Posts by OneEyedJoe

73

This weeks service meeting! More craziness.....

by stuckinarut2 in

so this weeks service meeting is so full of "crazy".

a whole 15 min part devoted to trying to indoctrinate everyone on how to "explain our beliefs on 1914".

then another 15 min part called "a tool to help us explain our beliefs about 1914".

OneEyedJoe

I remember trying to 'do the math' on the 1914 thing and it seems to me that the date also hung on an interpretation of humankind only being in existence since 4026 BCE, the 6,000 year thing but maybe that was just the one to explain 1975. I'm so confused

Yeah, you're thinking of 1975. 1914 is soooo simple:

1. take a random prophesy that clearly was talking only about the 7 years that Nebuchadnezzar was bat-s*** crazy and insist that it has greater meaning.

2. Obviously those 7 years are each made up of 360 days since they used a lunar callendar back then (also because some revelation scripture says something about 3.5 times = 1260 days)

3. Obviously each of those 2520 days are really 365.25 day long years (do try and keep up, it's 7 lunar years of days of solar years...this stuff is so simple a toddler could follow it)

4. Now, counting backwards from 1914 2520 years we get to 607 BC. This is sorta close to when Jerusalem was conqured by the babylonians, so all we have to do is assert that babylon did in fact conquer jerusalem in 607, then we can say that we counted from 607 to 1914!

If it's not clear to you that 1914 was a marked year, I don't know what to do for ya. These are god's timetables, not anything any men came up with. You must not have enough faith....probably need to pray, go to meetings more and get out in service at least 12 hours a month.

28

is the big show on 1914 at Service Meeting evidence of factions in the GB?

by Wasanelder Once in

sometimes the gb do end runs around each other, as when freddie franz didn't agree with the whole governing body concept and spoke against it at the gilead graduation.

could this video/demonstration at the service meeting tonight on why they believe in 1914 and how to explain it to others be an effort to bolster that belief because there is a challange coming against it by factions within?

i guess we can't really tell but i wouldn't put it past the boneheads running the society.

OneEyedJoe

If they don't keep pushing the 1914 or end of days message, what else is left? Then what reason do the average rank and file members have to keep going to the meetings and banging on doors? As an adventist religion it is very important to keep setting dates to keep the rank and file in line. Otherwise the religion (cult) will fall apart.

They don't necessarily need 1914 to set dates, though. 1975 had no basis on 1914 other than that it was "within a generation" of it. It was just the appropriate time for god to act. If they ever need a date, they'll just whip up some numerology and they'll have it. Personally, I think they're trying to emulate the mormons more where it's all about family and emotional appeal, and doctrine is just there to artificially seperate them from "the world." Of course armageddon will always be "soon" but I don't think they want the baggage that the old doctrines bring with them (i.e. easily disproven).

They've dropped the type/antitype nonsense, and that's what 1914 is based on. They seem to be headed in a direction towards easy to grasp doctrine, seperation from "the world," and unquestioning loyalty. The latter will be enforced by constant fear mongering on the soonness of armageddon (the stick). They'll throw in a little emotional appeal and lovey-dovey crap every now and again (the carrot) to keep people happy. Anything beyond that is superfluous.

28

is the big show on 1914 at Service Meeting evidence of factions in the GB?

by Wasanelder Once in

sometimes the gb do end runs around each other, as when freddie franz didn't agree with the whole governing body concept and spoke against it at the gilead graduation.

could this video/demonstration at the service meeting tonight on why they believe in 1914 and how to explain it to others be an effort to bolster that belief because there is a challange coming against it by factions within?

i guess we can't really tell but i wouldn't put it past the boneheads running the society.

OneEyedJoe

It seems possible, but my theory is that they're pushing 1914 (and the "100 year aniversary") so hard as a positive thing to keep people from realizing that it's been 100 years of nothing but failed predictions and bad medical advice.

I think after this they'll stop talking about 1914 for a while. Then they'll go one of two ways, either start to draw the parallel between Noah's 120 year preaching and the "last days" and start to imply that 2034 will be armageddon. If they don't do that, then they'll somehow shelve 1914 once all the people who remember the days of "1914: The generation that will not pass away" and the like have died off. I don't see them officially noo-liting it out of existance, they'll probably just go to a differernt definition of generation that gets rid of the deadlines, perhaps using other bible passages to imply certain future dates.

By the time they're rid of 1914, they'll have finished the transition to a fully emotion-based message. Gone will be the days of deep study and pseudo-logic. It'll all be about the love in the org and staying away from the evil worldlies.

32

HELP! Elder bombarded me with scripture...& I don't know what to do.

by Smoky in

i have been lurking on this site for many years.

i rarely post anything, because my english isnt the best and not sure if anyone understands.

i just recently had a run in with an elder, have not seen him in a few years.

OneEyedJoe

You might get better answers from others here who've gone through this situation before, but personally when it comes time for that I'm not going to try to refute anything they say. You don't need to prove anything to them, and the only thing that will come of it is more preaching and possibly a JC. Instead, I would go with something like "Right now I'm leaving things in Jehovah's hands. I've prayed about my situation and I have confidence that Jehovah understands why I do what I do since he is the only one who can read my heart condition."

