OrphanCrow

Joined

• started 195 topics
• posted 4,799 times   see topics posted on
• send a message

Posts by OrphanCrow

• 
  37

  You Just Can't Make This S--t Up!

  by FedUpJW in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know this is kind of trivial but i don’t want to partake in something that might have connections with something that jehovah disapproves of.

  i checked the watchtower library and i didn’t find anything on gingerbread man cookies.. .

  good lord...how incredibly stupid and helpless are jdubs getting?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  sparky: What do you get when you cross a gingerbread man with a Smurf?
  A Jehovah's Witness' worst nightmare

  

  
  
• 
  37

  You Just Can't Make This S--t Up!

  by FedUpJW in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know this is kind of trivial but i don’t want to partake in something that might have connections with something that jehovah disapproves of.

  i checked the watchtower library and i didn’t find anything on gingerbread man cookies.. .

  good lord...how incredibly stupid and helpless are jdubs getting?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  sparrow: Those GB people have huuuuuuge red eyes!

  Yeah

  Blood

  That's why JWs can't eat em
• 
  37

  You Just Can't Make This S--t Up!

  by FedUpJW in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know this is kind of trivial but i don’t want to partake in something that might have connections with something that jehovah disapproves of.

  i checked the watchtower library and i didn’t find anything on gingerbread man cookies.. .

  good lord...how incredibly stupid and helpless are jdubs getting?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Oh geez, Sparrow...

  

  And...gingerbread people (cause it is wrong to be sexist)

  

  And jus' cause:

  
  
• 
  37

  You Just Can't Make This S--t Up!

  by FedUpJW in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know this is kind of trivial but i don’t want to partake in something that might have connections with something that jehovah disapproves of.

  i checked the watchtower library and i didn’t find anything on gingerbread man cookies.. .

  good lord...how incredibly stupid and helpless are jdubs getting?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  sparrowdown: Oh yeah they are concerned about gingerbread being pagan but that's only the half of it with these babies. Isn't it about time we all admit the term "ginger" bread "man" is racist and sexist.

  Sokay. Got that one covered (except for the color...not sure about that - I'm thinking they need more "shades" of ginger)

  
  
• 
  37

  You Just Can't Make This S--t Up!

  by FedUpJW in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i know this is kind of trivial but i don’t want to partake in something that might have connections with something that jehovah disapproves of.

  i checked the watchtower library and i didn’t find anything on gingerbread man cookies.. .

  good lord...how incredibly stupid and helpless are jdubs getting?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Fedup: And then EATING it? Why that imitates cannibalism. Also con-damned! And we all KNOW that they never even attempted to drain any "blood" from the gingerbread man before devouring it!

  OMG!!! I never thought of that

  Damn....I have ate the blood of a gingerbread man

  Damn. I am damned. And so is that poor gingerbread man

  
  
• 
  24

  How many anointed have come and gone; how many remain?

  by Moster in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  just wondering if there is any data about how many anointed there were in say 1914, and considering most would have passed 'beyond the veil' already, are the jw's numbers adding up?

  we know there are more in 2017 then there were in 2016, but just where are we in the grand total column?.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Careful: Sour Grapes, where in the world did you get this?

  At the end of the first century, there were over 1,000,000 Christians.

  I asked the same question to myself, Careful. Sour Grapes answered with this:

  "According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (1982), it is estimated
  that by A.D. 100 there were 1 million Christians in the Roman Empire
  out of a population of 181 million. This means that by the end of the
  first century less than 1 percent of the population (0.6% to be exact)
  was Christian."

  However, I was still skeptical so I did some more digging. I had found the same quote as Sour Grapes but I do know that going to the subject itself as the source for answering questions about that subject will rarely get a person the correct answer. So I looked some more. And I found this:

  How many Jews became Christians in the First Century?: The failure of the Christian mission to Convert the Jews

  In order to answer that question (how many Jews converted?), the author of the above essay (David C Sim) analyzes estimations of how many Christians were around in the first century in order to arrive at how many Jews would have converted. This is what he says about the number of 1st C Christians:

  Most scholars of Christian origins tend to exaggerate the size and importance of the
  early Christian church. This is understandable in the light of the discipline’s
  intense concentration on the New Testament texts. By confining ourselves in
  particular to the letters of Paul, the Gospels and Acts, it is all too easy to create
  a limited and false impression of the ancient world and the place of the
  Christians within it. Yet the reality is that for all of the first century the Christians
  were a tiny and insignificant socio-religious movement within the Graeco-Roman
  world (Hopkins 1998:195-196). Christianity did of course grow considerably in
  later centuries and it eventually became the religion of the Roman empire, but
  we should take care not to retroject its later size and importance into the initial
  decades of its existence.

  
  Just how small was the Christian movement in the first century is clear
  from the calculations of the sociologist R Stark (1996:5-7; so too Hopkins
  1998:192-193). Stark begins his analysis with a rough estimation of six million
  Christians in the Roman Empire (or about ten percent of the total population) at
  the start of the fourth century. He then argues, on the assumption of 1 000
  Christians in the year 40 that this figure could have been reached through a
  natural and consistent growth of 40 per cent per decade. What makes this a
  feasible rate of growth is that it compares very favourably with the expansion of
  the Mormon Church in more recent times, which has grown at a rate of 43 per
  cent per decade. This method of calculating total Christian numbers in the first
  century renders the following approximate results. There were 1,000 Christians
  in the year 40, 1 400 Christians in 50, 1 960 Christians in 60, 2 744 Christians in
  70, 3 842 Christians in 80, 5 378 Christians in 90 and 7 530 Christians at the
  end of the first century.

