Posts by Pole

61

THE WEAKEST LINK---fatal flaws in Watchtower Chronology

by Terry in

watchtower chronology suffers from weak logical links.

after all, they start with an unproven premise and begin linking and linking and linking and suddenly they produce the rabbit out of the hat.

1914 is the rabbit .

Pole

scholar
BA MA Studies in Religion

O, scholar, o wise one!

Pole

BA MA + half way through PhD ! in Computational Linguistics

EDITED TO ADD AN EXCLAMATION MARK

EDITED AGAIN TO BOLDEN AND UNDERLINE PhD

31

jesus christ invisibly (so that no father's clock governing earthly dominion satan the devil alcyone clouds armageddon with a great big light show stars moon satan fun late revealed charles taze russell (a studious timetable embarassed big dragon satan-ella sauntering his way ruse crown, and so he took a swipe at satan-ella.

so jesus then morphed himself into michael the archangel kick satan's ass earth stupid watch crap!!!

pissed off new servant because in the meantime, russell's group had splintered into many different groups and he had to choose one of them to be his servant.

Pole

Maybe Jesus is just enjoying the pagan Christmas birthday parties too much!

It really makes a loooooot of sense!!!

5

Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses ban - Over 300,000 sign petition in protest!

by somebody in

jw
friends

.

zev---of the ran out of posting limits klass

Pole

What they fail to mention is this:

and they have among the smallest congregation sizes of any group.

5

Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses ban - Over 300,000 sign petition in protest!

by somebody in

jw
friends

.

zev---of the ran out of posting limits klass

Pole

Ok, I know what they mean; Check out this page:

5

Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses ban - Over 300,000 sign petition in protest!

by somebody in

jw
friends

.

zev---of the ran out of posting limits klass

Pole

That's the vaguest claim ever. One of the top ten religions? Top ten what? What, the top ten "good"? Yeah, I'm sure the world recognizes them as that. The only top ten list I can possibly imagine it making is top ten literature producing.

Funny how they will count themselves as part of Babylon the Great if necessary :)

Some rough stats. Note that these are not broken down into churches. So the list of religions with more than 6 milion members woulbe waaay longer. For example, you couldn't put the orthodox church in the same category with the Roman Catholic Church. The latter has been recently discriminated in Russia too because of the dominance of the former. So they would certaintly insist on this distinction being made.Just click on any of the links to explore the great variety.

1 Christianity: 2 billion
2 Islam: 1.3 billion
3 Hinduism: 900 million
4 Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
5 Buddhism: 360 million
6 Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
7 primal-indigenous: 150 million
8 African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
9 Sikhism: 23 million
10 Juche: 19 million
11 Spiritism: 14 million
12 Judaism: 14 million
13 Baha'i: 6 million

9

JW collecct 315,000 signatures for petition

by GermanXJW in

jw
friends

i am not too sure if anybody already mentioned this: .

over 300,000 russians sign petition to president putin.

protesting moscow ban on jehovah's witnesses .

Pole

This is a pathetic petty demonstration of a politically powerless interest group in Russia. I don't think it's going to work there.

Some calculations Putin may bother to make:

JWs are not voters, so with 110,000 witnesses in those 315,000 who signed the petition only 214,000 may count. How many of those 214,000 are under age or otherwise not eligible for voting? Let's say only 150,000 are potential voters.

They have over 100,000,000 elligible voters in Russia. So what percentage of potential voters can Putin risk losing if he ingores this petition? Isn't it something around 0,115%?

JWs were banned in Moscow because of the religious monopoly of the Orthodox Church. Even Russian Catholics get "persecuted" in Russia. I mean it - if you don't believe me - you can do your research about recent persecution of Catholic missions in Russia. Proselytising is something that really pisses off the Orthodox Church hierarchy. Even in Greece, which is an EU member. (in this respect Greece is really still a pseudo-democracy, IMO).

And if there is any relligion Putin wants to make friends with it's not JWs, it's not Catholics, it's the Orthodox Church, especially in Moscow.

You have to understand that Russia is a parody of democracy. Putin's political record includes plans to exterminate an entire nation of Chechnya, shutting down free TV stations, and jailing the brightest politically incorrect businessmen (confiscating private property - e.g Yukos).

Russian JWs should therefore send their petition to the Orthodox Church leaders, not to Putin. They could make a deal about how many people they are allowed to convert and how much they could ~~bribe them~~ pay for these souls.

Sounds, crazy, I know. But it's Russia. It's beyond your comprehension, you Westerners.

Pole of the former Communist Bloc

5

Next Summer Olympics In Bejing

by Valis in

i am wondering how the media and so forth will be controlled when this happens.

i am somewhat disappointed that they would let a communist country who has such severe civil rights violations host the olympics.

i wished they were more democratic and capitalistic at the same time.

