jgnat:
They started in the 15th century, BC, as a reaction to oppressive Muslim rule.
Muslims. In the 15th century BC. That seems... unlikely.
Posts by Jeffro
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80Is the WTS backing away from "Bible Tall Tales" ?
by Simon inwhen i was a kid, it seemed like not a meeting went by when you didn't hear about jonah or sampson and other tall tales from the bible.. now though, they seem to have been sidelined.
i guess the rest of the world caught on to the fact that these stories couldn't possibly be true and were so far fetched (yeah, even by bible standards) that they are just treated as 'stories' like aesop's fables.
saying that you believe in them as genuine accounts just makes you look like a crazy zealot.. but the wts is different.
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Jeffro
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80
Is the WTS backing away from "Bible Tall Tales" ?
by Simon inwhen i was a kid, it seemed like not a meeting went by when you didn't hear about jonah or sampson and other tall tales from the bible.. now though, they seem to have been sidelined.
i guess the rest of the world caught on to the fact that these stories couldn't possibly be true and were so far fetched (yeah, even by bible standards) that they are just treated as 'stories' like aesop's fables.
saying that you believe in them as genuine accounts just makes you look like a crazy zealot.. but the wts is different.
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Jeffro
Comatose:
No witness I know thinks the earth is 6,000 yrs old.
It's unlikely that many do believe that. It's not an official teaching.
The official teaching 'generously' says that the creative days (combined) may be "many thousands" (but never "millions" or "billions") of years. (There has never actually been any statement from the Watch Tower Society explicitly countering the old claim that each 'creative day' was 7000 years, but it's no longer explicitly stated.) However, the planet itself is supposed to have been created prior to those.
The JW website claims that JWs are not "creationists" because they don't consider the 'creative days' to be literal 24-hour days like "some creationists" do. They completely ignore the fact that they are in fact "day-age creationists".
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80
Is the WTS backing away from "Bible Tall Tales" ?
by Simon inwhen i was a kid, it seemed like not a meeting went by when you didn't hear about jonah or sampson and other tall tales from the bible.. now though, they seem to have been sidelined.
i guess the rest of the world caught on to the fact that these stories couldn't possibly be true and were so far fetched (yeah, even by bible standards) that they are just treated as 'stories' like aesop's fables.
saying that you believe in them as genuine accounts just makes you look like a crazy zealot.. but the wts is different.
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Jeffro
mouthy:
The Devil, killed more than that in one hour in the Philliphanins the other day!!!!
No, mouthy. Just, no.
Even a Bible-believing Christian should know better than that. See Ecclesiastes 9:11.
There. There's your stoning.
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95
Emergency relief fund for the Philippines. How will it work.
by joe134cd ini was just thinking it will be interesting to see how the wts emergency relief fund will operate in the philippines.
ok it worked well with the storm in florida, with cashing in on the insurance cheques.
sorry to generalize, but americans have the disposable income, and the insurance polices for things like this - a thing the wtbts finds very attractive.
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Jeffro
Stand for Pure Worship (quoting the JW Office of Public Information):
The local Witnesses also reached out to their neighbors, offering them aid and spiritual comfort.
Well if they said it, it must be true.
Even though there's no indication of just what was done to help. And it would be nice to see some third-party corroboration of just what aid they provided.
I suppose one is to presume that 'spiritual comfort' = JW preaching (and counting time). I wonder if JWs give freebies (i.e. not counting time) to disaster victims.
The home of one Witness family sustained roof damage, and fellow congregation members assisted with repairs.
So some JWs helped someone - ostensibly, a 'friend' - to fix that one family's roof? That isn't peculiar to JWs. Friends help each other. It's not really even slightly remarkable. Now, it might be charitable if they then helped other people with their repairs as well.
Reminds me of Matthew 5:46-47.
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95
Emergency relief fund for the Philippines. How will it work.
by joe134cd ini was just thinking it will be interesting to see how the wts emergency relief fund will operate in the philippines.
ok it worked well with the storm in florida, with cashing in on the insurance cheques.
sorry to generalize, but americans have the disposable income, and the insurance polices for things like this - a thing the wtbts finds very attractive.
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Jeffro
emeth:
@jeffro the 6% growth was the percentage of growth of just one year, last year. But you can check more yearbooks and see that their growth after the earthquake is high
The earthquake was in 2010. There was not astronomical growth in the other two years. You're just wrong.
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Jeffro
Some web sites (JW.org, Google and others) will automatically show content in the language selected as default for the browser.
In Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, General tab, Languages. In Firefox, go to Tools, Options, Content tab, Choose (under Languages). Then add (or move) the desired language to the top of the list.
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95
Emergency relief fund for the Philippines. How will it work.
by joe134cd ini was just thinking it will be interesting to see how the wts emergency relief fund will operate in the philippines.
ok it worked well with the storm in florida, with cashing in on the insurance cheques.
sorry to generalize, but americans have the disposable income, and the insurance polices for things like this - a thing the wtbts finds very attractive.
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Jeffro
emeth:
And i think the JW's did a good job since this article speaks about 10,000 witnesses and in last years yearbook the average nr of publishers was 17,403 and 6% growth so in just a few years the number of JW's almost doubled in size there
No. The article said in the disaster area, not in the country. And how the hell did your brain rationalise "6% growth" with "almost doubled in size"?!
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95
Emergency relief fund for the Philippines. How will it work.
by joe134cd ini was just thinking it will be interesting to see how the wts emergency relief fund will operate in the philippines.
ok it worked well with the storm in florida, with cashing in on the insurance cheques.
sorry to generalize, but americans have the disposable income, and the insurance polices for things like this - a thing the wtbts finds very attractive.
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Jeffro
emeth:
However i consider witnesses as my family so that is why i mentioned them.
you would also look after your own family, mom,...dad... grandma,..brothers and sisters first like anybody else.
emeth, who would you look after first: a disfellowshipped blood relative, or a JW?
in emergency situations all do no matter what a family member believes
Why? Do you help them, then go back to shunning them?
Is Armageddon an emergency? What if Armageddon starts, but you don't know yet that it's actually Armageddon? You might be 'grieving the holy spirit' by helping a 'worldly person', or even 'worse', a 'disfellowshipped relative'.
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A Handy Guide to Woo and Assorted Superstitions
by cofty init's interesting how superstitious people point the finger and laugh at other people's superstitions.. the only honest thing is to reject all of them.
here is a handy checklist to see if you have missed any.
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Jeffro
What about oneiromancy (dream divination)??
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135
The Watchtower and the Masons
by ozziepost inthe latest edition of the free in christ ministries journal contains a very interesting article entitled the watchtower and masons.. drawing upon material from the book the watchtower & the masons by fritz springmeier, it gives the following parallels between the things that c t russell believed and those taught by the masons:.
* both believe jehovah is the most important word being the basis of their dogma, and the name of their god.
* both believe god yielded power to a lesser god.
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Jeffro
ozziepost:
The latest edition of the Free in Christ Ministries Journal
Sounds like a credible source...