  Sims, based on the calculations of sociologist R. Stark, proposes that there were only 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century. That is significantly less than what the Christians claim. Which isn't at all surprising considering that Christians have a tendency to use hyperbole in order to amplify their own importance.
• 
  5

  Chri$tma$ for the Org

  by OrphanCrow in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/average-cost-of-an-american-christmas.aspx.

  in 2017, it is expected that the average american will be spending $967.13 on gifts for friends and loved ones.

  i was thinking about how much money the org has at their disposal within their membership by simply banning christmas.. because jws are notoriously cheap, i rounded way down with projected gift spending and went with a $900 figure and then rounded down the estimates of jws to 8 million (because a lot of that number are dependent children) and came up with an amount of 72 million american dollars that will have been "liberated" from the worldly tradition of getting together with friends and family to celebrate during the long winter months.. i didn't bother putting in the $ that is spent on things other than gift giving (travelling and food, etc) just because so many jws do that anyways over the holidays "because turkeys are on sale".

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  sir82: Only about 1 million of the 8 million JWs are American.
  I suspect that people in Nigeria, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bangladesh, etc. spend far less than $900 on Christmas presents. Many may not make that much money in a year.

  You are right. But I confess to being lazy and just used Murican $'s.

  And of course people in many places don't make that much per year but we don't know the demographics of the JW population in those far away places.

  Regardless, banning traditional celebrations does liberate $$ that may be used for JW donations and activities instead. When I was a kid, the annual assemblies took all of our family's disposable income (and more). I have often thought that the conventions wouldn't have had so much succe$$ if we just celebrated Xmas and birthdays instead. I would have much rather have had birthday and xmas memories instead of assembly memories

  StarTrekAngel: This don't seem like a number the WTBTS would be willing to consider in light of the controversy that could surround the doctrine, until you consider the entire US JW population. At 13,714 congregations, this would amount to $329,136,000 per year.

  Exactly. Now do the calculation globally.

  A birthday gift for each and every JW on the planet. How much money would that require? Annually? How much would a birthday cake for each JW cost? Annually? Probably more than Sophie's ice cream cone.
• 
  5

  Chri$tma$ for the Org

  by OrphanCrow in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/average-cost-of-an-american-christmas.aspx.

  in 2017, it is expected that the average american will be spending $967.13 on gifts for friends and loved ones.

  i was thinking about how much money the org has at their disposal within their membership by simply banning christmas.. because jws are notoriously cheap, i rounded way down with projected gift spending and went with a $900 figure and then rounded down the estimates of jws to 8 million (because a lot of that number are dependent children) and came up with an amount of 72 million american dollars that will have been "liberated" from the worldly tradition of getting together with friends and family to celebrate during the long winter months.. i didn't bother putting in the $ that is spent on things other than gift giving (travelling and food, etc) just because so many jws do that anyways over the holidays "because turkeys are on sale".

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/average-cost-of-an-american-christmas.aspx
  

  In 2017, it is expected that the average American will be spending $967.13 on gifts for friends and loved ones

  I was thinking about how much money the org has at their disposal within their membership by simply banning Christmas.

  Because JWs are notoriously cheap, I rounded way down with projected gift spending and went with a $900 figure and then rounded down the estimates of JWs to 8 million (because a lot of that number are dependent children) and came up with an amount of 72 million American dollars that will have been "liberated" from the worldly tradition of getting together with friends and family to celebrate during the long winter months.

  I didn't bother putting in the $ that is spent on things other than gift giving (travelling and food, etc) just because so many JWs do that anyways over the holidays "because turkeys are on sale"

  $72 million

  Merry Xmas everybody :)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  34

  Strange

  by Jrjw in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a couple of times at the meetings this year we've been told that in the future we might get some strange directions from the society that might not make any sense to us.

  then they've said will we show our loyalty to jehovah by still obeying?

  seems a rather unusual thing to say.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  What on earth could the JWs be told that would seem to be "strange"?

  I will take a stab at this. Just for fun.

  Maybe they will be told that using blood made from stem cells is A-ok. You know, so that they can take advantage of those blood stem cell trials poised to begin any second now (have they started? about to? when?)

  It would seem strange all right - to give the green light to blood that has been made by human intervention but at the same time say that blood "made by God" isn't okay to be used

  Anyways, that is my prediction. Jus' because I am always focused on things to do with blood and all that - I say that the WTS is trying real hard to come up with a way to make that one fly - "synthetic" blood derived from stem cells will be on the "approved" list, if it isn't already
• 
  178

  Charging $150 To Tell Your Stories

  by Bangalore in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/how-to-escape-from-jehovah-s-witnesses-religion#/.

  for $150: collaboration with the backer so that their story of successfully escaping an abusive belief system (300 words max) features along with others in the final pages of how to escape from jehovah's witnesses.

  the text will be written by the author but will include a minimum of one quote worded by the backer.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  OrphanCrow

  Simon: He slapped his name and URL on the back.

  That is really just plain awful. Awful.

  To take such a great book, authored by such a great man - a book that has such a great track record - and use it for his own self promotion really, really takes the fucking cake.

  I didn't want to say anything more on this thread but that just picks my craw