It’s funny how the Bible explicitly tells Christians to always be willing to give a reason for their faith, but when asked, no compelling reasons were given and they resort to insults instead.
Posts by Jeffro
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84Faith-Apostasy-Atheism
by DoubtingThomas ini have been on m any different forums, and only carm is similar to this.. all the rest have rather hypocritical trust in god.. this and carm are for those who apostate to the wtbs and to god.. turned off by the gb, or hypocritical examples in the congregation, they drop worshiping god and their belief in the bible... for they know too much,.
that's why scripture isn't discussed, and jws like me, are demonized.. i am cool with that!
maybe some of you will come to their senses!.
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84
Faith-Apostasy-Atheism
by DoubtingThomas ini have been on m any different forums, and only carm is similar to this.. all the rest have rather hypocritical trust in god.. this and carm are for those who apostate to the wtbs and to god.. turned off by the gb, or hypocritical examples in the congregation, they drop worshiping god and their belief in the bible... for they know too much,.
that's why scripture isn't discussed, and jws like me, are demonized.. i am cool with that!
maybe some of you will come to their senses!.
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Jeffro
🤦♂️
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13
MY GOSPEL
by pistolpete inhas anyone ever read the new testament- critically- and not theologically?
by theologically i mean not reading the bible with the intention of understanding the nature of god and religious truth.
but instead, reading the bible by analyzing only the facts of what is written, in an unbiased frame of mind to pull out what is actually happening in the written stories.. first of all, if you were to read the nt in chronological order, paul’s 7 authentic letters would come before the gospels of matthew, mark, luke, and john.
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Jeffro
It is indeed quite interesting to consider the NT books in chronological order. Paul knows almost nothing about Jesus as a person - only referring to him as a messiah character from the line of David who instituted the ‘memorial’, was killed as a sacrifice and then purportedly resurrected.
It wasn’t until decades later that stories of Jesus’ life and ‘ministry’ were made up, first with ‘Mark’*, around the time of Jerusalem’s destruction, which repeats that Jesus is meant to be from the line of David but still with no genealogy. More than a decade later, ‘Matthew’ and ‘Luke’ (the anonymous author of ‘Luke’ also writing Acts, with its version of Paul’s conversion that contradicts Galatians) - both largely plagiarising from ‘Mark’ - add some more stories including spurious genealogies (conveniently after Jerusalem and its temple was destroyed making verification harder) that are inconsistent with each other and cannot be reconciled with 1 Chronicles beyond 3:19. At least another decade later still, ‘John’ provides additional stories (but hardly anything about ‘the kingdom’) and a quite different characterisation of Jesus.
*All 4 of the ‘gospels’ are anonymous, and the names given to them are later traditions only.
The gradual development of the stories about Jesus, several decades after the supposed events, is consistent with a made up character. It is possible that Paul alluded to a disciple of John the Baptist who was later executed, and an eclipse around the time of his death probably spurred on superstitions that he was in some way remarkable, and the later ‘gospels’ may have built upon that kernel. But there is no evidence for any of the later stories about Jesus, including the statements attributed to Jesus.
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Jeffro
See Breeze:
Of course Truth matters. Truth is a person: Jesus said, "I AM the way, the TRUTH, and the life". But, the WT claims truth is their organization. Looks like a decision has to made here because both cannot be true.
The claim that ‘truth is a person’ is semantically nonsensical. And the ‘decision’ between ‘Jesus’ and ‘WT’ is a false dichotomy.
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84
Faith-Apostasy-Atheism
by DoubtingThomas ini have been on m any different forums, and only carm is similar to this.. all the rest have rather hypocritical trust in god.. this and carm are for those who apostate to the wtbs and to god.. turned off by the gb, or hypocritical examples in the congregation, they drop worshiping god and their belief in the bible... for they know too much,.
that's why scripture isn't discussed, and jws like me, are demonized.. i am cool with that!
maybe some of you will come to their senses!.
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Jeffro
DoubtingThomas:
It all starts with YOU: think you were an accident of nature?
🤦♂️ This is a variation of ‘creation is amazing’. It is a tedious argument from incredulity. It is not evidence of a deity generally, and definitely not evidence of any specific deity.
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84
Faith-Apostasy-Atheism
by DoubtingThomas ini have been on m any different forums, and only carm is similar to this.. all the rest have rather hypocritical trust in god.. this and carm are for those who apostate to the wtbs and to god.. turned off by the gb, or hypocritical examples in the congregation, they drop worshiping god and their belief in the bible... for they know too much,.
that's why scripture isn't discussed, and jws like me, are demonized.. i am cool with that!
maybe some of you will come to their senses!.
