sir82

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Posts by sir82

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  22

  G.B. members hand picked DIRECTLY by Jehovah

  by SeymourButts in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i was in the process of looking up an article, when i came across this little gem.

  jehovah appoints the "governing body" himself, directly!

  not only that, but the "organization" is under "the immediate direction of jehovah god himself" .

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  sir82

  ...and this is precisely why we should never expect anything resembling an apology from the GB.

  They really believe this about themselves!
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  16

  Elders making shepherding calls using Keep On The Watch! brochure

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i heard first hand from an elder that they are makin shpeherding calls using certain pages of the keep on the watch!

  brochure, at the direction of the society.. i can't remember the page numbers, but the article is about our priorities and having a sense of urgency in the times we live in.. as this is coming from the society, do you think they are worried, what with their 1.3% increase for 2005 service year?.

  i mean, this is 2006 after all, not 1998 - the society have given jw's nothing to hope for anymore, no sense of the impending doom of babylon the great.

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  sir82

  I have not heard of anything like this, but then our PO is quite a procrastinator, so it may be that we just haven't heard it from him yet.
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  55

  Jehovah's INEFFECTIVE Witness...(Why no TV ministry???)

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what if i asserted the following as true?

  the watchtower bible and tract society has no interest in an effective evangelical program of conversion.. would that sound silly?

  disfellowshipping would lead to having a big target placed on the ex jw's back at armageddon.. .

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  sir82

  The ironic thing is, JWs used to be at the forefront of using new technology to further the preaching of their message.

  Movies with sound? "The photo-drama of creation" preceded "The Jazz Singer" by 15 years or so.

  Tied-together radio networks? Used extensively in the 20's & 30's.

  Portable phonographs? The first practical models were the ones used by the Society in their preaching in the 30's & 40's.

  Contrast that with the way things are now: No television presence, their only internet presence is basically a "filler spot" to keep apostates from highjacking the domain name, etc.

  They know full well that 50-80% of the people are not at home during the door to door ministry, and that 99% of those who are at home have no interest, and even if they did, the JWs, doing the preaching work are by-and-large incompentent to present the ideas in any rational manner. Yet they continue to insist it is "essential", "the backbone of the preaching work". The points above are well-taken.
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  10

  Can you have massive stock investments without slaving for riches?

  by dinah in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  reading through the thread about doing work for churches got me thinking about something, especially the chart on rand cam.. why does the watchtower invest in the stock market in the first place?

  couldn't they use that money to build kingdom halls?

  to be that heavily involved in the "world" would be prohibited--as least you would think so.

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  sir82

  To me the stock market is also a gamble. Sure, you make an informed decision what to buy, but there is no guarantee.

  This is the rationale I've heard used (not that I necessarily agree with it):

  In gambling, you only win if everybody else loses. You are profiting from the loss of another. It is a zero-sum game -- there are no winners if there are no losers.

  With stocks, it is an investment. If I think Company A makes better widgets than Company B, I'll give some of my money to Company A so they can make even better widgets, or market them better, or whatever. My investment in Company A does not cause Company B to go out of business. Company B still exists, is still profitable, its just that I liked Company A better. And if Company A finds a better way to market or manufacture widgets, all widget companies copy them and so benefit, so everybody wins.

  I am quite aware the argument has holes, but this is I'm sure how the decision is rationalized.
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  74

  An Especially Stupid Watchtower Issue (Mar 15, 06)

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  what makes this latest watchtower particularily dumb?

  well, let's see.. take a look at this gem:.

  " ...would a christian who is a self employed contractor bid on a job that involves painting one of the churches of christendom and thereby.

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  sir82

  to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them

  Reminds me of something one of my POs once told me.

  In a case of "repressed memories" of childhood sexual abuse arising (nothing was done to the alleged perpetrator, it occurred 20+ years earlier, no eyewitnesses, obviously no other kind of evidence after so long), the PO was asked "if nothing is done judicially to the accused one, doesn't that seem like we believe him over her?"

  His reply, "In a case like this, we believe both of them." I.e., the alleged victim, who said "my father abused me", and the alleged perpetrator, who said "no I didn't".
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  6

  One more biblical proof that WT 607BC interpretation is wrong

  by Shazard in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  was reading through jeremia .

  so everybody knows jer .

  1 the word came to jeremiah concerning all the people of judah in the fourth year of jehoiakim son of josiah king of judah, which was the first year of nebuchadnezzar king of babylon.

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  sir82

  Anyone want to start a pool?

  I say Scholar will weigh in on reply #7, and the phrase "celebrated Watchtower scholars" will appear at least once in his post.
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  7

  Awake! article: 50,000 Errors in the Bible?

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

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  sir82

  The killer for me is the 100-300 year gap between the original autographs, and the oldest existing manuscripts. And that time period (100- 400 CE) is precisely when there weren't trained scribes painstakingly counting letters and double-checking everything. During that period of time, the vast majority of Christians were illiterate, and the ones who could write half-decently were the ones pressed into copying -- far from "trained scribes".

  Given the enormous number of variances in the manuscripts that we do have, from later periods when there were such trained monks, on what basis can we have confidence that the copyists from 100-400 CE (approx.) were any more accurate?
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  11

  JW writing committee: Incapable of seeing the irony!

  by sir82 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the march 1 watchtower's cover asks the question, "where can you find christ's teachings?".

  meanwhile, in the very same magazine, we get 2 study articles containing the following:.

  -- which type of video & video game to avoid.

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  sir82

  The March 1 Watchtower's cover asks the question, "Where can you find Christ's teachings?"

  Meanwhile, in the very same magazine, we get 2 study articles containing the following:

  -- which type of video & video game to avoid

  -- avoid large social gatherings

  -- which type of music to listen to, and which to avoid

  -- unseemly conduct when youths get together

  -- Avoid internet dating sites

  -- Avoid medical treatments that involve things that seem spiritistic

  And so on.

  Now, I may not be the most perceptive bloke in the pub, but I'm pretty darn sure that none of "Christ's teachings" addressed any of the above.
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  32

  Rumor alert: GB talk Jesus had 7 comings

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is reposted from e-watchman with follow up posts, but i thought if it were true, it would be a major breakthrough and embarassment for the society.... http://e-jehovahs-witnesses.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=658&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0.

  a new talk outline not yet released to the congregations was recently given in miami by a gb member (llsch ?).

  it is titled "what the future holds".

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  sir82

  The talk was given by bro Losch at the Romanian convention in Miami on Feb. 3, '06.

  What the hey?

  So now Romanian ex-pats living in the US are the test market for wacky new light?

  McDonald's test-markets McGrease-balls in Podunk Alabama to see if it will catch on...I guess the GB tries out its new ideas on people who are less likely to spread the news among the JW population at large. If a large enough percentage of the brothers run up to the speaker after the program, gushing about the wonderfully happifying information, then it gets into a "Questions From Readers" 6 months out. If the response is big enough, it gets its own study article.
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  21

  You might be an Islmamist if......

  by Shining One in

  1. social
  2. current

  .....you go wacky and kill people because of some offending cartoons in a newspaper!

  ah, just like abaddon and other libiots like to say, "it's just the culture, not the religion that's evil.

  " why don't they say that about the cult they came out of (jws)?

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  sir82

  Say, I've got an idea...

  Let's all put on white tunics with big red crosses, sail over there and teach them infidels a lesson!