http://jwfacts.com/images/millions_rutherford.jpg
Note the text at the left-side bottom. Here Rutherford himself states that it is to be taken literally.
i attended the regional convention (district convention) over the last weekend, and thought i would spend a few minutes putting down some thoughts, for your amusement.
i will bounce around a bit, as my notes and thoughts were a little craaaaazy.. we met at one of the smaller venues on the west coast, with attendance around 7,000.
(28 baptized.... <.04%) we were tied in to the international convention in arlington, tx.. my first thought, only about 2 hours in, was how much this sounded like a plain old sales meeting!
http://jwfacts.com/images/millions_rutherford.jpg
Note the text at the left-side bottom. Here Rutherford himself states that it is to be taken literally.
its interesting to find out that there is no evidence of king david or his son solomon.
what about this amazing temple that solomon supposedly built??
there is no arcylogical evidence that it ever excisted either.
How rich was Solomon and where did it came from? i.e. how much gold and silver did he use to built the temple? How big was the temple? (size and volume?) compare the two. Check the gold production between 1492 and 1700 in Spain as compared to the absolute deplorable state of the mineral deposits in Israel and compare it the world power Egypt....... Use the bible text and do the math.
When Solomon built the temple he used iron, silver and gold. 1 Chron 22:14. A talent of gold was 34,2 kilo's with a density of 19.2 kilo's per liter.
100.000 talents of gold* 34,2 kilo's = 3.420.000 kilo's = 176.288 liter (1000 liter = 1m³) 176 m³ ...... = 5 * 5 * 5 meters of solid gold. or clothed walls with a thickness of 2 mm = 0,002 m * 20 meters high * 4400 meters long.
In current dollars that would be:
120,636,949.867632 * gold price per Oz. Comex Gold price: 1,608 = $ 194 billion. That almost equals the amount of all home owners in the US to maintain, alter their houses in 2005.
Or to put it into perspective: The below item had a modest costs of only 1.5 billion.
Israel/ Palestine is to poor on resources. So these had to be imported. The bible handbook says this amount of gold is 3x the amount of gold produced in the period: 1492 - 1700 by Spain (this includes the complete sacking of all Inca and Aztec temples stacked with gold)
1,000,000 talents of silver * 34.2 = 34,200,000 kilo's.....I don't even want to go into this. This 3,100 m³ is more than the volume of the temple itself.
1,206,369,498.67632 Oz * $ 28.74 = 34.671 billion
So, not counting the stone and masonry, transport, labor, the expensive wood from the Lebanon: the initial costs is about 270 billion $ is today's currency and value.
Now that is a stimulus package avant la lettre.
But to break it really down:
Topping the list is another Las Vegas structure, Wynn Las Vegas. Built in 2005, the building comes with a stunning $2.7 billion price tag. It is the world’s most expensive resort. There’s even a Ferrari-Maserati dealership on site. It’s famous nightclub, Tryst, has a towering waterfall and its own lake.
Ok. For the sake of argument. Let's try another. Surely the later stories are more believable and exact, right?
Point number 4:
How many animals were slaughtered at the dedication of the temple? What does that mean in logistical terms? How to get those animals there in Jerusalem. How to dispose of the less desirable items? What would you need to burn such an amount of carcasses? How did the Nazis try to solve that puzzle? Read the bible text and do the math.
Solomon sacrificed 2,000 oxen and 120 thousand sheep..........well rather massacred them in just 7 days. In 7 days they were able to burn 142,000 carcasses and disposed of the dirty stuff. 7 days * 24 hours a day = 168 hours. 845 carcasses per hour. That would indicate the complete burning of a carcass every 4 seconds.................
This is taken from: http://www.strategy-ec.co.uk about burning of carcasses along the lines of European regulations when the mad cows disease struck:
Intervention Costs:
Equipment Hire of machinery and equipment.
Consumables To destroy 250 carcasses the following are required; 250 railway sleepers, 250 bales of straw, 6.250 kg of kindling wood, 50.750 kg of coal, 1 gallon of diesel oil per metre length of pyre.
Operator time Time to prepare pyres varies with the machinery and workforce available. Pyres burn continuously for 2 to 3 days.
