Doug Mason

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Posts by Doug Mason

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  12

  Buddhists and Jehovah's Witnesses

  by tornapart in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  recently i have just started looking into what buddhism is all about.

  i rather like the idea of a personal spirituality.

  of trying to be a better person and an acceptance of the reality of life and trying to find an inner peace and contentment.. anyway, i came across this today.

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  Doug Mason

  Buddhism is Australia's second-largest religion after Christianity, with 500,000 adherents.

  Doug
  
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  16

  The canonised Old Testament is no different from the Apocrypha except with more scary fables and mythology

  by fukitol in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the apocryphal books are accepted by catholics in their douay version as inspired of god, but rejected by the rest of christianity?.

  why?.

  when you examine the reasons for and against acceptance of the apocrypha as divinely inspired or not, it dawns on you that the traditionally accepted 39 books of the hebrew scriptures are nothing but the same sort of stuff as the more recent apocryphal books are, with the only difference being that the 39 much older ot books contain a lot more scary stories, fables and mythology invented by the ancient jewish priesthood to frighten their followers into fear and obedience and continued giving of meat sacrifices for the priests to eat.. ultimately, the ot can be summarised as nothing but a mixture of relatively accurate historical jewish war histories and genealogies, such as the aprocrypha is, mingled with scary stories made up by the ancient jewish priests and scribes..

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  Doug Mason

  The "rest of Christianity" does not have an agreed canon.

  Only the Catholic Church has voted on the Canon, which happened at the Council of Trent (15th century or thereabouts).

  Early Christian codices included writings such as "Barnabas" and "The Shepherd of Hermas" as authoritative.

  If the OT apocrypha are unacceptable, why did the NT writers quote them so heavily, such 1 Enoch and Sirach?

  There is a number of very good scholarly books on canonization, and I can recommend some if you are interested.

  Criteria employed by the Church Fathers for determining a writing as Scripture were: (1) Apostolicity (2) Orthodoxy (3) Antiquity (4) Use (5) Adaptability (6) Inspiration. ("The Biblical Canon", pages 401-42, Lee Martin McDonald)
  

  As you can see from this list, the writings were accepted if they agreed with doctrines the church had already determined. The decision was thus determined by use, not imposed from the hierarchy
  

  Doug
  
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  35

  When did the Great Crowd start forming?

  by Vanderhoven7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i realize that rutherford received a flash of light regarding the identity of the gc in the year 1935, but that does not tell us when the crowd began to form.

  what would be the earliest date?

  any ideas or quotes from wt literature?

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  Doug Mason

  Do my Studies help?

  http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Great_Crowd_before_1935_and_since.pdf

  http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Watch_Tower_Society_Reveals_Itself.pdf
  

  http://www.jwstudies.com/WT_magazines_from_2000_to_2015_on_144000_and_the_anointed.pdf

  http://www.jwstudies.com/The_Tower_of_sand.pdf

  Doug
  
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  31

  Far fewer references to lesbians

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i notice that while a search of the wt library reveals many references to homosexuals, there are few references to lesbians.. does the wts include women when it uses the term homosexual?.

  when discussing masturbation, does it mention both sexes?.

  i am asking out of pure ignorance, seeking clarification.. my only comment is that religion of every shade has difficulty with the subject of sexual activity, as if it were something that is not part of nature.. doug.

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  Doug Mason

  Thank you everyone for your fantastic comments to my initial post on this thread.

  I was very concerned at the way my post might have been construed, but I can tell you that I appreciate the positive way in which this subject has been approached.
  

  Doug
  
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  31

  Far fewer references to lesbians

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i notice that while a search of the wt library reveals many references to homosexuals, there are few references to lesbians.. does the wts include women when it uses the term homosexual?.

  when discussing masturbation, does it mention both sexes?.

  i am asking out of pure ignorance, seeking clarification.. my only comment is that religion of every shade has difficulty with the subject of sexual activity, as if it were something that is not part of nature.. doug.

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  Doug Mason

  Hi GodZoo,
  

  I understand the dictionary definition, but I am wondering whether the WTS manages the situation explicitly with that understanding. Perhaps it does; I am simply asking, especially when I see homosexual references being made to "tight pants" and "effeminate" behaviour.

  What "non-effeminate" behaviour by a woman does the WTS object to? "Loose pants"?
  

