Posts by PrimateDave

42

If U Don't Go To All The Meetings & Conventions You're Not Jehovah's Friend

by minimus in

jw
friends

so said an elder's wife who is considered the most respected sister in the congregation.

she said this at my mom's bookstudy where many elderly attend.

when my mother told me what the elder's wife has said, i said, "well, it's better to know now where you stand with jehovah than later, i guess".

PrimateDave

I don't want to be Jehovah's friend. I don't go to the meetings or the conventions anymore. I won't even go to the memorial.
Dave

64

How much influence did the internet have on you leaving the organization?

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

untitled document  discoveries about the organization on the internet admittedly, had it not been for the internet, and all of the dis-.

coveries that were found on it; i would still be one of jehovah's .

witnesses.

PrimateDave

Well, I always wondered about things like evolution and the flood. So one day I just did a search and found the Talk Origins web site and did a bit of reading. After that I figured "what the hell" and searched Jehovah's Witnesses and spent some time reading Timothy Campbell's Beyond Jehovah's Witnesses web site. So, I would have to say that the internet made all the information available like no other medium can.
Dave

8

FALSE BIBLICAL APOLOGETICS

by badboy in

jw
friends

increasely, there seems to be lies being told to support creationism and other biblical thingys.. what do you think?.

.

PrimateDave

I am almost done reading Wisdom of the Bones: in Search of Human Origins by Walker. A lot of time and energy is spent searching for these fossils. They have done some amazing detective work in their search for answers. Then I went on the web to search for homo erectus and Turkana boy. Interestingly, there are web sites by "creationists" that make up their own answers to refute the evolutionary origins of mankind. Apparently, they must know better than the scientists who have spent years poring over the data and examining the fossils and excavation sites. (sarcasm) Needless to say, I haven't wasted any of my time with those web sites.
Dave

34

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 9-17-06 WT Study (BE HAPPY)

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 09-17-06 wt study (august 1, 2006, pages 26-29)(be happy).

(1 timothy 2:5) for there is one god, and one mediator between god and men, a man, christ jesus?.

despite his busy schedule, paul was always eager to do more in jehovah?s service.. notice how using an ot example leaves jesus out of the picture.. [picture on page 29] fear of god is a precious heritage that parents can pass on to their children.

PrimateDave

I always enjoy reading Blondie's Watchtower comments each week. I understand and respect her presentation from a general Christian perspective. I have prepared a comment from a different perspective, not to detract in any way from Blondie's post, but to perhaps show the variety of scriptural interpretation possible outside the standard Jehovah's Witness viewpoint.

