don't believe in Hell. They say it is just the grave and there is no eternal punishment.  Atheists and JWs would be pleased if that is the case. 

There are usually 2 standing at the end of our road most mornings but they weren't there today and I don't think they were last week either. Perhaps they have Tuesday off.

Some friends who gave us a lift to our service on Sunday said that they don't talk to them as it is a waste of time. I said that is not for us to decide, God can use every little bit to add to the last and make them think. They are indoctrinated to obey rather than think.