@sabastious:
DJEggnog paraphrased: "Did you know what you said makes you sound argumentative? I think you are being argumentative. Does anyone else think he is being argumentative? Because I don't care, I just wanted to point out that he's being argumentative."
Your paraphrase of my words is very bad. With those two consecutive posts that he posted to this thread,@TD was clearly argumentative; he didn't just "sound argumentative." I'm not some weakminded individual that would take a poll to find out what others thought about @TD's posts. Speak for yourself; I'm nothing like you.
@VM44:
Could you post a simple (one or two sentence) definition of the "generation of the sign" as is currently understood? This would help clarify the topic.
The word "generation" refers to the period of time that began in 1914 when Jesus' presence would be discerned by his followers and ends at Armageddon, and not to the life span of anyone that may have been alive back in 1914 as Jehovah's Witnesses had once thought to have been the meaning of "generation." We now know that Jesus was saying that "this generation" to whom the sign of his invisible presence would be discerned will not come to an end until all of the things he said were destined to occur during the conclusion of the system of things did, in fact, occur.
@PSacramento:
My issues with the WT has always been more focused on the danger that they are to themselves and loved ones.
Now that's not true, now is it, @PSacramento?
Do you remember when I quoted something from Galatians 4:14 in another thread about how the apostle Paul was received by some as if he were "an angel of God, like Christ Jesus" as one of many references that proves that Jesus Christ is "an angel of God" (actually the archangel Michael) and not God? Do you, @PSacramento? Do you remember my saying that I wish you could receive me, too, as you would that chief angel of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and give some serious thought as to what you're going to do before the end comes? Do you remember my telling you that I was not speaking those things of my own originality, but that whenever I should find myself using the Bible to explain to someone, as did the apostle Paul, why "it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead" (Acts 17:3), that by my quoting from the Bible, I am, in fact, prophesying?
What this means, @PSacramento, is that when I am when quoting the Bible and speaking the utterances of God through his inspired word to them, I assume, as did Jesus, the role of being a prophet of God, for it is through me that God would be speaking even as Jesus also spoke for God. Jehovah has always has used messengers -- both angelic and human -- as spokespeople to carry His message to the people to whom it is directed. But now, as Paul goes on to say at Acts 17:30, God is now "telling mankind that they should all everywhere repent" through his servants, the Christian prophets of God.
Whatever your issues are with other Jehovah's Witnesses, per se, even with the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, your issue with me has been your inability to accept the fact that Jesus is "an angel of God," because you prefer to believe what you want to believe instead of the truth, because you prefer to believe Jesus to be God, rather than just "the Son of God."
But after reading DJ's posts and seeing first hand the degree of "mind warp" that is there I have [come] to understand why so many try their best to fight not only what this organization promotes that is dangerous to people's lives and health, BUT how they fight against the damage that this organization causes to people minds.
Why do you think the truth to be a danger to people's lives and health? That's all I speak is the truth. You won't do anything to help yourself, so how can you possibly do more than endanger people's spiritual lives, @PSacramento?
@Heaven:
I suspect the length of the apologists' posts here are used to pad their Field Serve-Us Reports. I haven't the time to read them much like I never have the time to be a JW.
Well, this is going to be a lengthy post as well, but, let me say first, how much you remind me of @cantleave, who pretty made the same stupid statement that you did here in suggesting that my visits here to this website, and my posts to it, are being reported on some field service report or on "Field Serve-Us Reports," as you put it. Like @cantleave, I know that you're not joking when you say this, because you are in many ways like a child and so ignorant of many, many things that you may have thought you actually knew or understood, but do not understand them at all.
I'm pretty sure you're unaware of this, but in composing this post, I'm informally rendering direct service to God in His Great Spiritual Temple as do all dedicated servants of Jehovah and I do so love studying the Bible and talking to folks about it, so why can't I report the time I spend here as all of this is a part of sacred service to God? Whenever you have a family study at home, that would be direct service to God. Whenever you should attend meetings at the Kingdom Hall, that is sacred service to God. Raise your hand to participate during any of the meetings held there, this would be sacred service, all of it being direct service to God.
But would it be appropriate to report such time that I might be spending in direct service to God? No, for, as a family head, it would not be appropriate for me to do, so and what time and literature and Bible studies and return visits we typically report as far as our direct service to God is with regard to our formal and informal witnessing to persons who are not already dedicated servants of Jehovah. Did you not know this?
