Posts by Half banana

125

Flat Earth and Jw. Not possible?

by Earthmeasured in

sorry for my poor english, i hope to make not too many mistakes.

im a jw and in the last three years i have studied a lot the topic of the earth being flat.

i have a good scientific background so im not stupid or crazy.

Half banana

Mr geometer, indeed the Bible does use the Hebrew word ball or sphere (dur or duwr) as at Isaiah 22;18 but not for the Earth where as we are all aware it is described as a circle. This is not divinely inspired but like most of the Bible, it's a reflection of the thinking of the time period. People's view of the world in the 6th century BC was of a glass-like heavenly dome covering a flat Earth as poetically interpreted in Isaiah 40,22 using the Hebrew word chug meaning circle. Dur can also mean circle but chug cannot mean (to my knowledge) a sphere.

The ancient Greeks using measurements, later determined not only that the Earth was a sphere but also measured the size of the planet. Towards the end of the 2nd century BC Eratosthenes of Alexandria determined the diameter of the globe by logical analysis of the angle of the sun simultaneously in two locations at a known distance apart.

However if you still place the words of the Bible above either common sense or scientific evidence, then I'm afraid there is little hope for you ever understanding anything.

The Bible is not reliable for facts it is an ancient STORYBOOK and bears all the evidence of human authorship.

14

New witness a bit lost

by purelove20 in

not sure it's ok to post here about that.

im sorry if i'm wrong but i'm just trying to find my way and meet people that could help me become a good witness.

i recently discovered my faith as a witness.

Half banana

Purelove, when I was young I was idealistic and I met Jehovah's Witnesses, At the time it seemed like an answer to the problems of both mine and the worlds. Because as a JW you are severely discouraged to investigate the origins of the religion and learn about their hopeless failures in predicting the end you will be led away from reality and get unwittingly sucked into a heartless cult.

OK JWs are decent people but that in itself does not make their belief system right.

I can honestly say that the worse experiences of my family life have been due to the unchristian and irrational beliefs of the JW organisation.

For your safety, sanity and well-being please be sceptical of a religion which promises a perfect life. . .there is no such thing. Happiness comes from our own thoughtful efforts not impossible cult beliefs.

31

The downfall of the Governing Body

by john.prestor in

in a book i read a while back by the sociologist randall collins he says truly powerful people don't get angry because they get what they want in other ways, and he shows a picture of two runners where the one who's losing looks at the girl that passes her rather than ahead at the finish line, guess she doesn't wanna win the race after all.

i want to apply these to the governing body and their actions, the pattern of their actions, in printing all the hateful rhetoric against people like us and why l'm pretty sure, pretty damn confident in fact, it's all downhill from here... thanks to them and them alone.. the moment you let somebody get in your head and let them stay there they beat you, they win, they establish power, we got in their heads, they know we present a threat to them, we won't shut up, we're more brazen than we used to be, we're in the news, we're on tv, we're online we're at conventions we're in the kingdom halls, hell we're just about everywhere.

yeah, we don't have this completely down yet, sometimes we come on too strong or do something stupid, and i'm pointing the finger at myself here too, but for the most part we know how to fight this battle: we drag them into the light when they wanna hide in the dark like jackals lurking in the woods sneaking up on weak and wounded deer.

Half banana

Yes Pepperheart if your figures are correct, it reflects the apathy within the flock.

31

The downfall of the Governing Body

by john.prestor in

in a book i read a while back by the sociologist randall collins he says truly powerful people don't get angry because they get what they want in other ways, and he shows a picture of two runners where the one who's losing looks at the girl that passes her rather than ahead at the finish line, guess she doesn't wanna win the race after all.

i want to apply these to the governing body and their actions, the pattern of their actions, in printing all the hateful rhetoric against people like us and why l'm pretty sure, pretty damn confident in fact, it's all downhill from here... thanks to them and them alone.. the moment you let somebody get in your head and let them stay there they beat you, they win, they establish power, we got in their heads, they know we present a threat to them, we won't shut up, we're more brazen than we used to be, we're in the news, we're on tv, we're online we're at conventions we're in the kingdom halls, hell we're just about everywhere.

yeah, we don't have this completely down yet, sometimes we come on too strong or do something stupid, and i'm pointing the finger at myself here too, but for the most part we know how to fight this battle: we drag them into the light when they wanna hide in the dark like jackals lurking in the woods sneaking up on weak and wounded deer.

Half banana

This ship of fools will go off clucking into the sunset and hardly anyone will take notice.

Even with a stricter viewpoint along with the perpetual hype of nearness to the end, the true believers increasingly just take it all calmly with a pinch of salt and are happy to stay in the "best life ever" social club (for the mentally myopic).

Meanwhile the GB are running round like headless chickens with bigger and better threats to keep the faithful in the the cult compound.Seriously who can possibly trust a man who looks at fashion clothing as a marker of Christianity? The GB don't know that fashion is more powerful than cult leaders because it has to do with the mating instinct! Shhh don't tell them.

Tight pants Tony and his crew are abysmally short on insight into human hearts and needs. They also lack the flexibility to alter course and therefore stick with what has served the cult well in the past: a defiant spirit of no compromise when something can be quoted from the Bible. This makes them feel warm inside but as the "two witness" injunction shows, the insistence on Biblical precedent is not the course of practical wisdom because it results in harming the abused. The leaders of the JW cult put Bible dogma before the welfare of the individuals in the flock. The world now calls this behaviour unacceptable and abusive--and rightly so. The world moves forward but the GB are stuck in a religious mire.

