Posts by Anony Mous

33

Do JWs see the org falling apart?

by ThomasDam21 in

i have been away from the jw cult for many years.

i don't have any family i talk to that are in it.

so i don't know if the jws as a whole are seeing the cult fall apart or if they or the majority of them are head in the sand la la la the end is neigh.

Anony Mous

Great:

God recreates/re-forms the person in the heavens as a spirit - with their memories, personality, etc

How is that entity not a soul and how does it transfer to heaven. They must be transferred somehow, purely physically speaking some 'energy' must go from here to there.

Here is the problem with the non-immortal soul/spirit belief of the JW

1) The belief is that your body and your spirit and your soul are just different names for the same thing (your physical body and your personal attributes; the soul is not immortal; spirit is your life force and also not immortal). Physical bodies cannot enter heaven, when you die, your life force and your soul dies with you. Let's assume that is a true statement.

2) God recreates a "body" for you in heaven with your personal attributes, it by JW standards is considered a "soul". Since your "spirit" is your animating life force, you cannot be created a "spirit" since "spirits" have no personal attributes or will (eg. the Holy Spirit according to JW interpretation is not a person, but God's force and has no will).

3) Per the Bible and according to JW the body dies and cannot enter heaven so it cannot be the 'same thing' that was on earth, yet, JW believe the body = the soul. Thereby statement 2 and statement 1 cannot be true at the same time, it's a logical contradiction.

You can extend 2 to include people resurrected. If God did not preserve your soul, spirit or body, how will he resurrect you the way you were. "From memory" sure, but then God DID preserve an aspect of your soul or spirit if not your body. Just like converting a letter with a signature from paper to digital and then printing it out again, is still legally considered a valid signature, just because you converted it into something different, doesn't mean it is no longer "the thing".

33

Do JWs see the org falling apart?

by ThomasDam21 in

i have been away from the jw cult for many years.

i don't have any family i talk to that are in it.

so i don't know if the jws as a whole are seeing the cult fall apart or if they or the majority of them are head in the sand la la la the end is neigh.

Anony Mous

@journeyman: What you describe as JW theology, very few people actually know how to answer those 'difficult' questions. So if a kid asks a logical question, then parents often don't even know WHAT they believe because they've been trained that asking questions is wrong, and looking up answers to those questions on yourself is hard.

Unlike my kids in church, they go to Sunday school, have a pretty good knowledge about what they believe and what the Bible says. My other kid is raised with her JW mother, doesn't go to Sunday school, doesn't know at all what to believe, especially because we do go to church, she hears the things and it makes sense but in some places conflicts, she has a very hard time right now because the JW tell her a parody of what "Christendom" believes about hell and souls, then she goes to church and it actually all seems to make sense and not at all the parody that JWs hold other Christians to be.

It's a really weird thing, and something a lot of ex-JW's either experience or "don't want anything to do with religion" they'll never experience it and keep a really wrong JW idea about what churches are and do. Most churches are not at all like JW, they are not at all like what the media or the JW parodies them to be. And that is the same for most other religions, I have a Buddhist friend and when I first left JW and met him, we talked about his believes, all I knew was from that WTBTS conversion literature which I knew backwards and forwards because I was in the foreign language field for years. So I asked him if that is what he believed and he looked really weird and said, no, that's actually a really old and anti-Buddhist propaganda that people like Mao used to prosecute them. That was eye opening to me, he invited me to Temple and yes, it is not at all what the JW books told me about. So as an ex-JW, if you're interested in other people's religions and having conversations with them about it, first re-learn everything you know by visiting their 'churches' and talking to them.

So yes, the question is valid, if you don't have a soul, then 'what' goes to heaven if you're anointed. It can't be the fleshly body, which the explanation of God will just reconstruct a body, although not supported by the Bible, is a possibility, but if your body doesn't have a soul and the spirit is just your animating energy which dies when you die, then "what" goes to or becomes created in heaven, because even the JW believe that there is no 'flesh' only 'spirit' in heaven. The explanation that at the very end, God converts their soon-to-be-dead body/spirit/soul (which they claim is all the same thing) into something like a soul that then goes to heaven is a valid explanation, that actually fits within the Biblical interpretation of souls/spirits.

47

What does God eat ?

by stan livedeath in

beans ?

( human beans ).

to those of you that believe in god: do you all believe the same thing ?.

Anony Mous

Makes sense, honey has healing/antibiotic properties and can preserve things for really long times, even thousands of years (practically infinity/forever for humans). Other cultures will have other plants and animals depending on availability - eg deer and rabbits frequently occur in Western European mythology because they procreate so fast, they are a practically infinite food source or pine trees in northern areas that don’t lose their needles and have healing properties.

33

Do JWs see the org falling apart?

by ThomasDam21 in

i have been away from the jw cult for many years.

i don't have any family i talk to that are in it.

so i don't know if the jws as a whole are seeing the cult fall apart or if they or the majority of them are head in the sand la la la the end is neigh.