Here is a comment that you won't hear at the Watchtower study this week. (Quotes in bold type. My comments in regular type.)
From the Watchtower: Q16, 17) How can parents teach children the fear of Jehovah?
16) David stands as an example for parents today.
What kind of example is the Biblical David?
The following information is from the book Is It God's Word? by Joseph Wheless. (Read it for free at www.infidels.org or purchase from www.amazon.com. Chapter headings are those set up by the Infidels website. Page numbers apparently come straight from the printed book.)
Chapter 6, page 134:
David was a "man after Yahweh's [Jehovah's] own heart," the most murderous, adulterous, lustful, perfidious, mendacious character in the Hebrew Scriptures. He practiced the phallic rites of divination with ephods and teraphim, and danced naked in public the phallic Baal-dance before the Ark of Yahweh; and when Michal, his wife, who was herself a heathen and kept a phallic teraphim for her private use and worship, rebuked him for it, he shamelessly retorted: "I will yet be more vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight" (2 Sam. vi, 22 [2 Sam. 6:22]); and he notified her then and there that she should never have a child by him, but that he would bestow his amorous favors upon "the hand-maids of his servants." (Note: Bible chapters in this book are in lower case Roman numerals. "Baal" simply means "Lord." See Chapter 9, page 165. It should probably be noted that David wasn't entirely naked, for he wore an ephod. It is not clear exactly what this ephod was. My JPS Tanakh renders it "linen ephod," so it was likely a piece of linen cloth used to secure ornamentation of some unspecified nature to the wearer. More on this below. If David was dancing almost naked in front of other women, "as one of the riffraff might expose himself," (2 Sam. 6:20, JPS Tanakh) that could explain the jealous reaction of his wife. The post-Babylonian exile priest who wrote the Chronicles states that David was clothed (1 Chr. 15:27). His account differs markedly in many respects with the older account in Samuel. In Samuel, King David is the center of the story. In Chronicles it is a complex priestly affair that David just happens to be attending. This is a fine example of 'historical' revisionism on the part of Bible writers. More on that below.)
"He practiced the phallic rites of divination with ephods and teraphim"? The honorable King David? How could this be? What about pure worship of Jehovah? Well, for you lurkers and other uninitiated ones, the Bible is revisionist history, poorly edited at that. Furthermore, that wonderful leather-bound book that you look scriptures up in has been "professionally" translated to reflect the more conservative ideologies of modern Judaism and Christianity. What about those ephods and teraphim?
Chapter 8, page 151:
YAHVEH'S PHALLIC EPHODS AND TERAPHIM - Besides the mazzebahs ["pillars", male organs] and asherahs ["groves", female organs] which abounded in [pre-exile] orthodox Hebrew worship, the ephods and teraphim, before described as being smaller household idols of Yahveh with great standing phalli, were popular objects of the worship of Yahveh, very potent for conjuring and oracular prophecy. The first mention of "teraphim" is in the interesting passage in Genesis xxxi, concerning Jacob and his pagan father-in-law Laban, and involving the modest Rachel, Jacob's wife and Laban's daughter. Inspiration tells us that "Rachel had stolen the teraphim that were her father's" (Gen. xxxi, 19); and Laban was very wroth and asked Jacob (xxxi, 30): "Wherefore hast thou stolen my gods [elohim]." But Jacob protested and said: "With whomsoever thou findest thy gods, let him not live. ... For Jacob knew not that Rachel had stolen them" (xxxi, 32). Laban searched through all the household tents, and finally came into Rachel's tent. "Now, Rachel had taken the teraphim," says verse 34, "and sat upon them." The manner in which these idols were ornamented, with the erect male phallus, is suggestive of the form and manner of devotion that Rachel was engaged in, "sitting on" the gods, and explains the naive excuse which she gave to her father for not rising politely when he came into her tent (xxxi, 35). Laban "searched, but found not the teraphim" (xxxi, 35). Some fine examples these Old Testament characters are turning out to be! But wait, there's more!
Chapter 8, page 152:
Gideon, the man of the gods, "made an ephod [of gold] and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it" (Judges viii, 27). This phallic idol was, at the time, expressly recognized as entirely proper and orthodox in the worship of Yahveh, who was personified by the image. The people had requested Gideon to set himself up as king and rule over them; but Gideon replied, "I will not rule over you; Yahveh shall rule over you." He called on the people for all their golden ornaments, and of these he made the golden ephod. The ephod was thus Yahveh or his idol. It was evidently the writer or editor of the Book of Judges, centuries later, who used the opprobrious term "went a whoring after" this sacred statue of Yahveh, which he says "became a snare unto Gideon and to his house" (Judges viii, 27).
In Judges xvii and xviii is the account of the idols of Micah the Ephraimite, which became famous: "The man Micah had an house of gods, and made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest" (xvii, 5). Afterwards he secured a Levite for this office, and said: "Now know I that Yahveh will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest" (xvii, 13). And the Danites came and consulted the ephod, or phallic image of Yahveh, in regard to their expedition against Laish; and they said to the Levite priest: "Ask counsel, we pray thee, of the gods [Elohim]" whether they should be successful, and the priest consulted the idol and reported: "Go in peace: before Yahveh is your way wherein ye go" (xviii, 1-6), again proving that Yahveh was worshipped and consulted through ephod idols. And when they had captured the city, and changed its name to Dan, and dwelt there, "they set them up Micah's graven image. ... at the time that the house of the gods [beth-ha-elohim] was in Shiloh" (xviii, 31) -- and there it remained and was worshipped "until the day of the captivity of the land" (xviii, 30), several hundred years later. This also proves that the Book of Judges was not written until after "the captivity of the land." (Note: While "teraphim" are recognized to be "household gods," in his book Wheless simply assumes that ephods consisted of phallic images used in worship. Christian apologists argue against such an interpretation, so naturally I find it appealing. The truth is that no one can know for certain what kind of ornamentation the ephods in the above accounts contained.) That final statement, "until the day of the captivity of the land [the northern kingdom of Israel circa 722 B.C.E.]," shows an example of the kind of revisionist history to be found in the Bible. Events of the past were written about from the later writer's moral perspective. What had once been acceptable worship of Yahweh/Jehovah, became unacceptable once the Law Code was invented, most likely around the time of King Hezekiah's reign. (See Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Friedmann. Modern scholarship has identified at least five different writers/redactors, who lived in different time periods between the ninth and fifth centuries B.C.E., for the Pentateuch, the so-called books of Moses. Different writers would often put their own spin on a story resulting in twice told tales. Stories, laws, and lists were arranged into the five books we know today by an editor, possibly Ezra.) Are there any other clues that the so-called Law of Moses didn't exist around the time we assume that King David reigned? Consider for a moment the issue of animal sacrifices.
Chapter 11, page 196:
During the patriarchal times, down to the traditional "giving of the law" on Sinai, and for a thousand years afterwards, every man who pleased was his own priest and made his own bloody sacrifices: Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Aaron, before and after the "law"; and Joshua, Gideon, and all the judges, Samuel, David, Solomon, and other kings, after the "law"; not one of them was specially ordained a priest.
No sooner had the fleeing Chosen arrived at Sinai than Yahveh himself is recorded as proclaiming: "Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation" (Ex. xix, 6); that is, every man should be at liberty to act for himself as priest and make his own altars and sacrifices "for the atonement of his soul" unto Yahveh. And under the very shadow of Sinai, the day after the first giving of the law to Moses, Moses himself "builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars [phallic mazzebahs] according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto Yahveh" (Ex. xxiv, 4, 5).
REVELATION OF PRIESTLY MONOPOLY - But Moses had been brought up in the royal-priestly court of Egypt and was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts vii, 22). Consequently Moses received a "revelation" from Yahveh that Brother Aaron should be high priest, and the four sons of Aaron should be priests: "It shall be a statute for ever unto their generations" (Ex. xxvii, 21; xxviii, 1) -- just as Mohammed afterwards reserved the priesthood for his own family. Yahveh complaisantly again decreed: "And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations" (Ex. xl, 15). Having got this divine commission in perpetuity for Brother Aaron's family, it was necessary to sanction it with awful Jahvistic pains and penalties, to prevent sacrilegious meddling with the monopoly. The penalty of death was therefore decreed for any interference with the priestly monopolists: "Thou shalt appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall keep their priesthood: and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death" (Num. iii, 10)! And it was repeated: "The man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest, ... even that man shall die" (Deut. xvii, 12). The priests of Yahveh were as jealously exclusive as was their God whose name was Jealous; and they were protected in their monopoly by the fatal enactment on Sinai: "He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto Yahveh only, he shall be utterly destroyed" (Ex. xxii, 20); and these deadly penalties were enforced by their beneficiaries.
So, the Law said that all sacrifices were to be made only by descendants of Aaron at the Tabernacle/Temple. Yet, how many "faithful men of old" disobeyed this law that was to be enforced under penalty of death? Is it any wonder that David got away with breaking so many of the laws that were supposed to have been given to Moses for the simple fact that they, at least in the form that we know them, hadn't been invented yet? So-called "pure" worship was an invention of ancient priests to secure an income for themselves. Would the Watchtower Society use "pure worship" as an excuse to secure an income for itself?
King David is not a good example for Christian parents. Jehovah is not a god to be feared, loved, or worshipped. But, don't take my word for it. Be skeptical and do your own research.
Primate Dave

