The official reason is this. The Org (GB) set policies against beards. By refusing to obey the GB you place yourself against Jehovah EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to do so.
It is a test of Loyalty and Obedience.
Period.
Posts by Terry
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53What is their official explanation for not allowing beards?
by keyser soze ini ask because my gf, who knows all about my jw upbringing, convinced me to grow a goatee, just to see how it looks.
we both decided it looked good so i decided to keep it.
i tried to explain to her that as a jw, i wasn't allowed to grow one, but then drew a blank when she asked me why.
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Terry
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82
Quality Thinking - Warning: Long Post Ahead
by Viviane inrecently, several threads have had some debate about logic, evidence, critical thinking and skepticism.
i wanted to write a post discussing those things, hopefully to clarify what those things are, why they are important and how to use those tools.
first, logic, at its core, is simply a method for how to reason validly, how to draw conclusions based on a premise.
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Terry
I like the way Ayn Rand states it.
Logic
To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to evict oneself from the realm of reality.
No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge.
Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification.
A contradiction cannot exist in the real world, only in man's description of it.
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A MODERN FICTION: the lie which became a GOVERNING BODY
by TerryWalstrom insafe to say, if you walked up to any of the 8 million jehovah's witnesses on earth today and told them the.
governing body was a fiction, not only would they refuse to believe you--they'd consider you their immediate enemy!.
what if i told you jw's embrace a mental construct which is at odds with history?.
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Terry
If you really want breath-taking details on the history of the Governing Body,
take a look at Doug Mason's PDF
https://archive.org/details/TheFaithfulAndDiscreetSlaveAndItsGoverningBody
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Questions about the Flood for Brother Jeramy
by cappytan inhow long did the flood last?how long can land vegetation survive submerged in seawater?how long can freshwater fish survive in saltwater?how old is human civilization?
what is the oldest settlement in south america?
how did those people get there from the middle east after the flood wiped out everything on the earth?.
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Terry
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland .
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
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Question:
How many inches per hour of global rainfall for 40 days and nights would it take to cover Mr.Everest?
Mt. Everest is roughly 36,000 feet above sea level, so how much rain would it take to cover it in 40 24-hour periods?
Making the computation and demonstrating how it is done:
volume of water on earth:
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html
circumference of earth:
http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzcircumference.htm
everest:
http://geography.about.com/library/misc/bleverest.htm
computations from:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-286863.html
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radius of earth: 4,621 (thousand)
radius of earth plus everest: 4,626 (thousand)
current volume of Earth planetoid: 413,345,707,226 (billion)
volume 1 foot over everest: 414,823,360,582 (billion)
volume of water required to fill between current Earth planetoid circumference to height of mt everest: 1,477,653,356 cubic miles (trillion)
Surface area of Earth: 26,8344,735 sq mi (million)
Surface area of water over Everest: 268,983,885 sq mi (million)
Now, volume divided by surface area will be the depth:
(1477653356.1417 cubic miles / 268664310 sq mi) = 5.4999987015085851931728483027761 miles, or348,479.9 inches
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Conclusions:
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We would need a steady rain of:
348,479 inches over 960 hours, or 363 inches per hour to cover Mt.Everest
So once the ground was saturated and no place left for the water to flow down to, you'd be covered by 6 feet of water within 12 minutes.
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J A Paulos book: Innumeracy
The book of Genesis says of the Flood that "...all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered..." Taken literally, this seems to indicate that there were 10,000 to 20,000 feet of water on the surface of the Earth, equivalent to more than half a billion cubic miles of liquid! Since, according to biblical accounts, it rained for forty days and forty nights, or for only 960 hours, the rain must have fallen at a rate of at least fifteen feet per hour, certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much less an ark with thousands of animals on board.
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What World View-belief system did the writer of Noah and the ark have?**
Apply facts of physics to the story
If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.
Why is there no evidence of a flood in tree ring dating? Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years, with no evidence of a catastrophe during that time. [Becker & Kromer, 1993; Becker et al, 1991; Stuiver et al, 1986]
Why is there no mention of the Flood in the records of Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilizations which existed at the time? Biblical dates (I Kings 6:1, Gal 3:17, various generation lengths given in Genesis) place the Flood 1300 years before Solomon began the first temple.
We can construct reliable chronologies for near Eastern history, particularly for Egypt, from many kinds of records from the literate cultures in the near East. These records are independent of, but supported by, dating methods such as dendrochronology and carbon-14. The building of the first temple can be dated to 950 B.C. +/- some small delta, placing the Flood around 2250 B.C.
