james_woods

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Posts by james_woods

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  14

  A couple of real wild statements made at the meeting Sunday

  by Sour Grapes in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from time to time there are things said by the brother giving the public talk or conducting the watchtower that just make my jaw drop.

  here are two from sunday.

  "we are 98 years into the last days"

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  james_woods

  You know - it SHOULD really make some of them wonder why they call it the "last days" if it lasts longer than a hundred years - still with no end in sight.

  That is a lot of "days".
• 
  11

  Jesus- an invention of the Roman Emperors

  by designs in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here's one to critique.

  the flavian family- vespasian, titus, domitian had the jesus character invented, which could account for the many errors on judaism in the gospels.

  it was an answer to the jewish revolt in that it developed a pacifist group who relied on superstition- this is why the gospels appear after the jewish roman war.. flavius josephus= arrius calpurnius piso.

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  james_woods

  There are also theories that you can predict WW3 by reading individual characters in the bible vertically or diagonally.

  Words can be discovered that way, and then put together at random to make strange sentences.
• 
  15

  Dunk 'em at lunch?

  by WatchTowerofBabel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  someone i know just attended a circuit assembly and said they do the baptisms during the lunch break now??.

  "if you're gunna go for lunch - try not to be too noisy on your way out.

  " to paraphrase what she said the bloke on the platform said.. .

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  james_woods

  As an aside, my church makes baptism (immersion) a big deal. It gets a service all its own, and the person and a mentor are invited to speak. The event becomes a celebration of that person's faith.

  But that would be giving attention to the PERSON BAPTIZED, JgNat!

  The JWs don't even want to give attention to the PERSON at their funeral!
• 
  17

  The Introduction of Sin (concept)?

  by Yan Bibiyan in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  can you, awsome peoples, please help me with grasping when and how did sin get introduced in the picture?.

  i am not talking adam/eve and the serpent thingy.. i am going way back, following the chain of events.. seems to me that the very original sin was satan's rebellion against god.. if so, how did satan get this idea in a first place, how was he even able to have the concept of disobedience.... .

  thanks in advance to all contributors..

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  james_woods

  You are right about this: The buck has to stop with the creator in the Genesis story.

  However, I have a slight problem with the notion that Satan was the only one who tempted Adam & Eve to sin...

  God MADE the tree of knowledge - not Satan. Then, he told them NOT to eat of it - and that was a temptation in itself.

  Some view it as a test to see if they could think for themselves - which makes Satan kind of a side player in the drama.
• 
  41

  good old apocalyptic science fiction

  by Hortensia in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  have you ever read "no blade of grass," "on the beach" or "the satan-bug?

  " i have a feeling it wouldn't hurt to reread those old novels.. folks around here argue about gmo foods, for instance, without realizing that one of the main problems with gmo is lack of diversity, dangerous if a disease comes along that kills the main crops of the world.. and people seem to have forgotten that humans could indeed destroy themselves completely, if someone starts a nuclear war.

  they always seem to think there could be survivors of an all-out nuclear war.

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  james_woods

  I remember my dad used to talk about such devices. In my day (my heyday), it was the nuetron bomb that caused a stir. Although it was not intended for such longlasting radioactive effects. It was more intended to even the 'playing field' of Western Europe. In the 70s (in my military days), we used to war game against the Soviets expecting a single US brigade to have to go up against 3 armored Warsaw Pact divisions. Everyone quietly expected it to go nuclear within days, if not sooner - if it ever happened.

  I have a book written during the era "Soviet Military Strategy" - and the scenario was at least a 3 to 1 Russian advantage in ground forces which WOULD only have been stoppable with tactical nuclear weapons. Western strategy was to try to build tanks that were 3 times better than the Warsaw Pact 3x advantage in numbers - but nobody really believed they could stop the East conventionally.

  The Soviets, on the other hand, were pretty certain to have been planning the use of their own tactical nukes ahead of their attack to open up the lines.

  Nobody could figure out if such a scenario could have been played out without one side or the other resorting to the big ICBMs - i.e. New York/Moscow.

  BTW - what the heck was a "Cobalt Bomb" supposed to be in On The Beach?
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  20

  Do most people become Jehovah's Witnesses out of fear they might be destroyed at Armageddon ?

  by Finkelstein in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a practical question concerning human psychology .

  it very well be that it was the jws who were.

  responsible for first approaching this posing question to people to incite their interest and concern.. i can confidently say it was for my 20 something year old mother back in the early 50's.. unfortunately people who did so, weren't completely discerning the probable commercial .

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  james_woods

  Armageddon is the JW Hellfire - it is used to scare people who are already JWs into doing what the Watchtower leaders want.
• 
  17

  The Introduction of Sin (concept)?

  by Yan Bibiyan in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  can you, awsome peoples, please help me with grasping when and how did sin get introduced in the picture?.

  i am not talking adam/eve and the serpent thingy.. i am going way back, following the chain of events.. seems to me that the very original sin was satan's rebellion against god.. if so, how did satan get this idea in a first place, how was he even able to have the concept of disobedience.... .

  thanks in advance to all contributors..

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  james_woods

  Probably the OP touches mainly on the notion of "free will".

  If Adam and Eve were "programmed" to sin, then it should not have been their fault - as God must have made them that way. Not fair to charge them with sin if God made them sin.

  If Adam and Eve actually had "free will" they could have only pleased God if they NEVER USED THEIR FREE WILL. If he told them not to do something, and they never did it on their own - what would be the difference between that and being hard-programmed to do what God wanted?

  Many progressive religions have viewed "original sin" as merely the manifest destiny of human free will - not necessarily as a rebellion against God as taught in JW theology.

  It is of interest to me that some scientific thinkers are beginning to suspect that no such thing as perfect free will exists in human behavior - it is all really programmed to a great extent, but with minor random elements introduced due to the quantum nature of the thought process in the brain.
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  104

  Whitney Heichel - first hand account from congregation member on Facebook

  by sir82 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  why, he even has gone to some meetings at their kingdom hall!

  someone calls with a large wedding tent that they would like to donate and set up in the kingdom hall parking lot for the public memorial on friday.

  i was amazed how people who came that didnt even know whitney, but simply felt a need to be here and comfort the family.

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  james_woods

  Also sad irony that 20 JWs could not be saved from that truck accident in Nigeria (on the way to the convention) as their miracle-God was busy providing sandwiches and preventing rain during the memorial service for this tragedy.
• 
  15

  Dunk 'em at lunch?

  by WatchTowerofBabel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  someone i know just attended a circuit assembly and said they do the baptisms during the lunch break now??.

  "if you're gunna go for lunch - try not to be too noisy on your way out.

  " to paraphrase what she said the bloke on the platform said.. .

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• 

  james_woods

  2. Can't waste valuable mind-control speech time on this.

  Here we have the probable true, over-riding reason for this practice.
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  20

  Do most people become Jehovah's Witnesses out of fear they might be destroyed at Armageddon ?

  by Finkelstein in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a practical question concerning human psychology .

  it very well be that it was the jws who were.

  responsible for first approaching this posing question to people to incite their interest and concern.. i can confidently say it was for my 20 something year old mother back in the early 50's.. unfortunately people who did so, weren't completely discerning the probable commercial .

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  james_woods

  Almost everybody I ever knew who joined this religion did so because they had some kind of personal issues going on in their life - and the JWs seemed to offer them a one-stop solution.

  I never knew anybody who joined them out of the fear of Armageddon.

  As a matter of fact - you would practically have to already BE a JW to actually fear Armageddon - this is not a normal mainstream belief.