LOL I sure envy you people who live in the key swing states - receiving those campaign calls at 3 o'clock in the morning and all. Wasn't the question as to who was ready to "receive the 3 o'clock phone call" a campaign slogan? If so, you Pennsylvanians should feel quite honored to have met the challenge!
Jeremy C
JoinedPosts by Jeremy C
-
20
Political phone calls
by drew sagan injust got off the phone with must have been the 12th or so call this month i've gotten over this election.
i live in pennsylvania.
this one was from a place called the "judicial conformation network", an organization in favor of conservative judges.
-
-
-
35
Scholarly support for 607bce ?
by wobble ini mentioned to a bro.
who is supposed to be answering some of my "concerns" with wt teaching that all the non-witness refs.i have seen to the fall of jerusalem place it twenty years later at 587-586 bce.. he maintains that some scholars support 607. does anyone know of a reliable scholar ,who is a recognised expert in this period,who does support 607 ?.
i am well aware that it makes no difference,as the bible nowhere gives us 2520 years,but i am fed up with his assertions and would like to blow this one out of the water so i can ask him to please check his facts.. only help if you really have time ,it's not life or death.. many thanks.
-
-
Jeremy C
It must also be pointed out in the interest of intellectual honesty that scholars worldwide cannot agree on the precise date for the Fall of Jerusalem so it is only JW's who have determoned the precise date for the Fall of Jerusalem in 607 BCE.
LOL !! This reminds me of the statements found in the Watchtower regarding the meaning of the number 144,000. The Watchtower has admitted that Bible scholars have different views on the interpretation of the 144,000; and thus it is only the JWs who have determined the precise meaning of that number.
The Watchtower does indeed have an amusing viewpoint on what constitutes "intellectual honesty".
-
44
Whats the reason behind the name change of the Watchtower Society ?
by Homerovah the Almighty ini just read one of the wts.
recent km and realized the the wts.
the new name for the publishing corporation.
-
-
Jeremy C
As the recent KM states that this KM is printed by the CCJWS, isn't that a falsity in its own right, since the writing is done by the GB members and the writing department and the printing is done by the WTS. ?
The Watchtower and it's surogates are good at hair-splitting, and using rhetorical word-play. Yes, the WTBTS prints the literature, but the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses can make the claim that the WTBTS is merely a "publishing arm" of the congregation. It would be similar to a major corporation subcontracting out some it's functions, while still claiming rightful credit for the finished products.
Remember, the JW organization is an assembly of corporations now. They think and speak like a corporation, not a church.
-
44
Whats the reason behind the name change of the Watchtower Society ?
by Homerovah the Almighty ini just read one of the wts.
recent km and realized the the wts.
the new name for the publishing corporation.
-
-
Jeremy C
I agree with Gary Buss' comments.
The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society might as well become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange. Their ticker symbol could be WTBS.
-
35
Scholarly support for 607bce ?
by wobble ini mentioned to a bro.
who is supposed to be answering some of my "concerns" with wt teaching that all the non-witness refs.i have seen to the fall of jerusalem place it twenty years later at 587-586 bce.. he maintains that some scholars support 607. does anyone know of a reliable scholar ,who is a recognised expert in this period,who does support 607 ?.
i am well aware that it makes no difference,as the bible nowhere gives us 2520 years,but i am fed up with his assertions and would like to blow this one out of the water so i can ask him to please check his facts.. only help if you really have time ,it's not life or death.. many thanks.
-
-
Jeremy C
This thread should catch the attention of posters "scholar" and "thirdwitness" if they are still monitoring this forum. Back in this forum’s heyday, this thread would have turned into a 20 page battle between "scholar" and "AlanF" - which were actually a bit entertaining at times.
Personally, I believe that the 607 / 587 issue is a bit of a diversionary topic which causes one to spend enormous amounts of time battling over scholarly / academic minutia. I believe that one can loose sight of the big picture.
I think it is best to focus one’s attention on the big picture issues such as the Watchtower’s history of false predictions, their use of mind control, the presence of legalism and traditions systemic in the organization, etc. These are issues that the 607 apologists cannot easily grapple with; as most of them choose not even to discuss such issues.
Another major issue that JWs have enormous difficulty debating is the concept of Biblical inerrancy. They are not able to adequately discuss all of the overwhelming scientific evidence that humans have been on earth much longer than 6,000 years, and that a global flood (as described in Genesis) is utterly ridiculous.
The sole purpose to defend the 607 date is the uphold the teaching of the 1914 parousia. The sole reason to uphold that teaching is to uphold the teaching of Christ’s selection of the Watchtower as his earthly proxy. Much time and effort can be wasted on this issue due to the lack of any "smoking gun" evidence for either the 607 date or the 587 date. It’s a debate that could be waged by both sides ad infinitum.