Unfortunately, the Egyptians (among others) have written records dating well back before 2250 B.C. (the Great Pyramid, for example dates to the 26th century B.C., 300 years before the Biblical date for the Flood). No sign in Egyptian inscriptions of this global flood around 2250 B.C.
Questions raised: Population rise
How did the human population rebound so fast? Genealogies in Genesis put the Tower of Babel about 110 to 150 years after the Flood [Gen 10:25, 11:10-19]. How did the world population regrow so fast to make its construction (and the city around it) possible? Similarly, there would have been very few people around to build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, rebuild the Sumerian and Indus Valley civilizations, populate the Americas, etc.
Why do other flood myths vary so greatly from the Genesis account? Flood myths are fairly common worldwide, and if they came from a common source, we should expect similarities in most of them. Instead, the myths show great diversity. [Bailey, 1989, pp. 5-10; Isaak, 1997] For example, people survive on high land or trees in the myths about as often as on boats or rafts, and no other flood myth includes a covenant not to destroy all life again.
Why should we expect Genesis to be accurate? We know that other people's sacred stories change over time [Baaren, 1972] and that changes to the Genesis Flood story have occurred in later traditions [Ginzberg, 1909; Utley, 1961]. Is it not reasonable to assume that changes occurred between the story's origin and its being written down in its present form?
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Hebrew cosmology (http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/ThreeTieredUniverse.htm) should be made to understand why the authors of Genesis considered the Flood possible. Above the flat earth there was a dome, called the firmament, to which the stars were attached and within which the sun and moon moved about. Above the firmament are the waters mentioned in Genesis 1:2 ('the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters'). This structure is also mentioned in Genesis 1:6-7. The firmament is perforated by 'the floodgates of heaven' (Genesis 7:11, 8:2). The Flood is caused by these floodgates being opened, and a rising-up of the waters beneath the earth (Genesis 1:6-7 and 7:11 again). This cosmology suggests that there is a very large amount of water available outside the firmament and beneath the Earth for use in the flood. In this cosmology, it is not hard to imagine how rainfall on the order of 800 cm/hour would be possible.
Unfortunately, the Hebrew mythology is not consistent with empirical observation. Creationists and flood catastrophists thus must resort to 'vapor canopies'.
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Population computation
If we assume that girls start having babies at 15, and have one a year until they're 65, each girl has 50 babies. If half the babies are female, and everyone lives 200 years on average, it may be possible to reach a million people in the times required.
According to the Bible, Noah's sons had 14 sons themselves, so we can assume they also had 14 daughters. If we start with 10 reproducing men and 10 reproducing women 30 years after the flood, in another 50 years we could have 500 (250 men, 250 women). 50 years after that, there could be at least 20,000, which could swell to close to half a million in another 50 years. At this point, some of the "originals" start to die off, and life expectancies start to drop, to the newly-mandated 120 years, so the rate of growth may slow. Still, it shouldn't take more than a few centuries to have several million people available, which is all you need for the pyramid stories.
Global Flood - 2500 to 2300BC
Tower of Babel destroyed - 1928BC
Egypt Exodus - 1447BC
So that makes 372 to 572 years from the Flood to Babel tower :10 million people in roughly 600 years
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41
How Do You Feel About All The Time You Wasted Being. A Jehovah's Witness?
by minimus inall that i can say is....what a shame!
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Terry
I find it best for my mental health to look at the collateral benefits rather than damage
I learned to come out of my extreme shyness and give public talks and knock on stranger's doors.
That's a biggie!
I learned to organize confusing material into a pithy speech and present it without soiling my underwear.
That's another biggie.
I gained confidence in my strength of character by going before F.B.I. interrogators, Draft Board questioners,,
a Federal Judge, jailers, prison guards, rapists, murderers, etc.
I discovered what I was made of and finally decided the building materials were deficient: I had to admit I had practically thrown my life away for utter nonsense!
I had to endure the opposition of my wife, the Kingdom Hall, and the judicial committee and feel what it meant to be persona non grata.
I experienced PTS, a nervous breakdown, disfellowship, divorce, the disintegration of my world view--BUT still keep moving forward.
I learned to love invisible persons, fear supernatural entities and discover they didn't really exist!
By the time I reached the age of 33, I had lived in two worlds and one of them was make-believe.
I've taken away from my JW experience a loathing of the smugness of self-convinced know-it-alls; after all, I was one.
I carry with me a deep and abiding sense of duty to keep plugging away in exposing malfeasance and moral fraudulence in the Watchtower world.
I no longer love my former best friend (who influenced me to become a JW) because he recently lied about me in a character assassination way. The final betrayal convinced me I've remained slightly delusional because I still considered him a 'friend.'