Without a radical change--which they are not offering or contemplating--they will not be able to take the religion forward when all the odds are now stacked against them. You can only fight a war on one or two fronts, five or six fronts i.e. financial downturn, ageing congregants, child abuse fines, internet transparency, better education everywhere outside the org, declining numbers, decline of religious sentiment et al, is too much strain their rigid system.

However the Watchtower delusion will remain for those elderly JWs who are incapable of thinking for themselves but the power of the organisation I think will evaporate.

7

Theramin Trees: Responses to Child Abuse, Jehovah's Witnesses in the dock

by Diogenesister in

theramin trees, psychologist and ex jehovah's witness, has done simply the most carefully constructed, rigorous and utterly damning reveiw of the role of watchtower in case 29 the australian royal commission into institutional responses to instances of child sexual abuse.. although the ex jws community have gone over the carc ad nauseaum, anyone who is familiar with the work of theramin trees or his brother ;qualia soup, will surely be aware that the quality of their work ensures this will likely be the definative video on the subject.. cannot recommend highly enough, people!.

https://youtu.be/tsvjmlg_sam.

Half banana

Astonishingly perceptive!

An independent report on the callous disregard for the welfare of the abused for the sake of slavish obedience to uphold a squeaky clean image which the organisation did not deserve.

All practicing JWs should learn of this as it demonstrates that the governing body care nothing at all for the feelings and well being of their flock, they only are interested in one thing: protecting their own reputation.

I hope this issue will be the final straw for the JW organisation.

7

Who were the Picts?

by LoveUniHateExams in

so, i've been reading a bit about the picts recently.. i'm not sure there's a consensus on exactly who they were or what type of language they spoke.. even their name - picts - has more than one explanation of where it came from.

i've read some scholars believe it comes from latin pictus (painted), referring to their supposed habit of painting themselves and/or tattooing themselves.

other scholars believe that the name pict comes from another source.

Half banana

It's going to be hard to ever get to know the Picts because they left little written evidence except from some scanty Ogham texts. However I've just read new information that by the third century they had made a number of engravings in stone, some with repeated symbols which look like they had imitated in some measure the Latin texts of the occupying Romans.

I was in Orkney a while back and came across some delightful folk songs in the now dead language called Norn once spoken in the north east and the islands.The language Norn died out in the 19th century but it came from the North Germanic language group and is related to Faroese. I wonder if this was related to Pictish? However I think Norn came over after the Picts had already arrived.

There is tantalising evidence for some type of proto-writing on Neolithic Orcadian ceramics, also influenced by Germanic tribes. It would be a remarkable feat to get some development in relating this to the language spoken there.

13

April 2019 Watchtower article 'Uphold the TRUTH about death'

by Listener in

it appears this study article has been written because the organization is still having trouble teaching african jws that they are not to follow their traditional customs when someone dies and not to believe in spirits.it has been speculated for some time that it is african jws that have attributed to the increase in 'anointed' partakers.interestingly, no-where in this article does it even mention their two class system and the anointed having a heavenly hope.

it is amazing that they title the article as upholding the truth about death and fail to mention their two hope doctrine.the following are some quotes -.

satan, “the father of the lie,” has deceived people since the start of human history.

Half banana

It is in Africa that JWs are seeing an increase. There have been long standing devastating wars in the tropical regions of the continent but things are now generally quieter in the Congos, Ruwanda and Angola. The consequence is a burgeoning young and jobless population with little sense of the history of JWs, no internet as yet and a culture which requires everyone to have a religion--but you don't have to take it too seriously! Remember religion after all is a charm which will protect you from bad spirits. . .

So in post-war Africa, the lure of a world without violence under God's rule sounds attractive like motherhood or apple pie do; a jolly good thing! It's false but that is what is on offer from JWs.

I imagine that the cost of preaching to these people will be higher than the expected income from them and when the internet becomes universal, the numbers will fall away just as they are doing in the developed world.

34

New JW phrase: bouquet of truth

by ohnightdivine in

i heard it from someone who attended the latest wt study, and quickly posted it with - you guessed it - a picture of a lovely flower bouquet.

.

"how big is your bouquet of truth?".

Half banana

DD I must say that "cherished error" just about sums up the whole JW racket from beginning to end.

34

New JW phrase: bouquet of truth

by ohnightdivine in

i heard it from someone who attended the latest wt study, and quickly posted it with - you guessed it - a picture of a lovely flower bouquet.

.

"how big is your bouquet of truth?".

Half banana

The subject matter "truth" needs no poetic support, truth stands on its own feet and demands no assistance at all.

However Watchtower Truth is a mercurial animal which needs all the help it can find. It requires a constant outpouring of propaganda in an attempt to make it appear to stand upright but even dressing up Watchtower truth in units of bouquets is not going to deceive people who use their brains.

Lower case truth like its ally logic, is not a questionable item and lasts for all time. Watchtower Truth is closer to a bunch of flowers with a limited shelf life soon to be sent to the compost heap. So if you're not concerned with permanence or reality, unwittingly said, a bouquet of Watchtower Truth is actually quite appropriate!

58

Library now cleared out

by UnshackleTheChains in

well, it looks like the axe has finally fallen on our kh library.

during a deep clean of the local kh, a brother suddenly informed everyone 'whikst cleaning' that all the old books including bound volumes of the watchtower etc was to be chucked in the skip.. from what i heard, some were taken aback by this and quite annoyed that no announcement was made; that no one was given the choice of taking some of these books home to keep.

i mean the entire collection of studies in the scriptures and others that go back an entire century.

Half banana

One day the Watchtower will be nothing more than a shipwreck on the seas of history. So I agree with you Ultimate Axiom that for the moment with the deliberate book-burning by the org, we do need to preserve the evidence to demonstrate their earlier false promises and mind manipulation. And thanks for the archive references, they will still be needed for some years.