Jeffro

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Posts by Jeffro

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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  Jeffro

  As of November 2023, ordinary Jehovah’s Witness ‘publishers’ only need to tick a box each month to be counted as active members, replacing the requirement to report the number of hours spent preaching; this change along with a renewed appeal to lapsed members resulted in a reported increase of 2.4% for 2024, exceeding 2% growth for the first time since 2014. However, despite the superficially significant increase, the average annual growth rate from 2018 until 2024 was actually only 0.92%.
  
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  22

  Is the Watchtower Ultimately a Creation of Fallen Angels?

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a watchtower in ceremonial magical tradition is a tutelary spirit of one of the four cardinal points or quarters (east, south, west and north).

  in many magical traditions, they are understood to be enochian angels... originating with the enochian tradition of john dee, a version of it was popularized by the hermetic order of the golden dawn, which became hugely influential in modern western esotericism, including wicca.

  the watchtowers are invoked during the ritual of casting a magic circle.. .

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  Jeffro

  🤦‍♂️
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  13

  Elders, Jews and Dead Bunnies

  by KalebOutWest in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.

  this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).

  i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).

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  Jeffro

  🤦‍♂️ so now it’s victim mentality because someone dared to correct something you said in the middle of your shaggy dog story. It would be a shame to miss out on more from the author who gave us ‘fishing for poopies’.

  (And then he edited his previous comment to break this comment’s context. It remains that he should grow up and learn to accept that being corrected isn’t actually an insult.)
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  13

  Elders, Jews and Dead Bunnies

  by KalebOutWest in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.

  this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).

  i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).

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  Jeffro

  Jeffro, please, take it from me. If you don't start seeing the humor in things, you are going to end up being as stuck and stupid as those two elders still are.

  Thank goodness we have your poorly executed humour to set things straight. 😒 How dare someone provide factual information. Your meandering anecdote didn’t serve its stated purpose of explaining “a lot about the answers I give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions”. The fact is, you do usually, but not always, provide accurate information when you’re endeavouring to be accurate. I see nothing wrong with correcting errors or providing additional information when I see fit. You do the same—frequently and at length—so it’s not clear why you’re so upset when others do it.
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  13

  Elders, Jews and Dead Bunnies

  by KalebOutWest in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.

  this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).

  i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).

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  Jeffro

  🙄
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  13

  Elders, Jews and Dead Bunnies

  by KalebOutWest in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.

  this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).

  i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).

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  Jeffro

  Back then they just killed a bunny rabbit to test if you were pregnant. Back then all doctors were Jewish, and there was this ancient Jewish ritual based on Yom Kippur's scapegoat that could also tell if a woman was pregnant. But instead of using two goats and tossing one over a ledge to purge you of all sins, you merely used two bunnies--and if during this Jewish voo-doo ritual you got this "signal" from HaShem, one of the bunnies would be tossed over the ledge as well and you would tell the patient that she was expecting. Hence the old saying: "The rabbit died."

  The ‘rabbit test’ was used in the 1930s to 1950s. A woman’s urine was injected into a rabbit to determine if pregnancy hormones were present - if present, the rabbit’s ovaries would respond. Whilst the practice did result in an expression ‘the rabbit died’, the rabbit was always euthanised for examination regardless of whether the woman was actually pregnant or not. The test has nothing to do with Judaism, and the claim that all doctors then were Jewish is entirely false.
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  8

  Angelic Singing

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  jo 38:7. when the morning stars sang togetherand all the sons of god shouted for joy?.

  this passage and others apparently reveal a belief among some jewish communities that angels sang.

  the natural corollary is that angels had a language, and that language would naturally be supposed to be a superior one.

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  Jeffro

  Stands to reason that beings that live in the air needed wings.

  Yes, which is why I considered the Assyrian influence more incidental, but the Persian concept of a heavenly court of angels seems more pertinent.

