opusdei1972

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Posts by opusdei1972

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  21

  Closure of an Elder run JW forum

  by CharlieBrownsLovelyDaughter in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  some of you may know of a longstanding jw owned and operated forum named "touchstone forum" (www.touchstoneforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb2/yabb.pl).

  wrench, the elder who ran the board, closed its doors rather quickly a couple of weeks ago, and has refused to discuss the reasons for the closure.

  no announcement of closing.

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  opusdei1972

  This seems to be the only forum in which witnesses defend the Society, though they know that they are disobeying the GB.

  http://www.truetheology.net/forum/
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  6

  Debunking the KCA

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for those who havent encountered it before, the kalam cosmological argument is a proof of gods existence and goes as follows:.

  ) anything that begins to exist has a cause..

  ) the universe began to exist.. c.) therefore the universe has a cause.. .

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  opusdei1972

  Coded Logic Those familiar with the First Law of Thermodynamics know that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

  Viviane that's not what the First Law of Thermodynamics says

  This is the first law of Thermodynamics: ΔU = W - Q , where ΔU is the change of the internal energy of a system, W is the work done by the system, and Q is the heat received by the system. If W were the work done to the system, then W < 0, and Q < 0, if the system loses heat. This law is a consequence of the principle of the conservation of energy. So, if you are familiar with this law, then you know (unless you don't understand the equation) that energy must be preserved in thermodynamic processes. This seems to be what Coded Logic meant, doesn't it?
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  5

  Books of "Babylon the Great" quoted by the Society

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the watchtower says:.

  true christians keep clear of false worship, rejecting false religious teachings.

  this means that we avoid exposure to religious programs on radio and television as well as religious literature that promotes lies about god and his word.

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  opusdei1972

  compound complex : The Society discouranges to study Greek and Hebrew too, but its writers quote frequently Scholars in Greek of "Babylon the Great". Search for names like "Bruce Metzger" and "A. T. Robertson" in the Watchtower Library and you will find that the Society quotes them to explain the greek grammar of some Bible sentences. However, those guys are trinitarians of the Protestant Churches. So, it would mean that Jehovah will destroy the members of the Christendom in Armageddon, but before it, He uses the wisdom of Christendom's scholars to teach His "Organization".
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  5

  Books of "Babylon the Great" quoted by the Society

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the watchtower says:.

  true christians keep clear of false worship, rejecting false religious teachings.

  this means that we avoid exposure to religious programs on radio and television as well as religious literature that promotes lies about god and his word.

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  opusdei1972

  The Watchtower says:

  True Christians keep clear of false worship, rejecting false religious teachings. This means that we avoid exposure to religious programs on radio and television as well as religious literature that promotes lies about God and his Word. (w06 3/15 pp. 27-31, "Keep Clear of False Worship!")

  So, according to the Watchtower, "true" christians reject religious literature that promotes lies about God and his Word. Accordingly, I began to read in the Watchtower Library online (in Spanish), how many books of "Babylon the Great" the Society quotes. So, I found something peculiar. For instance, in the Watchtower w06 12/1 we read:

  Questions From Readers

  Was Jesus being disrespectful or unkind in the way he addressed his mother at the wedding feast in Cana?—John 2:4..................Regarding the term “woman,” Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words notes: “Used in addressing a woman, it is a term not of reproof or severity, but of endearment or respect.” Other sources agree with this. For example, The Anchor Bible says: “This is not a rebuke, nor an impolite term, nor an indication of a lack of affection . . . It was Jesus’ normal, polite way of addressing women.” The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology explains that the word “is used as an address with no irreverent secondary meaning.” And Gerhard Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says that such usage “is in no way disrespectful or derogatory.” Thus, we should not conclude that Jesus was being rude or unkind to his mother in addressing her by the term “woman.”—Matthew 15:28; Luke 13:12; John 4:21; 19:26; 20:13, 15.

  However, the same portion in the Spanish version adds, after quoting Vine's dictionary, the following:

  Por ejemplo, la obra El Evangelio según Juan, de Raymond E. Brown , dice: “No se trata de un desaire o de un término despectivo, no indica falta de afecto [...]. Era la forma en que normal y respetuosamente se dirigía Jesús a las mujeres”.

  Translation: For example, in the Gospel According to John, of Raymond E. Brown, says: “This is not a rebuke, nor an impolite term, nor an indication of a lack of affection . . . It was Jesus’ normal, polite way of addressing women.”

