Posts by Half banana

5

An interesting explanation for the sale of India Branch property

by Ireneus in

yesterday i was talking to a witness who has some connections with witnesses in india.

when i mentioned about the plan of selling the branch property, he was saying ‘this is a clever move as they fear a ban in that country as recently happened in russia.’.

this shows what type of trust they have in jehovah!.

Half banana

Fear works wonders in religious circles.

61

Simple introduction to the theory of evolution

by Diogenesister in

forum
links

hi new folks, lurkers and trolls.

i thought i would post this simple but interesting video which shows how scientists bring multiple lines of evidence together to prove evolution is true; for example:.

comparative anatomy.

Thanks Diogenesister for posting this, like Cofty's brilliant examples on the subject the video is simple clear and factual. Once you are out of the religious mindset you can get a much better handle on the workings of the living world.

If you believe in the Bible instead of science you are bemired in a pit in a fog at night..............

Yeah but I like being bemired in a pit in the fog at night with my other dinosaur friends!

23

Anyone know the significance of the three days and nights Jesus is dead?

by Crazyguy in

in my studies i’ve come to realize that most dying and rising gods such as inanna, jesus and others all were dead three days and nights.

the moon is dead as far as man not being able to see it in the sky three days and nights but many of these gods are not associated with the moon, osiris maybe being the only exception.

have any of you in your research come up with a plausible idea on why there all dead just threes days and three nights?.

Half banana

@WTWizard, I agree with you about the perception of the Sun 'dying' at the winter solstice but it is the son of the sun god who dies on the 'cross' at the spring equinox. In the Mithraic cult at least four hundred years before Jesus, the saviour Mithra (or Mithras in the Latin tongue) was crucified at Easter because that was the time of "the cross" i.e when the sun appears to cross the equator relative to the plane of the earth's travel around the sun (the ecliptic) on its journey northwards, which culminates in high summer for the northern hemisphere. It is the earth always being at an angle of 23.5 degrees from the vertical in its solar orbit that gives us the seasonal variations. The calendar of the ancients was marked by the birth, rising strength and decline of the sun which in turn was relative to its sunrise and sunset locations on the local horizon.

I will be studying the groundwork for some of these things starting in two weeks time in the context of the British Neolithic on a course at Oxford University.

34

WT Recruiting JW Solicitors (Lawyers)

by AverageJoe1 in

we all know how much the watchtower abhors "higher education" and that apparently jehovah thinks it is a big waste of time.

at least that is their official stance.

it might come as a shock to you that this month they have started a campaign drive to actually recruit jws who have higher education, specifically those who have legal training.. with all the law suits against them for creating an environment that is friendly to paedophiles, it is thus no wonder that they are in need of solicitors, especially those who are sympathetic towards the cult.. talk about hypocrisy!.

Half banana

I love the optimism: the names of barristers serving as pioneers!

25

Has God preserved His word today?

by JW Answers in

has god preserved his word today?

many people attack, doubt and fault god's word.

yet god has made several promises in his word.he promised to preserve his word unto every generation,he promised that every word would be truth,he promised that we can rely and depend on his every word.satan wants nothing more than to dismiss, and cast doubt on god's word... so the question today is... do we have god's preserved word today?

Half banana

So did an ox headed idol called Yahweh in the Phoenician pantheon create the world and all that was in it? Did this idol from the days of polytheism ever speak or write? Then did he inspire imperial Rome to assemble borrowed and selectively altered texts drawn from pagan and exotic sources to represent his thoughts? And then demand its subjects to regard these writing as the unassailable and sacred word of God and by the fifth century punish you by death if you didn't believe? Are Gods a projection of the concept of fatherhood invested with power by common acceptance as a last ditch safety net to ward off existential anxiety?

You have to sort out these incongruities before being able to ask whether an unprovable, unknowable, untestable, uncommunicative invisible spirits even exist let alone being capable of creating things or writing books.

81

How Long Before They Introduce Tithing?

by pale.emperor in

when i was a full-on believing jw i had an obsessive fascination with mormonism.

i read, studied and watched their propaganda with strange interest as well as their apostate mormon books.

i have to say, they have a good scam going claiming that "the lord reintroduced tithing" in the modern age.

Half banana

If they did introduce tithing, like everything to do with the JW organisation, it would be a disaster.

Firstly the majority of JWs are poor and would greatly resent a compulsory tithe; it would drive out all those looking for an excuse to leave--which could amount to millions of them?

Secondly the other church members who pay a tithe such as Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists get a lot back from the payment as it goes into funds which in turn yield social security and recreational benefits for the congregants.

The GB have no stomach for social support for their devotees, their response to those hurt by sexual abuse amply demonstrates that they don't care a fig about the psychological and earthly needs of their members. Their mythical heavenly kingdom is supposed to do the social welfare part, which leaves the role of the GB as takers and not givers...........

However I do hope they have to resort to tithing as it will be a sign of final desperation and it will hasten the end of their nasty cult. Yipee!

33

J.W.`s and Paradise and the Reality of it.

by smiddy3 in

when god created adam and eve and put them in the garden of eden it was then up to them to cultivate and take care of it ,god had no further hand in it .the responsibility rested with adam/eve and their offspring.. the same would be true in the paradise to come ,god gets rid of all of us wicked people ,but then it is up to j.w.~s who are left on this earth to restore such a paradise.?

without god`s intervention.. think of it , this system is gone with all its infrastructure.. 8 million + j.w.`s scattered throughout the earth with.

no communication systems operating .