Anony Mous

The WTBTS since COVID has had the same issue many large corporations have: people noticed that sitting at home and doing nothing had the same result as going into the office and ‘doing work’. Guess which is easier. That is why they stopped hammering on service, first they had to comply with their WEF and UN cronies to keep the money flowing, then they realized nobody wants to go ‘back to the office’. Problem is they can’t lay off their funding source, if they found a way to keep the money flowing without the cost, they would do it in a heartbeat, like they have been doing merging building use.

As with real (large) employers like the Federal Government or Microsoft, both parties know they can’t live without the other and both sides just have to figure out the minimum amount of mutual benefit that is acceptable. Some smaller companies and those with existing funding issues have been having mass layoffs for several years now (eg Twitter, Dell and HP) which doesn’t at all impact their service.

I’m thinking we will end up with something similar eventually, where participation will be a ‘subscription benefit’, you have then 2 classes of JW, those willing to pay for the ‘club’ that will have access to even smaller KH or some kind of country club resort (temples like other cults eg scientology and Mormons have), they’ll get visits from CO and even GB members depending on level of subscription and those that just kind of show up to the ‘free web version’ on Zoom.

44

New GB member Judy Jedele critizing Job's "humility" while wearing $20,000 Rolex, gold cuff links, coloured suit. Incredible!

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

i swear, you can't make this shit up!

for years and years growing up in this cult, i had to constantly hear from my parents, from the stage, in the literature, about "keeping your eye simple", not being "materialistic", not "having a showy display of one's wealth.

" of course, this never seemed to apply to the wealthy business owning elduhzzzz who ran and lorded it out over the congregations, but i digress.

Anony Mous

I don’t have a problem with the churches (or anyone really) not being taxed, but since we all do pay taxes, I do think these kinds of ‘benefits’ should be accrued towards their personal income and they or the org should pay employee taxes on it.

The IRS has been very keen on prosecuting individual pastors the Biden and Obama admin didn’t like and making sure any private use of church property, even accidental was treated as tax evasion, yet these assholes live fully on the dime of their ‘flock’ and NYS and the Feds both don’t seem to care at all.

Note that pastors CAN have both income and benefits that are “reasonable” for their position. Income however should be taxed and benefits cannot be “personal”, my mother living in the house and paying a fraction of the mortgage is considered taxable income for me, if I got a Rolex from her, I would have to report it as income, yet the GB lives like kings in private hotels and don’t pay a dime in taxes, get Rolexes and don’t consider it paying ‘income’ (the state publishes the annual tax records of all non-profits).

4

Jehovah's Witnesses in the news: "Czech Culture Ministry Considers Deregistration of Jehovah’s Witnesses"

by Balaamsass2 in

2/2025 czech news agency czech culture ministry considers deregistration of jehovah’s witnesses.

the czech ministry of culture is considering the possible cancellation of the religious registration of the jehovah’s witnesses religious society, and has sent the organisation an appeal to desist from its illegal activities, ministry spokeswoman jana zechmeisterova told ctk today.. the ministry has received thousands of complaints from the jehovah’s witnesses about the proposal, which must be dealt with first.

administrative proceedings have not yet been initiated, zechmeisterova said.. she said the ministry had begun to deal with the proposals it had received about the cancellation of the registration of the religious society of jehovah’s witnesses (nssj).

Anony Mous

Once again I don’t agree with the fact that the government either supports or opposes any religion, but people have to understand that with support comes financial benefits and with financial benefits there should be responsibilities or expectations that need fulfilled. Also with proven issues of child abuse or neglect, the parents should be held responsible, not some higher up societal or group level of responsibility assigned by the government.

As proven time and again, Europe does not have a right to freedom of religion as guaranteed in the US constitution, so people should look at it from that perspective as well. The WTBTS will make it seem they have been granted certain rights when they have not, they’ve accepted the cash, they need to be aware of what their benefactors want, whether that is religious, political or societal.

7

Hole in the Wall

by peacefulpete in

a recurring motif is generally used by writers to connect stories and characters to the past or suggest parallels.

the gospels and acts are filled with them.

an example of this is found at acts, 2 cor, 1 sam and joshua.

Anony Mous

That’s what I agree with as well, although I think a lot of the scholars still look through the lens of Christian apologetics. So a lot of scholars are theologians rather than archeologists.

People here often quote scholars like Ehrman that even defend the JW interpretation without realizing that scholar is likely a JW or at least models his belief system according to it. Thus I have to discount their interpretations for clear bias. Likewise theologians often believe the story is the important part rather than the facts surrounding.

4

Jehovah's Witnesses in the news: "I was exiled from my strict Jehovah's Witness community"

by Balaamsass2 in

i was exiled from my strict jehovah's witness community after i broke a major convention - they'll never speak to me again.

daily mail.