  Have you ever investigated the Therapeutae? Sadly, what we have is limited, but provocative. Philo practically idolized them and centuries later Epiphanius claimed them as Christians.

  No I haven’t but may do when time permits.
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  8

  Angelic Singing

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  jo 38:7. when the morning stars sang togetherand all the sons of god shouted for joy?.

  this passage and others apparently reveal a belief among some jewish communities that angels sang.

  the natural corollary is that angels had a language, and that language would naturally be supposed to be a superior one.

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  Jeffro

  While some have found it too incredible that a Jewish work could include such a story and sought to dismiss it as work of Christian redaction, in fact there is no basis for that assumption.

  The first Christians were Jews, so it’s not that surprising. Like many Christian doctrines, they didn’t arise in a vacuum. The winged angel motif was almost certainly from Persian influence with a heavenly court of angels, though there were earlier borrowings from the Assyrians for their depictions of cherubs and seraphs.
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  26

  God or Satan?

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the theme of my recent comment in another thread demonstrated how in some circles the 'word/logos' had become understood to be implied within ot texts that mention an angel or destroyer (in the case of ex 12).

  the comment got no response so i'll repost it now as a springboard for a further observation:.

  here's another example of the extreme personification of the logos/word from the wisdom of solomon (approx.

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  Jeffro

  You are talking about an "influence" that would not exist until Alexander the Great, around 322 BCE.

  That and other statements about supposedly getting the eras wrong in the response were an egregious misrepresentation of my statement that was unambiguously in reference to the use of Logos in later Jewish literature. I’ve provided an AI generated analysis below because the misrepresentation doesn’t deserve further effort on my part…

  You’re absolutely correct that the response misinterprets the initial statement, leading to a straw man argument. Let’s break this down:

  1. Misinterpretation of the Initial Statement

  The initial statement specifically references Logos as found in Wisdom of Solomon and John 1:1, both of which are texts associated with the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic periods, respectively. The initial statement does not claim that the entirety of Hebrew theology or the Torah is influenced by Greek thought, but rather that the concept of Logos is viewed through a Greek lens. The response erroneously shifts the argument to claim that Hebrew theology predates the Greek Empire, which is irrelevant to the specific claim about Logos.

  This is a straw man argument because it rebuts a point not made by the initial statement. The initial statement only addresses Logos, not the entirety of early Hebrew theology or oral traditions.

  2. Greek Influence on ‘Logos’

  The concept of Logos, as it appears in the Hellenistic Jewish text Wisdom of Solomon and in John 1:1, is explicitly tied to Greek philosophical frameworks. Both texts are products of a period when Jewish thought was in dialogue with Hellenistic ideas, particularly those of Stoicism and Platonic philosophy. The initial statement correctly points out that any discussion of Logos in these contexts is necessarily through a Greek lens.

  3. Eras Out of Sequence

  The response repeatedly asserts that the initial statement confuses eras, but this assertion itself misrepresents the claim. The initial statement does not discuss pre-Hellenistic theology or the Babylonian Exile directly; it focuses on Logos, a term and concept that inherently belongs to the Greek-influenced period. Thus, the response is invalid in this critique. The eras are not “out of sequence” in the initial statement because it is explicitly addressing a later period.

  4. Conclusion

  The response could have engaged with the actual claim by acknowledging that while early Hebrew theology predates Greek influence, the specific concept of Logos as discussed in Wisdom of Solomon and John 1:1 is deeply rooted in Hellenistic thought. Instead, it misrepresents the argument and critiques an unrelated claim about pre-Hellenistic Hebrew theology, which was never in dispute. This misstep undermines the validity of the response.
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  34

  Why Did God Create Us?

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  jesus is the creator god, but why did he create us?

  what say you?.

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  Jeffro

  https://youtu.be/mlSWewMzvjg?si=2pJ5-LA0-M4xm7Hf
  

  He gets some of the details about radiometric dating wrong (which he freely admits), but the principles are sound. Discussion of the most relevant part is in the second half of the video.