LeeT

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Posts by LeeT

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  7

  Are Watchtower library CD's of any use.

  by still wondering in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i have 8 watchtower library cd's from 1997 to 2009 and barbara anderson's "secrets of paedophilia" cd which i no longer require.

  .

  if anyone wants them in the uk please let me know and i will send them for free rather than dump them..

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  LeeT

  I'd guess they are now junk as they can all be downloaded from
  AvoidJW Watchtower Library Downloads (1995 to 2016)
  
  
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  18

  Narrowly focused, sometimes illiterate

  by vienne in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  three of my sisters - there are five of us - were baptized as witnesses.

  one of them has gone from reading voraciously to only reading her textbooks and watchtower publications.

  this does not seem to be unusual among witnesses.

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  LeeT

  JW's might have a moderate amount of reading to do, yet in their desire to reach as large an audience as possible, they've made sure they dumb down the material to a remarkably low required reading age.
  Try putting a few sample JW articles through an online readability scorer and compare the results to other non-JW material.
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  34

  Why did Jehovah Kill all the animals in the flood? What purpose did it serve??

  by pistolpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  some of my jw family that is waking up posed that question to my jw family that is still hanging on to jw belief.. the stepbrother that posed that question told me;.

  "in all these years of being a jw, i actually never gave it much thought as to why jehovah had to kill millions of innocent animals that had nothing to do with mankind becoming evil.".

  i keep picturing in my mind, all the baby puppies and kitties that were destroyed by jehovah.

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  LeeT

  I like to try the following on flood believers.
  
  Think back before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, when God consulted Abraham on how to deal with the townsfolk.
  Imagine before the flood that God had consulted you in a similar way. Only this time he had determined already that all the people and animals not destined for the Ark must die. He asks your opinion about two options.
  a) Poof the humans and animals instantly and painlessly out of existence
  or
  b) Drown them in a flood, creating panic to avoid the rising waters followed by a slow drowning.
  Which would you suggest God does and why?
  
  I've never got a straight answer.
  The natural inclination is to go for option a) but knowing God chose b) creates a reluctance to choose a course of action other than that which God chooses. Yet choosing option b) is difficult to justify in the "why" part of the question.
  
  It is fun pitting somebody's morals against those of their God and seeing them squirm. It might not produce good answers but it does create dissonance.
  
  As a follow up you can try:
  Do you think a perfect God created just the right amount of suffering in the flood, any more or any less being somehow suboptimal for his plans?
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  6

  The Documentary Hypothesis and the 20th century trap.

  by HowTheBibleWasCreated in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this post will be for the schoolars amoung us.. in the late 19th century were many of the worlds best scientists.

  darwin, faraday, testla, edison etc.

  and amoung them wasa lone archeologist named william albright who screwed up biblical schoolarship for over a hundred years.. before albright schoolars in europe hit on several conclusions about the bible:.

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  LeeT

  HTBWC

  The NT I haven't dealt with yet
  

  Can I give you an added resource and point you in the direction of a channel I've been loving of late?

  Podcast Episodes (NT Review)
  

  Both Duke Uni PhD candidates under Mark Goodacre and in close contact with Ehrman.
  The basic format has been expanded a bit of late but the core of the channel has been to dust off old but influential pieces of NT scholarship and see how they stand up today.
  Being under Goodacre, there are also quite a few synoptic problem discussions too (largely coming down against Q).
  They are believers but it really doesn't show. They definitely take the view that the Bible is the work of fallible humans and as historians they do history,
  
  Hope you like it.
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  6

  Any info on Jim Cleary please?

  by a_different_JC in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  for personal reasons i would like to hear of any information related to previous co james (jim) cleary.

  initially served as an elder in marple and went on to serve as co in the north of england i believe .

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  LeeT

  Jim Cleary is a familiar name from my youth (Hyde and Ashton congs 1980-1987).

  Sorry, I've no idea what came of him.
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  12

  Study Book

  by Ding in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  what is the watchtower's current study book?.

  is it what does the bible really teach?.

  is it what can the bible teach us?.

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  LeeT

  was it just for kids? I can’t remember.
  

  Given the low required reading age of all their publications, aren't they all kid's books (maybe excepting the Insight and the Shepherding the Flock books)?
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  8

  What if the Christian version of the End of the World came an hour from now?

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the next thing i knew, i was knee deep in conversation with a seminary student covering two thousand years of religious history.

  damn, how did that happen?i won’t bore you with lavish details.

  in fact, i only mention the incident for one reason.i'm no smarter than anybody - but i've had way too much practice chatting with eager christian seminary students.i posed a couple of questions i’d never done before which seemed to stop this fella dead in his tracks.

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  LeeT

  Your question reminded me of the "poof or drown" question often posed by Doug (PineCreek Youtube channel) which is set in Noah's flood.

  God consults you about these people that must die. Do you advise God to poof them painlessly and instantly out of existence or do you suggest a drawn out and terrifying death by drowning in a flood, along with innocent animals?

  Say poof and you're suggesting God took the wrong course. Choose drown and your only excuse is probably that we are feeble minded imperfect humans and God is omniscient and all loving so must have good reasons, whatever they were.

  It leads into all sorts of questions on the Euthyphro dilemma.
  Are things good just because that is what God would do? That sounds like "might makes right" and God can pick and choose his own moral standards. I think Hitchen's compared this to the celestial North Korea style love of the Great Leader.
  Alternatively, does God only choose to make decisions which are morally right in any case, independently of what course he chooses? If so, why can't we figure out a good moral code without God's guidance?

  The poof or drown question has already been discussed on ExJW Reddit.
  Reddit - Poof or Drown

  PineCreek with Greg Koukl on Poof or Drown
  
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  37

  Jehovah’s Witnesses Sue Owners of FaithLeaks for Posting 74 Convention Movies

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/jehovahs-witnesses-sue-faithleaks-owners-over-convention-videos .

  https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/01/jehovahs-witnesses-sue-owners-of-faithleaks-for-posting-74-convention-movies/.

  the watch tower bible and tract society of pennsylvania, which oversees the jehovah’s witnesses, is suing the truth and transparency foundation and its founders ryan c. mcknight and ethan g. dodge alleging copyright infringement..

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  LeeT

  The file structure takes some wading through but there are a lot of English (and other languages) resources available here too.
  http://da-ip.getmyip.com/PDF/
  
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  21

  Number of Kingdom Halls Worldwide

  by wachttorenkijker in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  how many kingdom halls are there worldwide?

  even better how many in the years 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019.. i'm asking this to get a picture of the total real estate owning of the jw and how this become to the money-cow in these days..

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  LeeT

  I've just checked the spreadsheet I made from field service data in the Year Books and at the website but Hall Numbers isn't something I've tracked.
  One thing to bear in mind might be the closure and sale of high-value Western halls being replaced by low-value halls in lower-income countries where the growth is.
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  15

  The purpose of conversion testimonies and stories

  by LeeT in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a hunch has just struck me.we get frequent accounts in the literature and videos of people whose dysfunctional lived have been turned around by studying with the jw's and coming to belief in the org (sorry, jehovah).

  evangelical type christian groups also use similar testimony stories.here's the hunch:the purpose of these is quite different among jw's compared to other religions.other groups use these testimonies primarily to persuade non-believers.the jw's use them to reinforce the beliefs of those already in the "truth.

  "any thoughts?.

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  LeeT

  Yes, I get that the point is to reach straight for the heart and bypass the brain.
  It's the target audience aspect I'm thinking of.