Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  36

  China where it started ,83,000 / USA now <400,000 How come ?

  by smiddy3 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  am i missing something here ?

  how is it that where this covid 19 started , in wuhan china, china has only ,reportedly 83,000 for the whole country ?

  whereas in the united states of america the figure is just under 400,000 ?.

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  Half banana

  It is extremely unlikely that China was able to monitor and identify all those with the disease.
• 
  7

  Italian Bridges

  by Simon in

  1. social
  2. current

  what is it with italy, should it really be so risky driving across a bridge in a developed country?!.

  i know there is china virus happening, but bridges haven't just gone to shit in the last month.. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52213898.

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  Half banana

  Reluctance to spend money on existing structures?

  Italy is subject to seismic activity...

  Particularly in the south (the bridge in question is north of centre) the Mafia have always been involved in road and construction projects, the job gets done but with inadequate foundations.
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  2

  Plasma Based treatment for Covid 19 ?

  by BluesBrother in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-04-06/covid19-blood-antibodies-recovered-show-promise.

  i have heard of this , transfusing plasma from recovered covid 19 patients to give the recipients the antibodies to fight it off .

  great !

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  Half banana

  Yeah but I'm not taking it, after all God will reconstitute my entire body and brain with all its memories and I'll live forever in paradise....so I'll just die now with coronavirus and God will resurrect me....

  Hang on a mo, why is it that no one has ever been resurrected? (Lazarus was a borrowed ancient myth). Why is it that after 141 years no JW has ever benefited from JW promises? Why is it they always have to push the paradise goal posts into the future? Why is it that only the governing body benefit materially from this religion? Why?
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  20

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

  by sir82 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  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.
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  9

  Today’s nauseating WT

  by Slidin Fast in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  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.
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  45

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

  by AlainAlam in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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.
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  26

  What's up with old geezers in the Bible?

  by eyeuse2badub in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  Half banana

  @ Bobcat , I think they didn't use the womenfolk in their genealogies.
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  26

  What's up with old geezers in the Bible?

  by eyeuse2badub in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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!
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  11

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

  by The Fall Guy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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.
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  30

  A chance for the unrighteous?

  by AlainAlam in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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.