NeonMadman

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Posts by NeonMadman

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  8

  I was reading an "old" Watchtower mag and the "overlapping" generation was hinted at with President Knorr from a QFR

  by booker-t in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i was flipping through an old volume of the wt mag from 1952 and a qfr was asked about "this generation" from matthew and the author actually mentioned "overlapping" generations.

  i was surprised but it dawned on me that pres knorr toyed with this explaination 60 yrs ago so the new light is really partially "old light" from the 50s.

  the sept 1 1952 qfr ask "your publications point out that the battle of armaggeddon will come in this generation and that this generation began ad 1914, scriptually, how long is a generation?

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  NeonMadman

  The Watchtower's doctrine of the overlapping generation is based on a fallacy of equivocation. There are two different uses of the word "generation." One refers to all the children of a particular set of parents. If a couple continues to have children into middle age, you might have a situation where one sibling is 25 years older then the other. Nonetheless, in this use of the term, they are of the same "generation." If the older sibling has a child the same age as the younger one, the younger sibling and the niece/nephew would be part of different "generations" in this sense of the term, even though they are the same age, since the niece/nephew would actually be the grandchild of the original couple. This is the sense in which the word is used in Exodus 1:6, with reference to Joseph, his brothers and "all that generation."

  However, there is another, somewhat looser use of the term. We may speak of, for example, the World War II generation, meaning all the people who were alive at the time of the war, irrespective of their position in any particular geneaology. When Jesus spoke of "this generation" in Matthew 24:34, it seems obvious to me that he was using the term in this latter sense. He was speaking to the people who were standing there listening to him, regardless of their age or ancestry. Those people, the ones alive right then, were the ones of whom some, at least, would live to see Jerusalem's destruction in the year 70 A.D. They might have been 10 years old when Jesus spoke, or they might have been 40. There might have been grandparents present with their grandchildren listening to Jesus. Nonetheless, they were part of "this generation" in the second sense of the term.

  By conflating the two senses of the word, the Watchtower has very cleverly created a fallacious basis for its doctrine of an "overlapping generation" that is not obvious on first reading.
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  22

  Why do they call it the New World Translation?

  by Tameria2001 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does anyone know why the watchtower named their bible the new world translation of the holy scriptures?

  it's been awhile since i have even had any of their books in my home, and most of the time i don't think about it.

  i don't know why, but when i think of that title, the phrase new world order keeps popping up in my mind..

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  NeonMadman

  Witnesses nowadays refer a lot to the "new system," which is itself a phrase adapted from the NWT. In the 1950s, they spoke often of the "New World" and referred to themselves as the "New World Society." It wasn't much of a stretch to call their Bible the New World Translation.
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  89

  Mouthy Grace is not well. Please send love.

  by return of parakeet in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  in another thread, mouthy said she was "not well" and mentioned "kicking the bucket.

  i believe she needs some encouragement and well wishes.. mouthy, you don't need to respond to this thread if you don't feel up to it.

  just consider it an exceptionally long get-well card..

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  NeonMadman

  Get better quick, Grace! You said you would be at WNFJ this year; I've been counting on seeing you there!!!
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  56

  I wanted to punch this elder so bad!

  by OneDayillBeFree in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so i decided to attend the meeting last.

  since i haven't gone in about 2 weeks, and i leave as soon as it ends, and elder decided to corner me at the end.

  lately i've been through some very depressing family issues that are non-jw related so i haven't been my best at acting like i care about the org.

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  NeonMadman

  Reminds me of the time an elder told me that I shouldn't keep an open mind, because "an open mind is like an open sewer; you get all kinds of garbage in there."
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  19

  My friend, "Warrior," has a question on Matthew 28:20

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  good morning!.

  "warrior" and i had an 8-hour visit yesterday centering around many of the issues discussed by jwn members.

  one point we talked about was jesus' instruction to make disciples, baptize them and observe all that he has commanded us.. does a christian, therefore, need conduct his life solely on what jesus literally said, i.e., teachings contained in the four gospels?.

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  NeonMadman

  Why don't JW's wash each others feet. Their excuse is that we don't walk with sandals on dusty roads anymore. But that misses the point of instituting a ritual. A ritual is intended to be repeated so that the lesson becomes more than just a nice thought blazing through the brain.

