Coded Logic

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Posts by Coded Logic

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  33

  New York Times article Dec 31 2015

  by Gayle in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/nyregion/stalled-brooklyn-park-exposes-rift-with-religious-group.html?_r=0.

  jehovahs witnesses have been criticized by community leaders for not fixing up parks in dumbo, brooklyn, as promised.

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  Coded Logic

  They haven't done anything for ten years after promising to build a park for rezoning rights?

  What's wrong with these guys? The community has every right to be outraged.
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  16

  2016 Yearbook service report stats - Excel spreadsheet download available

  by Westenddave in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hello,.

  i've posted the 2016 yearbook service report in excel format for public download.

  here's the link: http://www.filedropper.com/2016yearbookofjwinexcelformat.

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  Coded Logic

  Wow, the "growth rate" of publishers worldwide is off by a factor of 10 when compared to the human population growth rate! Publishers increased by a measly 0.01% (that's right - one tenth of one percent) vs. a population increase of 1.13%. And in the United State the margins are even bigger - by a factor of 100! Publishers up 0.007% vs US population growth rate of 0.7%. Crazy!

  How long before we start seeing negative growth in the US?

  *Correction: Both the world and US growth rates are off by a factor of 100. This just gets better and better! :)
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  54

  The Watchtower is not invincible

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  despite claims to the contrary, there's no guarantee the watchtower will be around in a few decades time.

  and it seems to me there's ever mounting evidence that the opposite may well be true.

  but it's not just that recruitment is down and their defectors are up.

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  Coded Logic

  I remind myself that there are still Bible Students that follow Studies in the Scriptures.

  I suppose it boils down to a question of identity. Will the JWs go away completely? No. Is there a chance we could see them become a shell of them former selves with almost no infrastructure in most countries and an inability to recruit? I'd say the odds aren't looking good for them.

  isn't most of this stuff any religion? Like being homophobic. If you aren't, you're not following the Bible.

  The Bible claims a great deal many things and a whole lot of it is self contradictory. Furthermore, a lot of denominations place far more importance on the teachings of Jesus about love and acceptance over the crazy ramblings of Paul - and lots of churches don't even touch the Old Testament. But when it comes to critiquing any given denomination I don't care what their holy book says. I care about what they actually teach. And how they treat other people.

  In mainstream Christianity you don't see tribalism to such a degree as with the JWs - where they think every other branch of Christianity is the work of Satan. We also see lots of churches where women are seen as equals to their husbands and where it is okay for a woman to be a preacher. And the blood doctrine is the sole property of the WT.
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  8

  Bethel should be considered bad

  by dbq407 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from what i was told, we don't celebrate birthdays because the only two times it is mentioned in the bible, bad things happened.

  so if the wt wants to set standards by the "two bad things" rule, then why do they use the name bethel?

  i've read two instances in the bible where bad things happened there.

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  Coded Logic

  Dogs are mentioned 27 times in the Bible and EVERY SINGLE TIME they're referred to negatively. Perhaps all JWs should stop owning K9s.

  http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Dogs
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  54

  The Watchtower is not invincible

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  despite claims to the contrary, there's no guarantee the watchtower will be around in a few decades time.

  and it seems to me there's ever mounting evidence that the opposite may well be true.

  but it's not just that recruitment is down and their defectors are up.

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  Coded Logic

  It's true that "there are a lot of suckers out there" but that doesn't solve their problems for two reasons. The first is that they're going to start losing members faster than they can recruit them. Their entire model both financially and theologically is dependent upon upward growth.

  And the second problem is "suckers" don't have much money to give and don't make for good managers in congregations or circuits or branch offices. They really need people with good critical thinking and problem solving skills but instead they continue to alienate such people if not drive them away entirely.

  Yet 10 years ago who would have believed " The Watchtower" would have embraced the Internet, created its own tv channel, and have its own flag?
  -The Rebel

  And embracing such things has not managed to turn the ship around. They've engaged on a mass rebranding effort and that still hasn't helped their problems because they refuse to address their problems. You can put a fresh coat of paint on a sinking ship - which may well look nice - but it's not going to stop the ship from sinking.

  I believe that the JW.borg will be around in 10 years but as a much smaller group.
  Park Ave Boy

  I quite agree. I'm sure the Watchtower brand will be around for a long time. But it's the global corporation with infrastructure in almost every country that will disappear. And here in the US they'll go from having a couple kingdom halls in every town to only having a handful of kingdom halls in the entire state.

  Branches will continue to close. Printing press' will continue to be sold. Kingdom halls will start being put up for sale. Millennials will continue to bail. The older hardcore believers will continue to die off. And their number of recruits will continue to shrink.

  WIth the exception of KH sales, this has already been going on for a decade now. The writing's on the wall. The WTs in decline. And I'm not sure there's anything they can do to stop it.
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  54

  The Watchtower is not invincible

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  despite claims to the contrary, there's no guarantee the watchtower will be around in a few decades time.

  and it seems to me there's ever mounting evidence that the opposite may well be true.

  but it's not just that recruitment is down and their defectors are up.

