Ann O'Maly

...but does your car have lifting hooks on the roof so when you stop for a break at McDonald's for a hamburger, you can have a helicopter take you back to the Territory?

There is still time!
I thought of the prosperity gospel churches too, and large "personality" mega-churches that highlight their evangelists and "faith healers" on television along with the audiences. However, I suspect that the person who made the original meme was aiming more at the hypocrisy inherent even in more typical church situations where the pastor is a couple of tax brackets higher than the congregation. Another form of clergy/laity distinction. It must seem exacerbated in those poorer neighborhoods with a church, two pawn shops and two liquor stores on every block. The churches in such neighborhoods often grow even with all the block-by-block competition, and the pastors therefore do well.
But I also noticed that Bible Speaks wanted to make it clear that this kind of thing does not happen in her congregation. But can it? She adds "Be on the watch" as if there might be some danger even among our own. But she also added "We are not called Pastors anyhow." This means, evidently, that the idea doesn't apply to us after all.
I take it for granted that most people here know that this is not really a problem among JWs. So is it something to watch out for? Ann shows that it has happened before. Rutherford kept a few houses for his personal use in several places around the world. He had more than one of these expensive cars, simultaneously during the great depression. His own "prosperity" gospel took advantage of the economic desires of his audience, but correctly turned them toward a more spiritual perspective. He had books and booklets and talks called Riches, Prosperity, and Prohibition is from the Devil? Oh wait, that last one didn't turn toward spirituality in the same was as the others, it just went ahead and "proved" that prohibition really was from the Devil. But money was clearly not the primary thing for either Russell or Rutherford. Both of them believed for much of their lives that the end was coming in a matter of years or often, even just a few months. Russell spent the Society's funds like crazy right up until October 1914. No reason to have anything left over. Rutherford didn't turn down the amenities, but he was clearly not driven by money, either.
It's always good to look at the possibilities even if we are really nothing like most of these churches that rake in millions for a feel-good and/or prosperity message that never seems to pan out for the average member. I mentioned the 125-foot yacht for the same reason that Ann mentioned the car. It's a bit thought-provoking about how easy it is to attach ourselves to material things without noticing the effect on onlookers. Watches, jewelry, vacations, chandeliers, cruises, yachts, and such can look like a showy display of one's means, even if that's not what one means.

Many years ago a brother from an African branch spoke here. He was amazed at the material wealth. He went on and on about how brothers here even have "washing-up machines." And: "Not only do you have cars here but you have garages in which to put the cars. In Africa, four families would live in that garage!"

The first photo is of a prosperity gospel church - there are many of them here - whereby the preacher and his family always make out financially very well indeed, thank you, though the flock is typically quite modest, or even poor. BibleSpeaks may have a specific church in mind, but I do not know that.
The next photo is from Ann being a smart-aleck. Judge Rutherford drove a nice car, too, she points out.
The next post is from BibleSpeaks, essentially saying: "OH YEAH?! Well, our guy deserved it because he was our guy!"
Then JWI adds some explanatory details and it is a wonder he does not go on for pages. 
Then follows a photo of me in a 56 Cadillac that is not mine. It belongs to a local businessman. He saw me looking it over. We got to chatting and he offered to take a picture of me in it. He bought the Cadillac from some mogul in Hollywood. It has apparently been in some movies but, for some reason, everyone is tight lipped about just which ones. 
 

Thanks Ann. The reason I wasn't explaining it again is that this mistake made me realize that the last two times I explained it carefully, that Allen wasn't paying attention. It's fine not to pay attention, that's anyone's choice, but I was simultaneously being ridiculed by Allen for supposedly not understanding and not reading carefully the last two times I pointed out this exact same point.
One time was in a discussion of Charles T. Russell misunderstanding the same point, evidently thinking that astronomers were saying there was a zero year, and thinking that he was therefore probably right in using the zero year to calculate 606 to 1914 as 2520 years. But he also used the potential difference to buy himself some flexibility in case 1914 didn't pan out as the start of Armageddon and the Great Tribulation and the Jewish repatriation of Palestine. Russell thought it might "buy some time" until 1915. As Russell said in the Watch Tower, December 1912, page 376, "The Ending of the Gentile Times."
If we count the first year B.C. as 0, then the date 536-1/4 B.C. is the proper one for the end of the seventy years of captivity. But if we begin to reckon it by counting the first year before the Christian era as B.C. 1, then evidently the desolation ended 535-1/4 years B.C. As to the methods of counting, Encyclopaedia Britannica says, "Astronomers denote the year which preceded the first of our era as 0 and the year previous to that as B.C. 1--the previous year B.C. 2, and so on." Whichever of these ways we undertake to calculate the matter the difference between the results is one year. The seventy years of Jewish captivity ended October, 536 B.C., and if there were 536-1/4 years B.C., then to complete the 2,520 years' cycle of the Times of the Gentiles would require 1913-3/4 years of A.D., or to October, 1914. But if the other way of reckoning were used, then there were but 535-1/4 years of the period B.C., and the remainder of the 2,520 years would reach to A.D., 1914-3/4 years, otherwise October, 1915. The other case was when both you and I pointed out to Allen that the lavia.org site is not fully reliable. (The lavia link was also provided by @Foreigner earlier in this thread.) In another thread ( https://www.theworldnewsmedia.org/topic/24592-the-superiority-of-jw-chronology/?page=7&tab=comments#comment-45134 ) Allen had ignored my earlier warnings about the site and assumed I had treated the whole thing as "reliable" and therefore somehow tied his own error to proof of apostasy in others!!
At any rate, just to show you are in good company @allensmith28, it was not only C.T.Russell, but this writer quoted below who made a similar, common mistake.
------quote from http://www.lavia.org/english/archivo/vat4956en.htm
Besides, as we can see on NASAÂ’s image, the eclipse of July 4th indicated in tablet VAT 4956, did not take place in 568 BC, but in 567 BC.
 