  So, in the English Version, instead of mentioning the name of the work and the name of author, who is Raymond E. Brown, the Watchtower mentioned only the Anchor Bible, which is a Commentary Series, in which the "The Gospel According to John" is .

  As far as I know, the English version is the source for all the translations of the Watchtower literature. So, it seems that the Spanish translator freely added the "bad name" , or may be the first English Version deleted it. Why it is a bad name for Witnesses?. Because Raymond Brown was one of the first of those unorthodox Catholic Scholars who questioned the authorship of Matthew, and most of the Gospel of John, etc. I have "the Gospel According to John", in Spanish, and there Raymond Brown admits that the book of Isaiah was written by three authors during more than two centuries, that Ecclesiastes was not written by Solomon, that Moses could not write all of the Torah, that John could not write all of what is written in the Four Gospel, and so on.

  So, this means that the Watchtower writers can read "apostate" books of Babylon the Great, which expose the forgeries of the Bible, but most witnesses are forbidden to read literature of other religions. It would be great if all witnesses begin to read the Watchtower quotes so as to find what is behind them.
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  15

  Jehovah hates universities but loves Michael Behe

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  jehovah wants his faithful witnesses for hating the university:.

  university and college campuses are notorious for bad behaviordrug and alcohol abuse, immorality, cheating, hazing, and the list goes on.

  what is the atmosphere in many of this worlds institutions of higher education?

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  opusdei1972

  Jehovah wants his faithful witnesses for hating the university:

  University and college campuses are notorious for bad behavior—drug and alcohol abuse, immorality, cheating, hazing, and the list goes on. (w05 10/1 pp. 26-31)

  What is the atmosphere in many of this world’s institutions of higher education? Are they not at times hotbeds of political and social unrest? (Eph. 2:2) By contrast, Jehovah’s organization provides the highest form of education in the peaceful setting of the Christian congregation (w13 10/15 pp. 12-16)

  In other words, Jehovah regards all university campuses as a whorehouse. But, paradoxically, Jehova loves Michael Behe, who is a catholic professor in an university:

  IN 1996, Michael J. Behe , now professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., released his book Darwin’s Black Box—The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. The May 8, 1997, issue of Awake! carried a series of articles under the title “How Did We Get Here?—By Accident or by Design?” which referred to Behe ’s book. In the decade since Darwin’s Black Box was published, evolutionary scientists have scrambled to counter the arguments Behe raised. Critics have accused him of allowing his religious convictions—he is Roman Catholic—to cloud his scientific judgment. Others claim that his reasoning is unscientific. Awake! interviewed Professor Behe to learn why his ideas have caused such controversy.( g 9/06 pp. 11-12)

  As I see, the witness, who was the interviewer, had to enter to the campus of Behe's univesity to interview him. If so, how could the witness avoid the immorality in the campus?
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  15

  "The Ark Before Noah"

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  as well as providing new archaeological information, the book "the ark before noah: decoding the story of the flood" by irving finkel (published 2014) provides material for those of us who are interested in the neo-babylonian period.

  for example, one subheading is: "why were the judeans in babylon?

  " (page 226).. dr irving finkel is assistant keeper of ancient mesopotamian script, languages, and cultures at the british museum.

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  opusdei1972

  May be the Mesopotamian Flood was inspired by a local disaster. Hindu literature tells a similar history. Some say it was the oldest.
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  17

  Radiocarbon dating totaly inaccurate before 2000 BCE

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it seems that this portion was published in the watchtower in the year 1977 (as i have in the spanish version):.

  the radiocarbon dating method has been widely accepted by many scientists as showing that humans lived back to at least 50,000 b.c.e.

  that conflicts with what the bible says.. but physicist r. brown of andrews university claims that this radiocarbon dating method is highly inaccurate.

