The Finger said: "Djeggnog, lol!"
It's frustrating isn't it? What do you say to someone who can stare incontrovertible fact in the face and totally ignore it? If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry.
Posts by Essan
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269Have your JW Relatives Explained about Generation/Overlap Change to You ?
by flipper inafter reading on the way out's thread about his mom explaining the generation overlap to him it kicked this idea into my head to make this thread .
i thought it would be helpful to see if anybody here has had jw relatives or friends try to explain this " generation overlap " theory to you as a faded or inactive witness and what happened in the conversations.
so please feel free to post your experiences.
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269
Have your JW Relatives Explained about Generation/Overlap Change to You ?
by flipper inafter reading on the way out's thread about his mom explaining the generation overlap to him it kicked this idea into my head to make this thread .
i thought it would be helpful to see if anybody here has had jw relatives or friends try to explain this " generation overlap " theory to you as a faded or inactive witness and what happened in the conversations.
so please feel free to post your experiences.
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Essan
Djeggnog,
So, you aren't willing/able to discern from the quotes that I left that Russell taught that Jesus "invisible coming" would be in 1914. It's bizarre to me that you can't discern it from those quotes, but no matter. I'll hand feed you some more, seeing as you won't bother to research it yourself.
You said: "To my knowledge, the Watchtower has never taught that the invisible coming of Christ began in 1914. Never."
Well seeing as your "knowledge" has already proven to be so deeply flawed, you'd think you simply ask for more specific information, of find it yourself, rather than presuming - once again - to teach and make bold claims out of sheer ignorance. So, I have a question for you. If Russell didn't predict that Jesus "coming" would be in 1914. Then when?
There is a simple way to settle this actually. Does Jesus "invisible coming" occur just before/at Armageddon?
" God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power." 2 Thess 1:6-9.
So, if Armageddon was predicted by Russell to have finished by the end of 1914, and Jesus would to be ruling the earth by then, when must he have been teaching Jesus would "come"?
"...the battle of the great day of God Almighty, the date of the close of that "battle" is definitely marked in Scripture as October 1914. - Zion's Watch Tower 1892 January 15 p.23
" In this chapter we will present the Bible evidence proving that the full end of the times of the Gentiles, i.e., the full end of their lease of dominion, will be reached in A.D. 1914; and that date will be the farthest limit of the rule of imperfect men...Firstly, That at that date the Kingdom of God, for which our Lord taught us to pray, saying, "Thy Kingdom come,"will obtain full, universal control, and that it will then be "set up," or firmly established, in the earth, on the ruins of present institutions. Secondly, It will prove that he whose right it is thus to take the domination will then be present as earth’s new Ruler..." - The Time Is at Hand (SS-2), 1907 ed., p. 76-78
Would you have us believe that Russell taught that the long prayed for "Kingdom would come" in 1914, in it's fullest possible sense, in the earth, but that Jesus would somehow not have "come"? Or that he taught that Christ was present as king from 1874, and that he would also "then be present", in 1914, "as earths new Ruler", but was somehow not stating that this was when he would "come". Rubbish.
So this matter is settled. Agreed? Russell taught that Jesus invisible coming would be in 1914. Unless you are claiming that Russell taught that the Tribulation would end, Christendom would be destroyed, all Governments destroyed, Armageddon would be over, Christ's Kingdom would be in complete and direct control of the earth - all by late 1914 - but, somehow, he didn't claim that Jesus would have "come" by 1914? If so, that would be insanity.
But, seeing as even explicit statements seem incomprehensible to you, we'll continue until it penetrates even your fogged mind.
You claim that Russell never taught that Jesus "invisible coming" was to be in 1914. But you also say: "but Jesus' coming will not occur until after the "great tribulation" when all of the political kingdoms turn on all religions, including ours, which will be then be followed by "the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels," IOW, it is after the great tribulation that Jesus' coming begins. (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)
So, you give the markers for identifying when this "invisible coming" must begin: The tribulation ends, religion is attacked, and at that point "Jesus coming begins", Armageddon concludes, His Rulership is established in the earth. Yes?
