Posts by Half banana

14

Keys to understanding the Book of Revelation

by Doug Mason in

· the whole book of revelation is one letter.. · that letter was to be taken by a courier and read out aloud in churches along a road that ran from ephesus to laodicea.

the author was very familiar with each of the churches.. · those christians were experiencing intense persecution.. · the letter was designed to encourage these first-century christians to “overcome”.

it told them that the end was imminent (“soon”) and they had to remain faithful, to the point of being prepared to losing their lives.. · john had gone to patmos in order to compose (“receive”) the message.

Half banana

I agree with you Hanged Man, there is such a full correspondence of the folk explanation for the movements of the heavenly bodies with stories elaborated from them in the Bible that in my mind there can be no doubt that this is the foundational myth at the real source of 'scripture'.

A key to interpreting the origins of the Bible is to understand that whereas the heavenly 'book' of stars is without exception cyclical; that is daily, monthly or annual; the stories derived from them in scripture are told as one off events.

A simple example would be the Lord of the Night dispels the Sun God of the day daily as the Earth rotates but the Bible dresses this up as a final showdown between darkness and light alias good and evil at Armageddon.

The more you investigate this subject the more convincing it is. Itis a rich ifield of inquiry but Christians, sensitive flowers that they are, steer clear of things resembling astrology. The truth is that these stories preceded Christianity and were universal where the ancients of most continents marked the changing of the seasons accurately by the sun and stars.

I would just like to add that the Persian christ cult known as Mithraism contributed the solar cross at the equinox to Christianity. The 'cross' being the crossing of the sun at the spring equinox (The path of the ecliptic crossing the line of the Equator) known from about 400BCE.

69

284000 baptized in 2017

by jw-verite in

seen in the 03/2018 watchtower study :.

"during the 2017 service year, more than 284,000 “rightly disposed” individuals symbolized their dedication to jehovah by water baptism.".

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-march-2018/baptism-requirement-for-christians/.

Half banana

Sorry to harp on about Africa but JW's star performer the Democratic Republic of Congo is the poorest country in the world having the majority living below the poverty line. It is a land where instead of advancing they have lost much of the civilised infrastructure including good roads developed fifty years ago and returned to a basic hand to mouth existence.

The consequences of this to the welfare of the Congolese are crime, large families, hardships and desperation. It is little wonder that the rapidly increasing population of young and uneducated agricultural workers might be attracted to the JW delusion.

I recently saw (on video) GB member Losch claiming that the high figure for the memorial attendance in Congo is evidence for big growth in JW interest.This does not represent the real picture Mr Losch,you are falsifying the case for world growth!

As soon as things improve economically and with the arrival of the internet, the Congolese will not be so keen-- just like the rest of the world.

20

what is the sales technique here?

by Kevin McFree in

jw's will never knock on your door and say, "hi, we are here to convert you".

speaking to a reporter recently a jw media rep at hq said " our main purpose going door to door is not to convert but to share bible truths with people".

does anyone know the sales techniques involved here?

Half banana

The only undeniable truth the Watchtower ever broadcast: "Religion is a snare and a racket".

Funny how no new light has come along and replaced this little gem!

20

what is the sales technique here?

by Kevin McFree in

jw's will never knock on your door and say, "hi, we are here to convert you".

speaking to a reporter recently a jw media rep at hq said " our main purpose going door to door is not to convert but to share bible truths with people".

does anyone know the sales techniques involved here?

Half banana

I would call it a confidence trick.

"Would you like to know the real meaning of the Bible?"

This offer to study the Bible with a householder is dishonest because all JWs do is indoctrinate according to a narrow partisan and paranoid viewpoint. Secondly there is in the question a false assertion that there is a "real meaning" to the Bible.

"Join us and you get everlasting life!" Only fools (like me) fall for the ludicrous offer of everlasting life. Life is precious for the very reason that it is not everlasting.

Therefore all children should be made to understand this Latin dictum; Caveat emptor-- buyer beware, because the world is full of sales people with useless goods.

90

So my PIMO Younger Brother Tried To Kill Himself Today

by pale.emperor in

we all know that this cult will drive those trying to leave to desperate measures, and today by brother was very nearly one of those statistics.

he slashed his thigh with a kitchen knife and was bleeding out until he called the police.. i got a call on my way home from work from a police officer, coincidentally it was one of my old friends from school who's now a cop.

he told me my brother is in hospital after an attempted suicide and has lost some blood but will be ok. but i should get to the hospital as he's asking for me.

