Posts by Half banana

4

Again, thank you Amber Scorah

by newsheep in

this week alone this lovely person has been on bbc, late night comedy show, and now i read about her in toronto's globe and mail log inadchoices.

opinion.

i was raised a jehovah’s witness.

Half banana

She really illuminates the thoughts, feelings and trepidation of JWs as they wake up. Beautiful. . . and thank you Amber.

79

607 date of Jerusalems destruction

by benny in

i am confused about the time scale regarding the year of the destruction of jerusalem.

in the 1st october 2011 watchtower an argument is presented to back up 607 bc but there are so many conflicting arguments that this happened 20 years later according to secular sources.

your thoughts please..

Half banana

Scholar said

Archaeology does not account for the 70 years period and neither does secular chronology.

Of course not! Why on earth should archaeology or scientific dating show evidence for literary myth. How could it? Clue: the cart follows the horse.

There is only one type of chronology at an academic level, there is no such thing as a "Bible chronology" vs a secular one, that is ridiculous. "Bible chronology" is Watchtower jargon used to allow themselves to depart from fact in attempting to prop up their theories.

Then scholar goes on to tell an untruth that Daniel provides the basis for the events of 539 BCE and that therefore his other writings are not myth. This is doubly wrong; a wrong conclusion drawn from a faulty statement. It was not the writer of the book of Daniel who determined 539 it was historians using reliable texts which determined the date. Just like Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem in 589 BCE which included the temple destruction by 587 (but depending on which ancient calendar you use to interpret the text -- it could be 586)

'Daniel', not his real name, was a story teller drawing on the events of four centuries before his time, around the middle third of the second century BCE. It was written in an apocalyptic manner to give hope to his compatriots during their prevailing troubles as they were divided Jewish sects suffering from the whims of their Seleucid rulers.

Please learn to distinguish between facts and religious spin.

There is no point in discussing with someone who believes historical fiction as if were truth.

21

Why the Catholic Church outlast Jehovah's Witnesses

by no-zombie in

many of us who are old timers in "truth", will clearly remember how we and the organization gloated when christendom began selling off their churches, as we saw many ending up becoming cafe's and art galleries.

i personally remember being told (both in general conversation and in print) that the fall of their congregant numbers meant that most churches were ultimately attended by the elderly and it was clearly linked to the "drying up of her waters" in reference to the fall of babylon and babylon the great..

how ironic, that this very situation has now befallen the society and our local kingdom halls..

Half banana

One reason the Roman Catholic Church will outlive the JW org has to do with their respective origins.

The RCC had contrived a link with Peter and therefore claim divine approval according to the scriptures which they themselves made sacred (clever trick!) In doing so they are so wealthy they have become an independent nation called Vatican City with a monarchical head of state, the Pope.

The JW org on the other hand, which has had to periodically change its name and doctrines, have to constantly disown their origins. Systematically they have had to disinherit their former beliefs and leaders which is like periodically cutting off one's own feet!

Russell distanced himself from the date-setting Miller as well as the others who started the Watchtower with him in 1879. Russell had promised a paradise on Earth by 1914, living just long enough to see his hopes dashed. Then Rutherford taking hold of the reins of glory built up by Russell's reputation, increased the JW empire on sales of dire books. He dismissed Russell's failed prophecies with failed prophecies of his own--such as Armageddon by 1925 and "Millions now living will never die". Another go-getter Knorr replaced him with his personal theologian Fred Franz proclaiming 1975 and the generation which saw 1914 would see Armageddon. All dud fireworks. Now Fred Franzian religion is wrong; type/antitype was all hooey. The latest attempt at running the Watchtower cult relies on wearing blinkers, not thinking too hard and obeying even if you don't know why you're doing it.

Unlike the RC Church, the JW religion does not have a solid foundation, it is on a conveyor belt, ripping and fraying at the edges, out of date and breaking down.

When you have to sell of a lot of your property assets in a business, you know your time is up.

79

607 date of Jerusalems destruction

by benny in

i am confused about the time scale regarding the year of the destruction of jerusalem.

in the 1st october 2011 watchtower an argument is presented to back up 607 bc but there are so many conflicting arguments that this happened 20 years later according to secular sources.

your thoughts please..

Half banana

Ah yes! it was Furuli's attempt to square the circle that I was reading.