This, you say, was never taught by Russell as being in 1914. Let's see:
"The seventh trumpet sounds from Aug. 1840, until "the time of trouble," [Great Tribulation] or day of wrath is ended. Hence, it doubtless ends with the times of the Gentiles, and this forty years of conquest; and therefore, sounds until A. D. 1914; at the end of which, Babylon the great, will have fallen, and the "dragon" be bound: that is, the nations will be subdued, and "the prince of this world cast out."" Three Worlds and The Harvest of This World (1877) p.143
" 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble" [Great Tribulation] . - The Watchtower Reprints, July 15, 1894, p. 1677
"And, with the end of A.D. 1914, what God calls Babylon, and what men call Christendom, will have passed away, as already shown in prophecy." Studies In the Scriptures Series III - Thy Kingdom Come (1891) p.153
"October, 1914, will witness the full end of Babylon, "as a great millstone cast into the sea," utterly destroyed as a system." Watch Tower 1911 June 15 p.190
Here are all the elements you mentioned, pinned on 1914 by Russell! So if the tribulation, according to Russell, ends at the close of 1914 with the destruction of Babylon, and the close of Armageddon, then as you say: "it is after the great tribulation that Jesus' coming begins.", so how did Russell NOT predict this "coming" for the end of 1914?
Could Jesus be ruling the earth in 1914, and yet not already have "invisibly come"?
"SETTING UP THE EARTHLY GOVERNMENT ---- Not until the full end of Gentile Times (October, A.D. 1914) should we expect the earthly phase of God's Kingdom; for in giving a lease of dominion to the Gentiles until that date God made no mistake and his plans alter not. The earthly phase of the Kingdom of God when set up will be Israelitish; for such is God's engagement or covenant with Abraham and his natural seed." Studies In the Scriptures Series IV - The Day of Vengeance pp.624,625
"It will prove that before that date God's Kingdom, organized in power, will be in the earth and then smite and crush the Gentile image (Dan. 2:34)-and fully consume the power of these kings." - Studies In the Scriptures Series II - The Time Is at Hand (1889) pp.77, 78 *
"True, it is expecting great things to claim, as we do, that within the coming twenty-six years all present governments will be overthrown and dissolved. In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished at the end of A. D. 1914." Studies In the Scriptures Series II - The Time Is At Hand (1889) pp.99, 101
"A. D. 1914, when the day of wrath will be passed, and the resurrection and return of the "whole house of Israel" due." Three Worlds and The Harvest of This World (1877) p.166
"The beginning of the earthly phase of the Kingdom in the end of A.D. 1914 will, we understand, consist wholly of the resurrected holy ones of olden time-from John the Baptizer back to Abel-"Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the holy prophets." Studies In the Scriptures Series IV - The Day of Vengeance p.62
DJ, you'd think after being proven wrong repeatedly about what Russell taught that you'd at least pause for thought, but no. Your kamikaze tactic seems to be to make repeated false claims, and when they are disproven, narrow the claim ever further. Don't you see the pattern? Don't you find this embarrassing? Clearly you intent is to defend the Society rather than learn the truth.
What's fascinating about your response in your last post is this:
The four WT statements I quoted in my last post are all false. They are Watchtower lies about what Russell taught. The Society's literature of the time proves them all to be totally false. The fascinating thing is that you don't care about that, YOU DON"T CARE THAT THE WATCHTOWER LIES! And your 'defense' is actually, "Well those aren't the particular lies I was talking about, I was talking about a very specific claimed lie and you haven't proved that one".
This is no defense. It shows you don't care that you religion lies to it's members. And now that lie has been proven false too.
*Studies In the Scriptures Series II - The Time Is at Hand (1889) pp.77, 78 claimed seven things would happen in 1914. Not one of these eventuated. The following statements are extracted from that list;
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- 1. "the disintegration of the rule of imperfect men. at that date the Kingdom of God, for which our Lord taught us to pray, saying, "Thy Kingdom come," will begin to assume control, and that it will then shortly be "set up," or firmly established, in the earth, on the ruins of present institutions."
