as it now stands, the australian government has pledged $810 million to the tsunami relief effort.. germany is next with $674 million.. japan--$500 million.. u.s. trails in fourth place with $350 million.
http://news.yahoo.com/asiadisaster click on "leaders tour tsunami areas, up donations".
while the u.s. government could do a lot better, the private sector is not doing too badly.
Australia has only 20 million people so on a per capita basis it is a big contribution.
It is in our own interest to get these nations on their feet because the sooner they are up and running the sooner we supply them with goods services and in that way everyone is better off.
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i am originally from the fort worth/grand prairie area....just curious as to where others have come from?
canberra Australia
i would call myself a simonite after the founder.
no one here need to be called apostates.
barry
My second choice would be a Blondieite for her excellent WT articals.
i would call myself a simonite after the founder.
no one here need to be called apostates.
barry
I would call myself a Simonite after the founder. No one here need to be called apostates. Barry
i was wondering if someone ever made up a tract or card similar to what the witnesses hand out.
for the memorial , but with the opposite agenda , maybe with some thought provoking questions or scriptures .. like : why do you celebrate the memorial christ is already present since 1914 .
1 cor.
I have heard in the orthodox church they have an actuall meal but Im not orthodox and cant fill you in on any details.
here are a few facts that i have recently discovered by doing some research.. the watchtower society uses the date of 539 b.c.e as the date that cyrus took over babylon.
they use the term "absolute date" to define this as an unquestionable point in time.
to do this they had to ignore 586 b.c.e which is the real date for the destruction of jerusalem.. therefore, if jerusalem never lay desolate for 70 years, when does this desolation and fulfillment of this prophecy take place?
Numbers and Ezekiel do not give a principle whereby we can extract years from days in fact an explicit year day principle cant be found in scripture. Some might say doesnt Daniel 9 require the use of a year day principle/ The SDA bible commentry itself says Daniel 9 does not require it. Even though this prophecy spans 490 years the context here is the 70 years at the beginning of the chapter and later the 70 years times 7.
here are a few facts that i have recently discovered by doing some research.. the watchtower society uses the date of 539 b.c.e as the date that cyrus took over babylon.
they use the term "absolute date" to define this as an unquestionable point in time.
to do this they had to ignore 586 b.c.e which is the real date for the destruction of jerusalem.. therefore, if jerusalem never lay desolate for 70 years, when does this desolation and fulfillment of this prophecy take place?
Im comming from a different church viewpoint but with some similarities in interpretation.
Only the JWs and the SDAs still hold to the historisist interpretation of bible prophecy.
William Miller though he was right in taking a premillerist stance was not right in every area of his interpretations. Miller took the position that many weak arguements made one strong arguement when arriving at 1844 for our Lords return.
Both Daniel 8 -1844 and Daniel 4-1914 require the formula of 1day=1 year in order to arrive at the respective dates. In Daniel 8 and Daniel 4 the word day is not even mentioned and where day is mentioned in predictive prophecy as our Lord saying he will build his body in 3 days the word day there is not transferred to years. What about the three and a half years in Daniel and Revelation in this case the witnesses say this is the period from 1914 to 1918 where the secretary and treasurer were imprisioned. The SDAs take a different view and transferre these days into years and say it is a period from 538 to 1798.
The problems with these calculations is they deny the clear teachings of scripture that after the cross the disciples were living in the last days and the second comming could have occured at anytime since then.
Among SDAs the scolars of the church have known for decades 1844 cant be found in scripture and thats the reason they never write on it.
The WT is in the very same position the SDAs find themselves in with these interpretations. Barry
my telephone conversation with the watchtower society, was a sincere attempt to find out what active role the watchtower is taking to help the tsunami victims.
thursday dec. 30, 2004 / approx.
watchtower call on tsunami disaster.. 1-718-560-5000. wt-recording--thank you for calling jehovah's witnesses.. wt rep--jehovah's witnesses, may i help you?.
The fact is the WT doesnt have much in the way of infrastructure and would have to hand there money over to other organisations. So it would appear they are only going to help there own church people.
I remember a story a few years ago about a JW missionary in New Guinea who broke his arm. He had to take an SDA Church plane to get medical attention and thats OK but the thing that made news with some SDA church officials was his rudeness to the point of not even thanking the pilot or anyone else for the assistance he received at no cost to himself. My Dad is an SDA elder thats how I found out. Not a good witness for his church.
here in aussie there was the cricket against pakistan the sydney to hobart yacht race.
we spent the day on the coast with my parents and went to the rsl club for a nice meal.
you all wont beleive this but its snowing in the mountains not far from here.
Gday Brenda,
I hve been wondering if you have it over there , now I know you dont.
Boxing day as you know is the day after xmas but traditionally it is the day when the rich would box up the presents they didnt need or want and give them to the poor. These days it is a day just an excuse to have another day off and for sport. Barry
here in aussie there was the cricket against pakistan the sydney to hobart yacht race.
we spent the day on the coast with my parents and went to the rsl club for a nice meal.
you all wont beleive this but its snowing in the mountains not far from here.
Gday franklin j,
Do you actually have a boxing day in the States or what do you call the holiday after xmas when I wrote this I wasnt sure what you have over there and what do you call it . I know the poms have boxing day.
