Jeffro

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Posts by Jeffro

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  46

  Bible MIRACLEs!! Are they a Myth or Emeth?

  by Fisherman in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the bible records miracles such as resurrections, angels, prophecy and destructive acts of god to mention a few.

  are these all a pack of lies?

  how do you explain them?

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  Jeffro

  Fisherman:

  How do you explain them?

  People tell stories. Fiction is quite popular. Not remotely complicated.
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  282

  How Will They End 1914 Teaching?

  by EmptyInside in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i'm sure this has been discussed, but 1914 has to go away.

  instead of, the overlapping generation teaching, they should have just ditched 1914. .

  they should have done that a long time ago with 1975. it's the last of the teachings in the charles taze russell era.. i'm thinking they just will stop talking about it, and it will be out of the mind of the rank and file loyal witnesses .

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  Jeffro

  TonusOH:

  When they made the "generation" change in 1995, where they appeared to try to quietly drop it, that was when they had the opportunity to let it fade away.

  That change only reduced the significance of the amount of time that has elapsed 1914. It did nothing to reduce their dependence on 1914 as the end of the supposed ‘gentle times’. At their core JWs are an Adventist denomination and 1914 won’t be going away any time soon.
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  58

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

  by Sharpie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  shower thought entered my mind the other day... jesus christ.

  as per doctrine.

  is still alive in heaven right now correct?

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  Jeffro

  See Breeze:

  Using atheist scholars' own strict criteria, a person can be certain that the message of the death, burial, and resurrection was widely believed and preached upon prior to Paul leaving on his trip to Damascus (2-3 years after the cross)..... and probably just weeks or months afterward.

  😂 A fallacious argument from authority and ad hominem in the same sentence. Christianity Today is hardly an objective source for claiming what ‘atheist scholars’ say. But in any case, it’s entirely possible that a Jewish preacher was executed, an eclipse happened around the time he died, and the superstitious people made a superstitious connection and started a bunch of superstitious stories. 1 Corinthians was about 20 years after Jesus’ death and there isn’t any reliable contemporaneous attestation to the actual events. The fact that they believed something is not evidence that Jesus was actually resurrected. Even the stories about his resurrection say he wasn’t recognised, so someone else could have just claimed to be the resurrected Jesus.
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  21

  King of the North

  by pontoon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've been out for 13 years.

  just wondering who the society is identifying as the king of the north?.

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  Jeffro

  They said in 1999 that they didn’t know who it was from 1991 onwards (and they said it was the Soviet Union from after WWII until 1991, rather than ‘always’ or ‘Russia’). It is only more recently that they retrofitted it back to Russia.
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  58

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

  by Sharpie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  shower thought entered my mind the other day... jesus christ.

  as per doctrine.

  is still alive in heaven right now correct?

  1. 
  2. 
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  Jeffro

  Rattigan350:

  But then without the ransom, what hope does anyone have?

  False dichotomy, magical thinking.

  The ‘ransom’ offers the same amount of ‘hope’ as the false hope offered by any other superstitious belief system (including the ones that you reject).
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  58

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

  by Sharpie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  shower thought entered my mind the other day... jesus christ.

  as per doctrine.

  is still alive in heaven right now correct?

  1. 
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  Jeffro

  Sea Breeze:

  Skeptics aren't suggesting that that the apostles and others died for their beliefs.

  Nice attempt at straw manning the position of skeptics there though 😂
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  58

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

  by Sharpie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  shower thought entered my mind the other day... jesus christ.

  as per doctrine.

  is still alive in heaven right now correct?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Jeffro

  Even according to the woefully inconsistent stories of Jesus’ resurrection in the ‘gospels’, the people who first saw him didn’t recognise that it was Jesus, and only later became convinced that it was him. None of them say Jesus appeared to only Peter first, contradicting the hearsay in 1 Corinthians.
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  58

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

  by Sharpie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  shower thought entered my mind the other day... jesus christ.

  as per doctrine.

  is still alive in heaven right now correct?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Jeffro

  See Breeze:

  Skeptics aren't suggesting that that the apostles and others died for their beliefs. They are asking Christians to believe that the apostles and others died for their lies, for something they KNEW to not be true; because they said they were eye-witnesses.

  Wrong. Most of the claims of being eyewitnesses of Jesus come from the ‘gospels’ (including Luke-Acts), all of which were anonymously written decades after the alleged events. The exception is 1 Corinthians 15 as outlined by peacefulpete above, though it actually presents hearsay from Paul.
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  58

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work?

  by Sharpie in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  shower thought entered my mind the other day... jesus christ.

  as per doctrine.

  is still alive in heaven right now correct?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Jeffro

  Did the ransom sacrifice even work happen?

  Given the conditions that existed in Judea in the first century as a Roman client kingdom, it is entirely unremarkable that an itinerant Jewish rabbi who started as a disciple of John the Baptist expressed ideas about Jewish independence and was subsequently executed by the Romans. Various Jewish sects existed at the time, and it is no stretch at all that someone from one such sect (e.g., Paul) became convinced by stories he heard about such a person (never actually meeting him himself) and associated them with reinterpretations of elements from the book of Daniel and other Jewish claims about a 'messiah'.

  In particular, an eclipse in 30CE at or around the time of Jesus' death (no, not 33CE) may have been a factor in making up stories that he, and his death in particular, was significant. Beyond that, everything about Jesus in the 'gospels' beyond his baptism and death is based entirely on hearsay that wasn't written down until decades after his death and is replete with superstition.

  It is especially notable that Paul, in his writings, seems to know basically nothing about Jesus' life other than his requisite 'sacrifice' and execution. All the biographical details came later as if stories were embellished as time went on rather than any well-established contemporaneous details from the outset. Even the inconsistent stories of Paul's 'conversion' in Acts came after Paul's own death, and they contradict his own separate account in Galatians (for example, according to Acts 9:8-23, Paul sees a 'vision' of Jesus, then immediately sees Ananias, stays with other Christians in Damascus, and then goes to Jerusalem, all of which blatantly contradicts Paul's own account at Galatians 1:15-16.)

  A common fallacious argument offered by believers is that first century Christians wouldn't be willing to die for their beliefs if Jesus wasn't actually resurrected (along with the other supernatural tales about him). This is, of course, incorrect, easily demonstrated by the fact that there are now people willing to die for the same beliefs, with no actual evidence that the events actually happened (as are people of other equally unfounded religious superstitions).
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  21

  King of the North

  by pontoon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've been out for 13 years.

  just wondering who the society is identifying as the king of the north?.

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  Jeffro

  Indoubtbigtime

  King of the North is Russia and allies, primarily China, but all the brics nations. (Brazil Russia India China and South Africa

  In JW doctrine, the "king of the north" is usually only Russia (but also described as Russia and its allies in a 2020 Watchtower article), but Russia and its allies (but sometimes suggested as being all nations) are 'Gog of Magog'. See also Daniel's dreams and visions (Appendix 2), Pure Worship—Ezekiel revisited (Chapter 17).
  

  Back in reality, the "king of the north" was the dynasty of Seleucid kings up until Antiochus IV. See Daniel's dreams and visions (Chapter 11).

  'Gog of Magog', entirely unrelated to the "king of the north", was a hypothetical ruler from the far north of Israel who would purportedly lead an attack against Israel some time after the fall of Babylon. See also What Does the Bible Really Teach… about Gog of Magog? (PDF).