Posts by neverendingjourney

28

March WT: Dumb That Takes Your Breath Away?

by metatron in

jw
friends

the cover article is "the bible-is it really god's inspired word?"..

this has got to be a new low in watchtower superficiality.

how do we know that isaiah and daniel were authentic despite the claims of critics?.

neverendingjourney

Herodotus's Histories is an accurate account of the Greco-Persian wars.

How do we know this is the case? Because I said so, and I was born hundreds of years after he was. So there!

28

For how long can they massage the figures ?

by leo999 in

jw
friends

so looking at the worldwide report , the baptisms are down , many countries are 0 growth ,publishers, hours , and studies up because of changes in reporting methods .

but just how long can the propping up of numbers happen for , before the real downward slide starts ?

a year or two tops , which will be real close to 2014 .

neverendingjourney

But just how long can the propping up of numbers happen for , before the real downward slide starts ?

The Watchtower will stop publishing detailed statistics before their eventual decline.

You can argue that publishing growth stats is irrelevant now. The stats used to serve primarily 2 purposes: (1) show that the message was being preached throughout the globe and (2) indicate the dwindling number of anointed as proof that Armageddon was just around the corner.

No. 1 is irrelevant now because the GB has already arbitrarily decided that Matthew 24:14 has been fulfilled. No. 2 is irrelevant because the 1935 sealing of the anointed date has been dropped so as to allow for "new anointed" at any time; the dwindling number of anointed is no longer a sign of Armageddon's imminence.

My guess is that the WT will soon stop publishing the detailed annual report in favor of highlighting (cherry picking) selected statistics to prove whatever point it is they're seeking to establish. In fact, they have already taken steps in that direction in the monthly Kingdom Ministry.

55

Why Jehovah's Witnesses Are Discouraged From Using the Internet

by AllTimeJeff in

at a recent series of circuit assemblies, the governing body put out warnings on what in their view is the latest danger from satan, designed to break the faith of jehovah's witnesses everywhere.. facebook.. yes, thats right, apparantly, the gb is concerned because a lot of people are having "facebook sex".

they are meeting old friends who aren't jehovah's witnesses and getting it on with whomever would willingly sleep with them.

evidentally, the gb would like their flock to believe that when jw's get on facebook and other social networking sites, fornication happens.. now, this is news.

neverendingjourney

Yes it can if it was a chat of a sexual nature

My heart dropped when I heard Gerritt Losch mention this at an assembly. I had to go back through years of memories to determine whether I was guilty of this "sin"...lol.

How JWs don't realize that the GB=Pope is beyond me.

55

Why Jehovah's Witnesses Are Discouraged From Using the Internet

by AllTimeJeff in

at a recent series of circuit assemblies, the governing body put out warnings on what in their view is the latest danger from satan, designed to break the faith of jehovah's witnesses everywhere.. facebook.. yes, thats right, apparantly, the gb is concerned because a lot of people are having "facebook sex".

they are meeting old friends who aren't jehovah's witnesses and getting it on with whomever would willingly sleep with them.

evidentally, the gb would like their flock to believe that when jw's get on facebook and other social networking sites, fornication happens.. now, this is news.

neverendingjourney

Isn't it JW policy that masturbating while chatting online constitutes "fornication" for purposes of judicial action?

11

its not "new light" its a "new thought"

by highdose in

jw
friends

like alot of you here, i've been making jw's i know aware of yet another flip flop by their cult.. the response i got from one of them was amazing, she said "its just a new thought thats all" and also "well they ( the gb) have been teaching the same thing about the generation for some time, because they've always said that the anointed was included in the generation, whether the great crowd was meant to be included or not doesn't matter, so actual its all remained the same".

could someone please tell me the difference between "new light and "new thought"??

?.

neverendingjourney

People shouldn't be excommunicated for disagreeing with a simple thought. The fact that people face disfellowshipment shows that it's a doctrine (new light) and not a simple "new thought"

385

NEW GENERATION DEFINED -- April 15, 2010 Watchtower

by Ultimate Reality in

from jw.org, here is the new definition of the generation from the april 15, 2010 watchtower.. .

article: holy spirits role in the outworking of jehovahs purpose.

