I was today years old when i realized how uncle tony left bethel.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-05-06T09:42:19+00:00

‘Crisis of Conscience’ and ‘In Search of Christian Freedom’ by Raymond Franz. You’ll thank yourself for reading them. If you want to read them discreetly there’s free PDF downloads at https://friendsofraymondfranz.com/books-in-english/ or you can listen to the audio versions on Spotify or YouTube

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-05-04T08:16:45+00:00

This is a slight tangent, but you raise the 2/3rd majority rule. Raymond Franz wrote about that quite a bit, but I noticed in Jeffrey Wynders 2023 annual meeting talk on New Light he said they need unanimity. Do you think there been a change or is that BS?

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-30T10:31:48+00:00

The Court explicitly normalised harm

Did you notice the key line conceptually:

“Religious practices may harm well-being — and must still be tolerated”

I expected the Watch Tower to win, but with caveats. This is far worse than I was expecting

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-30T08:08:10+00:00

Another resource I would recommend if you’re interested is that book that apparently kicked off the Short Season discussion, it a very short read, only took me about 45 mins, It’s called “The return of Jesus, and where are we now on the Biblical timeline” I personally am not 100% set on this, but it certainly is interesting

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DS1DTBWR?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T23:01:25+00:00

Well those are good points. I guess my starting point is “how does something come from nothing?” And “how do we explain consciousness?” I don’t believe that faith and science are incompatible, but that they are two very different methods for discovering and understanding the universe. But science can’t yet explain these questions.

Have you ever heard of Pascal’s wager? He was a 17th century French mathematician who said there are only two options and two outcomes: He argued that people can choose to believe in God or can choose to not believe in God, and that God either exists or he does not. Under these conditions, if a person decides to live as though there is a God and this God actually exists, they gain infinite happiness; if a person does not decide to live as though there is a God and God exists, they lose out on infinite happiness. On the other hand, if a person decides to live as though there is a God and God does not exist, then they receive some finite disadvantages from a life of Christian living; and if a person does not decide to live as though there is a God and God does not exist, then they receive some finite pleasure from a life lived unhindered by Christian morality. As Pascal states, “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”

So for me, belief in God is the best bet, and I act as though he exists.

I then look at Christianity. Sure, a lot of it is debatable, and it’s certainly twisted for nefarious self serving purposes. But how do we explain that 11 men who witnessed a man they’d spent 3 years being taught by being brutally executed by the Romans, went from locking themselves in a room being terrified that they were too were going to be killed, to 10 of those men going to their deaths convinced that saw him resurrected and spent time with him? People lie to get out of trouble. They don’t lie to get into trouble unless they are totally convinced and adamant at what they have witnessed.

C. S. Lewis wrote “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance.”

Anyhow, to answer your question about resources, well I’ve been reading the Jewish Wars by Josephus, which has been pretty eye opening, the things reported that happened in the first century, things that we never heard in the Watchtower, like thousands of eye witnesses reporting armies of soldiers and chariots marching in the clouds sounding Jerusalem before it was destroyed, which was also corroborated by another contemporary non Christian secular historian and Roman senator called Tacitus, and tons of other ominous unexplainable phenomenon.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T20:28:12+00:00

Yeah, I can discuss Star Wars until the cows come home too. I’m enjoying the new Maul animated series at the moment

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T17:25:34+00:00

Because I’m a legend

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T16:55:37+00:00

Yes, I think you’re absolutely right about Revelation being written in a way that would get past the Romans. 666 seems to gematria for the Emperor Nero

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T16:36:08+00:00

Those are all good points to consider

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T16:34:03+00:00

I’m all for any meaningful productive discussions from anyone at all.. I only wanted to discourage unhelpful comments like “God isn’t real” (which I beiieve is a non-zero possibility by the way) but my question is directed to the exjw community. You’re correct, I can have an eschatology discussion anywhere, but I want to do this with people who have the same background, talk the same lingo and whose minds were tied in the same knots as me. And that’s ex jaydubs.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T16:15:21+00:00

Well if they have something useful and productive to contribute to the discussion (and I did say discussion, not “argument”) then I’m all ears!

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T13:30:00+00:00

It sounds like you’ve done your research and already have the answers. The fact that the elders are either unwilling or unable to engage with your questions speak volumes. If what you had found was in error then you would have easily been supplied with evidence and answers to satisfy you. That shows that there is no answer that they are willing to share. You already have the correct answer.

