Interestingly, my dad joined the religion around this time, and he went on to have a white collar career as a witness, and is now retired with a private pension, so thankfully not everyone took the organisation's advice.
Fred Franztone
JoinedPosts by Fred Franztone
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50
1969 Awake on Education - A Sore Spot for Me
by NotBlind inmy father would have started college 49 years ago this week.
about three months earlier, the week he graduated high school, the awake!
magazine came out with some very clear direction to teenagers.
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Ezekial.
by zeb ini rarely comment on the bible itself as i believe it can be a 'merry go round' and nothing achieved.
in my gradual reading of the bible for the third time i am now up to the book of ezekial.
the message goes into a great detail as to what the almighty will do to fallen nations but there is so little as to the good that is promised later in the scriptures as to the 'new order' (but the jw dont use that term anymore).
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Fred Franztone
All I remember about Ezekiel is that god made him eat poo.
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the next time
by pepperheart inthe next time we hear about cuts that the watchtower are making and some people say .
"oh they are a multinational group and far to big to fail.
well so were lehman brothers and the royal bank of scotland.
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Fred Franztone
Even if the organisation collapsed financially, the religion itself would survive, in fact if anything it would force many members to double-down on their beliefs; they'd see it as a sign that the end is super-close. Time would pass, and the organisation would re-emerge in a new form. People don't just throw away their faith when a company goes bust, unfortunately.
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Anyone else get a message from Hanged Man?
by pale.emperor ini dont know why i'd want to argue over something like this.
i've been aware of this theory for years.
as interesting as it is - it's still bullshit.. for future reference, i believe the bible to be a collection of fantasy, myth, real locations and crazy ramblings of psychedelic bloke stuck on patmos.. my reply:.
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Fred Franztone
The witness who converted me into the religion didn`t know the difference between Astronomy and Astrology and I still converted ?
what fool am I ?
You were only fooled once, so the shame is on them.
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Arguments I’ve Had: Historical Accuracy and the Bible
by Saethydd inwhen i was a jw and still living with my parents i remember the way my father held what could almost be described as contempt for archeologists, paleontologists, and other scientists who dared to try explain what happened in past.
he justified this attidtude with the argument that these people don’t have enough evidence to make such claims with any certainty.
however, i see now that his viewpoint was more likely a defense mechanism to protect his presupposed conclusion that everything described in the bible actually happened.
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Fred Franztone
I hate to be that guy, but 'ad hoc' is technically two words.
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Anyone else get a message from Hanged Man?
by pale.emperor ini dont know why i'd want to argue over something like this.
i've been aware of this theory for years.
as interesting as it is - it's still bullshit.. for future reference, i believe the bible to be a collection of fantasy, myth, real locations and crazy ramblings of psychedelic bloke stuck on patmos.. my reply:.
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Fred Franztone
I'm still struggling to see what the real point is, if the bible has elements of astrology woven into it, where is the controversy? I get that it may be interesting, but you're presenting it as if it's more significant. I concede that you admitted it was all bullshit in the opening post, but I still don't get why it matters beyond simple curiosity, nor why one should go to great lengths to decipher it.
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Anyone else get a message from Hanged Man?
by pale.emperor ini dont know why i'd want to argue over something like this.
i've been aware of this theory for years.
as interesting as it is - it's still bullshit.. for future reference, i believe the bible to be a collection of fantasy, myth, real locations and crazy ramblings of psychedelic bloke stuck on patmos.. my reply:.
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Fred Franztone
I should point out that my vested interest in this is minimal. I'm not a christian, I don't believe in god, and I think the bible is 99% made up. I don't buy the astrological interpretation because it invokes too much planning and attention to detail in a book that was very evidently an ad hoc cobbled-together anthology of mostly unrelated fantasies.
Whether Jesus existed or not is of little consequence to me ultimately, though I suspect there was someone whom he was loosely based upon, simply because it would have made no sense to invent the fictional and completely unrealistic Bethlehem census story when it would have been far easier narratively to have his parents live there from the get-go, unless there was already a guy who was known (or at least strongly believed) to have lived somewhere else. Whether that place was Nazareth or the general Galilee area is of little consequence really. For whatever reason, the writers clearly believed that Jesus had lived somewhere other than Bethlehem and went to great pains to have him be born there so as to fulfil OT prophecy.
Whether or not the character was based on a person or not however, the astrological connection is fanciful pattern-seeking that borders on sophistry. The writers of the bible were just not clever enough for that, and biblical allegories tended to be either vague or otherwise based on more fantastical numerology such as the coded language of the apocalyptic texts, rather than the stars.
Also, what would be the point? Who would the astrological symbolism have been aimed at? Very few people would have been able to decode it, if they'd even known they had to in the first place, and what would they have gained anyway? Why cloak esoteric astrology with no real message in such vague imagery? It would just be pointless.
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37
Anyone else get a message from Hanged Man?
by pale.emperor ini dont know why i'd want to argue over something like this.
i've been aware of this theory for years.
as interesting as it is - it's still bullshit.. for future reference, i believe the bible to be a collection of fantasy, myth, real locations and crazy ramblings of psychedelic bloke stuck on patmos.. my reply:.
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Fred Franztone
Fred you are guessing about some of these matters, Jesus could not have been born in Nazareth since it only began as a place about a century after he died. The Bible makes a linguistic conflation of the word nazarite (Jewish mad monk syndrome) and Nazareth (place founded after Jesus died).
Just because it wasn't called Nazareth at the time, it doesn't mean he didn't live in the settlement that would later be called Nazareth; the area has been inhabited for thousands of years. Where he was from is irrelevant however, the point is that there was probably someone with a name similar to Jesus living in the ancient middle east whose life the stories are based on, but without any of the supernatural stuff.
For what it's worth:
Luke 22:50-51 New International Version (NIV)
50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.
51 But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.That's what I was referring to.
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The Trinity explained from the Whiteboard
by JW Answers ina lot of people are confused over the teaching of the trinity, some doubt it, some outright deny it, where some can't get their head around it.
the bible supports it through scriptural evidence.
this video explains from the whiteboard the difference between the god of the watchtower to the god in the bible.
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Fred Franztone
Most people on this site (myself included) don't believe in god, so this video is effectively pointless, you might as well post a video proving that Harry Potter is gay.
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Arguments I’ve Had: Historical Accuracy and the Bible
by Saethydd inwhen i was a jw and still living with my parents i remember the way my father held what could almost be described as contempt for archeologists, paleontologists, and other scientists who dared to try explain what happened in past.
he justified this attidtude with the argument that these people don’t have enough evidence to make such claims with any certainty.
however, i see now that his viewpoint was more likely a defense mechanism to protect his presupposed conclusion that everything described in the bible actually happened.
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Fred Franztone
The problem is that you're using facts to argue against faith, and it's like trying to use a mathematical formula to argue against dancing, it's not going to rub with those who believe. I've come to accept that those who leave will do so of their own accord, not because of what others say.