13 third, holy spirit is at work in bringing bible.

neverendingjourney

why wouldn't I accept this latest change that has no personal bearing on me except to create a renewed sense of urgency?

Because this latest adjustment is further evidence that the GB is making it all up as they go along. It's one more doubt to suppress. Eventually, the doubts begin to pile up and stink to high heaven enough for people to begin to entertain the idea that maybe, just maybe, the JWs don't have the truth.

Many JWs are not aware of the doctrinal flip flops that have characterized their religious organization. I'm 30 years old. I was brought up in the 80s and all I knew was that I would never see the year 2000 because the 'the generation" teaching would not allow for it. I didn't realize the extent to which this particular teaching had changed over the years. After repressing doubts for several years, I began to entertain the thought that I had been misled.

You're right, this won't have a sudden impact on the organization to the point of a sudden mass exodus, but as the years go by, this kind of nonsense becomes too much to bear. There are countless of people on this board who began to doubt the veracity of the FDS's claim of authority as a result of the 1995 generation change, but who remained in the organization for several years afterwards.

26

Jehovah's Witnesses - The Religion of "Increased Light"

by AllTimeJeff in

in the april 15 2010 watchtower, this quote stuck out to me like a sore thumb.. "this magazine has .

long been used by "the faithful and discreet slave" .

as the primary channel for dispensing increased .

neverendingjourney

Increased light is preferable to truth if the object in mind is reshaping the organization's doctrinal and/or operational structure. If the Society is able to convince it's members that loyalty to "present truth" or "increased light" is all that matters, then a change in doctrine is easier to swallow.

For instance, if the blood prohibition is dropped, the deaths of thousands who refused a blood transfusion would not have been vain. They would have died upholding the increased light or present truth of the time. You gave up having kids because you thought the end was just around the corner? Fantastic! You're a living example of faithfulness to increased light. Even though it wasn't truth as many would understand it, you served Jehovah by upholding the increased light Jehovah saw fit to reveal at that given time!

35

Yet Another Generation: What Have JW's EVER Got Right? (a Public Service Announcement)

by AllTimeJeff in

in the april 15, 2010 wt, the new governing body of jw's have once again changed their ever problematic teaching regarding the "generation" that saw the sign jesus spoke of mt: 24:32-34.

(note, all references to "generation" in this article are in reference to this passage in mt 24).

the reason that this shows why the governing body is a fraud is very simple.

neverendingjourney

I don't understand the difference between the 2008 explaination and this new one.

The same meaning is still in effect. The difference is that they have added a new wrinkle to it by saying that the lives of the anointed who saw 1914 will overlap with those anointed who see the start of the great tribulation, evidently. This means that the period of time between 1914 and Armageddon is limited to the amount of time in which the lives of those anointed alive in 1914 overlap with the lives of the anointed who see the start of the great tribulation.

For example, an anointed born in 1914 could theoretically live 110 years. He would die in in 2024. An anointed could be born in 2023 and live another 110 years bringing the new presumed deadline for the great tribulation to 2133, evidently.

35

Yet Another Generation: What Have JW's EVER Got Right? (a Public Service Announcement)

by AllTimeJeff in

in the april 15, 2010 wt, the new governing body of jw's have once again changed their ever problematic teaching regarding the "generation" that saw the sign jesus spoke of mt: 24:32-34.

(note, all references to "generation" in this article are in reference to this passage in mt 24).

the reason that this shows why the governing body is a fraud is very simple.

neverendingjourney

The "generation" teaching made sense in the 1950s or so because it is generally understood that the term encompasses a relatively short period of time. My "generation" includes everyone who can reasonably be said to be my contemporary. In America you have the WWI generation, the WWII generation, the baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, etc. I'm 30 years old. I'm not part of the baby-boom generation. That's my father's generation. Nor am I part of my 3 year old niece's generation. That concept is simple and easy to understand. Furthermore, it went hand-in-hand with the 1st century parallel where some 37 years passed between Jesus's declaration that "this generation shall not pass" and the fulfillment of the prophecy in 70 A.D.