Half banana

Yes Vidiot, I agree with you, the Watchtower cult can only organise the brain dead. One of the final liberating blows to my JW experience, like a giant warning bell sounding in my head-- was the realisation that the GB intended to micromanage my choices, thoughts and actions forever.

I'll tell you what paradise is: living a life free from the demands of the JW organisation............

23

Anyone know the significance of the three days and nights Jesus is dead?

by Crazyguy in

in my studies i’ve come to realize that most dying and rising gods such as inanna, jesus and others all were dead three days and nights.

the moon is dead as far as man not being able to see it in the sky three days and nights but many of these gods are not associated with the moon, osiris maybe being the only exception.

have any of you in your research come up with a plausible idea on why there all dead just threes days and three nights?.

Half banana

In another sense the sun always stands still, it is us on planet earth who move around the sun. The sun however takes a hundred thousand years to rotate around the Milky Way galaxy.

The key to Crazyguy's question is that the ancients, who were assiduous observers of heavenly bodies, saw the point on the horizon at which the sun rose for each of three midwinter days at the same spot and called it dead-- and on the third day it rose from the dead (Christ and the Sun) and went forth from there. "Things as in heaven also upon earth".

These are among the thousands of points of affinity of the Bible's unoriginal thoughts with universal folk tales from the ancient world. The Roman Church after absorbing and fusing most prevailing religious belief, condemned and destroyed earlier versions so as not to demean its own high status to deliberately obscure the fact that its so called sacred texts or Bible as we know it originated in humble folk tales. It produced the disparaging term paganism (rustic beliefs) to put down the peasants and distance itself from their beliefs even though they were the source material for its own approved holy writings.

23

Anyone know the significance of the three days and nights Jesus is dead?

by Crazyguy in

in my studies i’ve come to realize that most dying and rising gods such as inanna, jesus and others all were dead three days and nights.

the moon is dead as far as man not being able to see it in the sky three days and nights but many of these gods are not associated with the moon, osiris maybe being the only exception.

have any of you in your research come up with a plausible idea on why there all dead just threes days and three nights?.

Half banana

4 hours ago

In the NT Jesus makes it sound like he's the sun.

Indeed he does Acluetofindtheuser!

I see the that the whole Christ story as a vastly elaborated myth which ultimately has at its root an astronomical reality.

It is hard to appreciate this if coming to the subject cold. Much groundwork is needed including a comprehensive grasp of mythology (which I don't have) to be able to trace the individual threads of myth back towards the folk tales many of which are drawn from the zodiacal star stories.

The earth turns in a daily motion and the stars predictably change position on the annual orbit of earth around the sun. Knowing the constellations and stars, and their explanation was a "Bible" before the Bible.

In its simplest form back in pre-literate, pre-scientific times, an explanation was demanded of why things are like they are.Humans are like this. Stories feed on human imagination but for any to endure they must have a have a reference point and structure, this is the difference between stories and myth.

Nothing exists so patently structured and orderly and permanent as the starry canopy, so marvellous and universally recognised that it was branded the home of the gods. This gave the whole world of humanity a common canvas to paint their own cultural mythologies on and is the explanation of why disparate peoples came up with the same ideas about gods, religion and salvation.

I won't rabbit on-- but the universal saviour is the Sun God who daily overturns darkness, however his father is a Sun God as well, which is why there is a troublesome ambiguity in the Bible regarding the identity of the Son and the Father.

Three days dead? I asked myself the same question about six years ago. Well the sun 'dies' in the sense that for three days every year, as it was said to do on 21st December and rose again on the 25th. Which day we know is the birthday of the Sun, and from the fourth century onward, the birthday of Jesus who was conflated with the Sun God in the Catholic faith. (Sol Invictus, the unconquerable Sun) The death of the literal sun was describing the position of the sun's setting and rising as having stopped dead for three days and not moving along the horizon as it normally does for the rest of the year. The idea of "three days dead" based on this perception had already well before the first century become a signifier or accoutrement for a god-man hero in folk tales and heroic literature.

The Christ figure was simply one of many heroic christ myths who all shared the common tropes of solar connotation, sacrificial death, miraculous healing abilities, overcoming death etc. and including going to hell or Hades for three days.

38

What Privileges do you get when you are baptized ?

by LOLS in

my husband was baptized at the recent 2018 convention in south africa ....... he was very annoyed that his non-believing wife did not attend the baptism....... but i think he received pressure from his jw father & elders as to why his wife was not attending ....... anyway ..... it's really water off my back .

i wanted to know what privileges you get as a baptized jw man , as i saw a message from one of the elders at his cong , congratulating him on his baptism and to earning more privileges ..... what are these privileges the elder is speaking about ,,,,, .

i don't feel like asking my husband as it just lands up in a stupid fight ..... or a long winded explanation ..... thanks .

Half banana

So sorry for you Lols and thank you for your post.

"Privileges" means greater opportunity to waste more of your own time, energy and funds on an unworthy mind-controlling cult which specialises in stealing people's lives and inheritances and never gives anything back in return.

Through mock heroics like being more gullible than others and lots of grovelling to the elders means that you get still more "privileges" and as a consequence more adulation comes from the cult hierarchy leading to an elevated status within the congregation--which is how it works in fairyland.