  Doug
  
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  31

  Far fewer references to lesbians

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i notice that while a search of the wt library reveals many references to homosexuals, there are few references to lesbians.. does the wts include women when it uses the term homosexual?.

  when discussing masturbation, does it mention both sexes?.

  i am asking out of pure ignorance, seeking clarification.. my only comment is that religion of every shade has difficulty with the subject of sexual activity, as if it were something that is not part of nature.. doug.

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  Doug Mason

  Hi,

  I notice that while a search of the WT Library reveals many references to homosexuals, there are few references to lesbians.
  

  Does the WTS include women when it uses the term homosexual?

  When discussing masturbation, does it mention both sexes?

  I am asking out of pure ignorance, seeking clarification.
  

  My only comment is that religion of every shade has difficulty with the subject of sexual activity, as if it were something that is not part of nature.

  Doug
  
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  63

  AUSTRALIA – Artemis Legal launches inquiry into group and class action lawsuits against Jehovah’s Witnesses

  by jwleaks in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  jehovah's witnesses - group action lawyers fighting for justice | artemis legal .

  artemis legal | watchtower claims.

  13 october 2015 .

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  Doug Mason

  The Royal Commission is an enquiry. It is not a court. It can only make recommendations. The quality of evidence tendered before the enquiry does not require the legal rigour of evidence before a court.

  The Commission has recommended that the Australian Government set up a compensation fund of $4 billion, but any decision lies outside the duties or powers of the Commission.

  It can recommend to the Department of Public Prosecution that criminal proceedings should be commenced but the decision whether to do so is solely the prerogative of the Proscutor, not of the Commissioner.
  

  I suspect there will be opportunists swarming around seeking to make money from these victims. Beware of anything at this early sate. The Commission has only been running for 2 years, and could probably run for a few more. Give it time to make its recommendations.

  Doug
  
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  11

  New Bibles on the website

  by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i was going through a few websites and isolating text of the 'deuteronimist history' for my channel on youtube today when i opened a tab to jw.org to see if they had actually dome anything in a few days.

  to my surprise up popped the new bibles.. no for many year the only one they had was nwt 1984 and as of 2 years ago the rnwt with audio coming in slowly.

  (the guys that do ezra are crap and lett ruins mark) a week or two ago they started adding a study bible starting with matthew.

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  Doug Mason

  HTBWC,

  I asked you what your intention is when you write: "isolating text of the Deuteronomistic history".

  Friedman's work addresses the first 5 books, whereas the DH stretches further, in which Deuteronomy forms only the first scroll of the history. Hence my question.

  No criticism, just curious, given your statement.

  Doug
  
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  11

  New Bibles on the website

  by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i was going through a few websites and isolating text of the 'deuteronimist history' for my channel on youtube today when i opened a tab to jw.org to see if they had actually dome anything in a few days.

  to my surprise up popped the new bibles.. no for many year the only one they had was nwt 1984 and as of 2 years ago the rnwt with audio coming in slowly.

  (the guys that do ezra are crap and lett ruins mark) a week or two ago they started adding a study bible starting with matthew.

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  Doug Mason

  HowTheBibleWasCreated,

  What do you mean by "isolating the text of the Deuteronomic History"?

  Are you saying that you wish to isolate P texts within Deuteronomy through Kings? Friedman has done this with the J, E, P, D sources in the first five Biblical books through his book, "The Bible with Sources Revealed". (Scheidewind's book, "How the Bible Became a Book" is tangentially relevant.)

  Are you suggesting that you are "isolating" P texts that lie within the Deuteronomic History?

  Is Emanuel Tov's work of use? I do not know, just a genuine question, as I claim little understanding of Lower/Textual Criticism.

  For me the more important question is not "How was the Bible created?" but rather "Why was the Bible created?"

  Doug
  
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  28

  Not on a WTS Cover - Famine Continues to Decline

  by berrygerry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  that darn satan keeps confusing those horsies in apocalypse - they seem to be going in reverse.. http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/global-hunger-calamitous-famine-eradicated-last-50-years.

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  Doug Mason

  Matt 24 says nothing about "increase", just that they continue to exist - and should be ignored. An evil generation looks for signs.

  In the Flood myth, people were going about their everyday normal affairs, completely unaware while Noah was busy.
  

  Doug