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Jeffro
How do you ‘know’?
If your answer is any of the following (but not necessarily limited to the following), then you don’t actually ‘know’:
- you ‘just know’
- you ‘feel a relationship with God’
- you had an experience for which you can’t think of a better explanation
- any variation of ‘creation is amazing’
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7
I was scrolling on my Google news feed and this came up
by nowwhat? inhttps://www.jw.org/en/news/jw/region/global/multiple-nations-issue-joint-statement-calling-for-an-end-to-the-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses/.
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Jeffro
It’s not good that anyone is oppressed for their beliefs, however unfounded they are. But the fact that there are only about 150 people out of 8 million JWs incarcerated for their beliefs is not compatible with their narrative that the main aim of ‘Satan’s system’ is to persecute JWs. As is the fact that ‘worldly’ agencies are speaking out about such abuses.
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Annual service report - yet another analysis - big trouble for the WTS
by FFGhost inthere's already been a couple of threads on the 2021 report with insightful comments, but i'm vain enough to want to start my own topic with some additional thoughts..... as others on the other thread noted, it's useful to compare the 2021 numbers not only to 2020 but also 2019 (the last non-pandemic report).. there are some really troubling (if you're a wt headquarters guy) news in the latest report.. 1) baptisms plummet.
2021 - 171,393. baptisms dropped 20% in 2020, and 30% more in 2021. the total drop from 2019 to 2021 is an amazing 44%.. one could argue that without in-person assemblies and conventions you'd expect baptisms to drop.
but....if someone really wants to get baptized, jws will find a way.
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Jeffro
solomon:
Im surprised they actually released these numbers.
They seem to be rather proud of their record keeping and reporting. They can always spin decreases (even when there isn’t a pandemic) as ‘the love of the greater number cooling off’ and ‘pressure from Satan’, while increases are touted as ‘proof of God’s blessing’.
At the ‘publisher’ level, there is frequently dishonest reporting of ‘preaching activity’, and even ‘honest’ reports can include hours of driving, walking or just standing without any actual ‘preaching’. And the reporting of growth of ‘publisher’ numbers rather than adherents or baptisms does serve to misrepresent the denomination’s actual growth rate. But aside from such anomalies, the Society does seem to honestly report the numbers based on the reports it receives.
(Of course, it would be futile to say the reported statistics look bad and at the same time say the reported statistics can’t be trusted.)
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New World Translation is not much different other translations
by Abraham1 inkey scripture 2 timothy 3:16 should have been translated as “every scripture inspired of god is also profitable for teaching” like many other serious translations (such as american standard version ; douay-rheims bible etc) as it is what the greek text says.. this is in harmony with the contents of bible and also with the writer paul himself who knew after his departure ‘even from his own number men will arise and distort the truth.’ (acts 20:29-30) for example, verses such as romans 7:19 is such distortion.
such verses cannot originate from real paul who was “holy, righteous and blameless.” (1 thessalonians 2:10) hence paul had the freeness of speech to tell others to be “blameless” like him (1 thessalonians 5:19-23; ephesians 5:24) there are many things in the scriptures which are not inspired such as words of satan, words of job’s wife and his false friends, words of judas, lot’s daughters …etc.
apostle peter never disowned jesus because if he had done so, his contemporaries would have interrupted him when he rebuked jews, saying: “you disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you.“ (acts 3:14) his listeners would have asked him “what right do you have to reprove us for ‘disowning jesus” when you yourself have done it first?” all such verses or accounts were later adoptions.
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Jeffro
Abraham1:
What Paul taught was the fulfillment of what Jesus foretold
Not at all. Paul’s writings came first, in which he knows very little about Jesus at all - not much beyond saying he was ‘sacrificed’ (instituted the ‘memorial’ and then killed). All of the more specific stories about Jesus, including almost all statements attributed to Jesus - including the 4 ‘gospels’ - were written later. Acts, including its ‘account’ of Paul’s ‘conversion’ that contradicts Paul’s version in Galatians, was also written later.
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Trampling of the nation's, persecution of holy ones.
by Sardis inmatthew 24:15.
15 “therefore, when you catch sight of the disgusting thing that causes desolation, as spoken about by daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place (let the reader use discernment),.
luke 21:24 *(this scripture is incorrectly referenced to daniel 4:25. correct would be to revelation 11:2 nwt).
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Jeffro
Sardis:
The GB has done good work. They really push the preaching and make Jehovah's name known.
Haha. No. If you’re comparing to other minor Adventist groups (except SDA), then yes, JWs have had relative success. And that is because the group inherited a publishing company, not because of any magical support. But more generally, JWs is just another minor Christian denomination that most people don’t even think about.