Half banana

Not only are we all with you PE but tell your brother that your friends here on this site all send him their best wishes for him to recover and get over these problems soon.

What a loathsome mind bending cult Jehovah's Witnesses are.

69

284000 baptized in 2017

by jw-verite in

seen in the 03/2018 watchtower study :.

"during the 2017 service year, more than 284,000 “rightly disposed” individuals symbolized their dedication to jehovah by water baptism.".

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-march-2018/baptism-requirement-for-christians/.

Half banana

@Stillin the world average annual population growth is just above 1% I think I read 1.14 %, it is declining and will be 1% by 2021.

The JW increase in publishers has been about 2.5% but remember the “world average” is not the same demographic as JW membership which includes a lot of nations with higher numbers of children than average, especially in South America and central Africa. So it would be expected to produce new JWs at above the world average of population increase by insider births alone. It seems that the % increase is in line with JW births of born-ins based on this demographic.

But half the number of all new Witnesses go missing each year through deaths, DF and faders so there is probably another group of new converts coming in to make up some of the losses especially in Brazil where they don't take the JW religion too seriously and also in the politically unstable parts of tropical Africa where historically JWs have always flourished.

69

284000 baptized in 2017

by jw-verite in

seen in the 03/2018 watchtower study :.

"during the 2017 service year, more than 284,000 “rightly disposed” individuals symbolized their dedication to jehovah by water baptism.".

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/watchtower-study-march-2018/baptism-requirement-for-christians/.

Half banana

Yes the increase is a large number of people but remember that the religion makes it a moral duty to entrap your offspring by early baptism compounded by avoidance of university education which would reveal Watchtower fallacies.

The world average birth rate in four years will be a 1% annual population increase but Africa will grow to become 54% of the world’s population by 2050. I guess that the birth rate for JWs, weighted for a large African contingent, would be around 2.25% but perhaps more. Eight and one third million JWs would therefore make for a natural “born-in” increase then of between 175,000 to 200,000 just from insider population growth which broadly leaves 100,000 new converts many of whom will be relatives of insiders.

Of this second group (the converts) most will come from Africa where deism is universal and belonging to a religion, whatever stripe it is, is what you feel obliged to do. Further, endemic poverty and corruption in the political system in central Africa make any religious membership an attractive opportunity to join a community which teaches a hope of deliverance from worldly woes.

In the Western World Japan is leading the way showing membership stagnation from three sources: the deaths from the high average age of the JW population there, families leaving en bloc and general loss of appetite for the merits of doomsday cults.

12

JW.org Featured Artical: When Your Adolescent Questions Your Faith

by pale.emperor in

this is one of the featured articals on jw.borg at the moment.

could it be because the young ones are googling their parents religion?, seeing the bullshit?, and calling their parents out on it?

i hope so.. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/wp20120201/adolescent-questions-faith/.

Half banana

I can only imagine the idea of a JW mentor going down like a lead balloon.This suggestion demonstrates how idealistic and out of touch the GB are. They are promoting a "Biblical" idea but when used in practice I reckon it will find a 95% resistance by the offspring of JWs. JW parents are just about tolerable but getting people from outside the family to goad the kids into action will surely not work?

The real answer as you say PE is for JW youth to check on Google about the JW cult! Ah! satisfaction.

14

Kingdom Halls Are Hall Full

by SplaneThisToMe in

there’s all this talk about combining congregations to enhance kingdom hall utilization.

the branch offices keep calling the halls half full.

are they half full or half empty?

Half banana

They need the space-- they are half empty most of the time except for the Christmas carol service, no, I've got the wrong group, I mean for the memorial saints who come out of the woodwork once a year.

As I remember I never saw a kh only half full in the last century they always seemed to be brimming over. The reason for the decline is because of all those nasty apostate people who are spoiling the GB's fun and coming on sites like this one. . . and coming in droves too! Yay!

14

Keys to understanding the Book of Revelation

by Doug Mason in

· the whole book of revelation is one letter.. · that letter was to be taken by a courier and read out aloud in churches along a road that ran from ephesus to laodicea.

the author was very familiar with each of the churches.. · those christians were experiencing intense persecution.. · the letter was designed to encourage these first-century christians to “overcome”.

it told them that the end was imminent (“soon”) and they had to remain faithful, to the point of being prepared to losing their lives.. · john had gone to patmos in order to compose (“receive”) the message.

Half banana

Thanks for info Doug, I love what that son of The Enlightenment, President Jefferson said;

"It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825

Of course Revelation was before Freud and Jung when an explanation for types of dreaming could be given but it was written however at a time when opium was known to be used.