2. He whose right it is thus to take the dominion will then be present as earth's new Ruler; and not only so, but it will also prove that he will be present for a considerable period before that date;
3. the last member of the divinely recognized Church of Christ, the "royal priesthood," "the body of Christ," will beglorified with the Head;
4. Jerusalem shall no longer be trodden down
5. Israel's blindness will begin to be turned away
6. the great "time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation," will reach its culmination in a world-wide reign of anarchy
7. It will prove that before that date God's Kingdom, organized in power, will be in the earth and then smite and crush the Gentile image (Dan. 2:34)-and fully consume the power of these kings."
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139
Atheist believe there is no God? Yes we do, strongly!
by bohm inthere seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
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Essan
"anyway, off to bed"
Hey, you're not the boss of me! I can stay up as long as I want.
Alright, alright. I'm going!
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Video- JW Stutters a Presentation and Partner Stands Silent
by OnTheWayOut inhere's a video that shows how they just go through the motions.
one jw is totally not the type to do the door-to-door work, yet he stutters through it and the partner knows it ain't her turn so she offers no help.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c93fpl84gvs.
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Essan
"...Some as evangelizers..." That's what the Bible says. But the Society - the publishing company - says different, so people clearly unsuited to do the work have to get out on the streets and push those magazines too, or be seem as weak and treated like second class citizens.
He probably hates every second and feels deeply humiliated. It probably feels like torture. It will probably destroy him eventually. But he has no real choice.
Sick.
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What's your agnostic number? (Atheists and Christians are Agnostics rounded to the nearest integer)
by pirata ina christian believes that there's 100% (1) possibility that there is a god.. an atheist believes that there's 0% (0) possibility that there is a god.. the perfectly balanced agnostic feel's that there's a 50% (0.5) possibility that god exists.
various environmental factors cause agnostics to to lean to one side or the other, and possibly round to the nearest integer.. what's your current number?.
i think i'm currently a 0.3..
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Essan
"they could simply not understand why noone laughed because they could proove it was funny."
That's the funniest part of all! LOL Maybe that is what the sketch should have been. :)
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Atheist believe there is no God? Yes we do, strongly!
by bohm inthere seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
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Essan
Well, rather like the original idea that a rather obscure scientific usage of "belief" was somehow adopted unknowingly by all the worlds atheists, the idea that the notion of "degrees of belief" from a particular field of science has been adopted by all scientists and dictates their usage of the word "belief" would also have to be proven. Then, that they also used it in the context of "believing" in God's nonexistence would have to proven, and finally, if all this can be proven, we are back to the problem of explaining how this usage would have been adopted unknowingly by all Atheists.
I just found a quote by some guy called Crispin Sartwell which sums up my view of the issue you discuss in your last post.
"So I arrive at a final move: I will simply bite the bullet. There are no degrees of belief. This view was famously defended by Newman in An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. (What Newman terms `assent,' I call `belief.' `Assent,' however, is felicitous; it relentlessly emphasizes the verific orientation of belief.) He writes: "We might as well talk of degrees of truth as of degrees of assent." And in a passage that anticipates several of the dominant themes of this book, he writes: "if assent is acceptance of truth, and truth is the proper object of the intellect, and no one can hold conditionally what he holds to be true, here too is a reason for saying that assent is an adhesion without reserve or doubt to the proposition which is given" (114).