  The thing is, many people (not just JWs) do not read this text as Jesus instituting a ritual, but as his providing an example of humble service that might be expressed differently in different circumstances. In a desert environment where people wear sandals, it might be expressed as washing of feet. In modern society, it might appear as offering a cold drink or coffee or tea to someone who comes to your home. Or, perhaps, helping out a poor or homeless person with a meal. What Jesus was saying his disciples should do for each other is not the specific act of foot-washing, but the attitude of service to others at the cost of one's own convenience.

  That said, like villagegirl, I have attended a Seventh-day Adventist church and participated in their foot-washing ceremony, and found it to be very meaningful. What surprised me was that it was not so difficult or humbling to wash the feet of another person. What was really tough was sitting there and allowing someone else to wash my feet. That was where I really needed to bring up some personal humility, and it made Peter's response to Jesus (John 13:6-9) much more real to me. So I have no issue with churches that choose to practice foot-washing in a literal way, but I don't believe that Jesus' words require such a literal application.
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  28

  Bible Teach Book has been getting a facelift WT Style

  by RayPublisher in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  well the book they use to conduct bible studies is already showing its age, and just like the changes they made to the live forever book they are doing it to the bible teach book as well.

  here is something i found on the kool aid site jw talk .

  net:.

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  NeonMadman

  Interesting the JW comment that the picture has been replaced with "a much better one." What makes the new one better? That it shows an actual city in flames? Or is it just better because the F&DS chose to replace the old picture with it, therefore it must ipso facto be better?
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  8

  Old literature

  by darklight in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  how easy would it be for a "student" to get hold of expired literature thru jws trying to get you into the truth, under normal circumstances?.

  today i got hold of "the kingdom interlinear translation of the greek scriptures" just by asking,.

  i emailed a scanned copy via email requesting a real copy...they refused to open the scanned copy, but within days i got the real deal heh.. .

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  NeonMadman

  The KIT isn't "old literature" in the sense of being discontinued and out of print. It's still in print and can be obtained from the WTS. Theoretically, you should be able to request it from local JWs and receive a copy. The 1969 version is a bit of a score, though, since it was revised in 1985.

  Generally, local JWs won't be much help in getting out-of-print literature, unless, of course, the local congregation is overstocked.
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  19

  My friend, "Warrior," has a question on Matthew 28:20

  by compound complex in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  good morning!.

  "warrior" and i had an 8-hour visit yesterday centering around many of the issues discussed by jwn members.

  one point we talked about was jesus' instruction to make disciples, baptize them and observe all that he has commanded us.. does a christian, therefore, need conduct his life solely on what jesus literally said, i.e., teachings contained in the four gospels?.

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  NeonMadman

  Jesus endorsed the Law and the Prophets, and he commissioned the apostles to spread his message. That being the case, I would understand his words as encompassing the teaching of the entire Bible.
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  4

  What is the President of the U.S. Did Nothing for the First 146 Days of His Term?

  by truth_b_known in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  10% of a presidential term is about 146 days.

  imagine if you will a newly elected president of the united states taking office.

  then, for the first 146 days he did absolutely nothing.

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  NeonMadman

  According to JW teaching, Jesus has not yet begun his 1000-year reign. That begins after Armageddon, not in 1914.
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  5

  Can you suggest any free Plagiarism software

  by His Excellency in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  do you have suggestions for any free plagiarism checker.

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  NeonMadman

  Regarding the search engines listed by Watchtower-Free:

  I just took a few minutes to run a section of text from my web site through each of them. The text is out there, on the web and is indexed by search engines, so should easily have been detected by any of the software - or, for that matter, by a simple Google search. However, dustball.com and plagiarisma.net failed the test, reporting the text as accurate. Searchenginereports.net failed to complete the test, reporting an error repeatedly. Grammarly.com wanted me to sign up for a free trial of their service before providing results.

  The other two services correctly identified the text as originating on my web site (www.dispelthedarkness.org). However, neither identified the text as having also appeared on JWN, which they should have, since the text was part of an article that I cross-posted here some time ago.

  Even Google only brought up the instance of the text from my web site, not from JWN (it's from the post found here). So, is there really an effective online plagiarism checker that will catch all instances of a text's occurrence? If I had only posted the article on JWN and not on my web site as well, someone could have copied it and never been detected.