Posts by Anony Mous

47

Retirement savings

by TxNVSue2023 in

what's the current jw stance on retirement savings?

i know it changed.

pre1975 it was an attitude of "don't worry about retirement, this system is ending soon".

@Beth Sarum: there are two strata in the WTBTS, you have the true believers and those that simply participate. One has houses, one lives in poverty and most halls I’ve been in it’s really 80/20, 20% has the wealth, 80% doesn’t.

I definitely know people that have given their entire life, energy and what little money they have for their entire life. Some have gotten lucky to some extent, but many have sacrificed and as retirement nears, the 20% sure won’t help, they use their money to get power, wine and dine the CO into elder positions.

60

Sign of the Last Days

by Fisherman in

in the sermon on the mount, jesus foretold that earthquakes “in one place after another” would be part of the sign of the last days clímaxing in the great tribulation.. what could jesus possibly have meant?

using a phone app nowadays, there are earthquakes detected in one place after another but is this what jesus meant and did they have so many earthquakes throughout the centuries affter his prophecy or are these modern day detected earthquakes unique to this epoch?

how can we be sure unequivocally that modern day earthquakes are part of the sign fulfilling bible prophecy?.

Anony Mous

@Boogerman: the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast

7Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, 8and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

16Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, 17so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.

This certainly implies everyone participating in politics and commerce are required to worship/participate, further on the image of the beast slays everyone that does not.

Hence the interpretation that it is the UN, is certainly incorrect because the UN is neither worshipped nor universally accepted. People vie for power within the UN and quite a few nation-states are not partially or fully participating in the UN, hell, the UN keeps certain countries out (eg. the democratically elected Republic of China, Somaliland just to name a few) just to appease other countries. And this is where these prophecies’ interpretations break down, you can never make any group of people completely cooperative, under no circumstances except to very small groups (the size of a town or village) under a free and open market (free from governments and open to all, which implies a pure anarcho-capitalism).

35

Are Elders prepared to take the fall for WT/GB misdemeanor's / crime ??

by smiddy3 in

i have been thinking about this in relation to the directive given to elders to destroy any incriminating evidence they may have either on their pc`s ,e-mails , private notes in their possession, or notes in their witnessing bags ,etc.

to do with child sexual abuse they may still have in their possession.. isn`t that encouraging the elders to interfere with the justice system ?.

to break the law?.

Anony Mous

There is a lot of legal issues that the WTBTS seems to want to hide here.

First of all is overall direction to record retention, as others pointed out, is a legitimate action, presuming the WTBTS is in charge over the corporations/officers (which they claim they aren’t). This basically returns responsibility over those records back to WTBTS.

However, giving such a broad directive, especially if it points out special subjects is almost certainly legally pernicious. In many cases, ANY record of criminal behavior should be retained until the crime is reported and the conclusion of any lawsuits, whether criminal or civil, suspected criminal behavior, usually 5 years after reporting to law enforcement.

If it pertains children, then there may be a statute which says for example that such records must be retained until the person is certain age, in Connecticut, it is 30 years after reaching majority. You can’t just destroy evidence if you know or should reasonably be expected to know a crime occurred. If you have notes on a suspected crime involving children, you need to retain the records a lot longer than what people often think.

47

Retirement savings

by TxNVSue2023 in

what's the current jw stance on retirement savings?

i know it changed.

pre1975 it was an attitude of "don't worry about retirement, this system is ending soon".

Anony Mous

As far as I know, they still do not recommend large savings plans, they still promote part time work for pioneering and I known quite a few people that still have nothing prepared even though they are soon or already have entered retirement age.

If anything, if you have a large pension plan, they would rather you take out money of your 401k to give to the construction of a hall (and I know idiots that have), which they will then resell 10-15 years down the road.

The problem in a cult is always that of mobility, whether it be physical or financial. If you give people the freedom to be mobile, it will be easier for them to act upon that mobility, whether it is through doubts or other issues. If you have no money and have been taught to ‘rely on Jehoober’, like people on welfare, they will always have to rely on Jehoober, there is no other viable option.

If you are a pioneer and you get older, even if you have doubts, the elder kid is cutting your lawn, someone gives you a beat up old car and someone fixes it for you, if you act upon your doubts, you instantly lose access to that and replacing it can be difficult, so you lie to yourself and now even your doubts and outright criminal activity happens in the halls, you have to rely on Jehoober to fix it, because you can’t see how to fix it yourself.

33

JW Elder Sentenced for CSA

by EasyPrompt in

https://www.westernmassnews.com/2023/09/01/jehovah-witness-elder-sentenced-jail-child-sexual-abuse-case/?outputtype=amp.

.

Anony Mous

Various issues here:

The guy gets sentenced to 100+ years in prison in 1987, he’s free before even serving a full single sentence.

Then he becomes a JW, within less than 10 years he makes it as an elder, despite his background, despite his status as a permanently registered sex offender, gets special approval by the Service Department. Then he gets only a 15 year sentence.