6

Need something remotely solid

by spiceant in

jw
friends

hello everything, it has occurred that time passed and now i choose to post a new message to hopefully enlighten you with my miracelous presence.. seriously, since i last posted a real message i continued associating with jw's.

we are at the chapter of "what happens to the dead?

" of their litle "what does the bible really teach" booklet.

PrimateDave

"Point 1. What can i say to JW's in conversations that will not "trigger" them to label me an apostate (bad association). 2. What could be said on stage (preassuming that people can make up and lecture their own lectures)"

Point 1: You accept what they teach in their publications without question or comment. As a new person, you can ask the questions, and they will provide you with answers that you must accept. If you refuse to accept the answers as provided, you may then be seen as possible "bad association". Insisting on your own viewpoint openly to members of the congregation will get you labeled as an "apostate" or at least as the mouthpiece for "apostates". Either way, you won't be welcome for long.

Point 2: Your basic assumption is wrong. Nobody makes up their own lectures. Ever. All talks given from the stage are either prepared by the Society or are based on information found in the Society's literature. Every talk is scheduled. There is no open discussion. Meetings that involve audience participation are almost always conducted by an elder. Audience participation is designed to merely repeat the Society's teachings as a form of rote learning. You will not be allowed to question doctrine in scheduled talks or during meetings with audience participation.

I am sorry to discourage you.

Dave

16

Hopes to reverse global warming!

by Gill in

jw
friends

hopes to reverse global warming have bee brought to the attention in the journal science.

this is from the 'times' newspaper today page 28.. .

'volcanic gas keeps it cool.

PrimateDave

Scientist James Lovelock has recently stated that we've passed the point of no return. I would tend to agree with his assessment. Unfortunately, the inertia of the current global military-industrial complex will prevent any real solutions from being implemented, at least in the short term. Additionally, I would suspect that the economic impact of attempting to "power down" our civilization in order to drastically reduce carbon emissions would cause widespread suffering in the developed and developing world.

