Posts by simon17

27

Grandma died this morning...satan sucks

by Joliette in

this is what a jw's said on her facebook page this morning?

i was like, soooo, satan caused your grandmother to die?.

simon17

Okay, so when someone dies, is it just imperfection, human's fault, satan's fault or God?

Well that depends on what you believe in the first place. I find peace in that it is no ones fault. Its an inherent truth of the universe that we know. Cells die. Animals die. Humans die. Species die. Planets die. Suns burn out and die. Galaxies collide and smash each other to smithereens. It's a depressing and empty thought but one that makes so much sense from a rational standpoint that I've stopped letting my emotions get the best of me anymore.

27

Grandma died this morning...satan sucks

by Joliette in

this is what a jw's said on her facebook page this morning?

i was like, soooo, satan caused your grandmother to die?.

simon17

The inventor is responsible because the gun or airplane wouldnt be here if it werent for them designing it.

The airplane or gun didnt ask to be here...

That clearly isn't correct. I dont think I heard anyone blame Orville and Wilbur Wright for 9/11. They made it *possible* for the misuse of their invention, but they are certainly not at all responsible for its misuse.

Now, if somehow the Wright brothers were physically capable of stopping every single airplane related tragedy while allowing all the benefits of air travel to continue, and decided (for whatever random reason), not to stop any of those tragedies.... THEN you might start putting some blame on them.

16

Need Help Forming a Cohesive Argument

by StAnn in

mr. st. ann and i were talking tonight about "theocratic warfare" and the concept that jws say that it's okay to lie to some people because not everybody is entitled to the truth.. mr. st. ann said two things, one of which was, "isn't lying against the ten commandments?

" then he said, "didn't jesus say that satan is the father of the lie?

so if jws are taught by their god that lying is okay for religious reasons, doesn't that make satan their god?

simon17

You're never going to win an argument on such a nit-picky little subject IMO. Situation lying is going to be described as not lying but just hiding the truth. In that effect its like self-defense. Jehovah hates violence but if someone is beating you to death you can clearly defend yourself against the one taking evil action on you. It is only in extreme situations of defending one's spiritual self from harm that one can defend against satan's system by 'hiding the truth.'

Not only do I think you'd never get a JW to be "trapped" or "second-guess themselves" based on this approach, but I think a pretty fair argument can be made that lying in extreme cases of the threat of severe physical/spiritual harm makes sense anyway..,

22

The fascinating mind of ANSELM (the man who proved God exists)

by Terry in

that one thing, of course, exists through itself, and so it is greater than all the other things.

so that than which nothing greater can be thought exists in the understanding.

but if it exists in the understanding, it must also exist in reality.

simon17

1.In all existing things there must be a supremely good, almost as good, good and less than good among them.

Imagine what Plato would have to say about such a proof! First of all, define goodness. Next define what one would have to do to qualify as being in one of the four "classes" of goodness (or is it a continuum of goodness levels with only 4 cited just to randomly say that some one thing must be the most good of all).

2.Thus, all things are good in some degree. In that degree their goodness is derrived from the most supremely good among them.

Now why would that be? Why would several objects with varying levels of an attribute have to all derive their levels of that attribute from the object it is expressed greatest in? Thats like saying every human's intelligence is derived from Stephen Hawking.

This whole argument could be approcahed just as absurdly from evil. Everything is either surprmely evil, very evil, doctor evil, or not so evil. So everyone is somewhat evil. So clearly we all get our evilness from the most evil person in the universe. Duh?

21

Have any of you asked your JW family why they started the kool-aid edition?

by serenitynow! in

i mean really asked why after all these years they don't want the public to see the study articles?.

has anyone ever challenged a jw to give the private wt to "worldly" people?.

i've asked my mom why they have the private edition and she gave me some crap about not having to explain terms or teachings to worldly people, then she kind of blew me off like it wasn't an important issue.

simon17

The answer is pretty obvious: Its a tremendous money-saving arrangement, and one that makes a lot more sense than what they used to do. Now they only need to print 3 WTs a month instead of 4 so right away they cut 25% of their costs. Plus the study edition is a lot less "fancy" in terms of pictures, etc so that is probably easier too. They really should have done that a long time ago IMO.

