Posts by Saethydd

14

Lies, and more lies.

by biblexaminer in

i have seen some discussions related to the "kingdom" book, and the recent studies, but, i didn't see the one pertaining to the second chapter of the "kingdom" book.

i may have missed it.

if i have ...mea culpa.. chapter 2, paragraph 29 & 33.

Saethydd

slimboy. I imagine that if WW1 didn't break out in 1914, Jehovah's Witnesses would not exist.

No, I'm afraid they still would be, because you see they don't really care about examining the evidence. For example, the failed dates (that none of them will acknowledge) that were predicted before 1914 and were declared after the fact (after they passed and nothing happened) to have been Jesus taking the throne invisibly, which is what they now say happened in 1914. If nothing significant had happened that year I imagine they would have simply moved the goalpost again and again until they finally scored and 1914 would just be another date that they pretend never happened.

In fact, the method they use to "prove" 1914 as being predicted in the Bible only works because Russell was off on the destruction of Jerusalem by 20 years.

32

Beardless Jesus. Why?

by UnshackleTheChains in

beardless jesus in watchtower publications between 1930s and 1960s.

a simple detail 'deliberately' left out.

the question is why?.

Saethydd

As far as I can tell Rutherford had a vendetta against beards

4

Prayer vs. Meditation

by schnell in

jw
friends

whenever i prayed, it was always done consciously and ostensibly to another person -- a higher, spirit person -- called jehovah.

the subject was always something about me, even if it was for someone else.

if i prayed to thank jehovah for my meal, it was about me.

Saethydd

I appreciate your insight on this subject, I think I shall try meditation to help fill the... I don't like to say "spiritual" because of the connotation it carries, so instead I will use the word "immaterial" hole I feel in my routine.

27

the Book of Enoch and the Nephilim

by schnell in

jw
friends

i've heard all my cognizant life that angels from heaven looked upon the daughters of men, took wives, and their wives bore giants called nephilim.. i've heard all my adult life about the book of enoch and why it's apocryphal and to be avoided.. so tonight i was curious enough to download an e-book and have a look, since dothemath had the thread about rarely used scriptures and the book of jude directly quotes from the book of enoch.. if jude quotes from enoch, shouldn't both or neither of them be canonical?

if you consider jude canonical, then enoch should be too.. hey, how many fallen angels were there again?

two thirds of heaven, right?

Saethydd

Jude also mentions some dispute between the archangel Micheal and Satan over Moses' body, which not something that happens in any of the books of the Bible I have read. Does it also come from an apocryphal writing?

61

Is this a normal JW practice? Warning, this will be a bit graphic.

by Sequoia in

this post may be disturbing and i apologize, but i'm just trying to find out if this is a practice the jw teaches.

i was taken advantage of by a guy claiming to be a jw preacher.

he took me to his house supposedly so i could give his daughter piano lessons, and then he basically forced himself on me while telling me he was in love with me and wanted to marry me.

Saethydd

I'm a bit baffled by an individual who would think that you will be destroyed for being an "unbeliever" but that he's going to be okay even though he is committing sexual assault, and even if you were willing to sleep with him it would still be a sexual relationship with someone he's not married to, not only that according to his beliefs you wouldn't even be a good candidate for marriage on account of your being an "unbeliever." It's just wrong on so many levels.

18

JW.org as a Prank Tool

by schnell in

jw
friends

the moment i saw the "request a study" form on the site, i thought, "umm, that could be a bad thing.".

but to date, i have heard of only one case where it was used for less than genuine purposes.

that was in the case of a "game developer" who was selling crappy asset-flips on steam.

Saethydd

I'm studying to become a white-hat hacker, and one subject I'm examining at the moment is the history of the of the collective known as Anonymous. One of the things they are most well known for is defacing the websites of the Church of Scientology back in 2011. Among the reasons listed for taking on such an endeavor is the fact that they were revealed to be highly controlling which didn't sit well with anarchists. Heh, I bet it wouldn't have taken much for them to shift their focus to websites of the Jehovah's Witnesses, though I doubt it would have been any more effective at stopping them than it was at stopping Scientology.

123

Why do some Jehovah's Witnesses choose to be atheist or agnostic?

by Cassaruby in

jw
friends

"traumatic as the initial transition may be, it can lead to the development of a truly personal relationship with these two greatest friends [the father and the son] .

.. "whatever sense of 'belonging' that membership in some religious system may create, it can never compare with the power and beauty and strengthening benefit of the intimate personal relationship the scripture presents .

from reading joseph campbell i've come to understand that there are functions to religion or mythology.

Saethydd

I too have found that the belief system which most resonates with me is that of secular humanism. After years of trying to ignore my sense of reason to accept some piece of theology or another, I do not relish the thought of going through the whole process once again with another religion.

Therefore until God communicates with me directly, I shall remain an agnostic at best. As for whether or not I would worship God after that, all I can say is that it would depend on his answers to certain questions I have about his decision-making process.

18

JW.org as a Prank Tool

by schnell in

jw
friends

the moment i saw the "request a study" form on the site, i thought, "umm, that could be a bad thing.".

but to date, i have heard of only one case where it was used for less than genuine purposes.

that was in the case of a "game developer" who was selling crappy asset-flips on steam.

Saethydd

Does it track personal data of the person that does they request for the study? Like i.p. address, etc. ?
Almost certainly, yes, but it is trivial to use a proxy or VPN to hide your IP address (just search for free web proxy, or install a VPN plugin for your browser, such as Hola).

If you want to get really hard to track, then use a TOR Browser. (only the FBI, NSA or some other government organization would be capable of tracking you, and even then it's a lot of effort for them to do it.)

35

How long did people like Methuselah really live?

by dubstepped in

i was working today and my brain was working in circles like it often does and i started wondering about what i was always told about people like methuselah in bible times, and their incredibly claims of longevity.

i've tried researching things but have a hard time getting through all of the bible thumpers to some real evidence, and figured that some here may be more informed or have done the research previously.

so, did people really live longer way back when?

Saethydd

From what I could find, there are theories that perhaps they counted years in shorter durations than the current calendar, but some point to similar lengths of months, though maybe not as many months per year. Does anyone really know?

The issue with this theory is that people are mentioned having children around 50-100, meaning by that count they would be between 4-9 years old.

It is claimed that some of these old time counters did not grasp the "0" concept, well here they added one, 96.9 years is not far fetched, what is a zero among friends anyway?,

Same problem exists for this explanation, 5-10-year-olds aren't exactly the right age to father their firstborn.

My personal theory is that it was all made based on the Mesopotamian myth that men lived longer before the global flood that is recorded the epic of Gilgamesh.

Back in the day we were taught that man's longevity was due to the canopy of water around the Earth which filtered out harmful cosmic rays, which is what eventually kills us.
This bubble of water is what fell during the flood. The protection was gone. Immediately after the flood, men's life span reduced dramatically.
I think maybe the dinosaurs died in the flood too.

That canopy of water would actually have been more hostile to life on earth, in fact, that is included in an informative video by Aron-Ra on the meteorological implications of the Noachian Flood.

26

Feb. 2017 "Who is Leading God's People Today?"

by Saethydd in

i know that i am not by any means the first person to take note of this article, but today i finally got around to reading it.

i quickly found the now infamous line "the governing body is neither inspired nor infallible.

" in the interest of fairness, however, i decided to finish the paragraph, which led me to finish the lesson.

Saethydd

This article makes me wish that the Watchtower study included a period in which the audience could ask questions instead of just parroting back the information they have only just read. Perhaps if such a session were included and honest hard questions were encouraged then their logic wouldn't be so easy to blow apart.