Posts by Disillusioned JW

40

All hell breaking out in jw land now this!

by nowwhat? in

https://wgntv.com/evanston/shots-fired-by-66-year-old-man-in-alleged-financial-deal-gone-wrong-evanston-police-say/.

Disillusioned JW

Even more news: Jehovah’s Witnesses Excommunicated Elder Files KSh 252m Defamation Suit Against Church . It says in part the following.

"The lawsuit against the church stems from a case in which he was accused of defilement, Mwebantu records.

Apart from that, Joseck Kunda also wants the court to grant him compensatory damages for unlawful dismissal and payment of accrued severance benefits since leaving the association.

... In 2019, he was charged with a sexual offence before the Kabwe Magistrate’s Court but was later acquitted on July 10 the same year after the prosecution failed to prove the case.

Despite his innocence being upheld, the association went ahead and dismissed him after subjecting him to a congregation trial using its judicial committee.

... Kunda maintains that the defamatory and libellous sentiments were made entirely on malicious falsehood, affecting the way of his public and private life.

He says that since then, he has suffered serious and irreparable injury to his reputations as an elder, overseer and pioneer in the defendant’s association."

40

All hell breaking out in jw land now this!

by nowwhat? in

https://wgntv.com/evanston/shots-fired-by-66-year-old-man-in-alleged-financial-deal-gone-wrong-evanston-police-say/.

Disillusioned JW

More news: Three Members Of Jehovah’s Witnesses Missing After Attending Circuit Assembly

40

All hell breaking out in jw land now this!

by nowwhat? in

https://wgntv.com/evanston/shots-fired-by-66-year-old-man-in-alleged-financial-deal-gone-wrong-evanston-police-say/.

Disillusioned JW

It is a wake up call for all PIMOs to become POMOs! In other words "get out of her my people" while you still can, if you don't want to experience wrath and tribulation!

Watch Tower the Great is about to fall. Her "waters" are drying up.

Some of the JWs are snapping from stress and from cognitive dissonance, and are thus going nuts (even going berserk) and are going on a rampage. For your own sake, get out while you still can get out alive!

53

1975 on the back burner

by Fisherman in

“1975” still marks 6000 years from the creation of adam in wt calendar.

according to “all scriptures inspired” book, there is a gap between the creation of adam and the creation of eve and her marriage to adam.

it was at that point in time when eve was created that marked the end of the 6th creative day and the beginning of god’s rest, the 7th day as recorded in genesis.

Disillusioned JW

I have not clicked on it yet.

Update: I have now quickly read some of it.

53

1975 on the back burner

by Fisherman in

“1975” still marks 6000 years from the creation of adam in wt calendar.

according to “all scriptures inspired” book, there is a gap between the creation of adam and the creation of eve and her marriage to adam.

it was at that point in time when eve was created that marked the end of the 6th creative day and the beginning of god’s rest, the 7th day as recorded in genesis.

Disillusioned JW

Folks, today I went to my local library and I found out that none of the branches of my county's public library has The Jewish Study Bible. [However the public library of the nearby county of the largest city of my state has it, but copies of it are already checked out.] However from my local library branch I checked out the following two Bibles.

- The Jewish Annotated New Testament - NRSV, its Editors are Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler; published by OXFORD University Press

- Complete Jewish Bible: An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'rit Hadashah (New Testament), by David H. Stern

Wikipedia says the following. "David Harold Stern, Ph.D. was an American-born Messianic Jewish theologian of Israeli residence."

53

1975 on the back burner

by Fisherman in

“1975” still marks 6000 years from the creation of adam in wt calendar.

according to “all scriptures inspired” book, there is a gap between the creation of adam and the creation of eve and her marriage to adam.

it was at that point in time when eve was created that marked the end of the 6th creative day and the beginning of god’s rest, the 7th day as recorded in genesis.

Disillusioned JW

Fisherman I notice you said "I use the word and so do other Jews ...". Are you a Jew? I thought you were a JW (or at least in agreement with the vast majority of the religious teachings of the WT's JW religion). Are you both a Jew and one of Jehovah's Witnesses?

peacefulpete I know there is diversity of views among Jews (for example, some are even Messianic Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah and God; some ethnic Jews are even JW elders). But I thought that some religious ideas are held by the vast majority of Jews who believe in the Jewish religion (Judaism).

53

1975 on the back burner

by Fisherman in

“1975” still marks 6000 years from the creation of adam in wt calendar.

according to “all scriptures inspired” book, there is a gap between the creation of adam and the creation of eve and her marriage to adam.

it was at that point in time when eve was created that marked the end of the 6th creative day and the beginning of god’s rest, the 7th day as recorded in genesis.

Disillusioned JW

Fisherman, but do those specific Jewish books (the ones you listed) say that Genesis through Deuteronomy are not books of history and not to be understood as books of history? I want to see specific Jewish books which say what KalebOutWest said about Jews not considering the Torah to be history. Also, pretty much the only place I can find Jewish commentary books (in English) is online and at "Powell's Books" store.

Update: KalebOutWest has now provided a list of books.

Ah yes, The Jewish Study Bible is a good book. I have never owned it but I think I have seen that Jewish study Bible at the local library.

Regarding "how days 1-3 of the creative week set the stage for days 4-6" I have read of that in some theologically liberal Christian books and websites, and that the view thus enables some Christians to reconcile biological evolution with the book of Genesis. For example, I have seen it described in The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha - Expanded Edition - RSV and in an edition of The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha - NRSV.

Thanks KalebOutWest for the references and other information.