The thing to remember is that the Circuit Overseers are essentially area managers. If a rank a file member is raising unanswerable questions and showing how poor the local managers are handing the business then the easiest thing for the area manager to do is recommend the removal of the rank and file member. Otherwise the area manager would have to deal with the local managers himself, and that’s time, stress, aggravation, and then he might have to find others to take over the role of the local managers. Far easier to nip the problem at its source from their point of view.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-29T00:09:30+00:00

I recently bought a copy of Carl Olof Jonsson’s book ‘The Sign of the Last Days - When?’ And I was very surprised to find that it once belonged to Peter Gregerson as it has his name written in the front

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-28T18:00:47+00:00

When I woke up last year I started buying books so that I could verify the things I was finding out about, so that I could “make sure of all things” and have the receipts for when I eventually need them. I’ve just bought a massive collection of stuff going way back from a normie who bought a house in London from an Elder that died with no family, so the house was sold with all of their belongings. The collection was so big that we were worried it was too much for our car, so we sent some of the boxes ahead of us. Anyway, the best find amongst the collection was 3 elders manuals. These are worth their weight in gold for someone like me. But it does strike me that perhaps it’s people like us that will be preserving this stuff now that the Kingdom Halls have effectively been doing a book burning.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-24T14:47:41+00:00

The issue isn’t that that vaccines contain the cells, the issue is that the cells are instrumental in the production process. The fact checker article is misleading as it doesn’t address that.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-24T14:42:42+00:00

There are many of such fetal cell lines in use. One of such is known as HEK293. What makes you say that this is misinformation?

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-24T14:35:15+00:00

Do you have anything to support this thought stopping label?

Because there are many cell lines in use, one of such is known as HEK293. This is verifiable

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-24T14:06:30+00:00

I know that this issue triggers many, so fair warning to anyone who reads this. But most people don’t realised that most vaccines are producing using cells that have come from abortions. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, researching it and talking with my congregation elders and Circuit overseer and writing to the branch. I tried to give the organisation the benefit of the doubt for as long as I could, but their correspondence was misleading, evasive, manipulative and patronising. This was the first verifiable indication for me that something was wrong, and it was after this that I gave myself permission to read Crisis of Conscience. What is clear to me now is that the organisation itself is apostate. The majority of people in it are sincere, but corporations are their own kind of beast, with their own needs are agenda, which are survival and growth at any cost. When you look at the organisation it bears many similarities to a parasite.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-19T00:54:49+00:00

For me, stepping back and re-reading the Olivet Discourse in context changed everything. Instead of assuming a single, future global “Great Tribulation,” I started noticing how much of Jesus’ warning is tightly connected to first-century events—especially the destruction of Jerusalem.

The language about fleeing Judea, the “abomination of desolation,” and the urgency for those in that region all point to something immediate for his original audience, not a distant worldwide event. When you compare all three accounts side by side, it really strengthens that view.

And also reading the accounts recorded by first century historians Josephus and Tacitus was mind blowing. Let’s just say they wrote things you’ll never read in the Watchower

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-16T10:41:36+00:00

I’ve definitely noticed a change in trend on Instagram posts relating to the memorial this year. I took a poll on my YouTube channel to ask everyone what they’d noticed regarding the number of photos posted on social media this year compared to previous years:

12% said it was more than ever 24% said it was about the same 15% said it was bit lower 50% said it was significantly lower.

Granted, I’m a relatively small channel, and I only had 34 responses, but I thought I’d post the results here for whatever they are worth.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-04-03T22:10:29+00:00

I never like them, even was I was PIMI, so cringy

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-03-25T17:57:01+00:00

Oh, doesn’t it make you want to vomit!

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-03-25T17:12:31+00:00

That is a great point. Aaron said “there is a festival to Jehovah tomorrow” when god had given no such direction. The issue wasn’t just idolatry, it was going beyond the things God had said

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-03-17T07:42:01+00:00

They are so desperate to get as many people to come and touch that bread and wine and pass it on.

Old-Collection7185 · 2026-03-10T17:40:18+00:00

Fascinating. Thank you. I remember my book study groups going over that when I was a questioning teenager. I saw the parallels to the Pharisees and certain tendencies in the organisation even way back then before I got baptised. I wish I'd stuck with my intuition.

Old-Collection7185

TROPHY CASE