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  Coded Logic

  Despite claims to the contrary, there's no guarantee the Watchtower will be around in a few decades time. And it seems to me there's ever mounting evidence that the opposite may well be true. But it's not just that recruitment is down and their defectors are up. It's that they've lost almost all control over the Millennials (much less the Millennial's children). And now their mishandling of rape cases has given them an ever expanding legal, public relations, and financial problem.

  The next 24 months will be very telling. The ARC is going to make its recommendations and begin a process of remediation. The WT will, naturally, fight it and this will cause even more bad press for them. In the end they will fail and have to pay out a significant sum of money and change their policies.

  But that's not the "real" problem. There are two very large issues that I can see ahead for them.

  1.) Will other countries carry out similar investigations to the ARC? If they do, they will no doubt make similar findings and also require remediation for the victims in those countries. And with the comes an ever growing plethora of negative press.

  2.) All press at this point is bad press for the WT. They are so out of touch they have no way to communicate with people on the outside. And it is becoming harder and harder for them to hide their tribalistic, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, blood refusing, tight pants hating, us vs the whole damn world bigoted mentality.

  No amount of whitewashing history or self indoctrination is going to solve their problems. Because fooling yourself doesn't get you out of trouble. And it often get you into even worse set of circumstances even faster. You can't disarm a ticking time bomb by closing your eyes and plugging your ears.

  
  
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  26

  12/13/2015 Yahoo Article about sale of NY property up to 1B$

  by Aerodynamic in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i am just posting the article link because i saw it today trolling through yahoo.

  wow!

  a billion, with a "b" is a big chunk of change.. http://news.yahoo.com/jehovahs-witnesses-could-1-billion-nyc-properties-161102417.html.

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  Coded Logic

  I'm no financial expert, but as I understand it a multi-national corporation that is wishing to expand can burn through a billion dollars fairly quickly.

  Or, to put it another way, of the supposed 2,000 Kingdom Halls the society wants to build a billion dollars would only buy half of them.
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  10

  The scripture most taken out of context

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope.- romans 15:4. ever consider that paul wasn't referencing his own letters to the congregations?

  and he certainly wasn't referring to the gospels which hadn't even been written yet.

  anybody else ever notice this?.

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  Coded Logic

  I always loved reading the writings of Paul. They always seemed so logical and interesting. Now, I have to ask myself, "Was he really any different than Rutherford?" After all, he inserted his own thoughts into the mix, by his own admission. Then he would say, "Not I, but the Lord!"

  One crazy person begets another crazy person I guess. I think I would be slightly more impressed if Jesus had written his own books or letters and not left the whole thing to anonymous authors (the Gospels) or to Paul who never met Jesus except in a vision. I think it was Hume that pointed out revelation is necessarily first person and to everyone else it's hearsay.

  If you accept the words of Paul then one also has to accept the words of Muhammad and Joseph Smith.
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  10

  The scripture most taken out of context

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope.- romans 15:4. ever consider that paul wasn't referencing his own letters to the congregations?

  and he certainly wasn't referring to the gospels which hadn't even been written yet.

  anybody else ever notice this?.

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  Coded Logic

  For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the scriptures we might have hope.
  - Romans 15:4

  Ever consider that Paul wasn't referencing his own letters to the congregations? And he certainly wasn't referring to the Gospels which hadn't even been written yet. Anybody else ever notice this?

  I think he's most likely referring to the Septuagint (the Old Testament that had been translated into Greek). The same goes with 2 Timothy 3:16:

  All Scripture is inspired of God+ and beneficial for teaching,+ for reproving, for setting things straight,* for disciplining in righteousness,+ 17 so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

  These letters were never meant to be self referencing. We know this because in the verse right before this one it says "from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures" (the Holy Scriptures existing prior to his writings). It's so odd that this realization never occurred to me while I was a JW. And that Elders will quote Paul and then cite another writing of Timothy or Paul for "setting things straight" or "disciplining" as though that's what Paul or Timothy were talking about.

  So weird! Paul claimed to have a revelation on the way to Damascus where he met ghost Jesus. But he never claimed that his writings were of divine inspiration.
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  20

  JW stand on Philosophy is inexcusable!

  by Pinku in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  paul knew that torah with all its rituals and sacrifices did not originate with god (jeremiah 7:22; 8:8), hence he warned christians to guard against deceptive philosophy that would take them back to torah.

  (colossians 2:8 compare 2:11, 16, 17) in view of the over-all view of the bible, there is no excuse to use the word philosophy with any negative connotation.

  jws built their stand on philosophy based on this wrong (negative) use of the word philosophy found in colossians 2:8.. the greek word philosophi a means love of wisdom.

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  Coded Logic

  I know that philosophy is a lot of things. But my go to answer for its value is that it helps us make sure that we're asking the right questions.

  Of course, in JW land - the questions are pre-supplied at the bottom of the page ...