Oh, you might also want to disqualify prophecies that where fullfilled by one person's actions, if that person had prior knowledge of the prophecy (Jesus, I'm lookin at you - riding into Jerusalem on that donkey...)
OneEyedJoe
JoinedPosts by OneEyedJoe
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250
Biblical Prohecies That Came True?
by Viviane inrecently there have been several claims made regarding prophecies that came true.
i've not personally seen a prophecy that i would consider as having come true.
i would consider the following as the requirements to say something is a prophecy and evaluate whether or not it came true:.
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250
Biblical Prohecies That Came True?
by Viviane inrecently there have been several claims made regarding prophecies that came true.
i've not personally seen a prophecy that i would consider as having come true.
i would consider the following as the requirements to say something is a prophecy and evaluate whether or not it came true:.
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OneEyedJoe
I thought about that, but it automatically disqualifies every prophecy I can think of. I didn't want to start out with a big giant "No".
Yep, that's the same conclusion that I came to. You could even adjust it to be a little more lenient:
"There is no strong evidence that the prophecy was initially recorded only after the event prophesied"
And it would still eliminate most, of the fullfilled prophecy in the bible that fits your other rules. When I was trying to convince myself, years ago, that the bible must have been inspired, I went through a list of as many fullfilled prophecies that I could find and looking at them all objectively, the only prophecies that I concluded where reasonable to consider as inspired where those found in the book of Daniel. Come to find out, the book of Daniel appears to be written well after the prophecies where fullfilled.
Another rule to consider is that the description of the fullfillment of the prophecy must be independantly verifiable, at least if you're trying to use bible prophecy as a way to prove that the bible is god's word, as I was. If you already accept the bible as inerrant, then that won't matter to you much, and there will probably be a few prophecies that you could consider fullfilled. For me, the prophecies about Jesus weren't reliable because the only evidence of their fullfillment was a book that obviously only had any legitimacy if they described their fullfillment.
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How many use iPads or tablets in your cong?
by stuckinarut2 ina question for those that still attend meetings.... how many use tablets or ipads in your hall?.
i did roving microphones this week, and i counted 43 people (variety of ages) out of an audience of 98!.
just curious....
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OneEyedJoe
About 50% here too.
Sir82: I don't think they'd ever have a JW discount at apple. What's more likely is they'll make a "loving arrangement" to allow you to pay the WTS for the iPad with the neccessary specs, bundled with a pre-installed JW library app and bookmarks to jw.org. Maybe some other useless stuff bundled in, too. It will all cost the same as it would if you just bought it from apple, but everyone will be so grateful to the WTS for using their bargaining power to take care of this "need" for us. Meanwhile, the WTS is buying the stuff at a discount and getting freebees for COs and GB members.
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Who will be more likely to help others out of the borg, adulterous vs walk aways??
by jam inif you was df for one of the gross sins it makes it.
difficult to open someone eyes to the truth.
who walked away, folks may be curious why you left.... it doesn't make sense to be df for adultery and try to.
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OneEyedJoe
For me it probably would've depended on the delivery. If someone commits adultery, but accepts the responsibility for what (s)he did, then they might've been able to reach me. If they tried to say it was because of the sexual repression that the org inflicted upon them during their developmental years, I'd immediately stop listening (even though it may well be true).
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Biblical Prohecies That Came True?
by Viviane inrecently there have been several claims made regarding prophecies that came true.
i've not personally seen a prophecy that i would consider as having come true.
i would consider the following as the requirements to say something is a prophecy and evaluate whether or not it came true:.
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OneEyedJoe
You might want to add another criterion for what you consider to be a valid prophecy. This one seems obvious, but it disqualifies a huge number of bible prophecies:
The prophecy must be verifiably recorded prior to the event that it predicts.
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Need help talking with my JW mom who's now willing to "listen" to what we have to say...
by 2pink inmy husband and i (both born in jws--entire extended families all still in excpet for my sister) left the church 5 years ago.
i literally woke up one day and realized it wasn't the "truth".
i did not fade, i just left and told my family i didn't believe it anymore.