"a former jehovah's witness has shared her extraordinary journey of leaving behind everything she knew after falling in love with a colleague at tk maxx.

Anony Mous

@vienne - what? You clearly haven’t been a JW. I was threatened with DF’ing for having a ‘worldly’ girlfriend. Later on, during my second divorce, they tried to DF me again as I was having several worldly girlfriends at the same time, they followed me to collect ‘proof’. Hell, during my first divorce, I was counseled for having a JW girlfriend ‘too soon’ and we were told to break it off, just because it could reflect poorly on the congregation.

Yes, having a worldly relationship is a reason for disfellowshipping, it’s in the secret elder manual that people that ignore or reject the counsel of elders or what the WTBTS says on ANY matter is a disfellowshipping offense, it is clearly implied if not outright written in various publications that dating or marrying an unbeliever is ‘ignoring’ or ‘rejecting’ the WTBTS.

w89 11/1 p. 18-19 - Nevertheless, the Bible’s counsel is clear: ‘Do not yoke yourselves with unbelievers.’ … To marry an unbeliever is to ignore Scriptural counsel (and there are other publications)

the old YPA book said young people may rebel by having a worldly girlfriend/boyfriend, that was the book I was counseled from by the elders when I was 18, that publication doesn’t seem to be online anymore, but people that ‘studied’ it can tell you all kinds of stuff that wasn’t allowed (and they weren’t shy about the sexual stuff either).

w61: being willfully rebellious…, disfellowshiping from the congregation may be the only course

ypq: Jessica says, “I knew what I had to do.” Was breaking up easy? No! “This was the only boy I had ever really liked,” Jessica says. “I cried every day for several weeks.” Yet, Jessica knew something else—that she loved Jehovah and that although she had got sidetracked, she truly wanted to do what was right.

7

Hole in the Wall

by peacefulpete in

a recurring motif is generally used by writers to connect stories and characters to the past or suggest parallels.

the gospels and acts are filled with them.

an example of this is found at acts, 2 cor, 1 sam and joshua.

Anony Mous

@peacefulpete: elsewhere I made the claim that Paul’s story was basically a rip-off/rewrite of an even older Greek tragedy that was well known at the time. Everything from his conversion to his death is a literal reference to that Greek story. Much like the Jesus stories as well as most of the (apocryphal) stories about the apostles later life. I find it thus extremely unlikely that the people referenced were ‘real’ in the sense that they actually experienced those things. They may have been figures that existed, but they were made into ‘superheroes’.

So too many Bible stories are rewrites and references to older stories. The Bible wasn’t written in one go and most writers did not know of other books, so they are different versions of the same story that later were (poorly) rewritten into some kind of single story. Much like today you have stuff written like the Captain America, X-Men and Superman stories. Someone has been writing those stories since early 1900s, but they’re not the same writers and as time goes on they reboot them, they rewrite the characters to fit modern times, they have different timelines and universes, and people also make knock-offs and fan-fiction.

We’ve done this for 100 years now, let’s say the distributor wants to make all the official and fan-fiction and derivatives into a single authoritative book on the characters, they’ll have to pick what they want from the stories, the book will never be fully coherent, it will have to be written by multiple authors that need to coordinate etc. You will have your super-hero Bible but a committee (let’s call it a council) will have to get together and agree on what goes in the final version. And all the superhero stories have literal references to prior stories, the ubermensch (Superman) and scientifically enhanced beings were a popular trope and like characters can be found in literature back in Victorian times, the Marvel and other writers took sometimes very strong inspiration from those stories.

18

Using GROK 3 (Artificial Intelligence) to fact check UKRAINE theories/conspiracies, et al

by Terry in

jw
friends

to dig deep into what has taken place in ukraine both pro and con.

i tasked a.i.

with a pro vs con proposition.

Anony Mous

@TD: AI does not ingest data that fast, they are trained on data that is about 6 months to 1 year or older. Hence they cannot ‘know’ what is going on ‘today’, it only makes inferences based on the structure of your sentence. If you see influence from your own Reddit in your AI response, it is because you (all humans) are predictable and you are even subconsciously bringing a Reddit-like sentence structure into your question, since it is trained on Reddit data, so when it sees your structure it will respond like a Redditor would. Try using other language (eg. long sentences that are typical to science papers) and you will see it changes ‘form’.

All the AI (really they are langchains, not real intelligence) tells us is that humans are extremely predictable and our vocabulary extremely small and people are easily influenced, even subconsciously. The Grok engine can to some extent ingest ‘on the fly’ from the Twitter firehose, but really it is embedding the last few hour/days worth of data into a pre-trained model, Bing/OpenAI can do something similar with its most advanced model, basically embedding summaries of websites related to your query, but that feature is extremely expensive (the next version they are quoting $75 for every 150,000 word-chunks).