In my opinion, it is best to focus one’s attention on the big picture issues that JWs cannot provide valid answers to.
-
8
jw' s who make up their own holidays
by carla init amazes me still that jw's can make up their own holidays that most certainly revolve around people just as birthdays do and they think nothing of it.
my goodness!
all this 'people worship' going on!
-
-
Jeremy C
I knew some JWs that had a fake Christmas. The kids all got presents, except there was no tree, and it wasn't on December 25th.
LOL - My family did the very same thing. We even had eggnog to boot. It reminds me of the Seinfeld episode in which George Castanza's dad invented the holiday of Festivus. As he gathered everyone around the dinner table, he would pick up his "Festivus pole" and shout at the top of his lungs: "And now, a Festivus for the rest of us!"
-
14
They're out in swervice today
by 1914BS inwow!!!
i saw about 6 dubs today and they were all dressed in black- how goulish.
one brother dub placed a trash at a gas station.
-
-
Jeremy C
I saw about 6 dubs today and they were all dressed in black- how goulish.
Maybe they are mourning the death of reason and rationality that has occurred within their organization. Either that, or they wanted to wear a color that would not show any jelly donut stains.
-
29
Jehovah's Witnesses Evidently Ashamed of the WTBTS
by Melody Blankenship inon monday, october 20th, in elk city, oklahoma, a jehovah's witness knocked on my very good friend's door.
she did not know at the time that he was a jw but he was passing out literature.
she thought it might be someone out campaigning for a political candidate.
-
-
Jeremy C
Watchtower Witnesses are being trained more and more to dialogue like attorneys ( "our organization never specifically taught the end would come in 1975" . . . "we have never taught that all non-JWs will be destroyed at Armageddon, only God can make that determination" "our organization does not force us what to believe, we simply follow the Bible"). In an organization that is so legalistic, it was inevitable that their members would begin to dialogue like evasive defense attorneys.
The Kingdom Ministry and the Reasoning Book have become field service manuals written to teach Witnesses how to be good sales people. In sales, there are certain words and phrase that one must never use in regards to their product.
While I was still in the organization, I remember that we were told to tell people that we are not "affiliated" with the WTBTS, but that it is merely a publishing corporation that is used by the Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses. Do you see how they word it? It is a form of Clintonian hair-splitting.
The primary goal of the Watchtower is to use whatever rhetorical means necessary to get literature into people's hands. The organization has turned into one of those cheesy 1980s multi-level marketing companies - you know, those ones that tried to tell people that their laundry soap was superior to all others? Just sign on the dotted line, sir.
-
22
Council on new BS arrangement - get your barf bucket ready
by DoomVoyager inyesterday (sunday) at the end of the public talk, the speaker took a moment to share with us something he said that he gleaned during the 2008 annual meeting.
(hopefully someone hasn't brought this up already).. it was concerning the new bookstudy arrangements.
i will do my best to quote from memory what he said:.
-
-
Jeremy C
When the Watchtower leadership uses the term "personal study", they are using a rather tawdry euphemism. "Personaly study" is really a personal indoctrination of Watchtower thinking. One is really absorbing and adopting Watchtower memes, adages, and languaging. The more that one commits this Watchtower group-think to memory and repeats it to others; the more "spiritual" they are considered to be. This is why The Watchtower leadership pushes heads of the household to study Watchtower publications with their children so much. Their children are being indoctrinated with Watchtower cultural conditioning from those they trust the most (their parents).
The Jehovah's Witnesses are not a people of Bible education as much as they are a people of conditioned organizational thinking. They are a people of centrally designed and enforced unanimity. This is why the bookstudy has been transfered to the Kingdom Halls. They are now under the confines of the headquarter's micro-management.
-
41
Latest United Nations-End of Religion-End of World alert
by Questions1 init has been awhile since i've posted anything, but i got this e-mail from someone who is on the edge of falling out of the borg due to mental stress.
i've attempted to verify the information, even called the united nations, but haven't gotten to a person who can say if this meeting happened.
my gut says this is a contrived experience with many details just not adding up...but you never know.
-
-
Jeremy C
This is hilarious. I remember hearing this story about 20 years ago. This story has been recycled, regurgitated, repackaged, and redistributed in numerous forms many times over. This urban legend is a dead horse that has had the crap beaten out of it by overzealous COs, and uninformed yokels within the congregations. These knee-jerk reactionary whisper campaigns are textbook behavior of the cults.