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OneEyedJoe
I think their favorite out-of-context scripture has to be Proverbs 4:18 (the light gets brighter). If you look at the context, it's contrasting the "path of the wicked one" with the "path of the righteous one." It's not talking about progressive revelation at all.
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I am curious from a comment made, were there any protests and any conventions this year?
by nonjwspouse ini don't recall reaading on here about any.. i just wondered if any actually happened?.
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oops i misspelled "at" in the title.
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OneEyedJoe
There where some protesters at my convention this year. I'm fairly certain they weren't XJW, though. Saw them on saturday as the wife and I were leaving. On sunday I ended up walking to the car alone, and looked for them, but the either weren't there or had moved to another exit to try and maximize exposure. I really wish my wife hadn't been with me when I saw them, I would've given them a little schooling in how to be more effective in their protest.
Basically, their operation was 3 people, one holding a sign (I forget what it said, but it wasn't very impactful) another passing out leaflets, and a third reading from something that looked like a heavily annotated bible and making comentary. She read some scripture, and said that it was only by accepting christ that we could obtain salvation. Obviously, there's not a single JW that'd be swayed by any of this since they're making statements that either agree with JW doctrine or JWs think agree with their doctrine (ask a JW if jesus is their moderator, for example).
I really would've liked to tell them to just be silent and respectful, while holding signs with jwfacts.com on them and maybe a comment like "We love you" or something. I feel certain that'd work so much better since JWs are conditioned to not take flyers from appostates, but those with doubts might go to a web page once they're alone.
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Lying about Shunning! jw.org conceals the "truth"
by Skinnedsheep inhttp://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/shunning/ .
"those who were baptized as jehovahs witnesses but no longer preach to others, perhaps even drifting away from association with fellow believers, are not shunned.
in fact, we reach out to them and try to rekindle their spiritual interest.".
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OneEyedJoe
They're being very decietful in the first paragraph, but the second paragraph does contain outright lies:
We do not automatically disfellowship someone who commits a serious sin. If, however, a baptized Witness makes a practice of breaking the Bible’s moral code and does not repent, he or she will be shunned or disfellowshipped. The Bible clearly states: “ Remove the wicked man from among yourselves. ”
Where in the "Bible's moral code" does it say that one must believe that the GB of Jehovah's Witnesses is the modern day FDS? Nowhere. But if you say that openly, you'll be DF'd. Smoking? DF'd.
The funny part is, that the sentence actually contains two lies. The most obvious being that you can get DF'd without breaking the bible's moral code, but the less obvious lie is in the way that it states, in no uncertain terms, that unrepentant sinners "will be shunned." While I feel pretty certain that child molestation is against the bible's moral code (certainly more so than smoking) there've been countless cases in which the perpetrator wasn't shunned/DF'd. What's more is that in some cases, the victim is shunned. This lie is possibly more insidious than the first, because it creates a false sense of security within the organization.
There's also more deciet in there, in that they strongly imply that you will not be DF'd if you're repentant. I know of a few cases personally, and read of a number on this forum that demonstrate that this, too, is not the case at all.
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Are study WTs unavailable in your KH?
by compound complex ini was lent a wt yesterday and asked where i could get my own copy.
i learned that you print your own or get a tablet.. i couldn't determine if the congregation actually receives hardcopies anymore.. what's a poor brother to do?
ink's expensive and tablets .
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OneEyedJoe
I think about half of our hall uses the hard copies still. There's usually a couple spares on the literature counter on sundays as well.
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When someone hands you a flyer it is like saying ...
by jwfacts ini saw this on pinterest, and it made me think about the great global preaching campaign of august 2014. this is what i think whenever i absentmindedly take a flyer from someone.. .
when someone hands you a flyer it's like they're saying "here you throw this away.
" mitch hedberg.
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OneEyedJoe
Ahh, Mitch. I loved his standup. RIP.
I take quite a bit of comfort in knowing that 99% of the leaflets/tracts/magazines/whatever that I handed out over the years ended up uncerimoniously thrown away.