Posts by FFGhost

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

FFGhost

ancient sources always overestimated the size of armies back in those days, the bible writers were no exception.

That's the point of my thread!

Bible writers used huge numbers all the time, and never really cared about accuracy or being taken literally.

But the WTS (and other Biblical fundy groups, to be fair) ties itself into knots by accepting those weird numbers as absolutely factually true, which leads, paradoxically, to a lack of faith in the Bible because anyone with at least 3 functioning brain cells (I modestly include myself in that group) can see that it's a load of codswallop to think it literally happened exactly as written.

If the WTS were to come out and say "obviously, there weren't 3 million Israelites wandering around over a few hundred miles of desert for 40 years - but the writer is trying to convey XYZ message by saying so" then they'd be approaching reasonableness.

But of course if they were to do that, they couldn't claim that all the world's problems were caused because a talking snake persuaded a naked lady to eat a piece of fruit, and their whole house of cards would collapse.

So they prefer to reinforce the absurd notion that the Bible's stories are literal, factual, accurate reports and thus remain in power. Big fish, little pond, etc.

123

1969 "fact": You will never grow old in this present system of things

by Ding in

awake!

"if you are a young person, you also need to face the fact that you will never grow old in this present system of things.

because all the evidence in fulfillment of bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to end in a few years... therefore, as a young person, you will never fulfill any career that this system offers.

FFGhost

I've always wondered if this article was the reason why the WT arbitrarily picked 1970 as the oldest Awake available on WT-CD and now WOL (online library). There's no reason to pick "1970" vs. "1960" or "1950" or "1922" other than they want to obscure their weirdest or most damaging old teachings.

17

An American Religion?

by no-zombie in

i have a question.. have every member of the governing body (past and present) been american citizens?.

while i understand that some may have been born outside of the us, ultimately to serve in the world hq long term, i imagine that they all had to become 'americans'?.

no zombie.

FFGhost

Yeah Losch is an Austrian.

Jackson is Australian.

I think Splane is Canadian, I think maybe Sanderson too?

In the past, Gangas was Greek, and Barr as has been mentioned already as Scottish.

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

FFGhost

could be, that the "camp" mentioned just refers to the camp of their immediate family, ?

The "Insight" book disagrees:

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200000872

The size of this camp of Israel was very great. The above register figures total 603,550 fighting men, in addition to women and children, old folks and handicapped, 22,000 Levites, and “a vast mixed company” of aliens—perhaps all together 3,000,000 or more. (Ex 12:38, 44; Nu 3:21-34, 39) How much area such an encampment would cover is not certain; estimates vary greatly.

Gotta love how they sidestep the size issue - "estimates vary greatly". Yeah, not sure whether it would thousands or merely hundreds of square miles. In any event, the official WT position is that "the camp" is the whole thing, so "outside the camp" would be outside the big conglomeration of millions of people.

11

Do JW women expect LESS from their man than Non-jw women?

by pistolpete in

non-jw women usually expect their man to have some type of social status.

whether it's education, money, fame, etc.. these days, feminism also plays a role in a future, marriage.

(the man is not the head, maybe the women is the head).

FFGhost

What exjwlemming said.

Many JWs, just like many non-JWs, want prestige and status.

For JWs, it's mainly from being, or being married to, an [elder / CO / branch committee member / GB helper] etc.

28

May JW Broaadcast - so bad, "it's not even wrong"

by FFGhost in

don't know how many of y'all still watch it.. this month's topic is "the king of the north" - cook goes into monotonous detail over the jw interpretation about rome, germany, ussr, russia, etc.. leaving aside for other commentators the emotionally manipulative videos of jws in russian holding cells, the tearjerker interviews, the god-awful stiffness of cook (i suspect he has never genuinely smiled, much less laughed, in his 60+ years), just thought i'd comment on one topic.. the centerpiece of the program is a "morning worship" monologue from splane.

let's again just leave to the side the dude's pomposity, smugness, and inflated sense of his own genius, and think about this part of his monologue.. he was tracing the history of the "king of the north" and talked about how "britain" (not england, not the united kingdom, not great britain, but "britain" - no idea why they have that fixation - anyway...) became the kotn in the 19th century.. paraphrasing his comments: "britain would not have become kotn if france had its way.

france was much wealthier and more powerful, but at the battle of waterloo, britain defeated france.

