under_believer

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Posts by under_believer

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  11

  Only great minds can read this

  by parakeet in

  1. social
  2. humour

  got this in an email today.

  have fun!

  only great minds can read this.

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  under_believer

  Here is a very excellent analysis of this popular and relatively ancient bit of Internet memery, by an actual Cambridge researcher:
  
  http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/
  
  Here's an excerpt:
  

  it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place
  
  This is clearly wrong. For instance, compare the following three sentences:
  
  1) A vheclie epxledod at a plocie cehckipont near the UN haduqertares in Bagahdd on Mnoday kilinlg the bmober and an Irqai polcie offceir
  
  2) Big ccunoil tax ineesacrs tihs yaer hvae seezueqd the inmcoes of mnay pneosenirs
  
  3) A dootcr has aimttded the magltheuansr of a tageene ceacnr pintaet who deid aetfr a hatospil durg blendur
  
  All three sentences were randomised according to the "rules" described in the meme. The first and last letters have stayed in the same place and all the other letters have been moved. However, I suspect that your experience is the same as mine, which is that the texts get progressively more difficult to read.[...]
  
  Hopefully, these demonstrations will have convinced you that in some cases it can be very difficult to make sense of sentences with jumbled up words. Clearly, the first and last letter is not the only thing that you use when reading text. If this really was the case, how would you tell the difference between pairs of words like "salt" and "slat"?
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  55

  Will we see the GB replace 1914 with a new date in the next 30 years?

  by nvrgnbk in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  ray franz mentioned in crisis of conscience that in 1980 schroeder, klein, and suiter proposed changing the start of "this generation" from 1914 to 1957. as the "this generation" doctrine has since mysteriously morphed any date associated with it is moot.

  however, as time marches on without the developments anticipated by the gb may they again pick a new year, this time for the invisible enthronement of christ, in an attempt to buy time and regain credibility?

  what dates or historical events would be likely choices?

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  under_believer

  NO.
  
  They will just stop talking about 1914, and after a while everyone else will stop talking about it too. The Watchtower is getting out of the prophecy interpretation business, slowly but surely, Revelation book study notwithstanding. I suspect that was probably at the behest of one of the oldtimers on the Governing Body.
  
  I think as time goes on we'll see them focus more on their current strengths--control, loyalty, and retention.
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  15

  Watchtower breeding campaign

  by Fleshybirdfodder in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  ok, so this is purely speculative, but with the dwindling numbers in the org do you think the wts may actually start encouraging the r&f to have children?

  as counterintuitive as it may seem with the constant impending armageddon agenda, i know of many died-in-the-wool company men (and women) who would swallow whatever spin the society feeds them to keep the numbers up.

  farfetched perhaps, but what else can they do?.

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  under_believer

  >Ok, so this is purely speculative, but with the dwindling numbers in the org do you think the WTS may actually start encouraging the R&F to have children?
  
  This would be the Mormon approach to religious growth. And I think it's already happening, just not overtly. I am sure Brooklyn realizes that all they have to do is stop discouraging children and the floodgates (so to speak) will open.
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  42

  Australian animals and the flood

  by nvrgnbk in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how did the kangaroo, the koala bear, and the platypus get from noah's ark to australia?

  how did any animals get to australia for that matter?i know that this has been considered before but i just love asking jws this question.. nvr.

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  under_believer

  A localized flood is a great way of making the flood account make a bit more sense. It was one of the straws I grasped at a few years ago as a desperate JW trying to salvage his faith.
  
  However this is not how the text reads and is not how the majority of Christian religions that espouse Biblical literalism interpret the text. Many of them require a global flood to support Flood Geology, so that they can explain the fossil record without using evolution.
  
  When I floated this idea with a few Witness friends of mine (including a couple of elders) it was roundly denied and occasionally ridiculed.
  