 
 

 
 
 
Therefore the correct calculation of the year in which Jerusalem was destroyed must be as follows:
       If 567 BC was the year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, the 19th year (18 complete years) was 586 BC.
37-18 = 19, 567 +19 = 586
Therefore Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC.

Yeah, yeah. Produce it, then.
 
@allensmith28 ...
@JW Insider is trying to tell you that there is a difference between astronomical year numbering and AD/BC or CE/BCE year numbering.
Common mistake.
 

You're offended by being called the name of a small, orange fruit.
COJ never thought NBC 4897 an astronomical text, you donut. 
('Donut' - you can tell the gloves are coming off now!)

You're not making sense. Again.
VAT 4956 meets Saros cycle 59. None of your pictures display anything from Saros 59 and are thereby irrelevant to the lunar eclipse predicted on VAT 4956.
Um. NBC 4897 isn't an astronomical text, you kumquat. 

COJ's brief discussion of the NBC 4897 accounting tablet from the 4th edition of GTR. See p.131f.
COJ's detailed discussion of the NBC 4897 accounting tablet, where he mentions this: 
 
I've read both the van Driel/Nemet-Nejat and Zawadzki articles. The tablet confirms the standard NB chronology and that no extra kings and timeline chunks can be inserted anywhere between Nebuchadnezzar II and Neriglissar. 

You mean the 'quotation' consisting of two words: "seven times"? Nobody is disputing that Brown used that term in his exposition of Dan. 4 and the 2520 days. 
Well, you said something very similar in that 2012 email. I'll c&p my response:
P. 135 is online (link provided in previous post). It does not support the suggestion that Brown equated Dan. 4's 'seven times' period with Luke 21:24's 'Gentile times.' 
P. 208 is not yet online for everyone to see. All you have to do is produce a scan of p. 208 and prove your claim. Nearly 20 years of sitting on this, Neil - are you going to? I dares ya!  

Arctic warming means we're getting an ice age here again? 
 
 

Yeah, yeah. Produce it, then.
 
@allensmith28 ...
@JW Insider is trying to tell you that there is a difference between astronomical year numbering and AD/BC or CE/BCE year numbering.
Common mistake.
 

TrueTom on his way to fleece the sheep.

You just showed the Saros for 609 BCE and 610 BCE. Common mistake.

Nothing has changed in my view. It's just that you showed a picture of a Saros cycle for 608 BCE and referred to it as if it were a picture for 607 BCE. Common mistake.

And that one is 568 B.C.E.
Also, are you really claiming that the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar is not biblical? Does the same thing hold true for the first year of Cyrus?

This image does not represent 607 B.C.E.  It's the picture for 608 B.C.E.

True. The last person at the Watch Tower Headquarters who was called Pastor, evidently never owned a car. The newspaper article starts out: Pastor Russell of the Peoples Pulpit Association today declared that he would use the yacht, Angel, presented to him by his association . . .

You're offended by being called the name of a small, orange fruit.
COJ never thought NBC 4897 an astronomical text, you donut. 
('Donut' - you can tell the gloves are coming off now!)

You're not making sense. Again.
VAT 4956 meets Saros cycle 59. None of your pictures display anything from Saros 59 and are thereby irrelevant to the lunar eclipse predicted on VAT 4956.
Um. NBC 4897 isn't an astronomical text, you kumquat. 

@Ann O'Maly
No more Ice Age Please? 100 years going back in time makes me frozen! ??????

Arctic warming means we're getting an ice age here again?