Half banana

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Posts by Half banana

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  50

  what an interesting find for me

  by sowhatnow in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  im sure to use this the next time i accidentally get sucked into an argument with someone.

  im not ever understanding the idea behind any christian religion picking and choosing what they want to believe and follow, then have the nerve to claim they are right, when clearly this is obviously done.

  here is a site that shows not only how bloodthirsty and evil the god of the hebrew bible was, but how more ridiculous it is for jws to follow one twisted 'commandment' about eating blood, not only reading it wrong, but then not to do all the other commandments, willingly , do they think they are ancient israelites ?

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  Half banana

  So the antidote to God's blood-lust is to resurrect his poor victims?

  Paradisebeauty, how can you imagine that people can come back to life? It happens does it?

  Since when can dead things live again? I know there are nasty things in this world but the secret is to try and improve our lot, not to believe in the implausible. How many out of 107 billion people who have ever lived, have come back to life...just Jesus and Elvis?

  If there was to be a general resurrection (preposterous!) where ON EARTH would they all go? (Fifteen for each one alive today). It’s a fantasy folks!

  Please try to think seriously, now we have left the loony Watchtower we have a chance to get our thinking straightened out as well... don’t fall back into magic realism.
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  11

  The Ransom Sacrifice -- Simplified Suggestion

  by FusionTheism in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the sacrifice of jesus simplified suggestion.

  many christians have different theories about exactly how the ransom sacrifice (also called the atonement or the passion) of christ worked.. just how did jesus death on the cross 2,000 years ago provide us with salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life?.

  some christians believe that jesus somehow mystically experienced the full pain and suffering of eternal torment in hell (for every persons sin who has ever lived), during the 3 hours of darkness when he was hanging upon the cross.

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  Half banana

  Fusion and Messianic Christian, you are both trying to defend the indefensible. I for one do not need a ransom sacrifice to help me since I was not born “from Adam” since Adam did not and could not literally exist. Original sin never came my way, I am master of my own destiny and need not grovel to any invisible deity or saviour figure. No doubt you get pleasure from the pride you take in believing this salvation story and good for you but it comes from fairy-land, it is mythical, not from the real world. There are tests to see whether a story comes from fiction or fact and one of them is simply the meaning of the name. Adam for example means ‘man’, a mythical archetype, not a real person. What real monarch calls his son ‘Prince’?

  The Christian writings put in the mouth of the saviour character Jesus, words referencing Adam, i.e. Jesus believed in Adam. Yet we have abundant evidence that Homo sapiens evolved. Next to my computer I have stone tools made by ancient pre-human species. Outside of the African continent (where the genus Homo first emerged) most of us have of a small percentage Neanderthal genes indicating the complex genetic diffusion and ‘back crossing’ with other contemporary hominin species.If you are African with some non-african forebears you too will have Neanderthal blood. It can now be easily measured and it is entirely consistent with the predictability of the science of the evolution theorem. We came from apes not a mythical Adam. Jesus, had he known the science, would not have referenced Adam... he got it wrong. Pre scientific, pre-literate man needed the explanations myths gave. Except for the religious stragglers; we have moved on from this primitive belief system.
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  11

  The Ransom Sacrifice -- Simplified Suggestion

  by FusionTheism in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the sacrifice of jesus simplified suggestion.

  many christians have different theories about exactly how the ransom sacrifice (also called the atonement or the passion) of christ worked.. just how did jesus death on the cross 2,000 years ago provide us with salvation, forgiveness, and eternal life?.

  some christians believe that jesus somehow mystically experienced the full pain and suffering of eternal torment in hell (for every persons sin who has ever lived), during the 3 hours of darkness when he was hanging upon the cross.

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  Half banana

  Fusion, I don’t want to be brutal but I will be. Your reliance on the veracity of the Bible is a grave mistake. In real life, as opposed to the mystical one fabricated by the stew pot of religion, the Bible is an antique and outdated irrelevance. Humanity in the developed world has moved on...have you not noticed? We increasingly depend on the technologies which scientific determinations have made and which humanistic thought and practice such as found in democracy and putting human needs first; has resulted in happier lives and welfare for the many. In the UK at least and most of north Western Europe we live in a post-Christian environment where religious belief has been superseded by pragmatism. Religious hope remains for the otherwise hopeless who find it necessary to grasp an invisible straw to keep mentally afloat. Religion is the institutional belief that we can overcome death...we cannot. The ransom sacrifice is central to this false belief.

  Consider this: if evolution is factual and therefore man was not created but evolved; at what point in the evolving continuum of the genus Homo would a “ransom sacrifice” begin to work?

  It is impossible to make a logical round peg fit into a mythical square hole.
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  14

  We Lost Our Preaching MOJO, how do we get it back? 

  by skepticSam in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  does anyone have any theories why our territory that's be reduced six or seven times over the last twenty years is not covered anymore?

  we use to cover our area in less than six months and now nobody really keeps track of how the preaching work by territory is going.

  is the advent of the mobile-literature machine why we don't see a zealous preaching spirit?

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  Half banana

  And since so few Jdubs enjoyed going door to door...they thought lets stop doing it! This may be the first bit of democracy taking place in the Borg and it will not succeed. It is another symptom of the decline of the Watchtower.
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  58

  Strange Moment During The 2015 Regional Convention

  by JW_Rogue in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hi, i'm new here but hadn't seen this mentioned anywhere yet.

  during the "imitate jesus" rc there was a strange moment where they played a video of a brother trying to explain the 1914 teaching.

  the brother quickly goes through all the scriptural "proofs" and the householder is dumbfounded.

