Mephis

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Posts by Mephis

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  6

  Fiery Furnace: A symbol or a literal?

  by MercyBrew in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  matt.

  13: 24 - 30 contains a parable spoken by the lord jesus himself.

  in it jesus spoke of a symbolic sower who sowed symbolic seeds in a symbolic field.

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  Mephis

  They're not alone in their view of it being a metaphorical fiery furnace. The problem is that they also reject the idea of it being a reference to hellfire/eternal damnation etc etc. It's not the only reference in Matthew to the whole thing either - Matthew 8:12 gives a similar sort of place.

  Not a believer in the slightest, but I can't think of way to get Matthew 13:42 to fit JW doctrine without excessive use of derp. But then JW doctrine does this sort of thing a lot. It's doctrine by selective, context free, quotation.There's no internally consistent way in which they use canon scripture. Everything is literal until it's too inconvenient, and then those bits need interpretation back to what the writer really meant which miraculously always turns out to fit JW doctrine. Praise Jehovah. That approach is even set out as one of the things they did for the recent NWT revisions.
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  15

  Any William Miller Scholars out there?

  by neverendingjourney in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

  see this chart:.

  if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

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  Mephis

  @neverendingjourney. For sure. That's something Dowling picks up in his argument against Miller with the 2300 days prophecy in Daniel 8:14. Where do you start it from? You can pick any date which you fancy up to 70 AD I guess.
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  15

  Any William Miller Scholars out there?

  by neverendingjourney in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

  see this chart:.

  if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

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  Mephis

  Miller dated the invasion of Israel and capture of Manasseh to 677 bc.. That was when he reckoned Israel no longer was a nation. So that was why he started from there.

  edit: incidentally, even at the time he was being criticised for trying to work the date backwards to Manasseh.

  eg Dowling's Reply to Miller: https://archive.org/details/expositionofprop00dowl
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  32

  New WT pdf tells children to report. Irony?

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  pdf.

  why won't watchtower tell abusers "i'm going to tell on you!

  " and follow through with the proper authorities?

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  Mephis

  Bottom line for me is that they should have policies in place to protect children, and vulnerable adults too. They know how to contact experts in child protection policy, they showed that by getting one to do a survey of their literature for court cases, so really they be looking to have a review of the policies. ARC has pointed out the huge problems they have beyond it being a case of telling kids to say 'no'. To do otherwise is willfully negligent. I won't damn them for trying to figure out how to do it, but that pdf isn't addressing the institutional (and cultural) problem they have - any more than telling people 'pedophilia is bad' from the platform does.
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  31

  Your favorite Bible version / translation

  by lumberjack in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  which one is your favorite?

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  Mephis

  If I'm looking for a decent translation of a verse, I tend to look to NIV first.
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  48

  Massive Plunge in Number of New JW Congregations from 1990 to 2014

  by steve2 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in a separate thread on the very latest figures for the current world wide annual report of jws, discussion turned to how "we'll know decline has really set in.

  one of the posters said: .

  the figure that interests me most is the number of congregations.

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  Mephis

  One of the latest watchtowers has a study article on why people shouldn't be skipping meetings. That's usually a sign that they've noticed a decline in attendances.
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  15

  We are living in the 21st Century , When , Are We Going to Bury Religious Superstition ? Once and for all ?

  by smiddy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the christian bible / cannon is different , depending on what religion you profess ,around the world.. russian orthodox ,greek orthodox ,christian gnostics ,roman catholics , polish national catholics ,c.of e , etc,etc,.

  the very many christian bible translations that exist today differ according to different interpretations of the translators.. the jewish translators of the hebrew scriptures add a whole new concept to the traditional interpretation by christian translators of the old testament... throw in the mix all of the fundamentalist religions that have sprung up these past couple of centuries including the j.w.`s , s.d.a.`s , mormons , t.v.

  evangelists , etc, etc,.

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  Mephis

  People just believe in a higher power.

  As you say later in your post though, it's a cultural and taught belief system rather than an inherent thing where we feel a sense of spirituality and link it to 'god'. There are belief systems which don't have 'god' as part of them, and they're still trying to minister to the same feeling.

  Religion is a social and cultural construct. In times and places it can be a force for the good, a binding agent, even a replacement for an educational system for a society. But at best it's always only ever been an inadequate substitute with a lot of flaws.

  Some people may well always choose to find meaning in belief in a skydaddy or skymummy or whatever. But the form it takes will be individual and personal and relevant to their own needs rather than having a belief system grafted onto how one chooses to then live one's life.
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  15

  We are living in the 21st Century , When , Are We Going to Bury Religious Superstition ? Once and for all ?

  by smiddy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the christian bible / cannon is different , depending on what religion you profess ,around the world.. russian orthodox ,greek orthodox ,christian gnostics ,roman catholics , polish national catholics ,c.of e , etc,etc,.

  the very many christian bible translations that exist today differ according to different interpretations of the translators.. the jewish translators of the hebrew scriptures add a whole new concept to the traditional interpretation by christian translators of the old testament... throw in the mix all of the fundamentalist religions that have sprung up these past couple of centuries including the j.w.`s , s.d.a.`s , mormons , t.v.

  evangelists , etc, etc,.

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  Mephis

  A sense of spirituality is a human experience, and how it gets expressed is ripe for exploitation by constructed belief systems. Anyone can sit in a field away from light pollution look up and be blown away by the immensity of it all and ask the question 'why am I here?'. Love what Alive says about 'scripture is everywhere'. So true. It's a sense of wonder we experience as part of being alive.

  Some people are comfortable with there being no answer, comfortable with making their own meaning. Or in channeling that wonder into asking questions about the 'why' and the 'how' of things. Others seems to prefer having an authority figure give them answers. I guess my view is that as long as people want to have someone willing to give them all the answers, someone who doesn't ever say 'I don't know - have a theory but it's not proven', then there'll always be some form of religion which will play the role for them. It's comforting I guess to have the eternal godparent who'll tidy up any mess created along the way.
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  39

  No Sports Cars Please!

  by snugglebunny in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i read on a jw forum that jw's came in for disapproval if they drove either sports cars or 2-door cars.

  the reasoning was that a driver couldn't easily take fellow dubbies out preaching in such a vehicle.

  was that ever official policy or just local nonsense from a grumpy po?.

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  Mephis

  Thanks BluesBrother. That's likely where the idea I remember came from. Ostentatious display of wealth. Detracting from the truth. Stumbling others. Crazy stuff.
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  291

  Evolution is a Fact #1 - Protein Functional Redundancy

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i intend for this to be one of a series of bite-sized ops on the evidence for evolution.. introduction to dna genes are sequences of dna made up of words (codons) each of which are three letters (bases) long.

  there are only four letters in the genetic alphabet (acg&t) each word or codon is the recipe for one amino acid.

  there are 20 different amino acids in living organisms.

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  Mephis

  No science please, I'm common sensing a theory which validates my current bronze age explanation for how life developed. Of course everything is a little bit similar if Atum masturbated all the other gods into being and cried happy tears which became humans. Everything carries a little part of Atum with them and that's clearly what you're trying to describe. We had this figured out 4000 years ago guys. Why the debate?