25

They didnt leave because of doctrine-they left BECAUSE OF THEMSELVES!

by Joliette in

this is an actually quote made by a district overseer at a convention in dekalb illinois in august of 2008...yep, no joking, swear on a holy bible...he actually said that.

just thought about the quote and thought i should post it to share it with the fellow 'apostates' (sarcasm)..

simon17

I've heard it in a slightly more obnoxious form: "No JW ever left over doctrine. The only leave because of conduct." I know a lot of people who have been encouraged by that thought and seen it as "proof" of it being the truth.

Of course that is easy to claim because anyone who leaves over doctrine can never be spoken to so who can disprove the claim.

35

Why DO Horrible Things Happen, Anyway?

by Farkel in

the insane things that occur to people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time is scary and creepy to me.

a little girl is holding her teddy bear and as a coincidence is tragically on that same street when a bunch of gang-bangers decide to stage a gun fight because someone looked cross-eyed at one of their girl friends (you mamy insert any other bullshit reason here), so they start shooting and the little girl is shot and killed because she is innocently in their cross-fire.

when captured and arrested, the gang-bangers says they are "sorry" for snuffing out the life of that little girl.

simon17

"JEHOVAH's WITNESSES: No shit happens until Armageddon."

I think it should more be along the lines of... "God allows shit to proove he's boss"

68

Women as weaker vessel - explain?

by Libelle in

ok, the mr. constantly rolls his eyes and tells me i just don't understand anytime any of his literature shows up with something along the lines of "women are the weaker vessel.

" apparently (at least in his own little mind), it does not mean women are these delicate, breakable, weaker things, but something else... something more subtle.

anytime he's ever explained it to me (which has been a few years, i reckon), it's come out sounding like reason for women being second class citizens... is he just putting his own spin on it?

simon17

I always looked it in terms of two things:

1) On average, women are physically weaker than men. Thats clear and there's no point giving crazy counter-examples like a 6'5" basketball player. In general, this is true.

2) Child birth obviously takes a lot of endurance, probably more than a lot of men have. IMO, its more that women have a lot of difficult physical/emotional burdens to carry (like child birth, monthly periods, menopause, etc) that is going to tax them physically/emotionally and they may need to draw some of the man's "strength" during those times because the man doesn't have to go through all that.

I have no issue with the "weaker vessel" part. When you extend that to "a man is head over the women like Christ over the congregation" maybe its a little tougher to explain away as not trying to make women 2nd class citizens.

17

6000 / 7000- Numbers Without a Scripture

by OnTheWayOut in

freddy franz working as the main writer/oracle under the knorr administration, came up with these very magic numbers.

he said that mankind would be 6000 years old in 1975, despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.

more importantly- somehow, he made people believe that 6000 was a magical number, necessitating the destruction of more than 99% of mankind that year even without a single scripture in his new bible (which he wrote).. oh, you may say there's scriptures that say 1000 years is as a day to god, but we aren't talking about a day or 1000 years.

simon17

6000 was a special number because given that Babylon was destroyed in 537 BCE, the chronology of the lengths of kings rules and patriarchs lives can be added all the way back to the year that Adam was born. Of course they originally messed up the numbers but adding wrong somehow but in general there is about 6000 years of human history according to simple counting of Bible chronology. 6000+1000 year reign (again clearly mentioned) = 7000. Then from that he made up the nonsense about lengths of creative days and blah blah blah but the numbers aren't pulled out of nowhere (Biblically speaking)

39

Birthday Celebrations & other shenanigans

by homeschool in

well, here's my latest "thing"...i plan on speaking with my siblings & their mates in the near future.

i have told them that i have questions regarding some doctrines, mainly stuff like birthdays, mother's day, father's day, etc.

my hubby has some questions for them regarding their wacky blood doctrine (but i wont cover that in this thread).

simon17

you'll never get anywhere with this argument. Taking the Bible as God's word, there is just no way to definitely proove that birthdays are approved or disapproved. So why even bother getting into the argument at all?

I'd go for this: "Look at the circumstantial evidence you have. Compare it to things like anniversaries and such. If, hypothetically, as has happened in the past, the WTBS came out tomorrow and said "you know we're chaning our stance on birthdays because there is really not direct condemnation in the scriptures" would that bother you?"

If no: argument over. its an organizational rule that is nothing to do with the Bible

If yes: "you would take a stand against the WTBS? What would you tell the elders as your reason for disagreeing with the FDS?"