  And you know... even in absence of a global flood, there are still way too many problems with the account anyways:
  
  * The Ark as described wouldn't be seaworthy
  * There's no way that 8 humans could have taken care of the number of animals that would have fit in the ark as it was described
  * Nor could they have stored the quantity of food required by that many animals
  * Nor could they have kept the food fresh and edible for that long.
  * The entire area covered by the flood (global or not) wouldn't have any vegetation left after being submerged for so long. Noah and his family could eat the animals. So could any carnivores he happened to bring. But what would the herbivores eat?
  
  ... and many more, I'm sure.
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  25

  Why do people believe in religion?

  by sinis in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i still have a hard time wrapping my brain around this.

  for example why do so many believe in the bible when ample proof exists that negats its validaty?

  why not believe in zeus or jupitor, etc.

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  under_believer

  People believe in religion because they don't want to believe that our consciousness ends when we die.
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  48

  Your opinion on my really important question, please.

  by jambon1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does a jw upbringing simply confuse a child or is it really damaging?.

  i have no doubt that a jw child is, at least, confused with life.

  in my own case my wife brings up my 2 children (aged 5 & 2) as jw`s.

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  under_believer

  I wanted to thank everyone for their thoughtful replies on this thread. This is an issue I am going to have to develop a strategy on, as well. I have 3 kids: a baby, a 5 year old, and an 8 year old. The 8-year-old is already commenting at meetings on her own (finds answers, develops own illustrations, helps sibling find answers).
  
  On the other hand my wife is a fairly balanced JW (which means that she's a lousy JW). She let the kids participate in a Thanksgiving dinner at school because she couldn't find anything wrong with Thanksgiving. We rarely go in service on Saturday mornings. She lets the kids do the school play and so on.
  
  So I have hope that even if she raises them JW, they'll be more balanced because of my influence and because my wife isn't a rabid hardcore dub.
  
  We'll see.
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  36

  The fastest scripture looker upper

  by SacrificialLoon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  a comment by rubadub in the thread about learning new things at the meetings made me remember something, and gave me a chuckle.. i would always see how fast i could look up the scriptures during the talks, and race to beat most everyone else.

  of course everyone else didn't realize i was racing them, but i'd always feel a smug (and perhaps a bit self-righteous) satisfaction at having the scripture looked up and ready to follow along while from the sights and sounds around me most everyone else was still looking it up.

  being able to look up jehovah's word with such speed would surely earn me spiritual brownie points.

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  under_believer

  /sigh
  
  Yes, I did that too. God I wish I didn't have to remember that. Right smug self-righteous little bastard I was.
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  21

  Do you think Jesus gave every Christian a personal commission to preach?

  by under_believer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, teaching them to observe all the things i have commanded you.

  i am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.

  " (matthew 28:19, 20 | nwt) .

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  under_believer

  Thanks everyone for the great replies (especially the link to the "high/low requirements thread, M.J.) As you can tell I don't think that every Christian has a personal commission to preach, either. There's absolutely no evidence that every individual Christian in the early congregation was out knocking on people's doors, that's for sure.
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  22

  There are JWs happy to be in that org

  by greendawn in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we on this forum were all more or less unhappy with the wts for one reason or other and inevitably we left that religion which we consider to be in fact a cult.

  we can't understand or imagine how anyone could be happy living in that negative environment yet there seem to be quite a few dubs that are happy and content being jws.

  apart from the obvious ones eg those that have some status which gives them a sense of importance why do others feel happy being there?

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  under_believer

  Doubting Bro, that was an excellent response. You are a better man than I.
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  22

  There are JWs happy to be in that org

  by greendawn in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  we on this forum were all more or less unhappy with the wts for one reason or other and inevitably we left that religion which we consider to be in fact a cult.

  we can't understand or imagine how anyone could be happy living in that negative environment yet there seem to be quite a few dubs that are happy and content being jws.

  apart from the obvious ones eg those that have some status which gives them a sense of importance why do others feel happy being there?

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  under_believer

  agapa37: I threw up a little, in my mouth. Thanks.