Sulla

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Posts by Sulla

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  49

  Watchtower explains why it's NOT a Cult

  by JWOP in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here is a youtube video showing a wt article trying to explain how it is not a cult, but contradicts itself and undoes their own reasoning:.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2lac74n638.

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  Sulla

  OK, so you want to call it a cult. So what? Are the JWs less wrong if they are a cult than they are if they are not a cult? Help me out here: what is the reason so many are insistant that the JWs are defined as a cult?
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  49

  Watchtower explains why it's NOT a Cult

  by JWOP in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here is a youtube video showing a wt article trying to explain how it is not a cult, but contradicts itself and undoes their own reasoning:.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2lac74n638.

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  Sulla

  Very funny, though I've never heard a Russian accent quite like that.

  I do tend against the idea that the JWs are a cult: when they followed a charismatic leader they didn't try to control everybody so much, and when they tried to control everybody they didn't have a charismatic leader. I also think that 7.5 million is an awfully high number of members for a cult to have.
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  42

  Was There Anything You Actually Enjoyed About Being A JW?

  by MrFreeze in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i'm sure this question has been raised a lot but it is always good to look back.

  the last 5 or 6 years of me being a jw, i did not have a very good go of it.

  one thing i actually did enjoy was going to the international convention.

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  Sulla

  Difficult to say. I think I really enjoyed how easy it was to get social status. My father gave talks on the DC and was known for being pretty good; combine that with pioneering and Bethel and a couple good marriages (sister to a young pioneer/elder) and you have valuable social capital. I miss the easy social capital.
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  36

  What's so mysterious about "generation" (genea) in Matthew?

  by kepler in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  thanks to a number of notices about a website titled www.jwfacts.com, i took a quick tour and found some very informative pages and charts about the organization's positions and history.

  thanks also to a number of posters for their reminders.

  i can't summarize the whole site in a topic, but it did include a history of the interpretation of the phrase "this generation", appearing in matthew 24:34.. "truly i say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.".

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  Sulla

  There are variations in this text from extant Hebrew versions beyond the scope of this discussion, but translators to Greek had to decide when to use the term "genea" and how. Maybe there is a clue there.

  kepler, I think the point is that there are no clues and that you should stop looking for them. The point of the first chapter of Matthew is to break up the important people in the Jewish religious history into symmetric groups of 2x7 generations: the generation being defined as sons and fathers. There is no implication of years, and to try to figure out how many years he might have been talking about per generation is to entirely miss the point.

  If he was not writing from Babylon, it was probably Rome. But why would he call Rome Babylon if he didn't see a resemblance? What was the resemblance?

  Well, the resemblance would be that Rome was acting to oppress the chosen of God the way Babylon was. So, in the Jewish/Christian context, the similarity is pretty obvious, right?

  Also, the "this generation" passage appears in all three synoptic Gospels, but there are significant differences in the overall accounts surrounding that discussion. So, for arguments about context for "generation" in Matthew: do they apply as well in Mark and Luke?

  ok. I don't think you are listening.
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  36

  What's so mysterious about "generation" (genea) in Matthew?

  by kepler in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  thanks to a number of notices about a website titled www.jwfacts.com, i took a quick tour and found some very informative pages and charts about the organization's positions and history.

  thanks also to a number of posters for their reminders.

  i can't summarize the whole site in a topic, but it did include a history of the interpretation of the phrase "this generation", appearing in matthew 24:34.. "truly i say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.".

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  Sulla

  The thing I notice, kepler, about the statement is its absurdity. 1,000 people before me on this board have pointed out the stupidity the concept that my grandfather and I are of the same generation. Unless you wanted to describe us both as the "Clinton" generation, and yet even this simply points out how preposterous the whole idea is. And yet I have engaged JWs who defend this concept with vigor.