The WT started running into problems as the years went by. Instead of scrapping the teaching, they modified it. They began drifting away from the common-use of the word "generation" by saying that everyone who was old enough to comprehend the sign of times was part of the 1914 generation and would not pass away before Armageddon's arrival. Using Psalms 90:10 as authority, they said a generation was 70 or 80 years. This was vague enough to where individual JWs could not pinpoint a specific year, but if a child had to be 10 years old to appreciate the events of 1914, that child would turn 80 in 1974, an implied deadline for Armageddon. This teaching happened to coincide nicely with the 1975 hysteria.

After the 1975 fiasco, the WT once again fell back to the "generation" teaching as its principal fear-mongering tool. This time, the generation became anyone alive during 1914. Therefore, a newborn child in 1914 would turn 80 in 1994...surely the end could not go on much longer. This was the version of the generation teaching I was taught as a child. I knew of no other prior incarnations until I left the religion. Conveniently, "new light" was unveiled in 1995, one year the implied deadline. As we all know, the Watchtower has been making a mockery of the "generation" doctrine ever since. Instead of scrapping the whole concept an starting over, they stubbornly cling on to their failed prediction.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: either a generation is a fixed group of people living during a short period of time, or the "generation" doesn't mean a "generation" at all, but something completely different altogether. They can no longer argue for the common-use understanding of the term generation because 1914 was 96 years ago. Therefore, they've decided to argue that "this generation" means something completely different: a class of heaven-bound Christians (a class of Christians peculiar to JWism) who have spanned the centuries from their initial appearance in 33 A.D. through the present time.

The problem with defining "this generation" to mean the anointed is that it takes away the urgency of the plain-meaning definition. It's hard to tie the generation prophecy to any deadline if the generation means a group of people who have been around nearly 2,000 years. Therefore, they've pulled this newest "understanding" out of the air and said that evidently there would be an overlap between those anointed who saw 1914 and those who see the great tribulation. Now, how in the hell can anyone honestly say that the context allows for this interpretation? They've simply pulled this out of their asses to combine the sense or urgency provided from the prior, plain-meaning understanding of generation with the necessary open-endedness of their new understanding.

It's almost as if the Society is saying: "Hey, we know we screwed up. You know we screwed up. That much is obvious. The generation that saw 1914 has come and gone. We have no choice but to change things up, but don't you think for one second that this change means that the end is far off. No, sir. The end is just as imminent as it was before. Even though we screwed up with this whole generation thing, we still expect you to believe that Jesus's words mean that the end is just around the corner. Now get back to peddling magazines before you start to have to have enough time on your hands to ponder the absurdity of it all"

35

Yet Another Generation: What Have JW's EVER Got Right? (a Public Service Announcement)

by AllTimeJeff in

in the april 15, 2010 wt, the new governing body of jw's have once again changed their ever problematic teaching regarding the "generation" that saw the sign jesus spoke of mt: 24:32-34.

(note, all references to "generation" in this article are in reference to this passage in mt 24).

the reason that this shows why the governing body is a fraud is very simple.

neverendingjourney

What Have JW's EVER Got Right?

I remember a story in the Proclaimers book of how Nathan Knorr gave a talk sometime in the 1940s predicting that the League of Nations would rise again in a new form per the book of Revelation (this was before the UN was formed post WWII). At the time, it seemed to me to be additional proof that JWs had divine backing.

I don't know if the story is true, exaggerated, or just plain false, but it's the only "correct" prediction that comes to mind. Of course, JWs fail to mention that a few years before this talk Rutherford was predicting that Great Britain and the US would lose WWII and come under the rule of Fascism. Rutherford went so far as to recommend celibacy for young JWs because only "months" remained before the tribulation. I learned this post-fade from reading Crisis of Conscience.

Edited to Add: The name of the talk was "Peace--Can it Last?" delivered in 1942.

Edited Further to Add: I found a great discussion of this talk and related prediction here http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/177352/1/Did-The-Witnesses-Predict-the-United-Nations-in-Advance