Posts by teel

3

Watchtower Society Liberation Petition

by Bangalore in

anybody have any idea about this petition?.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/watchtower-society-liberation.

bangalore.

teel

It's only that thepetitionsite.com works that way, you can check not to have your name displayed. It's a general petiton site, they won't forward your name to the GB

1000 signatures is nothing I'm afraid, especially if they come from an online petition. Not that any amount of signatures would do anything, but I bet if there was a paper list of signatures in order of ten thousands, the GB would at least have a discussion about it. .....then they would decide the control needs to be tightened, some are slipping.

126

Australian brothers VERY negative comments regarding new "generations" ... some leaving Bethel..will this blow up in the Watchtowers face?

by Witness 007 in

a brother i spoke with from bethel to me seemed discouraged and lacking zeal latley...he spoke of leaving which shocked me since he was there for decades...he left to get a full time job!!!

it was his whole reason for living since i've known him!

others have said the new doctrine of "blended generations" of anionted seeing armagedon is "confusing" or "i just don't get it"...one brother my only close friend is furious and said i qoute..."they seem to be blowing smoke up our ass!

teel

HQ: interresting theory. I don't think it's true though. From what I understand from the Bible, God always worked on a human level, not organizational one. Don't forget that this sect is important only for us, in the greater scheme of things it's just one sect among many-many others. If your theory would be right, then we should see something along the same lines in technically all religions all around the world, or else it means this sect is indeed something special for God to give them so much attention.

No, what I think is going on is simply the GB is catering to the core audience. Just about all changes in the last 10 years or so have one (or both) of these qualifiers: 1. make it easier to stay inside the cult, and 2. strengthen the control over members. I believe this all goes down to what was mentioned on this thread too: the hardliners are what's important to them. That is actually a sound company policy for any corporation, including religious ones.

31

The goodbye I got from a Witness "friend"

by Eiben Scrood in

jw
friends

so i decided to look up an old witness friend on facebook.

he accepted my friend request but a few hours later he sent me this message:.

it seems to me that things with you have simply gone further astray.

teel

I think extreme reactions like this, or "she says I worship satan" might come from people who would like to remain your friend, but know that the org won't let them. So they go to extremes to prove to themselves they can't be friends, because you're just so bad.

Just remember the "reality check" your associates on here (such as ......) are due to receive

That "reality check" is due for at least a century now...

With all the books Watchtower Land writes, you'd think they'd write a book on friendship.

That would be on the shortest books list: "Only be friends with active JWs." The end.

39

Do you know anything about Morocco?

by asilentone in

i am going to meet attractive lady that is from morocco on july 3rd.

she teaches the language of french for living.

i do not know anything about morocco culture or anything like that.

teel

Well, I travelled once to Tunisia, and on forums I read Morocco has a similar culture. Tunisia is a muslim country, but quite liberal (as muslims go), so I expect Morocco is the same too. Women are generally treated with respect, booze is not allowed for locals, but they sell it for tourists, so at least they're not judgemental. Overall I'd say they're about as strict as a regular JW congregation . They're quite poor as a country - the CIA World Factbook says GDP per capita is $4,600 - as a comparison USA has $46,400, so an average worker makes 10 times as much in US.

What is worth mentioning is that I found them quite informal, you could just walk in a shop, strike a conversation with the owner, and ten minutes later you're the bestest friends. This feature makes them an excellent salesmen, they could literally sell ice to the eskimos, and trust me, they will most certainly try. This experience might be just me though being eastern european; I find US people quite informal too - but not really that much.

100

Where did 607 come from?

by MrFreeze in

okay so we've obviously established on this board that 607 is not the correct date that babylon destroyed jerusalem.

even before 1914 came around, the bible students still thought 1914 would be a pivital date.

the only way they can gain that info is from the 7 times or w/e.

teel

Do we give credit to other man-made sources over the Bible?

Using 537 BCE as starting point for calculating the 'Bible based' date of 607 is also giving credit to man-made sources... You can't prove 537 unless you use man-made sources; and there's just about the same amount of proof supporting 587 as it is for 539 (by which I mean both dates have huge amount of proof backing them up).

This is not a life-changing information for me

See, this is where you're wrong. It is exactly the JWs who have a high vested interrest in 607 BCE, and historians are who could not care less if it was 607 or 587.