Now this seems to contradict the obvious fact that there are degrees of commitment involved in belief. But Newman suggests an admirably clear solution to this problem, one that I have already mentioned in passing. To "partly" or "conditionally" or "to some extent" believe that p is not in fact to believe p at all, but to believe the proposition, for example, that p is more probable than not. And one believes that proposition unconditionally. At the heart of each tentative belief, there is a belief that is held with no tentativeness, although the object of that belief is not p, but a proposition that embeds p. As Newman says: "certainly, we familiarly use such phrases as a half-assent, as we also speak of half-truths; but a half-assent is not a kind of assent any more than a half-truth is a kind of truth. As the object is indivisible, so is the act" (116)." -
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What's your agnostic number? (Atheists and Christians are Agnostics rounded to the nearest integer)
by pirata ina christian believes that there's 100% (1) possibility that there is a god.. an atheist believes that there's 0% (0) possibility that there is a god.. the perfectly balanced agnostic feel's that there's a 50% (0.5) possibility that god exists.
various environmental factors cause agnostics to to lean to one side or the other, and possibly round to the nearest integer.. what's your current number?.
i think i'm currently a 0.3..
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Essan
"(to clarify for those who has a life: e is a trancedental number, and in something called measure theory the rational numbers has measure 0 with the usual topology on the real interval [0, 1])."
I bet you're a hoot at parties
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139
Atheist believe there is no God? Yes we do, strongly!
by bohm inthere seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
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Essan
Hi Mad Dawg,
Bohm is as tenacious as I am but he has shown a lot of patience and kept his cool too, never being rude, which is a rare and welcome thing. :)
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139
Atheist believe there is no God? Yes we do, strongly!
by bohm inthere seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
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Essan
No, no need to delve into the Matrix LOL.
I think my point was to indicate my views on 'probability'.
Investigations into probability, much like those of quantum physics, reveal how much we don't and can't know, as well as how much that we formerly thought impossible could well be possible or - possibly LOL - inevitable. They confirm my agnosticism rather than lead me to conclusions. I feel that paradox and unknowing are the closest we have come to "Truth" and that 'the more we learn the less we know'.
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139
Atheist believe there is no God? Yes we do, strongly!
by bohm inthere seem to have been a strong increase in entymological arguments lately, more precisely regarding the term atheist.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/198111/1/lets-settle-this-for-once-and-for-all-is-atheism-a-belief-a-non-belief-or-an-anti-belief.
i have reread the thread and i think i see where it goes very wrong.
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Essan
LOL. Maybe that's why I keep getting slapped by women.
Actually, when you said that you weren't a native English speaker that got me thinking and something suddenly occurred to me. English is very strange, as you say. So strange that I can see one meaning of "believe" that may have confused you especially if you derived an understanding of it from a dictionary rather than a native English speaker. You may or may not be aware of this already but I thought I'd mention it in case it is the source of our disagreement.
Believe can sometimes be used to indicate almost the exact opposite of it's primary meaning. It's rarely used by Americans I think (although I'm sure they would understand it) but is used in England sometimes but it's a slightly archaic usage now. The reason I haven't mentioned it before if that the context of our discussion absolutely rules it out as being the intended meaning of the statement "I believe God does not exist" or suchlike and I didn't know you weren't a native English speaker and so it was something I thought would be obvious to both of us as irrelevant so that it didn't need mentioning. The rules of this usage of believe are very, very subtle, but a native English speaker (a well educated English, English speaker, at least) would instantly recognize when this meaning is not being indicated. And as such I'm telling you, it doesn't help your case, so don't get excited LOL.
Believe can sometimes be used indicate suspicion, very weak suspicion or even serious doubt. For instance you might ask someone where your car keys were and, if they had a vague idea they may have seen them in they kitchen, but certainly didn't know for sure, they might say "Erm, they are in the kitchen, I believe". or "I believe they are in the kitchen". It is often used in this way to indicate, not belief, but real uncertainty. It's almost a way of saying "I suspect they may be there, but I really don't know, so please don't take my word for it". Usually the tone of voice, word emphasis and facial expression is what indicates the degree of doubt. Now, the context and sentence structure of statements like "I believe God does not exist" totally rules out such a usage, but it's possible that if a dictionary listed such a usage that this may be where you derived your beliefs about "belief" and what it can indicate. Just a thought.
I had no idea you were not a native English speaker, which says a lot. :)