Here is Wikipedia on JW Rolf Furuli who is an emeritus professor of Semitic languages:

In a 2004 issue of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Lester L. Grabbe, professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull, said of Furuli's study: "Once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship. ... F. shows little evidence of having put his theories to the test with specialists in Mesopotamian astronomy and Persian history."[5]

Significantly and in the true spirit of The Watchtower, Furuli's work on dating of the Babylonian period is not peer reviewed-- BECAUSE IT WOULD NOT STAND UP TO SCRUTINY.

This does not stop unscrupulous people like the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses from quoting their man as if his is the definitive word on the subject.

Furuli, just like 'Scholar,' is stuck in a cult and can't see it.

13

irrefutable proof of the great apostasy that corrupted the catholic church

by TTWSYF in

when the emperor constantine legalized christianity in the roman empire around 311ad he allowed or introduced a flood of half converted pagans and allowed the corruption that sullied the true faith and ruined christianity until a time when it could be restored to the true and pure faith that it was intended to become.

many people here know that to be a fact.

it's a common sense theory, right?.

Half banana

Thewonderofyou, I am curious how you can meaningfully use the expression "true worship"? By saying this you imply it must have existed. Could you explain what it was please?

79

607 date of Jerusalems destruction

by benny in

i am confused about the time scale regarding the year of the destruction of jerusalem.

in the 1st october 2011 watchtower an argument is presented to back up 607 bc but there are so many conflicting arguments that this happened 20 years later according to secular sources.

your thoughts please..

Half banana

The JW leadership has managed to marry ignorance with arrogance (ignorgance!)

They use the bullshit technique of making up stories to fit the ideas they hold dear and then ask the flock not to check up on the accuracy of the information. The JW org charges forth on the assumption of having LOYAL followers not truthful information.

The fact that no historian believes in the 607 BCE date* just shows how out of harmony with the times they are and why from now on they will decline in influence and number, especially in the Western world.

If they were to come clean and admit all of their failings and date botches and conscious deceptions, the bottom would fall out of JW credibility-- which is at a low ebb already. Either way the Watchtower is last century's religion.

Today's world demands accurate academic and scientific data on which can be built further technological or other developments, religious puffs of hot air are of no use to anyone apart from cults.

*I did find myself reading a JW apologist's confirmation of 607 BCE who was an academic but not a historian. The JW principle is always the same; it is deemed to be true if the organisation says so and you are disloyal if you believe otherwise.

22

2019 International Convention Growth Figures from Baptism

by HiddenPimo in

so the borg has put up the attendance and baptism figured from the miami and atlanta international conventions.. amazing growth!.

atlanta - 46,374 peak attendance / baptized 314.

0.67% growth.

Half banana

The percentage of baptisms at summer conventions is not the annual growth measure but does give a feel for more than half, perhaps two thirds(?) of the annual baptisms in a large area. I predict they will stop having baptisms at circuit assemblies because it is discouraging to have so few candidates............

The Atlanta figures are telling because we have the ages of the dunked-- and as teens it is likely that they are doing it primarily for their family and family tradition not for personal conscientious or 'spiritual' reasons. If this is representative of most baptisms today (young born-ins) it shows that the door to door preaching work has become a FAILURE! An enormous effort for few rewards in terms of getting outsiders on board the Watchtower ark. In other words it's much easier to believe the JW drivel if you were born into it.

However it is encouraging to know that past statistics show that whatever the reasons for getting baptised, JWs have a very high churn rate and most of these newbies will leave the organisation sooner or later.

49

Check out this shameless image on jw.org.

by nicolaou in

another generation of children being fed the same lie we, our parents and grandparents were told.

this is the link, it's image number 8. https://www.jw.org/en/news/jw/region/united-states/2019-love-never-fails-international-convention-series-overview/.

.

Half banana

Why is this picture of children enjoying themselves so very sad?

For the children it just seems like having the attention of others and fun with friends at the same time—what could be better?

Their parents are taking pride in the fact that their offspring are happily doing something in furthering the work of the JW organisation. This is exactly the sort of image the JW org would want to promote. Innocent JW children having innocent fun.

What are the beliefs of the JW organisation? What beliefs are they fostering in these childrens minds? Is it to grow up as balanced, educated, well adjusted, mentally strong, useful, fulfilled citizens?

No, it is far removed from that. The JW organisation without sound basis, claims that very soon (very soon for the last one hundred and forty years mind you!) that God will execute man woman and child, all those who do not respond positively to the teachings of the Watchtower and become a whole-hearted participant in its organisation.