9

Memes on JW forums

by TD in

there are several persistent misconceptions that have been repeated almost to the point where they've become common knowledge in xjw circles.

i don't know how this happens or why, but if you're going to discuss doctrine with a jw, i think it is important to understand what they believe, when they believed it and why.. i hope nobody thinks i'm being a pain in the neck for pointing these out because that's not my intent.

all the jw's i know will reject your entire line of thought if you commit even one tiny technical error regardless of whether this affects your conclusion or not.. with that in mind, here are three:.

teel

TD thanks for clearing up stuff. One more thing: is the date 537 supported at all, or is it just guesswork, that it must have took 2 years for the return trip? Because if it's a simple 'guess', I think it's safe to say they 'guessed' at 2 years to arrive at 1914, so in a sense it's still true that it's a counting backwards.

StAnn: Daniel 4:23 talks about a tree that's cut down for 7 times - acc. to JWs the antitype of the tree is Jehovah's kindgom, which is cut down in 607 (587 acc. to historians) when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. 7 times are 7 years of 360 days, which are 7*360=2520. One day for a year we get to 2520 years, counting from 607 BCE that's 1914.

100

Where did 607 come from?

by MrFreeze in

okay so we've obviously established on this board that 607 is not the correct date that babylon destroyed jerusalem.

even before 1914 came around, the bible students still thought 1914 would be a pivital date.

the only way they can gain that info is from the 7 times or w/e.

teel

debator, from your last sentence I have a feeling this topic is in over your head. There are valid explanations that conform both with the secular history and Bible history, noone here is arguing against the Bible. If you want to learn more, there are literally hundreds of threads detailing this.

5

The infamous "Zero Year" in Biblical calculations

by RubaDub in

maybe i'm being too critical and don't understand other relevant factors, but it seems very strange to me that that those who studied bibical prophesies and timelines didn't know that there was no zero year.. i mean, if you are trying to map events from the bc/bce era to the current ad/ce era wouldn't it be somewhat obvious to a scholar how the time is calculated ?.

couldn't you just find a common date on the jewish calendar before and after the zero year and compare it to today's gregorian calenadar to find the number of actual years that elapsed?.

maybe it's more complex than i understand but if you are in the business of making predictions, it seems like you should know the basics.. rub a dub.

teel

Erm... the 'celebrated WT scholars'?

Yes, this was bugging me too, they can't be that thick... for 70 odd years

16

Does it make a difference if you are kind to a witness?

by dgp in

jw
friends

just a hypothetical question.

suppose you meet someone who happens to be a jehovah's witness.

suppose you get to know how he/she lives, and, though you understand you can't do much for the person, you still show you care.

teel

It all depends on the person. If he's somewhat 'normal' he'll react like any other person, which means a little kindness can go a long way. If he's thoroughly indoctrinated, it doesn't matter how you act towards him, if you're kind he'll see it as an opportunity to witness and harass you (you're almost like a witness, you're only missing the true knowledge); if you're rude he'll see proof that he's in the true religion because of persecution.

13

Interesting experience on SL...JeHOvah's Witness and I have an encounter

by mindmelda in

jw
friends

i go to a women's discussion group on sl, second life, which is a virtual community where you do all sorts of things, including entertainment, discussion groups, media, and just socializing through the use of animated avatars which can be quite realistically human or whatever you want them to be, really, aliens, elves, dragons, vampires, etc.. anyway, a woman there brought to the discussion a situation where she had her real life husband wants to divorce her for a witness woman he had met..and get this...she had come to his door after the couple separated and offered him a bible study, and apparently instead, it turned into a romance and then, according to the woman, her husband and this woman are hitting the sheets.

(you're not supposed to call on the opposite sex alone, and do doubt this is one reason...too many lonely witness women who'd jump on the first piece of dude they meet!

lol).

teel

seems like second life is supporting an undeniable double life....

It's the definition of Second Life, it's even in its name... I wonder if Second Life has a Second God, who thinks ho's are cool.

Mindmelda, reading the topic title I thought for a minute JWs have started doing door to door (or sim to sim?) service in SL. Now that would be something... The exhortation was always to look for people where they can be found. And SL has more users than many small countries.