  I'm thinking that these JWs defend this teaching because the thing they believe in is 1919, which is to say: they believe the JWs are the re-established one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. In something like a bizzarro-world papal infalibility doctrine, JWs think the church can teach gravely mistaken things about faith and morals and that the faithful are required to believe even these errors. Still, the teaching may have surpassed the "torture stake" teaching as the most gratuitous of all the JW doctrines.

  I doubt that there is any need to work through St. Matthew's gospel to evaluate it, though.
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  70

  How many ex-jws poster here now believe in Hellfire, immortality of soul, trinity, etc;

  by booker-t in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am just curious about this because although i agree with many of the posters here that the wt society is guilty of many horrible deeds, i still believe they are right when it comes to doctrinal things as i mention.

  especially hellfire.

  i just don't see how anybody that has studied the bible for many years like many of the ex-jws here can make an about face and go back to believing hellfire.

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  Sulla

  designs, it isn't nice to pick on Bowman and Hoffstetter. They have a an agenda, so it isn't the same thing. Lotta Evangelicals are like that.
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  36

  What's so mysterious about "generation" (genea) in Matthew?

  by kepler in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  thanks to a number of notices about a website titled www.jwfacts.com, i took a quick tour and found some very informative pages and charts about the organization's positions and history.

  thanks also to a number of posters for their reminders.

  i can't summarize the whole site in a topic, but it did include a history of the interpretation of the phrase "this generation", appearing in matthew 24:34.. "truly i say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.".

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  Sulla

  Are you suggesting, OldGenerationDude, that the JWs would like to jettison the linkage between 1914 and the timing of the End? The idea being to keep the JW ecclesiology (the one true Church was re-established in 1919) and the emphasis on the nearness of the End without the troublesome limits on the timing of it?

  In your view, does this seem like something that can be done? I've always thought that the idea that JWs were getting close to some upper bound on the time left (40 years seems like a reasonable length for a generation, 1975 is good timing for all this to end, the 1914 people are getting long in the tooth, etc) has always been the critical factor in JW motivation, even if the Governing Body thinks that 1919 is the key factor.
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  70

  How many ex-jws poster here now believe in Hellfire, immortality of soul, trinity, etc;

  by booker-t in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am just curious about this because although i agree with many of the posters here that the wt society is guilty of many horrible deeds, i still believe they are right when it comes to doctrinal things as i mention.

  especially hellfire.

  i just don't see how anybody that has studied the bible for many years like many of the ex-jws here can make an about face and go back to believing hellfire.

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  Sulla

  The short answer is, yes, I accept all three. The longer answer is that we are probably talking about very different concepts when we use these terms.

  if it is possible to abstract from the more fantastic depictions of, say, Bosch and interpret these as true in the same way, say, Picasso's portrait of Dora Maar is true then we can begin to think of what is meant by Hell.

  What we find is that Hell is primarly the complete choice against God, the one who is and who is love. If you accept that human beings are things that find their true purpose in love and in being, then the choice against these things is profoundly mutilated. Like a lion that chooses not to hunt. Such a person has chosen not to have a complete existence.

  You can't be right this way. This is Hell. I believe that this choice exists and that, therefore, the state exists. It might as well be depicted by Bosch or scenes from the movie "Jacob's Ladder," or any number of ways because the truth of it can be captured that way.

  If you believe in choice and you believe in God, then you believe in Hell.
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  24

  Why the GB secretly hates and fears the gospel above ALL else!

  by Fernando in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  Sulla

  OldGenerationDude is correct. Again. I'd be interested to see Fernando and others interact with those comments.
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  9

  Your warm invitation to join my new religion called "The Church of Conscience"!

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have started a new religion and this is your personal invitation to join it.

  i got the idea from romans 2:14-15:.

  "for whenever people of the nations that do not have law do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves.

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  Sulla

  What would we be worshipping in this church of yours? Ah, of course: ourselves. Fortunately, I already have such an outsized regard for myself that this should work really, really well.