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  Half banana

  @Orhan Crow, very interesting information. It is not difficult to see how certain movements needed the affirmation of a perceived prophetic success to kick starting their new cult.
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  58

  Strange Moment During The 2015 Regional Convention

  by JW_Rogue in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hi, i'm new here but hadn't seen this mentioned anywhere yet.

  during the "imitate jesus" rc there was a strange moment where they played a video of a brother trying to explain the 1914 teaching.

  the brother quickly goes through all the scriptural "proofs" and the householder is dumbfounded.

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  Half banana

  I get the impression that 1914 has for many years been the touchstone doctrine to assess loyalty within the ranks. Significantly when looking for new members of the GB their fidelity is tested by adherence to the WT chronology, whether it makes sense or not. It is the belief in this idea which marks the faithful from the faithless. Now since 2014 any truth in the 1914 generation prophecy cannot even be defended. It simply remains a concocted Watchtower myth and a gross failure. In fact about eighty years of wasted propagandising. Just think of the millions of lives spent, distorted and ruined by the 1914 doctrine. It should stand for all time as the prime example of what happens if you believe in the JW org.

  For the Watchtower to leave 1914 behind is like the banks going off the gold standard. From now on the rules are different; there are no possible dates to circumscribe a limit. All that the cult can offer is “The great day of Jehovah is imminent”. Not a convincing line to throw when they have been at for one and a third centuries without any success to show for their efforts.

  Some dumb apologists no doubt are secretly believing that Armageddon will come by 2034 because it will be “one hundred and twenty years” of preaching. So Noah was a real man was he? And the flood was real was it? And he preached to the whole world and saved all the species of animals did he?... Pull the other leg!

  As with the elaborate and dubious calculations of obscure prophecy to arrive at 1914, naive belief in Bible literalism and holiness is at the heart of all JW problems.
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  6

  Will the Digital Apocalyptic Propaganda Backfire?

  by jw07 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  with the roll out of watchtower 2.0 aka jw.org the corporation has been going to great lengths to bring the wacky doctrine that it has been preaching for decades to vivid reality.

  they have been painstakingly staging not only bible fables with heavy prop use and post production, but are trying to bring to life their projected future for mankind.. more recently they have been trying to play on the fears that people have of scenarios such as martial law unfolding and integrating their great tribulation doctrine mumbo jumbo in.. regardless of what you think (for instance whether there may be martial law declared due to terrorist activity or natural disaster, or if that idea is just too far fetched) this sort of thing has a much greater impact when people see people placed in these scenes.

  as illogical as the great tribulation doctrine may be, jws will not only place themselves in these scenarios, but will have their anticipation for them to be over with cranked up.. .

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  Half banana

  If you are a doomsday cult; it's what you have to do!
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  28

  Back in the Basement

  by LostGeneration in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  looks like the faithful jws are back in the basement, the oct 15th wt has this image on page 9. but now the lights have been turned out!

  i guess the persecution is really kicking in if the electric company has shut off their electricity, or the jws are really, really paranoid that the government is gonna get them if they have the lights on!.

  only one guy is smart enough to use his tablet (far right), the rest of the jws are old school, using a lantern to read their bibles in the dark!

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  Half banana

  I like the idea that this will be a picture of how JWs are while the rest of the world just carry on as normal...
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  7

  Yahweh was a pagan cannanite God 2000 years before Abraham??? Shocker!

  by Witness 007 in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  years ago i used wikipedia to study "yahweh" ..i was shocked to find out yahweh was one of many gods in the cannanite religion.

  there i see a cannanite coin with pagan yahweh on his winged chariot???

  this was faith destroying.

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  Half banana

  Witness 007, it would be a mistake to study Wikipedia, it is not authoritative and not used as a scholarly source. Better to go directly to those who have researched from the translations of the texts available who have a sound knowledge of the historical environment and the supporting archaeology. One such commentator on the subject whose impartiality is apparent, is the former Catholic researcher Thomas L Thompson. His first PhD dissertation was rejected by his adjudicator because it exposed error in Catholic doctrine...the adjudicator being Joseph Ratzinger who later became the Pope.(A story in itself on how the RC church defends its own doctrinal myths).

  TL Thompson in his book The Early History of the Israelite People, Brill, 1992, discusses at length the scholarly arguments including the framework for understanding the gods which the palestinian tribes worshipped.On a site like this it is only possible to give oversimplified information on such remote matters. Most important consideration is who is doing what where and when. To be accurate it is not possible to say the Greeks did this or the Egyptians taught that or the Jews worshipped this god. Time, place, people and evidence must be determined first. (must go now will continue tomorrow)
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  174

  The Bible is NOT Error-Free

  by FusionTheism in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for many christians, the bible is viewed as the 100% error-free, perfect book straight from god, where every single word was carefully chosen by god for a reason.

  but, usually, when you have a discussion on the topic, these christians will end up saying that only the original copies written directly from the hands of the prophets and apostles were error-free, and all manuscript copies since then are subject to copyist mistakes and other errors.. since zero original copies are in existence, how do we know the originals were error-free?

  why should we think the originals should be error-free to begin with?

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  Half banana

  Would it not be more accurate to say that the Bible is not totally truth free?