FFGhost

who's supposed to be the current King of the North?

I'll save you the agony of watching the broadcast.

They claim it is "Russia and her allies". Though they never specify who, exactly, those "allies" are.

They actually made that determination a couple of years ago, but reiterated it this month.

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

FFGhost

logistics for large armies
an incredible challenge to keep them supplied and fed.
Alexander the Great for instance had maybe 35-40,000 men

What a wanker!

Zerah the Ethiopian would have wiped the field with him!

2 Chronicles 14:9:

Later Zeʹrah the E·thi·oʹpi·an came against them with an army of 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots

I always wondered about how they determined the lucky guys who got one of the 300 chariots. There were 999,700 who had to walk, poor blighters.

28

May JW Broaadcast - so bad, "it's not even wrong"

by FFGhost in

don't know how many of y'all still watch it.. this month's topic is "the king of the north" - cook goes into monotonous detail over the jw interpretation about rome, germany, ussr, russia, etc.. leaving aside for other commentators the emotionally manipulative videos of jws in russian holding cells, the tearjerker interviews, the god-awful stiffness of cook (i suspect he has never genuinely smiled, much less laughed, in his 60+ years), just thought i'd comment on one topic.. the centerpiece of the program is a "morning worship" monologue from splane.

let's again just leave to the side the dude's pomposity, smugness, and inflated sense of his own genius, and think about this part of his monologue.. he was tracing the history of the "king of the north" and talked about how "britain" (not england, not the united kingdom, not great britain, but "britain" - no idea why they have that fixation - anyway...) became the kotn in the 19th century.. paraphrasing his comments: "britain would not have become kotn if france had its way.

france was much wealthier and more powerful, but at the battle of waterloo, britain defeated france.

FFGhost

And the JW's just sit back, nod, and mutter: WOW!

"Wow", and "Man, that study / broadcast / talk was DEEP!"

I'll give them that. A lot of their content is some really deep $#!+.

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

FFGhost

Correction to my first post - a square with an area of ~250 square miles has borders 16 miles long, not 14.

So Moshe and Yentl, living in the center of the camp, have an 8 mile hike to the edge, and 8 more miles back. That's more like a 5 hour round trip walking. Every day. Or twice a day. For 40 years.

"Where you goin', Chaim?"

"Where else is there to go, ma? Gonna go poop again. See you in about 5 or 6 hours, unless we pass each other coming & going."

46

The camp of Israel and the problem of pooping

by FFGhost in

so, in a couple weeks, the jws move on in their bible-reading slog to the book of deuteronomy.. take a gander at deuteronomy 23:12,13:.

a private place should be designated for use outside the camp, and there is where you should go.

13 a peg should be part of your equipment.

FFGhost

Ooh! babies!

There were 3 million when they left Egypt, and 3 million when they entered Canaan. Everybody over the age of 20 when they left died, so at least 2 million babies (probably more) must have born during those 40 years.

That's at least 50,000 newborn babies per year. Not sure what sort of toilet training went on 3500 years ago, but it's safe to say that well over 100,000+ infants were not yet toilet trained at any given time.

It is reasonable to expect the guidelines on excrement would apply to everyone - all poop, outside the camp!

"I've been told" babies don't keep to a regular schedule of pooping, nor do they restrain themselves to once a day.

So, again, let's think about our poor schmucks camping dead center in the middle of the square camp. Let's suppose they have 6 month old twins. It's a 4 hour round trip every time they've got to dump out the babies' diapers. Between the parents "needs" and the constant "production" of the infants, there would be literally no time for anything else besides eating, sleeping, walking to the poop place, and pooping.

The above paragraph, multiplied by 100,000. Every day. For 40 years.

I dunno, eating cucumbers and leeks in Egypt is sounding better all the time!