The children of Jehovah’s Witnesses are discouraged from higher education and from seeking a lucrative job to support a family. They are discouraged from ever investigating anything unless it is found in the writings of the organisation. The JW religion categorically stamps on personal development and private ambition and those who do manage to extricate themselves from the clutches of this cult often, if not usually, find themselves quite unprepared for real life outside the cult, having low self esteem and a limited education therefore being fit only for menial work.

The happy children in this picture, if they don’t escape the religion, because of the fearful and paranoid stance required, they will have unnatural mental and social pressures heaped upon them. If they remain in the JW congregation, there they will have to give up their free will, they will only be judged on how well they conform to the edicts of the governing body of Jehovah’s Witnesses. If they stay long enough-- they will have their whole lives stolen from them.

Sorry to say but this picture is JW propaganda, wrong information, one sided and deceptive.

17

Wedding Rings.

by Lost in the fog in

we have long queried why so-called things of pagan or religious origin like christmas or easter are banned by the wts but the use of wedding rings were not.. i was talking about this with a friend who follows a wiccan path of belief and he has sent me the following information from one of his magic magazines.. quote: .

" why do we wear our wedding ring on our ‘ring finger’ ?

thus, to properly activate the ring finger we need to wear a golden ring on it.

Half banana

I agree with what you say about wedding rings, most rituals are bound up with ancient superstitions.

You also mention Easter is not celebrated but in reality the essentials which the pagan Easter festival which was fed into the Christian Church is also incorporated into WT doctrine. It is so central to the ransom belief that all the things to do with the death of Jesus are found in paganism. The last supper was cribbed from Mithraism including the symbolic wine and biscuits. Even the fundamental pagan symbol of cleansing by human sacrifice is present. The timing of Easter at the first full moon after the spring equinox is perpetuated by JW doctrine. The death and resurrection of Jesus had counterparts in pagan worship as the son of the Sun God going to his heavenly father hence the brightness of the two of them ruling together in the heavens.

There are a lot more fascinating parallels which can be related directly to older folk tradition but the main point is that the Roman Church especially under Theodosius in the late fourth century banned all references to the pagan texts under harsh penalty and so began the illusion that the church and Bible had come by divine decree. The beliefs and rituals had in reality all come from paganism. Virtually all of Jesus' life, works and biography had been borrowed from pagan predecessors.

13

irrefutable proof of the great apostasy that corrupted the catholic church

by TTWSYF in

when the emperor constantine legalized christianity in the roman empire around 311ad he allowed or introduced a flood of half converted pagans and allowed the corruption that sullied the true faith and ruined christianity until a time when it could be restored to the true and pure faith that it was intended to become.

many people here know that to be a fact.

it's a common sense theory, right?.

Half banana

Agreed there does not have to be a "true religion" from which an apostacy could occur. There is no such thing as a true religion in the first place, such an impression is surely a subjective one by those brought together under the spell of their own particular group's tradition and being emotionally bonded to it.

Neither is there evidence for a "great apostacy" with the Roman Church corrupting Christianity. The Romans were polytheist and had a tolerant attitude, they promoted piety, an outward, visible fidelity to the gods which they held was more important than to which one you venerated.

To the Romans, the various sects making up Christianity were a political annoyance because they were intolerant of others beliefs, they were monotheist, pacifist and had an interior belief system based on faith and obedience to God even when it was at odds with the state. Early Christians even relished persecution and martyrdom which in turn attracted other religious idealists to bolster the movement. It is therefore more of a surprise that the Christian Church, which was drawn from all the older religions especially Mithraism should become the dominant one by the end of the fourth century. The last Mithraic Pope Praetextatus, was offered the position of first Roman Pope in the state role of Ponifex maximus (great bridgemaker) but he declined. Of course the RC church later fabricated their links back to Peter to establish a spiritual pedigree springing from him.

Christianity was cultic from the start and Constantine for a number of reasons, not the least of which was because his beloved mother Helen was a believer, pressed for a unification of all religious belief under the one Imperial umbrella. He succeeded in creating legal toleration of Christianity in 313, (under Diocletion it had been banned), the Bishops had their heads banged together in 325CE at Council of Nicene (at what is today Isnik Turkey) and unified a universal (catholic) doctrine which was implemented only as late as 380 CE.

This is a big subject but necessary to study if we are to understand early Christianity. In this regard, the Bible does not help us! Like all cult outpourings it is entirely one sided. We need the voice of the historian archaeologist and sociologist to disentangle myth from the facts.

Rome declined and fell, but Roman Christianity took on the mantle of secular power and took Europe and Western Asia into centuries of the Dark Ages.

Yale does a lot of good You tube lectures on this period.