Thank them for their time and concern and assure them that you'll let them know as soon as there's anything that they can help you with. That puts the ball in your court, and you're probably not planning on hitting it back.

8

November 1 1960 QFR

by hoser in

jw
friends

questions from readers.

please answer my question in the watchtower.unsigned.. among the many readers of the watchtower who write in for information are some who ask personal questions on which they want a scriptural answer, but who give no name or address.

others give an address but no name.

OneEyedJoe

In other words - if you have a question that betrays the fact that you've been thinking critically about whether this may actually be a cult, we want to know your name and address so we can send in our goons elders to take care of you shepard you and if necessary hold your family hostage lovingly shun you so that you can see the error of your ways.

What a loving provision!

23

What I really fear about JW.ORG

by StarTrekAngel in

much has been written, twitted and youtubed about the extent to which the wtbts may go in order to keep its members from peeking out of the box.

from name calling, constantly telling members about the dangers of apostasy, all the way to dfing anyone who dares to look outside.

many tools and theories have been brought forward.

OneEyedJoe

Personally, I want them to know my browsing history. I often go back and forth from here to jw.org, and I just love to think that there's someone getting whipped into a frenzy seeing how many page views are from appostates. Something tells me that appostates use jw.org more than most active witnesses, since most active witnesses seem to just be kinda floating along, whereas us appostates are the ones researching stuff.

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

OneEyedJoe

sowhatnow - sounds like your mother, and probably you, experienced sleep paralysis. It's a pretty well understood phenomena that is probably responsible for a pretty significant number of so-called supernatural experiences. In short, your body is either gearing up for sleep, or not yet fully out of sleep mode (in the evening or early morning respectively) and the body is still paralyzed and the visual centers of the brain are still highly active. Your body is usually partially or fully paralyzed when your asleep (that's how you keep from running around the house when you have a dream about being chased) and sometimes this can start to take hold a bit before you fall asleep. you probably inherited a predisposition for the condition from your mother.

When you're falling asleep, your brain is also gearing up for some wild, crazy and realistic visual and auditory hallucinations. Most folks call them dreams. Just like the effects that keep you paralyzed in sleep, this can sometimes start a little bit earlier or last a little longer than needed causing waking hallucinations.

Effects like this also explain why some families seem to be haunted, with many generations reporting similar visions in the moments just prior or just after sleep.

23

What I really fear about JW.ORG

by StarTrekAngel in

much has been written, twitted and youtubed about the extent to which the wtbts may go in order to keep its members from peeking out of the box.

from name calling, constantly telling members about the dangers of apostasy, all the way to dfing anyone who dares to look outside.

many tools and theories have been brought forward.

OneEyedJoe

I just thought of another tactic they're using with the app to keep people in the dark. We're all well aware that there are a number of scriptures that the WTS essentially never references because they contradict their doctrine. By the same stroke, they rely heavily on a small subset of the Bible.

Well, when they released the jw library app on feature that they seemed proud of was that the Bible search automatically orders the scriptures in the search result by frequency of use in the publications. The website also seems to do this. Theres lots of little nudges like this that they can use to make stumbling upon TTATT a little harder. Often lots of little nudges are far more effective at controlling people than one big push.

23

What I really fear about JW.ORG

by StarTrekAngel in

much has been written, twitted and youtubed about the extent to which the wtbts may go in order to keep its members from peeking out of the box.

from name calling, constantly telling members about the dangers of apostasy, all the way to dfing anyone who dares to look outside.

many tools and theories have been brought forward.

OneEyedJoe

I agree with your assessment 100%. They've already "updated" magazines and books that are available online, with the old versions nowhere to be found. They're only going to continue to push the electronic stuff so that they can scale back the printing and cut costs. This will definitely have the effect of making it more difficult for the R/F to have access to the old documents that they need to confirm that sites like jwfacts are, indeed, telling the truth.

In the future I see dubs who stumble upon jwfacts looking at all the citations of old documents going to jw.org to confirm only to find that anything older than 10 years is unavailable. They'll then decide that jwfacts is just a lying apostate site out of shear laziness. Even in my case, when I found jwfacts I decided that I'd only believe any of the quotes that could be verified from the WT library, which only goes back to 1950 for WTs and 1970 for awakes. Much of the most damning evidence is older than that, but luckily there's plenty in that timeframe that I woke up. Trying to prove the WTS is a cult using only the last 10 years of publications would be much more difficult.

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

OneEyedJoe

I would encourage you to examine evolution and the potential existence of evil spirits as two seperate topics. They really have nothing to do with one another and your belief in spirits should not influence your examination of the evidence for evolution. Once you confirm that evolution is indeed well founded in fact, you may need to revisit your belief in spirits. That's not to say that the two are mutually exclusive, but once you start letting the evidence guide your beliefs you'll likely want to continue.