So, it would seem that some in the military-industrial complex would like to be able to emit more aerosols into the atmosphere and thereby bypass laws enacted to reverse ozone depletion. They see the current problem of global warming as the answer. So, they come out with a piece about volcanos reducing temperatures. Sure, aerosols from volcanic activity deplete ozone, but isn't global warming worse, they ask? Perhaps I am wrong, but that seems to be the spin. An ailing civilization gets a prescription of aerosols to aleviate the affects of its other toxic emissions. Side effects: skin cancer, destruction of bioshpere by UV radiation instead of sudden climate changes. So, business as we know it continues until...

Dave

6

JOSEPHUS AND THE DATE OF THE EXODUS!

by badboy in

according to one source, exodus took place about 590 years(if i remember correctly!

) before solomon's temple was started,this would make exodus about 1552 bc,around ahmose 1 time.. we are told by josephus that moses led an army into ethiopia/cush capturing meroe?.

do you think the above is correct?.

PrimateDave

Here is an interesting series of articles that attempts to use archaeological findings and our current knowledge of when certain parts of the Bible were written to find out where the Israelites came from in relation to other peoples and cultures of the time and area. As always, read critically and skeptically.
http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/biblewho1.htm

53

Are "Apostates" jumping the gun with their info on the WT to make a case?

by booker-t in

i take some of the things apostates say with a "grain of salt" because many times i think they embellish the truth to make the wt look bad to make their case.

for example i have for years heard that the wt uses "satanic" images in their artwork but i have yet to see any proof of these accusations.

i have heard that jw's no longer practice "disfellowshipping" but my teenage niece was recently "disfellowshipped".

PrimateDave

The first "apostate" that I paid any attention to was Timothy Campbell at the Beyond JW website. I don't think he jumped the gun to make a case against the WTS. In fact I was pleasantly surprised at how well presented his information was. He even invites anyone to correct his information, should they find a mistake. It was like a breath of fresh air, and not what I was told by the Society to expect from "apostates".

I accepted Timothy's invitation to destroy my faith and bought Crisis of Conscience and Who Wrote the Bible?. Ray Franz' book was not what I had expected from an "apostate" either. It is well reasoned and level headed, not a blistering tirade. The information from these two knowledgeable and intelligent "apostates" was all it took for me to see the light, so to speak. Frankly, sensational and extreme information, whether true or not, always turned me off. All I needed was just enough information to help me take the JW filters off my eyes, then I could see for myself and decide for myself. The rest of the information that has liberated me has not come from so called apostates, but from sources of general information like the Talk Origins website and the Infidels website that have nothing to do with current or former JWs. That said, there are many very knowledgeable posters here who are a treasure (Alan F., Blondie, and many others), and it is always a pleasure to gain some new insight from them. They don't have to "make" a case. Their credibility comes from their honesty and high principles. Dave

21

Did You Know what You Were Getting Into?

by Honesty in

we as jehovah's witnesses do not allow people to become baptized prior to gaining accurate knowledge of what we believe and teach according to the bible.

if someone wants to join with us in worship and become baptized, they must also demonstrate that they know what they are getting into.

that they agree with what we believe and teach.. .

PrimateDave

What was I getting into? I knew nothing but what my parents had gotten themselves into before I was even born. We were right. Everyone else was wrong. That was all I had to know. I got baptized at 14 like I was expected to. As others have said, children of JWs generally have no choice in the matter especially when both parents are JWs. Dave

23

Flood/Bristlecone Pine: bible believers: Non blievers also please read

by skyking in

.

using overlapping tree ring patterns from dead and still living bristlecone pines shows a 100% provable climate for california for over 10,000 years thus proving the the great flood did not happen as far back as 10,000 years ago.

this is proof that will stand up to even the dumbest bible thumping jw that is as long as they still have a brain.

PrimateDave

Here's a quote from the book Biblical Nonsense. The Geological Fiasco One should also realistically expect at least a scant amount of geological or natural evidence for a global flood if the supernatural catastrophe took place, but the signs overwhelmingly point to the contrary. The flood should have created a massive extinction along the floors of the oceans. Likewise, millions of land organisms that would have certainly been victimized by the flood would also have deposited a large layer of terrestrial fossils. Of course, neither one of these evidential necessities is apparent. Miles of coral reef, hundreds of feet thick, still survive intact at the Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The violent flood would have certainly destroyed these formations, yet the rate of deposit tells us that the reefs have survived for over 100,000 undisturbed years. Similarly, the floodwaters, not to mention the other factors leading to a boiling sea, would have obviously melted the polar ice caps. However, ice layers in Greenland and Antarctica date back at least 40,000 years. The whole chapter on Noah's impossible flood is here: http://www.biblicalnonsense.com/chapter6.html (copy and paste, sorry) The problem with Witnesses, however, is that they are under such mind control that they refuse to see the evidence when it is right in front of them. Dave