at the corporate meeting david splane discusses the use and misuse of types/antitypes.. the main qualifier of a type is that an account must be represented in the scriptures as a. type of some future event.. he quoted schroeder who said if an account isnt explained in the scriptures as a type than you.
shouldnt use the event as a type.. splane summed up his talk by saying if the bible is silent - we must be silent.. but they go right on celebrating the 100 years from 1914 which was determined by improperly.
going beyond anything written in the bible about nebuchadnezzars tree dream.. the bible specifically refers to the immense tree as representing nebuchadnezzar.. daniel explained it and that should be the end of the matter.. .
“Finkelstein”: “God has provided with new light and the new light tells us that Jesus didn't take his heavenly throne in 1914 because in reality there was no calculation to be made by his living devoted servants.”
Precisely. And to back it up most conclusively, all I have to say is: “The Gentile Times Reconsidered,” by Carl Olof Jonsson. That book, which I have read, TOTALLY and THOROUGHLY blows the WTS’ spurious 1914 crap right out of the water . . . BIGTIME!
at the corporate meeting david splane discusses the use and misuse of types/antitypes.. the main qualifier of a type is that an account must be represented in the scriptures as a. type of some future event.. he quoted schroeder who said if an account isnt explained in the scriptures as a type than you.
shouldnt use the event as a type.. splane summed up his talk by saying if the bible is silent - we must be silent.. but they go right on celebrating the 100 years from 1914 which was determined by improperly.
going beyond anything written in the bible about nebuchadnezzars tree dream.. the bible specifically refers to the immense tree as representing nebuchadnezzar.. daniel explained it and that should be the end of the matter.. .
“Vidiot”: “From what I've seen, hardcore True Believers would rather go down with the ship then jump ship, because jumping ship is tantamount to acknowledging that the ship is going down in the first place, and I'm sorry, but I simply can't imagine the WTS ever admitting that to such a degree (even if just by their actions).”
That certainly appears to be true, considering the more contemporary popular cults such as David Koresh’s Branch Dividians, Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate, etc. – they do tend to try to play their game right to the bitter end (or sometimes a big fireball, literally).
“Simon”: “Eventually they end up balanced high atop a house of cards that only has one direction to go.”
I think that the WT has been trying to assemble their little house of cards in a big windstorm, because everything they try to construct (or contrive) just ends up being blown down by those two significant enemies of theirs: recorded history, and obvious logical fallacy.
“EdenOne”: “This recent view of Gog opens the door to an interpretation of an aggression from ANY type of enemy of God's people. And THAT may well be the media, the courts, etc.”
That reminds me of how “Judge” Rutherford would initiate those very provocative altercations whereby people would start preaching blatantly and defiantly against false religion and even the government right out in public, and any backlash they received was, of course, deemed “persecution.” You are right that “by forcing the hand of the authorities to persecute them,” that was just playing right into the hand of Rutherford’s contrived “win-win situation.” He might have thought that to be rather clever, but that only can be played out for so long (before people start to catch on, that is!).
Personally, I think that in terms of either the GB’s awareness or their plain stupidity of what they’re doing (or trying to do), it’s probably a bit of both: the GB knowing full well that things aren’t exactly adding up smoothly regarding the outworking of their WT prophecies; BUT, at the same time, I think that they overestimate their own capabilities and that they are, at least to some degree, self-misled – they just aren’t aware of how much they are. And, of course, in the end they are just yet another example of those who are consumed by their own defects of character – namely pride and greed. Religious charlatanry has always been thick on the ground – some make it big financially, some don’t. But to more and more folks, like me, it’s all really just a big bubbling cauldron of dirty puke!
i just discovered that the circuit assembly my family is attending tomorrow contains a symposium entitled:.
help others to seek jehovah's righteousness: those who have become inactive.
i poked around a bit on here and didn't find any comments about this.
“Powermetal4ever”: “I must have been daydreaming through the whole assembly.”
I did better than that. I was napping as much as I could all through the whole assembly.
“BluesBrother”: “The reason that they do not pursue the inactive so much is that it does not go onto their report as hours in " the ministry" . Think, if they speak with you once you might ask them back and want to study . Think how much that would take off of their precious Report Hours? - Cannot have that !”
