italic 4th and 5th century.
629 in the 14th century.
429 in the 14th century (margin).
Hundreds of fulfilled prophecies are not something that can be made up on the fly, we don't live long enough to pull something like that off.
The gospels were prophecy written retrospectively. During the oral tradition period the Christian communities scoured the scriptures to find passages that they believed Christ had fulfilled and made up little stories around them. It was a sort of Christian midrash. Paul's epistles are replete with it.
what is it with this organisation that they think that jehovah is giving increment details of insignificant points in the last hundred or so years that he has never botherd to inform his followers in the last 2000 years .. smiddy.
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You've started 3 new threads in the last hour Smiddy, two of them repeating the same thread title? Don't start threads while you're high dude.
Errr okkayyy....
throw us a bone here...
last year's "letter from the governing body" (on jw.org) notes:.
"last year, the memorial attendance was 19,241,252. how encouraging to see so many honor jehovah and jesus christ by attending the most important meeting of the year for gods people!".
that's about 12 million or so non-jw's who go to the memorial only, a good % of whom are evidently at least somewhat sympathetic or curious about the jw's, but for various reasons have no desire to commit to the religion.. .
Exactly Smiddy. The GB doesn't have to abandon those things, just moderate them so they are 'conscience' matters only.
Can't it be enough that JW's reject the trinity, immortal soul, hellfire, use the name 'Jehovah' 20 times more than the name 'Jesus', etc, without having to go door-to-door, stop your kids going to harmless birthdays, not even saying 'hello' to your own immediate family, etc?
The Society is ridiculous and holding the org back from growth. It's like they feel JW's have to be the opposite and contrarian on absolutely everything in order for it to be 'the truth'.
The number of JW's should be about 20 million by now, ie, the number of memorial partakers. The growth is stymied, stagnant and declining due to the sheer bloody-minded weirdness the leaders insist on perpetuating, like Christendom's geek pariahs.
How many millions have left or been kicked out harshly (eg, got drunk a few times, smoked a few ciggies) who really posed no real threat who might otherwise have stayed and donated $$$$ all these years?
so two big changes in the org were announced in the most recent agm.. local needs part is replaced by "how do you know the truth" where all members will tell their experience (oh what fun).
basic pioneer role 10 only hours a month required (see, jehovah lightens our load, therefore he loves only us)!.
it seems like they have really turned up the heat here.
I don't see this as much of a threat to 'going through the motions' publisher or 'faders' at all.
The disengaged and 'going through the motions' JW's have always been easily identified by the fact that they never answer up.
I wonder if the number of 'never answers-up' JW's is increasing as each year goes by lol.....?
Hey, why doesn't the Society offer some incentive to answer up to shame the bored and disengaged ones.
How about Answering-up Pioneers??!! If you answer up at least 5 times a meeting you get a special title called "Answering-up Pioneer!"
Then that annoying know-it-all self-righeous smart-ass bitch sister who puts her hand up 50 times a meeting and loves the sound of her own voice will be wallowing in it. Every congregation has one.
"Ooh ooh pick me pick me!" (put your goddam hand up one more time beearch and I'm gonna run over there and slap your face!)
so it's rumored started by one member that there is a new pioneer rank called basic pioneer, announced at annual meeting.
can anyone verify this is true?
everything else presented at the meeting has been verified except this.
I think there's probably been some confusion or misunderstanding.
What has probably been announced is that any publisher recording on average at least 10 hours a month since the last CO's visit will be entitled to attend the special meeting the CO has with the pioneers on the CO's visit.
last year's "letter from the governing body" (on jw.org) notes:.
"last year, the memorial attendance was 19,241,252. how encouraging to see so many honor jehovah and jesus christ by attending the most important meeting of the year for gods people!".
that's about 12 million or so non-jw's who go to the memorial only, a good % of whom are evidently at least somewhat sympathetic or curious about the jw's, but for various reasons have no desire to commit to the religion.. .
I agree with you Vidiot, but I'm not talking about this new 'e-religion reboot' as you put it. That's clearly just white-washing the grave, wrapping old wine with new wineskins. It's just the latest technology to preach the same garbage. From phonographs and their own radio stations, to colour magazines, then video cassettes, DVD's, then a webpage, and now a live streaming online TV studio.
They have been in terminal decline in the West (and Japan) since the internet started and the GB seem to be floundering around about what to do about it. I think the Society is in real denial. They are haemorraghing and it's getting worse. They do not understand that the internet has permanently exposed their otherwise hidden dirty laundry and ongoing bad behaviour and errors. For the last 15 years they have been floundering about with no real idea how to reverse the decline and $$$ undoubtedly drying up.
The only thing that will stop the rot is doctrinal and policy reform.
But I agree with you that there is no sign of this coming in the near future. The sheer lunacy of their latest 'generation' teaching and the way they are highlighting the embarrassing and clearly false 1914 doctrine particularly highlights how absolutely in denial they are. Any real reform won't be coming for a long time.
does the bible have a central theme?.
there seems to be a general consensus throughout christian religions that there is a consistent theme throughout the bible.
the seeming evidence of a theme coming from a collection of books written by over 40 different authors over a period of 1500 years is what givse credence to the claim that the bible is an inspired literary work.
Yes, here it is:
[christiansincluding jwstried very hard with their evangelism among the hindus, but did not accomplish much.
because the hindus are in possession of something better.
the actual name of hindus is sanatana dharma (eternal duty) which is defined as taking delight in the welfare of all beings (bhagavat gita 12:4, 20) hindus (which literally means those who live by the sides of indus river) is a superficial and geographical name given to them later.
Religion is basically ancient ethics and norms wrapped in superstition and fables, carried on down throught time by cultural and familial tradition.
Some of those ethics were good and still stand, some were ignorant and need discarding (unless you're a member of ISIS, for example). And of course all of the fables and myths are discarded.
i came across this video ... and watched it ... why?
i don't know really, but i found it intersting.. especially interesting was how these men used the bible, they knew their message, they used an actual hard copy bible that has obviously been studied, and the older jw man, well, he was using a tablet.
it seemed cumbersome compared to using the actual bible.
Of course they're arrogant. Religious fanaticism is ultimately just a form of arrogance. The absurd audacity and contradictions replete with the idea that your religion is uniquely 'the truth' and 'you are wrong' and 'I am right'.
It's like two people on the street arguing which culture or race is superior and right.
It's childish schoolyard stuff. The human race is gradually growing out of religious despostism and fanaticism thankfully, just as it has grown out of extremist nationalism and fascism. Cliques of ignorant religious bully boys like ISIS, GB, will over time make way.