Just imagine those Jerusalem nike wearing sheepherders doing this ... So, where the EU had pyres burning for say 2.5 days for 250 carcasses, they did it in 4 seconds. Miracle! right?
Here's something about the waste: every 1000 kilo's of animal produces about 350 kilo of ash. Say an average sheep weighs 40 kilo. 120,000 sheep would therefore yield: 120,000 * 40 = 4,800,000 / 1,000 kilo * 350 = 1,680,000 kilo's of ash. Let's assume a density of 636 kg per m³. = 2,641 m³ .......... Let's imagine a hill with a base of 20 by 20 meters. It would be 60 meters high!
the society has improved their game.
i just got home from the regional assembly.
it was a well-choreographed, technically excellent affair.
Do you mean they tickled your ears?
2 tim 4:3 - You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages.
the introduction & conclusion to this video is in german, but david splanes' words are loud and clear in english - get your kid baptized asap!.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h33pwdsuvlq&feature=youtu.be.
.
If the organization really wanted to stick to the Bible, they would NOT be baptizing minors.
Acts 8:12, shows "Men and Women" not " Boys and Girls" getting baptized. And of course Jesus who set the perfect example for us and was baptized at the age of adulthood back then - 30 years old.
But they are a CULT and if they don't get them young, they will not get them at all. It is better to have a few drops sprinkled on your head as baby - infant baptism, but without any consequences.
"If you judge your success as a religion by the number of baptisms performed, and the group with the greatest percentage growth in baptisms is kids who aren’t old enough to know what the hell they’re doing, you should crawl into a corner and rethink your life’s work."
i can honestly say that although still in, i have lost the fear of wts dooms day version and in all sincerity i don't care what others inside the cult think of me.
at first i was mad of being lied to, i was sad that paradise is not coming, and i felt fear of death.
i happy to report, that i am now at peace with my eventual mortality and i am enjoying every second i have while i am alive.. .
Atheist with complete closure - online mainly to help others.
did you loath them?
did you feel it was a "privilege" to have the elders care deeply about your spiritual well being?
if you were an elder or ministerial servant, did you enjoy going to the homes of the sheep?.
In all my time as a JW (almost 40 years) I can recall three shepherding visits:
1. To discuss my questionable choice of music and my attending a hard-rock concert and subsequently deleting me.
2. To instruct us to keep our child quiet at meetings and instruct us to not spare the rod - we told the elders to leave.
3. During our fade to understand why our meeting attendance was minimal and why we had become inactive.
There were kind and loving elders, but as we were generally the average family without problems, I understood that they had their busy lives.
i recently did just that and had an unexpectedly uplifting experience.
whilst on vacay i was informed by my jw friend (only dimly aware of my faded status) that wed be visiting the local kh .
so there i was, far from home, not been to a kh in over a year and heading to the sunday meeting.
Interesting about the IPads. One of the last CO talks when I was still in, was a half hour listening to why we were not supposed to have printouts of scriptures at the meetings - though writing them in the WT was okay. We were supposed to use the NWT (now no longer valid if it is not silver) at all times. What a BS...Must have been a surreal experience.
had a vacation planned for august, but got the rug pulled out from under my feet.
hubby said he wanted to go in september, but gave me no reason.
i finally told him i knew he had to pioneer in august.
30 hours of knocking on doors with nobody at home - as they are all on vacation.
It would actually be more effective to give some informal witnessing on your vacation address - not that people are waiting for that...
i didn't go to the convention but have family who did, all are going on about the resurrection talk, how there wasn't a dry eye in the arena.
and apparently a video was shown too on it.
we lost a family member some years back and they are on fb talking about the resurrection and new world coming soon.
Sunday Morning 09:40 Anticipate Future Kingdom Blessings
VIDEO (on screen): Daughter watches mother die in hospital. She then reflects on pictures and memories she had. Then it shows the future when she is resurrected. Delight to know there will be welcoming home sessions in store in paradise for our loved ones.
i'm pretty sure it is, just wanted to confirm.
this would be someone who went once and only looked....
Brazen Conduct