Pole

Might we have a 2008 boycott of the Olympics like we had in 1980??

Or like the one WE had in 1984?

Pole

30

6 pubs reveal one of the possible reasons for WTS association with UN

by Pole in

most of us are familiar with the requirement which says that in order to asscociate with the un, ngos must: -"have a demonstrated interest in united nations issues and proven ability to reach large or specialized audiences, such as educators, media representatives, policy makers and the business community;".

"have the commitment and means to conduct effective information programmes about un activities by publishing newsletters, bulletins, and pamphlets; organizing conferences, seminars and round tables; and enlisting the cooperation of the media".

interestingly, according to this document:.

Pole

Nathan,

Great job!

My first impression is this: the closer we get to 1991 the more neutral to positive mentions of the UN and its activities can be foud. I'm pretty sure there would be 6 or more examples which could be presented as evidence of WTS informing about the workings of the UN.

Here are some:

AWAKE! January 8, 1990 "Homeless Children--Who is to Blame?" page 3

AWAKE! January 8, 1990 "Homeless Children--Why So Hard to Help?" page 7

AWAKE! January 22, 1990 "Watching the World" page 28

AWAKE! December 8, 1990 "Part 9: Human Rule Reaches Its Climax!" page 21

THe last one is particularly lenghty. It contains one statement which goes:

As author Baldwin explains, like the old League, ?the United Nations is powerless to do more than an accused member state graciously permits.?

but notice how it is swiftly followed by this:

Varindra Tarzie Vittachi, a former deputy director of UNICEF, wrote in 1988 that he refuses ?to join the general lynching party? of those who disavow the United Nations . Calling himself ?a loyal critic,? he admits, however, that a widespread attack is being made by people who say that ?the United Nations is a ?light that failed,? that it has not lived up to its own high ideals, that it has not been able to carry out its peacekeeping functions and that its development agencies, with a few noble exceptions, have not justified their existence.?

The chief weakness of the United Nations is revealed by author Ivor, when he writes: ?The UN, whatever else it can do, will not abolish sin. It can make international sinning rather more difficult, however, and it will make the sinner more accountable. But it has not yet succeeded in changing the hearts and minds either of the people who lead countries or of the people who make them up.??Italics ours.

I would say they could have presented this one.

Pole

30

6 pubs reveal one of the possible reasons for WTS association with UN

by Pole in

most of us are familiar with the requirement which says that in order to asscociate with the un, ngos must: -"have a demonstrated interest in united nations issues and proven ability to reach large or specialized audiences, such as educators, media representatives, policy makers and the business community;".

"have the commitment and means to conduct effective information programmes about un activities by publishing newsletters, bulletins, and pamphlets; organizing conferences, seminars and round tables; and enlisting the cooperation of the media".

interestingly, according to this document:.

Pole

OK. I know my English is far from perfect and my reasoning is highly incoherent, but let me ask you my main question again:

Do you think that the co-occurrence of articles praising the UN and articles about the persecution of JWs in some countries is just coincidence?

a) yes

b) no

c) I don't know / more evidence needed

-------

Elsewhere,

Nathan asked a similar (very relevant) question. An attempt was made to answer it earlier on this thread . See if it works for you.

30

6 pubs reveal one of the possible reasons for WTS association with UN

by Pole in

most of us are familiar with the requirement which says that in order to asscociate with the un, ngos must: -"have a demonstrated interest in united nations issues and proven ability to reach large or specialized audiences, such as educators, media representatives, policy makers and the business community;".

"have the commitment and means to conduct effective information programmes about un activities by publishing newsletters, bulletins, and pamphlets; organizing conferences, seminars and round tables; and enlisting the cooperation of the media".

interestingly, according to this document:.

Pole

Hi Jim_TX,

Thanks for your comment:

Since you are digging... if you do your homework, you will find that there were committees that the UN had going in some of these countries - that members of the WTBTS sat on... I am not clear as to which ones... but I seem to remember reading about it on one of the internet sites.
So - in fact - they were actually on committees that were formed by the UN to try to help in these countries where religious suppression were taking place, etc.

I think I've already done this part of my homework :).

However, the title of this thread is "one of the possible reasons for WTS association with UN". So far I haven't seen anyone pointing to this correlation between articles about the UN and articles abuot the persecution of JWs (or "great achievements" of WTS) in the same issues of WT and Awake. So here is where I thought I'd be innovative.

I found it very interesting how they 'toned down' their depiction of the UN... boy! what a change from that big thick red 'Revelation' book they released in the '60s.

I thought Revelation was released in the late 1980s, but I'd have to check it. Anyway, if I'm right, then your conclusion is even more substantiated. The time between this doctrinal change would be much shorter then.

Cheers,

Pole