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  opusdei1972

  As I shown above, the Watchtower quoted the Physicist R. H. Brown, who seems or seemed to be an Adventist against radiocarbon dates against the Bible chronology. However, R. E. Taylor, who worked in the Radiocarbon Laboratory of the University of California, answered one of his articles:

  A reader familiar with the general 14 C literature but not aware of Dr. Brown's philosophical or theological orientation would certainly have been puzzled by the tenor of the first four paragraphs of his discussion. However, any confusion would probably be resolved when one reads the first sentence in the next paragraph. Dr. Brown states that he is writing these comments for those "individuals who are looking for models that relate the historical data in the Bible and modern scientific observations." According to Dr. Brown, these individuals believe that Genesis 6-8 "describe a universal catastrophe that reasonably may be expected to have produced most of the coal and shell fossil material...." According to Dr. Brown, that "universal catastrophe" occurred "within the range 2500-3500 BC." That this view totally and completely contradicts well-established conclusions of a whole range of scientific disciplines — not to mention historical and archaeological data — apparently does not disturb Dr. Brown. It is my understanding that the majority of theologians holding academic credentials in the study of Hebrew language and literature in his own denomination views the Genesis creation narratives as theological rather than historical statements. I would therefore submit that the appropriate place to look for models that explain the apparent discrepancy that Dr. Brown sees between the scientifically well-established conclusion that organic life on earth is millions of years old and his interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis is not to be found in the scientific literature.

  http://www.grisda.org/origins/16008.htm#Brown
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  17

  Radiocarbon dating totaly inaccurate before 2000 BCE

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it seems that this portion was published in the watchtower in the year 1977 (as i have in the spanish version):.

  the radiocarbon dating method has been widely accepted by many scientists as showing that humans lived back to at least 50,000 b.c.e.

  that conflicts with what the bible says.. but physicist r. brown of andrews university claims that this radiocarbon dating method is highly inaccurate.

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  opusdei1972

  The Watchtower said:

  Bible chronology has a unique superiority over scientific chronologies. It goes into the future. The radiocarbon clock runs down, ever slower and slower, but without any end point. The tree-ring chronology stops with last year’s growth. But the Bible chronology directs our attention to a definite point, still future—the end of six 1,000-year days of man’s history, as counted by his Creator.
  The Bible’s past record of forecasting future dates is impressive. Biblical chronology was published by Jehovah’s Christian witnesses’ foretelling 1914 as the date for the tremendous change in earth’s affairs that then took place. Said the New York World on August 30, 1914: “The terrific war outbreak in Europe has fulfilled an extraordinary prophecy. For a quarter of a century past, through preachers and through press, the ‘International Bible Students’ . . . have been proclaiming to the world that the Day of Wrath prophesied in the Bible would dawn in 1914. ‘Look out for 1914!’ has been the cry of the . . . evangelists.” (*** g72 4/8 pp. 16-20 Scientific or Bible Chronology—Which Merits Your Faith? ***)

  However, recent recalibrations do not alter significantly the dates for human bones found older than 40000 years ago.

  The recalibrated clock won’t force archaeologists to abandon old measurements wholesale, says Bronk Ramsey, but it could help to narrow the window of key events in human history. “If you’re trying to look at archaeological sites at the order of 30,000 or 40,000 years ago, the ages may shift by only a few hundred years but that may be significant in putting them before or after changes in climate,” he says. ("Carbon Dating Gets a Reset", Scientific American, Oct 18, 2012; By Ewen Callaway and Nature magazine )

  So, updated calibrations of radiocarbon dating still prove that the Genesis account is a myth. There were modern men more than 40000 years before "Adam".
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  17

  Radiocarbon dating totaly inaccurate before 2000 BCE

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it seems that this portion was published in the watchtower in the year 1977 (as i have in the spanish version):.

  the radiocarbon dating method has been widely accepted by many scientists as showing that humans lived back to at least 50,000 b.c.e.

  that conflicts with what the bible says.. but physicist r. brown of andrews university claims that this radiocarbon dating method is highly inaccurate.

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  opusdei1972

  sunny23 , Coded Logic : I am noticing that there are many webpages misleading people with this stuff of young earth arguments. Indeed, though the Society denies a young earth, the governing body defends the 6000 years argument, which is currently untenable. I think that schools need to be taught about these issues,...may be it happens in US, but in third world countries any myth is acepted.

  Slidin Fast : you found an interesting fact, How could an Adventist university be unbiased in these issues?
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  17

  Radiocarbon dating totaly inaccurate before 2000 BCE

  by opusdei1972 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  it seems that this portion was published in the watchtower in the year 1977 (as i have in the spanish version):.

  the radiocarbon dating method has been widely accepted by many scientists as showing that humans lived back to at least 50,000 b.c.e.

  that conflicts with what the bible says.. but physicist r. brown of andrews university claims that this radiocarbon dating method is highly inaccurate.

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  opusdei1972

  Thank you jgnat, your finding led me to the following article online of Brown:

  http://www.grisda.org/origins/15039.htm

  I will analyze it.