Which makes me ask regarding the elders, What good are they!
i would like to make a documentary with help from the same technology that got me free of watchtower, namely the internet.
also via the same people that helped me leave, namely...you lot!.
i want to make the documentary that jw's find when they google jw.org.
Actually, I would be quite interested in participating in this. I think that it could have quite a significant impact considering that it’s freely available on YouTube. It could be an ongoing open series in perpetuity. As many of us are already aware, there is already an independent professional documentary called “Truth Be Told” produced by Gregorio Smith, who did an extremely good job (the official Web site is “http://www.hereliesthetruth.com”), but of course there is always room on YouTube for other productions of the free, “home-made” variety. (Gotta love those webcams!)
One tip I have for everyone, which I would also do myself, is to use free online software to disguise my voice (just do an online search with the words “free online software to disguise your voice”) and, of course, use video editing software to add my own blur to sufficiently obscure my face. (I already have iMovie on my Mac for this, which should do the job fine.)
I was never an elder, regular pioneer, or even a ministerial servant; however, I was born into a very strongly JW family in 1966 (I’m 48 years old now), and my dad is a well-known, long-time elder. Currently I’m actually living with my parents right now due to circumstances (long story), who are in their mid-70s. Let’s just say that I’ve seen a lot of verbal and even some physical violence done to my mother and myself while growing up. (Not exactly what you would expect from a “mature elder,” that’s for sure!) I’m sure you could always use a variety of “testimonials” to sort through in making your compilation.
I wish you the best of luck with your endeavors. Please be sure to keep us apprised of any developments.
jesus was stating the generally obvious....war, famine, earthquakes we have always had these!!!
witnesses see an earthquake and there ya go armagedon is coming.....so i say there will be floods that kill many....and the moon shall be eclipsed heavy snows shall fall and droughts and flooding rain shall ruin the earth.
fires shall ravage the lands.
I have a prediction: I predict that the WTS will just continue on with their end-times evangelical games, making it up as they go, as usual, but in a more polished-looking, sparkly-teeth, 700-Club sort of manner. They will still be featuring their pet muppet host, Governing Body member Stephen Lett (alias “old rubber face”), probably because he makes people laugh, especially the kids.
The whole Watchtower “show” will gradually keep morphing, sort of like how a person’s signature apparently changes gradually over time, with ever-changing doctrines (yes, more of that “new light”) and procedures. I can see some “new understanding” regarding the number of anointed being 144,000; i.e., that it will be considered to be a symbolic number. Either that, or they would have to say that the vast majority of new folks claiming to be “of the anointed” and taking the emblems are “mentally diseased” (just like us “apostates”), as that number of “Memorial partakers” just keeps a-goin’ up and up. (Wee bit of a problem there, considering “the end” to supposedly be coming “soon” and that the number should be going down.)
Of course, whatever direction the WTS goes, it will continue to tend toward aggrandizing the Governing Body itself, ever raising it up on their self-appointed pedestal. I swear, if they were to raise themselves up any more, then they would come out and say that the characters Jehovah God and Jesus Christ are just metaphors, or parables, which are pointing to and actually wrapped up in the Governing Body members themselves. (Might as well. At least Jesus Christ is certainly looking way up at the Governing Body, in their own minds.) It reminds me of how the Roman Caesars were looked upon as actually being divine “gods” in the flesh – especially now since the Governing Body members are paraded on their new fancy, “magical”-looking TV studio. They’ll probably give them some angel wing props to wear and hoist them up around the studio on thin cables (like Peter Pan) with dry ice smoke machines, lasers, and pyrotechnics. “Beeehoooold! Your Gods appear before youuuu in the fleeeesh!” [cue ethereal, mystical-sounding synthesizer techno music]
Yes, I think you’ll see very shortly that the WTS has, indeed, come a long way from the Photodrama of Creation days and that you can have a Governing Body that is technically-savvy, progressive, and charismatically sexy to boot!
at our service meeting we saw the video of a jw explaining his beliefs about 1914.. it was.....well, "underwhelming" does not do it justice.
what is below "underwhelming"?
"boringly tepid"?.
