slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  11

  Partial rough draft

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've posted a partial rough draft of my introductory essay for separate identity, volume 2. it is a work in progress and will change.

  it has upset some watchtower adherents who read our history blog.

  read it please and tell me if i've been unfair to the watchtower.

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  slimboyfat

  Thanks, very interesting. You make good points about secrecy and Watchtower not really tolerating, much less encouraging deep research by members or outsiders.

  I tend to agree that their reluctance to engage with the early history is because they know so little about it themselves. It’s not so much that they want to promote a particular view of early characters or events, it’s that they just want to leave it alone. They may be suspicous of people who know a lot about the early history, not because there is anything they specifically wish to hide, but because their lack of knowledge leaves them exposed, should inconvenient facts emerge.

  On Watchtower referencing and scholarship, I think one of the better researched and presented publications is the divine name brochure. It doesn’t have footnotes, but it does contain fairly trasparent and useable references in the text itself.

  http://da-ip.getmyip.com/PDF/Old%20Publications/1980-1999/1984,%202006%20-%20The%20Divine%20Name%20That%20Will%20Endure%20Forever%20-%20brochure.pdf

  On the issue of Adventist roots, I think there are a few things going on. There are those who make the basic mistake of thinking Russell broke away from an Adventist group, or worse from the Seventh Day Adventists. That’s just wrong. And then there are others who lazily think that ideas, such as the view sometimes called “soul sleep”, must have come from Adventists. But many non-Adventists shared this perspective.

  However one thing from Adventist remains. It does seem to be the case that Russell initially opposed the popular Adventist idea that accurate endtime chronology could be derived from scripture. Russell’s view on this issue seems to have changed as a result of his meeting with long-time Adventist Nelson Barbour, and from that time forward Russell taught that reliable endtime chronology could be derived from the Bible. It remains a key part of JW teaching to this day. So to the extent that Russell was persuaded by Barbour to ‘give chronology another look’ and subsequently promote the use of endtime chronology, I think it is fair to say that Russell, and JWs have been influenced, via Barbour, by the Adventist movement in this crucial respect.
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  59

  Joke Sharing Thread

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. social
  2. humour

  got a good joke or two?

  why not share them.

  here is a fun one.. retirement can be fun.

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  slimboyfat

  Why did Santa give up mince pies?

  It was bad for his Elf.
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  59

  Joke Sharing Thread

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. social
  2. humour

  got a good joke or two?

  why not share them.

  here is a fun one.. retirement can be fun.

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  slimboyfat

  At the supermarket I saw a man throwing around milk. And he was throwing around cheese and yoghurt.

  I said, how dairy!
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  59

  Joke Sharing Thread

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. social
  2. humour

  got a good joke or two?

  why not share them.

  here is a fun one.. retirement can be fun.

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  slimboyfat

  The doctor told me I’ve got Tom Jones disease.

  I asked is that a rare condition?

  The doctor said it’s not unusual.
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  10

  Robert Alter Completes his New Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the jewish telegraphic agency comments on alter's translation:.

  https://www.jta.org/2018/11/21/culture/robert-alter-completes-monumental-translation-hebrew-bible.

  translation is not an easy task.

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  slimboyfat

  I bought his Genesis when it came out - excellent, especially the explanatory notes. He has a good eye for the structure of stories, foreshadowing, and repetition. The sort of things not often analysed in a Watchtower study. And he supports the NWT in some renderings too, such as Exodus 8:1 “send”, if I remember correctly.
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  27

  Are these books worth anything?

  by moomanchu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  23 years out and i'm still purging this trash.

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  i still have 1 box of jw stuff left.. .

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  slimboyfat

  Decades worth of single magazines would be worth a bit especially if complete.
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  27

  Are these books worth anything?

  by moomanchu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  23 years out and i'm still purging this trash.

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  i still have 1 box of jw stuff left.. .

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  slimboyfat

  Bible + “make sure” book bound together is a slight oddity that might be worth a couple of dollars. Not much, but the rest not really worth anything.

  Most people won’t have old publications, but a few recent publications/ephemera might not thing of can be worth a couple of dollars: Proclaimers book, Aid, Kingdom Interlinear, Byington, Diaglott, pioneer book, elder book, assembly programs, assembly badges, Kingdom ministries, forms, letters, food tickets, scripture banners, cart banners, Kingdom news (!) issues, anything in foreign languages, branch guides, dedication programs, among other things worth looking out for.
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  27

  Are these books worth anything?

  by moomanchu in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  23 years out and i'm still purging this trash.

  .

  i still have 1 box of jw stuff left.. .

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  slimboyfat

  Not worth anything, but I am curious what the book beneath the blue Creation and old songbook is.
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  41

  Cambridge professor just went full retard ...

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. current

  ever heard of david runciman?.

  he's a professor of politics at the university of cambridge, no less.. he's also a complete retard, for want of a better word.

  according to prof. runciman, six year old children should get the vote, so as to counteract britain's aging population.

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  slimboyfat

  Children pay taxes if they earn money, as far as I am aware, such as is the case with child actors and so on.

  It was you who first wrote:

  on the basis that children (in this case 6 year olds) aren't legally responsible for what they say or do

  The age is 10 in England according to government website.

  https://www.gov.uk/age-of-criminal-responsibility
  

  Why should minors not be allowed to vote? My best reasons are that 1) generally they are not interested voting 2) if they did vote they would just do what others suggest and 3) they don’t understand many of the issues.

  On the other hand you could say much the same about many adults. So are they good enough reasons? Or are there better reasons? I don’t know but I think it’s an interesting idea, without needing to call anyone regard.
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  61

  2018 Service Year Report - Released on jw.org

  by Drearyweather in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  2018 service year report of jehovah’s witnesses worldwide.

  see details of the global preaching work of jehovah’s witnesses from september 2017 to august 2018.. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/books/2018-service-year-report/.

  average publishers preaching each month: 8,360,594 (2017 - 8,248,982).

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  slimboyfat

  It’s annoying not to have to average publisher number for historical comparison, but the peak figure it still useful. It is more volatile than the average figure, but in the long term it evens out. So for any given year the average figure would be more acccurate to have, but in the long term the peak figure reveals the same trend.

  To be clear JWs are doing much better than most churches. The latest Church of Scotland Yearbook has just been published for example. Get a load of this. Their latest membership figure is 337,000, which is down from 661,000 in 1997.

  By contrast Jehovah’s Witnesses in Britain grew from 132,000 in 1997 to 139,000 in 2017.

  So while the Church of Scotland declined by 49%(!) JWs continued to grow modestly and added 5%.

  I don’t know of any other significant Christian denomination in the UK (apart from churches that comprise mostly immigrants) that has grown at all over the last 20 years.

  I suspect that JWs will begin to decline in the UK, indeed the number of congregations has already begun to decline. But the fact remains that JWs have done incredibly well to defy the trend of secularisation in the UK up to now.