92

Chance or intelligent design?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

cofty could you answer how the single cell came about by chance?.

i know the argument for complexity in nature says natural selection over billions of years but this could not explain the complexity of the single cell the building blocks of life?.

Disillusioned JW

cofty, he asked all three of those questions, since none of our answers said "God did it". I think he is also saying that the alleged naturalistic processes which created the first cell must be thought of as having begun as far back as the beginning of the universe (if we say the universe had a beginning), and even further back to what caused the big bang, and thus to what existed prior to the universe. His line of questioning is ultimately endless.

He might perceive our science based answers as like saying "it's turtles all the way down", and thus he wants us to trace it all the way down to the ultimate origin. He knows that no one knows the scientific answer to all the way to the very beginning (even if someone says it fluctuations of quantum foam, and/or of virtual particles, in the vacuum). He thus feels he is at an advantage of simply saying God has always existed and that God began the existence of everything which is not God.

Physicist Lawrence M. Krauss in his book called A Universe From Nothing (or in a comment about it) raised the issue of if the origin of the universe amounts to the metaphor of "it's turtles all the way down", and he said he does not think so, but he does not say what the ultimate origin was, for he doesn't know. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Krauss says the following about Krauss' view.

'In his book A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing (2012), Krauss discusses the premise that something cannot come from nothing, which has often been used as an argument for the existence of a prime mover. He has since argued in a debate with John Ellis and Don Cupitt that the laws of physics allow for the Universe to be created from nothing. "What would be the characteristics of a universe that was created from nothing, just with the laws of physics and without any supernatural shenanigans? The characteristics of the universe would be precisely those of the ones we live in."[43] In an interview with The Atlantic, however, he states that he has never claimed that "questions about origins are over". According to Krauss, "I don't ever claim to resolve that infinite regress of why-why-why-why-why; as far as I'm concerned it's turtles all the way down".[44] '

53

1975 on the back burner

by Fisherman in

“1975” still marks 6000 years from the creation of adam in wt calendar.

according to “all scriptures inspired” book, there is a gap between the creation of adam and the creation of eve and her marriage to adam.

it was at that point in time when eve was created that marked the end of the 6th creative day and the beginning of god’s rest, the 7th day as recorded in genesis.

Disillusioned JW

KalebOutWest I own a copy of Isaac Leeser's Holy Scriptures Jewish Bible (but not a study edition) and the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation of 1917, and I used to own the newer JPS translation (which did have many alternate readings and alternate renderings). I also used to own the Alexander Harkavy Jewish Bible (and maybe I have a copy of it on CD-ROM), but I never saw any study notes in those Bibles. Granted there are footnotes and appendixes in some of them, and an introduction, but I don't recall that any of them say that Genesis through Deuteronomy, though being Torah/Law are not also history. [If some of them say such, please tell me where they say it.] Granted those books are listed in the table of contents under Law, whereas others (including owns of a purported historical nature) are listed under Prophets, and others under Writings.

Judaism counts time from the date of the alleged creation of Adam (and the world) and such is even mentioned in "General Remarks" to my copy of Leeser's Bible. For example it says the following. "According to Dr. Zunz, the creation of the world dates 3988 before the common era. The flood, in 1656 after the creation. Abram born at Ur 1948. Jacob goes to Egypt, 2238. Moses born, 2418. .... Juddua' high priest, 3656, and under him, two years later, Palestine is conquered by Alexander of Macedon.These few dates, it is hoped, will elucidate, with the Bible text, the history of the Scriptures."

So, where I can I specifically go to see Jewish Bibles or some other Jewish books saying that Genesis through Deuteronomy are not books of history and not to be understood as books of history? When I shop at thrift stores (specifically Goodwill Outlet stores) and see numerous books there on many days, including numerous Christian books, I rarely see any Jewish books (except books about rituals and about history of the Jewish people, including their secular history).

92

Chance or intelligent design?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

cofty could you answer how the single cell came about by chance?.

i know the argument for complexity in nature says natural selection over billions of years but this could not explain the complexity of the single cell the building blocks of life?.

Disillusioned JW

cofty, you and I are dealing with people who are completely satisfied with the brief statement of "God did it" in answer to questions of how did all the varieties of life come into existence, and of how did the entire universe come existence (if it had a beginning) and come to be in its current form.

Though they believe God/Creator/Designer made such, they never ask themselves "how did God/Creator/Designer make such?". They have absolutely no desire (no interest and no curiosity) at all to know how such were made - by any means (including by purely naturalistic non-God/Creator/Designer means). That is because they want only very simple explanations (like that of what Fisherman said of "The wisdom of the world is: THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH", on page 4 of this topic thread). It is thus a waste of our time and effort in dealing with them on this topic.

They love fundamentalism and probably will never ever give up fundamentalism.

In contrast, when I was a baptized JW, and even before I became baptized, I wanted to know how those entities came to be. Since I believed in Jehovah God at the time, I asked myself "how did Jehovah God make them?". Since the Bible (including in Genesis chapters 1-2) says virtually nothing about the means/processes of such, I thus looked to modern science for answers. I have been loving science ever since my preteen years. I accepted the Big Bang theory (as I understood it) and concluded that God made the universe by means of the Big Bang (in accordance with the laws of science/nature) and by other natural processes. When it came to how the first living cell come into existence and how various later species come into existence, I thought that the scientists answers of abiogenesis and biological evolution might be right. (The main reason why I did not conclude, while I was a JW, they were definitely right was because of the very strong influence of the WT's young biosphere creationist fundamentalist type literature and because of the Bible's teachings). Even before I got baptized I was impressed by the Miller's experiment which produced multiple types of amino acids by abiotic natural processes.