All I can say is, If you read the book “The Gentile Times Reconsidered” by Carl Olef Jonsson (a former JW), which I myself have, they you will very clearly see that it absolutely blows the WTS’ whole 607/1914 teaching completely to bits on a molecular level. It really shows the blatant academic dishonesty on the part of the GB and debunks the WTS’ pet theory through a methodical and meticulous examination of studies and conclusions by famous historical scholars. That book really puts the cards on the table for all to see. After reading it, it really opened my eyes to the fact that the WTS has stretched history by exactly 20 years to accommodate its ridiculous eschatology, which is based on nothing more than an eccentric Adventist pastor and a power/money-hungry tyrant (Russell and Rutherford, respectively).
hey all - i wanted to make a post to consolidate all the great info, posts, links about why jws are a cult (the signs, symptoms, everything, etc).. would love to have the definitions and specific examples of how jws fit those definitions/descriptions.. thanks in advance!
love you guys!!.
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I think that it’s not just any particular thing but, rather, it is the total combination of such numerous proven inconsistencies and falsehoods. The WTS says that it can prove that we are in the “last days” of this “system of things” because “everything dovetails together” in the signs and events (that is, according to their own rather peculiar eschatologhy). But anyone can easily prove that the WTS is not “spirit directed” in any way, because the preponderance all those inconsistencies and falsehoods (lies) all combine to prove that it simply isn’t and couldn’t be the only true religion.
Actually, it was this very discussion board that did it for me. There was a reference in one of the threads to a compilation called “Spiritual Food At the Proper Time” (located at “http://www.freeminds.org), which is a chronological listing and comparison of all the Watchtower doctrines right from the start. That historical synopsis was extremely informative and eye-opening for me. It really lays out the development of the continuing mess of made-up dogma and the overwhelming number of discrepancies over all those years.
So, the thing that really clinched it for me was simply the combination of so much that fits like a key proving that the WTS is just another quirky sect/cult based on lies every bit as much as the rest of them and more.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/142464853/hendo-hoverboards-worlds-first-real-hoverboard.
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That would be quite the means of locomotion for getting around! You could use those things in field service, if it weren’t for the stairs. The Governing Body should use those when they visit third world countries like Africa or India – maybe some of the locals might think it’s really “magical” and that they really are “gods” from above (i.e., the old “razzle-dazzle”).
i see no logic in it.
i see what appears to be some scriptural contradictions but i see no merit in a trinitarian view of god.. .
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“fastJehu”: “One ELEMENT = H2O ---> but H2O can have one of the 3 conditions: water - ice – steam.”
Actually, H 2 0 (water) is two elements – hydrogen and oxygen – not one, resulting in one compound (not one element). [glasses icon]
“cofty”: “I accepted the doctrine as an imperfect post-biblical attempt to reconcile the deity of Jesus with monotheism.”
Now that is the most logical and plausible explanation on this thread.
“Coded Logic”: “You can use the Bible support or condemn just about anything you want as it so often has contradictory claims.”
That’s about it. The Bible’s cumbersome length and its ridiculously abstract and obscure, poetic (artsy-fartsy) styles lend itself to an infinite number of ambiguous – and, of course, self-serving – “interpretations.”
“lriddle80”: “I think of it like a family. God is a family consisting of The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.”
That’s a good analogy – except that the “Holy Spirit” is not supposed to be considered a separate being, or “person,” but, rather, God’s “active force”; that is, whatever non-physical “thing,” or “tool,” which God uses in accomplishing His purpose – like the WT’s example of us using electricity.
“NAVYTOWN”: “My view is that there may in fact be some sort of Ultimate Force that caused 'everything' to come into existence. But I don't think humans have the intelligence level at present to understand it. The churches certainly don't have the answers.”
That is my stance, exactly! Couldn’t have said it better myself. I think that if there is any kind of “Ultimate Force,” then it’s absolutely nothing like anything anybody says it is, especially any religion! (I.e., they’re all wrong. They’re like little ants crawling on an elephant and trying to guess what it is.)
what is the perfect product to sell to a jw?.
cheap?.
exclusive?.
Everlasting life. . . . . Oh ya, they’ve already been sold that.
“Bobcat”: “I recently was given (w/o having asked) a key chain/LED light with JW.Org on it. I guess someone thought I was lacking, like I was a homeless person who needed a handout. (The LED light is bright - so it does have some usefulness.)”
And that’s the only thing that’s bright in that organization!
