Phizzy

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Posts by Phizzy

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  10

  New light isn't that new outside the USA?

  by KerryKing in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  all this recent new light etc has everyone talking but none of it is that unusual here in ireland.

  i've been df'd for 15 years, my parents started talking to me again when i had my first child nearly 13 years ago now.

  last year my sister in law started talking to me again also, at the one meeting i attended last year quite a few people chatted to me and said hello.. i'm just wondering if all this is only a big deal in the usa or is this neck of the woods just particularly rebellious anyway?

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  Phizzy

  I understand how naturally different things would be in Ireland, i have a good number of relatives there, love the place and the people.

  In my own Congo. here in the the U.K things were much as you describe in Ireland many decades ago, I was a M.S giving away talks, wore a beard from 1975 on, and never wore a suit on the Platform.

  But we were an unusual Congo. with a rare bunch of sensible Elders,we were rural, and countryfolk didn't bother with all that fancy towny stuff. When I joined the Congo. in the early 70's the C.O told me he had a hell of a battle to get the bros to wear a tie on the Platform !

  Our Elders were of the opinion that " we'll have none of that nonsense here". A new C.O to us told me that previous C.O's had told him they dreaded coming to us, because "Everywhere else they accept what the Society says". We didn't.

  But not far away were Congo's so very different, towing the line, and led by Nazi Elders, hence over the years J.W's gravitated to our Congo. , known for being " Liberal".

  So despite being Rural, and we should have been a small Congo, we were joined by many who lived in the territories of surrounding Congo's , so we split in to two, in the middle of the 2,000's.

  All of this shows that if the Org. wants to retain members their latest moves make sense, but they should have done so decades ago.
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  32

  Will recent dress-code changes affect the WTS negatively?

  by Wonderment in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in a span of a few months time, we have had many unexpected changes announced by the jw organization.

  some here have expressed the belief that a great number of witnesses will leave the religion.

  in fact, there is a great probability the opposite will be true.. yeah, ancient hardliners will have a hard time assimilating these changes, but the younger generation will likely welcome these changes.

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  Phizzy

  One thing that I doubt the GB or their "worldly" advisors have considered, that may well be a negative result, and quite a dramatic one is this ;

  For many years the Org. has been trying to distance themselves from the possibility of being held accountable for Shunning etc. by saying it is each individual J.W exercising their own conscience, and that the J.W's are not controlled by the Org. This has worked to some degree in Court.

  But with the sudden wholesale adoption of the new Dress and Grooming Guidelines, the J.W rank and file have starkly shown just how DIRECTLY controlled they really are, and how unable they are to exercise their individual consciences !
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  4

  Shunning etc. Good Meme

  by Phizzy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

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  Phizzy

  
  
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  86

  New light on shunning?

  by Mikejw in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  one theory why tony was booted out was because he was a stickler for not changing the shunning doctrine.

  he actually said the words we will never ever change it.. they are slowly deleting all of tony’s videos and now losing court cases and losing government hand outs in places like norway.. it’s looking very likely they will release new light on shunning policy after losing this latest one in norway.. .

  what are the odds they coincidentally get new light from jehovah and lighten up their shunning policy ?.

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  Phizzy

  Found this on F.B

  
  
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  23

  When will the Watchtower Society be desolated?

  by Hiddenservant in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  did you know that the answer is provided in the scriptures through the 70 weeks prophecy?.

  daniel’s 70 weeks prophecy explained.. the 70 weeks were split into three parts.

  here is the reason why.. the prophecy is not only about the messiah, it is also about god’s people and the holy city, as verse 24 makes clear.

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  Phizzy

  " when the money runs out " Spot on ! that is the only way they will come to an end, and even then a few deluded J.W's will hang on to their beliefs.

  The O.P is the most utter nonsense. The Book of Daniel contains NO prophecies for a later time, the Writer says he expects his predictions to happen shortly after the time he wrote, which was actually in the 2nd century BCE. The Work was completed just before 164 BCE.

  To look for a later fulfillment is just plain silly.
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  32

  Punkofnice

  by jhine in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  does anyone know how punky is ?

  he hasn't posted in a while ?

  jan from tam .

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  Phizzy

  Thanks Jan !

  I am glad he is O.K ! thanks for your efforts to contact him, its like trying to get hold of someone who works for MI6 !
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  5

  The Old Testament TRINITY!

  by BoogerMan in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  clearly inferred & proven by scriptures - though not specifically stated - that the 3 were one & the same essence!

