Posts by NeonMadman

12

HELP! Can God SEE the future?? How?? Is this predestination??

by Bloody Hotdogs! in

had a very long and frustrating debate last night.. .

jws like to say that god has the ability to foresee the future, but can chose not to look.

this, they claim, removes the problem of predestination/preordination.. .

NeonMadman

I think the JW position is a rather confused mish-mash of all three options that you mention. God has the "super-power" of seeing the future (which is distinct from the God of mainstream Christianity who knows all things by his nature), much as Clark Kent has the super-power of seeing through solid objects with his X-Ray Vision. Just as Clark can choose not to look through the wall into the girls' locker room, God can choose not to see the outcomes that will be brought about by the free acts of human beings (as if there were such libertarian freedom). This is a form of a doctrine that pops up here and there in evangelicalism called "Open Theism." For this reason, Jehovah doesn't know who will be saved and who will not, because he has chosen not to look. JWs have a God who can be surprised. So when God said (after Abraham as much as offered up Isaac), "NOW I KNOW that you are God-fearing, in that you have not withheld your only son from me," it was because God really didn't know what Abraham would do (Gen. 22:12). This does create a bit of a conundrum for the JW, however, since, if taken as anything other than an anthropomorphism, this verse not only implies that God does not know the future, but doesn't even know the present, since the implication is that he was unaware of the present condition of Abraham's heart.

However, in JWism, Jehovah can also maneuver the events of the future if he wishes to in order to accomplish his purpose. Pharoah, Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus were all people that God specifically said would carry out certain actions relative to Israel. Did he thus deprive them of their free will? What if Cyrus didn't want to conquer Babylon? How would the Israelites been freed from bondage? God had specifically named Cyrus in Isaiah's prophecy, well before Cyrus' birth. What happened to Cyrus' free will? Apparently Jehovah overrides the free will of some people in order to carry out his purposes. Seems rather unfair, when viewed through a JW lens. The image one actually gets from JW literature, though, is of God as a master chess player who, while not directly overriding free will, maneuvers external factors to the individual in order to cause him to behave in the desired manner.

In short, I think you are trying to make sense of a JW doctrine the implications of which have never been fully explained by the organization, that is not understood by JWs themselves, and that is internally inconsistent.

30

New Bible Release At Annual Meeting

by lambsbottom in

talked to a congregation literature servant's close friend today.

i asked him what he thought about the "no bibles" situation.

he said the literature servant told him that there will be a new bible released at the annual meetin.

NeonMadman

If people in the congregations are speaking authoritatively and saying that the new Bible release is a fact, I see two possibilities:

1. The rumor is false (or at least uncertain) and information from apostates (hey, that's us!) is actually leaking back into the congregations and being taken as fact

2. The rumor is true, and the new Bibles are already sitting at the Kingdom Halls for immediate release after the Annual Meeting program. They did that sort of thing before when Organized to Accomplish Our Ministry was released in an announcement after the spring Special Talk one year. The books were shipped into the congregations in advance and the elders were instructed to tell no one except the literature servants prior to the actual announcement.

9

How many would still be in if.....

by Flg8ter in

jw
friends

i always wondered.......how many would still be in if there was no fear of being shunned?

i really believe the very few of active witnesses believe that the big "a" is right around the corner.

but, the fear of losing family and friends.......very powerful to keep people in line.

NeonMadman

If shunning disappeared tomorrow, my guess is that 50% would walk away from the organization.

5

where is a good website or thread debunking their shunning practices from the bible?

by Crazyguy in

anybody know where i can really get some good understanding showing from the bible that their shunning practices are not correct?.

NeonMadman

Not to be self-promoting, but a short paper I wrote a few years back analyzing some of their major proof texts for shunning is found on my web site at http://dispelthedarkness.org/index.php?p=1_10_Expel-the-Wicked-Man

44

Reno Nevada JW Splinter group??

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

apologies is this has already been discussed.

i came across this website www.

is this a new splinter group among jw's?.

NeonMadman

I have to wonder if this sort of bubbling up of "anointed" Witnesses presuming to start their own web sites and offer Bible interpretation that differs from that of the GB might have had some influence on the new teaching of the GB alone being the F&DS. Otherwise, what claim would the GB really have of their teachings being any more correct or authoritative than those of other members of the "anointed" class?

25

Yet More Annual Meeting Speculation. . .

by breakfast of champions in

so, yes, there will be a "new bible" released at this annual meeting.

worst kept secret ever.. however, the new bible will no longer be called the "new world translation".

again, this is pure speculation, but it would kind of make sense since the term "new world" is very mason-y, old-time jw-y, and doesn't appear in the bible anyway.. what they would call it, i couldn't even guess..

NeonMadman

What I'm wondering if these rumors are true is, who do they have that is even capable of producing a Bible translation these days?

Maybe they will reissue Byington's translation and use that as their standard Bible. But, nah, Byington was too accurate for them...

11

Sleepy Hollow

by Flg8ter in

who else is watching the new show "sleepy hollow"?

the series premiere is on right now.

in the first few minutes of the show.......it show a road leading into the small town.

NeonMadman

Sounds pretty interesting, but I'll most likely wait for Netflix to get the DVDs.

11

Sleepy Hollow

by Flg8ter in

who else is watching the new show "sleepy hollow"?

the series premiere is on right now.

in the first few minutes of the show.......it show a road leading into the small town.

NeonMadman

http://www.theonion.com/articles/tv-showdown-expected-as-sleepy-hollow-debuts-tonig,33876/

11

Sleepy Hollow

by Flg8ter in

who else is watching the new show "sleepy hollow"?

the series premiere is on right now.

in the first few minutes of the show.......it show a road leading into the small town.

NeonMadman

I thought Sleepy Hollow was supposed to be a small town. A population of 144,000 would make a good sized city, not a small town. The original Sleepy Hollow that Washington Irving wrote about, in NY state, has a population even today of under 10,000.

8

Why Does The RSS feed for this site No Longer Work?

by NeonMadman in

i had been following active posts here for a while through the rss feed, first through google reader, then through feedly after google reader shut down.

but in the last few weeks, the feed seems to have stopped working.

anybody know why, and how i can get it back?.

NeonMadman

In general, I don't believe my other feeds have changed, except, ironically, the feeds for the new issues of the Watchtower and Awake. Those seem to be sporadic, but I can always download them from jw.org. I accumulate them to keep up with the antics of the WTS.

Simon, do you mean that RSS feeds' days are numbered on this forum, or in general? If the latter, what will replace them?