Both the state and the WTBTS are to blame here, this person does not deserve to be free after just 20 years or a lesser sentence of 15 years for re-offending. He is the personification of what is wrong with modern social justice, and the WTBTS is going along with this social justice because men willing to step up are so scarce, they are special-approving level 3, fresh out of jail sex offenders.

60

Sign of the Last Days

by Fisherman in

in the sermon on the mount, jesus foretold that earthquakes “in one place after another” would be part of the sign of the last days clímaxing in the great tribulation.. what could jesus possibly have meant?

using a phone app nowadays, there are earthquakes detected in one place after another but is this what jesus meant and did they have so many earthquakes throughout the centuries affter his prophecy or are these modern day detected earthquakes unique to this epoch?

how can we be sure unequivocally that modern day earthquakes are part of the sign fulfilling bible prophecy?.

Anony Mous

@BoogerMan: at no point in history nor in any point in the future will ALL governments pass power to a single entity. There is always at least 1 (but likely more) people in or in the ascension of power that this will never happen, yes, a group of governments may decide to give up their power (eg. EU) but someone will always recognize the power of being different (that was the Balkan countries or the Swiss)

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

Anony Mous

@SeaBreeze: you continue quoting an old translation (KJV) that has no bearing on the actual Hebrew text. As I said, Jews do not believe the separation of soul in the way you describe based on the same scripture. KJV mistranslates 3 different Hebrew words as the separable soul. Hence my retort, do you believe the same words used in other scriptures apply to the separable soul as well? Do you believe animals and the wind have separable souls?

As far as your retort on photons, photons (theoretically) have all their mass into energy. If you conclude from this, the soul is a massless energy, you should be able to measure it empirically. Feel free to point me to actual scientific research on photons leaving the body directed towards heaven or hell.

However, the photon has zero invariant or rest mass. This is an invariant of an object which is defined as follows:

The rest mass (m0m0) of a particle is a quantity having the dimensions of mass which is invariant in all reference frames and satisfies m02c2=(Ec)2−∥p∥2m02c2=(cE)2−∥p∥2

For most other particles, it can be thought of as the mass observed from a frame of reference where the particle is at rest. Or, we could think of it as the mass not attributed to the kinetic energy, but the particle itself. If there was a way (there isn't; special relativity prohibits it) to observe a photon at rest, you would find it massless. All the relativistic mass of the photon comes from it's energy.

Moreover, information does have mass as I linked a paper on it. This is also a direct result of relativism and has been known since the 60s. An ‘idea’ has mass. Do the blocks with the number 3 printed on it not have mass? Yes, thus the idea of the number three is a representation/description of something physical. The soul, most religions do not believe in it, it isn’t physical, it’s an idea with no grounding in fact.

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

Anony Mous

@SeaBreeze: I contradicted you by explaining the wrong translation from original Hebrew. Everywhere in Genesis nefesh is used which is used for any living person or being, including animals which in Christian tradition do not have souls. You have to do a bit better than misquoting a particular scripture which doesn’t even talk about souls and doesn’t even have a common translation. The only mention of death in Gen 25:18 is KJV which is not a proper translation by any means, no other translation mentions the death of Ishmael.

Information does have mass per the work of Claude Shannon and Rolf Landauer by the principles of whose theories you are currently even capable of writing your message on these forums. The idea that information has no mass has been outdated for well over 60 years https://pubs.aip.org/aip/adv/article/9/9/095206/1076232/The-mass-energy-information-equivalence-principle#

Edit: I think you were talking about Gen 35:18, once again you are basing your ideas on the concept INTRODUCED by the KJV that ‘the soul was leaving her body’, more accurate translation simply state “As she took her last breath”. The word used nefesh is also used in Gen 1:20, 9:10 etc which is not applicable to the idea of a uniquely human soul that is separate from the body. I don’t see any translation that supports that idea.

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

Anony Mous

@Sea Breeze: information (energy or the reduction of entropy) does have mass, that’s the whole idea behind E=MC2

The information on a hard drive or in a brain however is just storage, both the existence or lack of useful/structured information is information in itself (eg. If you have a (partially) blank drive, you can infer knowledge about the use of the drive for example).

Things like logical constructs and language are related to the physical, the soul as you describe is metaphysical and very much a Christian idea, based on Plato’s teachings, most other religions do not share the same ideas. Other religions (eg. Judaism) does not share the modern idea of the Christian soul, the Hebrew Scriptures do not support the translation of the single word “soul”, which is an invention of Medieval Christianity, rather the original text has Neshamah (life itself, the human animating force) Nefesh (living person related to its material needs) and Ruach (a divine animating force) but nowhere do these seem to indicate a separate being, although life force in later scriptures can return to God, it does not seem to imply a personality or connectedness to the individual or body (more a ‘conservation of energy’ type deal).

182

My granddaughter 5 mos old passed away today...

by Tatiana in

jw
friends

she was beautiful.

her name was aliyah.

she would have been 5 mos tomorrow.

Anony Mous

Very tasteless to resurrect an old thread like this, regardless of your bad science. There is sufficient data to talk about in another topic.