Posts by Half banana

20

WT study April 5 - how uplifting! How happifying! How encouraging!

by sir82 in

for you poor saps unfortunate enough to have missed yesterday's zoom watchtower study, i thought i'd prepare a little summary for you.. in fact, to keep things really short, i'll just highlight the outstanding verbs from the article.. paragraph 2: do not view.

paragraph 4: think seriously about the warning.....partake unworthily.

paragraph 5: do not feel...does not give....do not feel....would never tell.

Half banana

I'm not fond of quoting scripture as a guide but it says in Galatians 5; 14; "The whole law is summarised in a single command; love your neighbour as yourself ". (JB)

Isn't that a better way forward?

Really if there was a God and this was his intention why not forget the stupid and convoluted ever changing doctrines coming from the leadership of a dying cult?

In this instance the governing body are caught in their own web of deception having copied the doctrine of the two classes, heavenly and earthly, from a renegade Bible Student who after being disfellowshipped in 1919 had started a new religion making this distinction. So in 1935 Rutherford created a favoured group within the JW membership and now the GB are jealous of those who by conscience feel they are legitimately entitled members -- as certain scriptures imply. However the notion of "two classes" is a contrived fiction in the perpetual battle of fairyland beliefs.....no evidence for it!

As the belief has evolved, it has been carefully slewed round to become the exclusive privilege of the GB. Their main gripe is that for mere publishers to hold this prize, it takes away the glory from them as 'divinely appointed leaders'.

Anything which hints at loss of authority or detracts from their power or reputation is denounced and cut out. All oppressive cults have the same sort of problems.

9

Today’s nauseating WT

by Slidin Fast in

i am sitting at home, trying not to barf as this wt paragraph by paragraph tries to character assassinate those who have the temerity to take the emblems.

the unwritten, unspoken subtext is that they, the gb, the now distinct and separate “slave” are above all this.

they, the gold standard are immune to this questioning.

Half banana

What a lark! When it started there were the anointed and there were the Jonadabs.

Everyone took the emblems in those days 'cos that's what everyone else did, anointed, the lot of them -- except now in 1935, the newbies, the "Jonadabs" alias "friends of the bridegroom", they just sat gawping and salivating at the memorial, a bunch of lesser mortals.

The whole problem arose when Joseph Frankly Ratherflawed realised the membership numbers of JWs was going to exceed 144,000 and that figure didn't take into account goodness knows how many earlier Christians who died thousands of years ago. So he had to come up with an expedient new teaching and like all JW doctrinal change, it was driven by prevailing circumstance and clearly not by the agency of eternal truth.

Notice how this principle is in play today with the new view on "the anointed". Yesterday's truths can be quitely buried because they think and hope JWs will have forgotten the origins of earlier JW doctrine.

So here to remind you; JFR borrowed the idea of two classes, heavenly and earthbound from an 'apostate', one of those who opposed his grasping bid for presidency in 1919 who he hated and therefore disfellowshipped; Bro Freytag, head of the Swiss branch.

Frederic Louis Alexandre Freytag went on to start his own religion: Friends of Man with doctrines of 144k heavenly anointed, earthbound other sheep, Jehovah God, vegetarianism and a bit more fun than Ratherflawed officially permitted. Yet it has to be noted that JFR, president of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society did not stint himself on bootleg alcohol, a luxury lifestyle and a mistress.

45

What do you think of the ransom as proof of Jehovah's love?

by AlainAlam in

consider these excerpts from the bible and the publications:.

“no one has love greater than this, that someone should surrender his life in behalf of his friends” (joh 15:13).

“for hardly would anyone die for a righteous man; though perhaps for a good man someone may dare to die.

Half banana

Alain, you ask for thoughts. One of the problems with the question of "the Ransom" is that a logical assessment, ie one which cannot be disproved, is not possible. Any doctrinal proposition which could well satisfy religious minds and hearts is not compatible with evidential, analytical reasoning.

The religious mind is very biddable and prone to selecting his or her favoured viewpoint. Facts don't come into it.

The very nature of all religious belief is that it has at its focus an invisible being for which concrete evidence cannot be found. Because of the lack of evidence, religious belief is an infinitely flexible stream of ideas. An ironic consequence of which is pride in the certainty of "rightness" of conflicting sectarian doctrines. None of which is useful in the foundational understanding of anything, except perhaps this: that there has been a time honored superstition in the human psyche for humans to yield and sacrifice to an unknowable spirit power.

Belief in gods from prehistory forward must have led to a sense of obligation which required appeasement, this involved killing animals. Human death as a propitiatory sacrifice (atoning, reconciling) would have been seen therefore as the most potent of all sacrifices. A fact the Bible used to argue that a creator sky god had killed his son for us.

An idea hard to swallow in the post-christian twenty first century.

26

What's up with old geezers in the Bible?

by eyeuse2badub in

what the hell is the problem with the famous “men of old” in the bible?

for some strange reason those old geezers (and some not so old) could not recognize who they were screwing?.

my wife was listening to this week’s bible reading about jacob, laban, and the sisters leah, and rachael.