The benefits were unintentional, to be sure. But I acknowledge them for their positive effect.
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Why I remain one of Jehovah's Witnesses
by Brother Jeramy inallow me to begin with a clarification: when i say i am one of jehovah's witnesses, i don't mean that i am an advocate of the watchtower society or a devotee of some of its more controversial false teachings.
i mean that i am a christian, a disciple of jesus christ dedicated to jehovah god, and who remains in union with my brothers and sisters who make up the family of faith that globally refers to itself as jehovah's witnesses.
some totally understand the distinction between the family of brothers and sisters and the corporate organization known as the watchtower society (wts).
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Terry
This is an obvious Troll.
No member of Jehovah's Witnesses is ever, under any circumstance, given the personal freedom to address a group of ex-JW's or apostates.
He knows that. He also knows the Watchtower is a corporation.
This is all a farce.
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Better Bible Translation?
by Sofia Lose inwhich bible translation is the best, according to biblical scholars, anybody knows?
please chime in.. i plan on getting it and doing comparison with the new world translation.
sl.
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Terry
Almost every modern translation stems from one of two branches of manuscripts. The fork in the road where they branch out is the point of departure.
The Early Church fathers' own comments and commentary on early texts also serve to modify understanding of 'problem' texts.
Since there are absolutely no existing original manuscripts ALL translations are guesses made from multi-generation copies.
We may as well be discussing which counterfeit bills were made by the 'best' engraver.
When all is said and done--what do you have and what can you do to compare it with non-existing originals?
If any--that means 'none' may well be a choice too--if ANY versions are better than others, you have to ask "better in what way"? And the answer has to make sense as evidence.
Demonstrably--there is no 'there' there, it is all speculative.
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Impossible conversation: Jesus and Nicodemus: YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN
by Terry ini am a member on new testament scholar bart ehrman's blog, and the professor is currently outlining a new book he is writing about false memory and the life of jesus.. an interesting post occurred today in which he gives an example of a very famous scripture,.
example of a false memory of jesus teaching i turn to a famous passage in the gospel of john, jesus dialogue with nicodemus (john 3:1-15).
nicodemus is said to be a jewish leader who comes up to jesus and affirms that jesus must come from god because of the great things that he said to have done.
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Terry
Clambake: what scares me about Ehrman about is he is very similar to the Watchtower, dealing more in conspiracies than probabilities
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Please give a couple of specific examples and define what you mean by "conspiracies," please.
What do you mean "scares me"?
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What is the truth?
by hardtobeme inthat is what my professor of philosophy asked us last night at class.. he said that pontius pilate asked jesus that question and that it was a hard one that jesus couldn't answer.. what do you think about this question?
what is the truth?
does the gb has any truth?
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Terry
We destroy our rational mind through the way we misuse language.
How? We lose track of what we are referring to and become tangled in subtext, fanciful metaphor, poetic digression, and 'spiritualizing' our imagination.
Is poison a good thing to drink? No. That is true because it is demonstrable.
It is a useful and practical thing to know. It is factual.
What about taking a slow poison? Doesn't it bring about eventual death?
A lifetime of exposure to a socially approved form of irrational non-fact cannot be healthy. It is slow poison.
Civilization has been held in thrall by superstition almost from the very beginning. Mankind staggers about drunk on non-fact because it is inebriated by religious poison.
What is true is demonstrable in a real way.
That other sort of 'true' is bullshit, no matter what the numinous source may be said to be.
Superstition makes claims, creates fear, makes murky what is plain, and otherwise disconnects us from everyday reality.
If you find yourself confused by some 'truth' you are told--maybe, just maybe it is superstition and mysticism instead of fact.
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The change in the Memorial
by Doug Mason inup until 1954, the watch tower society said that the symbolism of the memorial loaf included the little flock and that the wine represented their sharing in jesus death.
(one example: the loaf pictures not jesus fleshly body but his body members, the christian congregation.
the watchtower, march 15, 1954, page 174).
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Terry
The questions never asked and never answered:
"How is it possible to channel information which is dead wrong and why does the passage of time make the changes possible?"
"Why would the Governing Body authorize publishing and teaching doctrine, interpretation, and 'truth' which is eventually seen to be nonsense?"
Where is there truth in anything needing revision to its own opposite?
This has never been addressed. Nobody asks.
What is celebrated is the point of change (called New Light) which--when seen another way--is the moment the error is revealed.
"Hooray--we screwed up, but this time we got it right."
Oh, really? How do you know inasmuch as you thought you knew before, but were wrong?