Today, in Jehovah's great Spiritual House, we're maintaining ourselves a clean people, wearing our "white robes" such that we are clean physically, clean mentally, clean morally, clean emotionally, clean spiritually, doing so in every way so that we are privileged to serve our God in His temple, both "day and night." (Revelation 7:13-15) Those are our basic responsibilities in Jehovah's great house, to render Him sacred service day and night, and to maintain the purity of our white robe, maintaining our clean standing before God, and those of us that appreciate their privileges when we are at His house do their best to carry out these responsibilities that I just mentioned here.
Now let's get some perspective, ok? This website is put up for what? Well, I haven't exactly spoken to Simon or his wife about their reasons for putting it up, but I see it as an entertainment venue, where people with similar interests can gather together and swap personal stories about Jehovah's Witnesses per se, about those good Jehovah's Witnesses they like, about those bad Jehovah's Witnesses they don't like (like those elders that sat on the judicial committee that voted to disfellowship them), those weird Jehovah's Witnesses that are just weird and their "brainwashed" family members from whom they are either currently cut off (through shunning) or about whom they continue to warm the seats in the Kingdom Hall as hypocrites due to their fear of being cut off and shunned by them.
Here, folks that were formerly dedicated servants of Jehovah like me make unfounded accusations of active Jehovah's Witnesses being subjected to cultic mind control from their having read the Watchtower magazine the same as they did before they left or were disfellowshipped, but we are supposed to believe that they managed to break free of the mind control that had held them bound while leaving their loved ones in the grip of those dangerous mind controlled Jehovah 's Witnesses from whom they had managed to escape. Although they have never once been to Brooklyn, New York, and they have never once met any member of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses is constantly being blamed here for somehow forcing their relatives to read and study the Watchtower magazine that all Jehovah's Witnesses read and study.
Here on this website we might read about one of those bad Jehovah's Witnesses being discovered, someone who was really not what we had thought he or she to be, someone that wasn't really one of us, someone that wasn't really one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but who only pretended to be one of us, someone that maybe turns out to be a pedophile or someone like Judas Iscariot, who betrayed righteous blood, someone who thought nothing of it when he or she did what he or she did. Yes, people come here to this forum to entertain and regale us with stories of these counterfeit Christians an provide to us all of the sordid details about the kind of things that they had done to one or more children, or how this one had been an elder's wife and for years had been sleeping with another elder not her husband, and how this elder had disfellowshipped someone for doing what he himself was guilty of doing, and stories like these.
Many come here because they have heavy hearts, some are suddenly alone having no life and no friends, they having been cut off from their friends they left behind at the Kingdom Hall, and they come here in hope that someone here might commiserate with their experiences, might know what things they are going through in their lives separated from their friends and family, and they find here friends that will lie to them and tell them that they did the right thing in leaving that mind controlled cult behind, people that might even advise those coming here in ways in which they might craftily persuade their loved ones to follow their lead and how they might re-join the world from which they had separated themselves, and serve God in their own way, instead of their following the lead of those to whom they had been exhorted at Hebrews 13:17 to "be obedient," as Christians, " and to "be submissive ... as those who will render an account"to those who are taking the lead among you...." "Don't worry, it gets easier," they are told here, but does it really get easier when folks can so easily repudiate, denounce, denigrate, disparage, defame and slander the God that they once worshipped with their whole heart, soul, mind and strength?
I'm serious about the things I say here, serious about the things that I post here, but this doesn't transform this website into anything other than a place where people can find entertainment and a kind of healing for their emotional pain. Can I serve God here? Yes, I can.
Were this board a coffee shop, and I were to spend ten minutes there drinking coffee, would I be in God's spiritual temple? No, I would not. But what if I had spent that ten minutes speaking to someone about the Bible, someone who was not already a dedicated servant of God, would I then be in God's temple giving God direct worship? Yes, I would. What if the person with whom I was speaking at the coffee shop those ten minutes was a brother in good standing; would that be direct worship to God? No, it would not. What if the person with whom I was speaking at that coffee shop those ten minutes was a brother not in good standing, someone that had been disfellowshipped; would that be direct worship to God? No, it would not. What if the person with whom I was speaking at that coffee shop those ten minutes was a brother not in good standing, someone that had been disfellowshipped, but someone to whom I had been assigned to help restore him to spiritual health; would that be direct worship to God? Yes, it would.
Now did you follow this? If you feel you did, then here's a brief quiz that will help you to see if you got the point:
1. Do you think it would be direct worship to God for me to post messages to this website? Yes or no?
2. Do you think it would be appropriate for me to report any of the of time I have spent here on this website posting responses to messages here? Yes or no?
If you answer "No" to both questions, you did fine on this quiz. If you missed one of these questions, that's ok. I didn't expect that you would be able to answer both questions correctly.