Half banana

@ Bobcat , I think they didn't use the womenfolk in their genealogies.

26

What's up with old geezers in the Bible?

by eyeuse2badub in

what the hell is the problem with the famous “men of old” in the bible?

for some strange reason those old geezers (and some not so old) could not recognize who they were screwing?.

my wife was listening to this week’s bible reading about jacob, laban, and the sisters leah, and rachael.

Half banana

@Bobcat, yes it's a story of explanation, truth has little to do with it.

It always helps to put others down to elevate yourself. . . The account demeans the neighbouring tribes (Moabites and Ammonites) by describing them as fathered by incest. However through the Moabite Boaz, it brings the line of David through Lot. Confusing -- but that is myth for you.

Like most stories from the Bronze Age, the sordid details make it memorable but perhaps a bit short on good taste!

11

The 8 G.B. members - just LIARS, or are they an EVIL SOURCE?

by The Fall Guy in

i'm only quoting the org's force-fed "food at the proper time" which friends and family had to swallow!.

it-2 p. 1027 spiritism - "and in the christian greek scriptures the statement is made that those who practice spiritism “will not inherit god’s kingdom.” (gal.

5:20, 21; rev.

Half banana

The reasoning of your argument TFG is sound. The Biblical instructions are to ignore words from the dead. This is a good piece of human wisdom since it is a fact that the dead cannot speak, therefore dead men's words are going to be a hoax.

To imply Rutherford, Franz et al are influencing the GB today is risible and without consequence like most of JW teachings. When you consider it, it's a matter of prideful conceit that they should link themselves to the former WT leaders. Where the hell is there evidence for this statement? Ideas which cannot be proved have no use except in brainwashing and conspiracy theories.

However the governing body play fast and loose with their followers to the extent that they feel they have the absolute right to determine what is truth and what is not. They have elevated the value of their words above all else, they claim exclusive insight into the true interpretation of everything spiritual (ie invisible, un-testable, unprovable) What gall! What hubris!

Personally I don't think they are an evil source, rather a bunch of deluded loonies milking the Watchtower tradition of cult obedience for all it is worth.

30

A chance for the unrighteous?

by AlainAlam in

the witnesses teach that the "unrighteous" are brought back to life in order to learn about god during the 1000-year reign.

i don't think that's a bible teaching, for the following reason:.

1) no verse says that.

Half banana

Thank you for replying Alain, it is interesting to find people's motives! For that matter I am fascinated by the motive for people wanting to see scripture as the ultimate authority.

Being a JW led us to sacralise the Bible and consider all of it a harmonious and perfectly integrated text, which as you are discussing, is very far from the truth of the matter.

30

A chance for the unrighteous?

by AlainAlam in

the witnesses teach that the "unrighteous" are brought back to life in order to learn about god during the 1000-year reign.

i don't think that's a bible teaching, for the following reason:.

1) no verse says that.

Half banana

Alain, welcome to the site.

As a matter of curiosity, you are an ex believer but all of your questions are in connection with the "scriptural" evidence for doctrine. Would you like to say why this exercises you so when you have already personally passed the stage for being concerned. I wonder if you are in discussion with family of friends who are JWs and trying to show them where they are wrong?

As an important side note, since the ambiguities of events, accounts and teachings in the Bible are so profound and the consequences of which are divisive sectarian beliefs, doesn't this tell the researcher that doctrinaire interpretations of the Bible are all hopelessly flawed?

26

What's up with old geezers in the Bible?

by eyeuse2badub in

what the hell is the problem with the famous “men of old” in the bible?

for some strange reason those old geezers (and some not so old) could not recognize who they were screwing?.

my wife was listening to this week’s bible reading about jacob, laban, and the sisters leah, and rachael.

Half banana

The story is so ludicrous that it could indicate that it is a borrowing of an older tale probably from a different culture. The Bible is full of unfathomable drivel for this very reason.

It amazes me how they used the vile story of Lot at the conventions a couple of years ago, surely it would have had the effect of waking up any thinking Witnesses?

18

June 2020 Study Watchtower - One or two little gems! :(

by The Fall Guy in

study watchtower, june 2020, box on page 22 - "note the comment made by an inactive one in spain: “i want to be reactivated, but it is very difficult.

but it is not easy.

i have to change my lifestyle and cut ties with some worldly friends.".

Half banana

When the org is in the doldrums they look around to see where they can make up for some the numbers of those they have lost. One possible way is to revive the POMIs who still believe the JW story but who don't attend meetings.

Good old Silvio from Ecuador, a fantastic experience for the blinkered true believers. In real life it is quite probable that he is an unstable, uneducated hopeless individual who needs religion just to stagger through the day. Probably he'll leave the org again in a few months -- but praying when the elders call, sounds just fabulous on the pages of the Watchtower. However as a weak JW, he was already on the elder's radar, so it's not too surprising.

If the organisation is so favoured by God and this is an example angelic direction, then how come there were paedophiles and homosexuals in the governing body? etc etc?