  (exodus 2:24) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (exodus 3:16) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (exodus 6:3) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (exodus 6:8) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (exodus 33:1) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (numbers 32:11) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (deuteronomy 1:8) abraham, isaac and jacob.. (deuteronomy 6:10) abraham, isaac and jacob.

  (deuteronomy 9:5) abraham, isaac and jacob.

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  Phizzy

  Are you aware of the other Thread by SBF on the Trinity ? maybe best to join that ?
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  78

  God, one person, or three?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the trinity doctrine says god is three persons in one being.. yet the bible says god is one.. gal 3.20 a mediator, however, implies more than one party; but god is one.

  niv.

  gal 3.20 now a mediator is not for just one person, but god is one.

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  Phizzy

  It strikes me that a lot of the argument about this is based upon the idea that the Bible Writers were inspired and had knowledge from god, therefore we have to argue that because one Scripture says thus and so, another Writer could not have thought differently.

  The Bible is not inspired in any way, so we cannot take what is an Anthology of Writings from very different times in history, and in religious Thought, and try to make sense of it as a whole.

  The Bible Writers had their own concepts of Theology, and later of Christology, often very different and in tension with the thoughts of other Writers.

  The very basis for the Trinity Doctrine can be traced back to the ideas that the Jewish Educated Elite encountered and adopted while in Exile in Babylon, the concept of Hypostasis was not foreign to them, so the three in one, ousia or substance of a deity is not some new 3rd Century C.E idea at all.

  What has complicated matters is anthropomorphising each "substance" or "essence" of the Deity to make them three different individuals within one "Godhead", a concept because of its muddled constituent parts, is difficult for us to process.

  It would have been far easier for Christianity if had stuck to the more understandable concept of god that the Jews had, and if Christians hadn't tried to graft in the Jesus Figure to the person of YHWH.
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  6

  Finger of God

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a myriad (or close) of threads have discussed the depiction of deity in the ot and nt.

  many exjws simply can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of hypostases of god.

  hypostases as i'm using the term refer to personified conceptualizations of divinity often acting in a particular role.

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  Phizzy

  " however the writings reflect a far more sophisticated and esoteric conception of deity than the WT insists ".

  That is my perception too, it makes me wonder if that sophisticated way of thinking of Deity came from Babylon, it seems not to be there in earlier thought or writings, but unravelling when particular ideas were perhaps written back in to Scripture is a constant struggle.

  In the first century BCE, the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily praised the Babylonians for their devotion to philosophy. But that thinking may have come from further East, I would imagine these ideas were totally new to the Israelite Elite exiled in Babylon, but they embraced them with alacrity and zeal.

  It is a new thought to me that the so-called "Hellenization" of Jewish Religious thought occurred most likely in Babylon, and they therefore had adopted such ideas before the Greek philosophers like Plato.

  It all adds to the argument that the development and adoption of the Trinity Doctrine is firmly based upon religious thought we find in the whole of the Bible, and is not some upstart doctrine to be rejected out of hand as the W.T, and others do.

  The old canard that the O.T was written by "Bronze Age goat herders" looks even more silly now !
  
  
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  6

  Finger of God

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a myriad (or close) of threads have discussed the depiction of deity in the ot and nt.

  many exjws simply can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of hypostases of god.

  hypostases as i'm using the term refer to personified conceptualizations of divinity often acting in a particular role.

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  Phizzy

  I agree, The Evolution from basic anthropomorphising of gods to a more "abstract metaphoric sense" is plain to see as you outline.

  Prof. Francesca Stavrakopoulou , in her excellent, entertaining, and frankly hilarious in places Book, "God an Anatomy" * traces this evolution, and she often quotes what the best Hebrew translation of many Scriptures is, where later Bible Writers obscure the original meaning, and even Translators have tried to obscure what was said.

  She comments on the "Finger of God " engraving upon the tablets that god gave to Moses, as verse Exodus 32 v 16 says, thus " As Yahweh's fingertip crafts the commandments by which his worshippers are to live, he inscribes his physical presence in to the covenant with his people".

  So the simple idea of a god with fingers quickly came to have a deeper meaning.

  * I recommend Prof. Stavrakopoulou's Book, if you haven't read it P.P. and to others on here, it really opens ones eyes to so much that is hidden in Scripture, much of it being the real Sexy bits, sanitised by a number of later hands !