@TD:
I don't think Leolaia pointed out that the ancient Jews had one to be argumentative.
I have no idea what you are going on about here, @TD. I didn't say @Leolaia was making such a point. She wrote about one calendar that "[t]he ancient Jews used that ... had regular 30-day months and 12 months consisting of 360 days" and went to say that this calendar "was not the lunisolar calendar" when you and I agreed that the Hebrew calendar was a lunisolar calendar. Whatever her reasons for disagreeing with us, she disagreed with both of us.
Further, I recall reading one of your posts in this thread in which you stated the following:
Nobody would argue that 360 is not a much easier number to work with.
You said this after I had told @PSacramento --
Those "seven times," or 7 x 360 days amount to adding 2,520 prophetic years to 607 BC, or 1914 AD.... Do the math yourself!
-- to which he replied:
Math, really?, in 2520 years not even ONE leap year ?? 360 days per year? based on who's [calendar]?
I went on to tell @PSacramento --
You are evidently not familiar with the world of calendars, such as the Jewish lunar calendar, which consists of 360 days, which calendar is about 11 days shorter than the Julian or Gregorian solar calendars of 365-1/4 days.
-- but you went on to write:
360 day years do not correspond to either Lunar, Solar, Jewish, Roman, Julian, Gregorian or the Hijri calendaring systems.
Regarding the Jewish lunar calendar where each year consists of a mean of 360 days, I specifically asked you:
If this 360-day number should be based on an average of 30 days per month, does the Jewish calendar average 360 days in a calendar year? Yes or no?
You unintentionally contradicted yourself when you wrote about the average (mean) of Hebrews years 5770, 5771 and 5772, the following:
This would give you an average of 29.62 instead of 32.08. Combining that figure with your averages for the next two years yields a figure of 29.513, which is very close to the synodic month and as I've pointed out, is incompatible with a 360 day year any way you approach it.
Actually your 29.513 number and my 29.52 number are each of them, when rounded, a 30-day month, which is not incompatible at all with a 360-day year, as you deliberately misstated in order to confuse @PSacramento, and I have no idea why you would lie about this, @TD. I tell the man that the Jewish calendar is "a lunar calendaring system based on the new moon," and you say the Jewish calendar is actually a lunisolar calendaring system based on both the new moon and the equinoxes," as if this distinction contradicted what I had told @PSacramento or had any bearing on my main point to him that "the Jewish lunar calendar consists of 360 days." We said pretty much the same thing although we were using different words to say it.
I asked you why you would say that "a lunar month is not 30 days" when you know that (a) 29.51 days is 30 days when rounded, and (b) by any measure, a lunar month has always been reckoned as being 30 days in length, but you refused to answer my question (and it wasn't a rhetorical one). You also wrote:
It's true that 360/12 equals 30, but that is neither here nor there given the fact that a lunar year is not 360 days in length.
After these mathematical gymnastics, @TD, I don't think I will be able to take anything you say in the future seriously. Why on earth would you say that "a lunar month is not 30 days" when you know that (a) 29.51 days is 30 days when rounded, and (b) by any measure, a lunar month has always been reckoned as being 30 days in length?
It was for this very reason that I made reference to a 360-day year (it's much easier to calculate 7 x 360 = 2,520 than it is to calculate 7 x (29.51 * 12) = 7 x 354.12 = 2,478.84), which would point to the year 1873, making the "seven times" of Daniel's prophecy expire some about 41 years earlier than 1914, but as to what you went on to say --
If you take the 365.242 days in a solar year and average them with the 354.37 days in a lunar year, you get slightly more than 359.8 days, which is very, very close to the 360 days required to derive the 2520 year figure....
-- not one of Jehovah's witnesses would average a solar year with a lunar year, so why did you say this except to obscure the truth about what I said to @PSacramento about the 2,520 years being based on seven (7) 30-day months?
My objection is to the Protestant notion that the 360 day....
Who cares? You were the one to bring up (at least twice now!) that there was this "Protestant notion" with which you disagree, but such a comment takes us even more off-topic than we already were. This objection of yours was totally irrelevant to the point I was making.
[B]ut this guy is just trying to get time because he probably thinks he's too good for the field service.
How does one come to a website such as this one thinking that joining it or a board like this one would constitute sacred service? You really cannot be this stupid!
@Ding:
Others can do what they want, but from now on I intend to ignore his posts and spend my JWN time conversing with posters who want to have meaningful conversations.
Although you can run, you cannot hide from my posts, @Ding.
@djeggnog
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