TonusOH

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Posts by TonusOH

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  3032

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

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  TonusOH

  NotFormer: Seriously? Why would you move to a country and not learn the language?

  In Evans's case, because he was running away from his problems in the UK. His wife speaks Croatian, and he figured he had her under control, and her parents had a place they could stay for free, so it was the best option.

  Soon he had a pretty sweet setup and a growing income base. Not surprisingly, he blew it up because he literally cannot keep it in his pants. Which is also why I'm sure he is busy finding ways to mess up whatever he still has going on now.
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  72

  Reddit thread about Bethel Reducing Headcount

  by LongHairGal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  apparently, the downsizing is still happening and from what i read those let go are over 50!.

  sad because these people expected to be lifers.

  now they have to make their way in the world at an advanced age with no education or desirable skill!..

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  TonusOH

  I would make one correction: most (if not all) of them believed that they would serve at Bethel in "the short time remaining before the end." They did not expect to be lifers, because they believed that the end was so close that they would not see advanced age before it happened.

  I bet that when they saw older Bethelites being sent home, they thought "it won't happen to me, the end is too close." But that is what those older Bethelites once thought, too. And back then they figured that Jehovah would take care of those loyal brothers and sisters. I wonder if they are so confident about that now? I assume that is what they are told as they are being dismissed-- that Jehovah will take care of them.
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  95

  Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?

  by liam in

  1. social
  2. current

  i didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.

  practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.

  now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.

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  TonusOH

  Just want to point out that the flu --and even the common cold-- still kill people every year. The flu kills tens of thousands annually in the USA alone. I don't think it should be a surprise when a highly-contagious "flu-like" virus causes a lot of deaths.
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  60

  The Question of the "Great Apostasy" and the Historical Continuity of Christianity

  by aqwsed12345 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1. the continuity and visibility of the church.

  the true church must be continuous from the apostolic age.

  there is no room in christianity for a "gap" or interruption of thousands of years during which true christianity ceased to exist and then was revived in the form of another movement.

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  TonusOH

  Jesus talked about wheat. Russell thought he meant Miracle Wheat.
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  27

  MANY DIFFICULT YEARS AHEAD : PER CHRISTENSEN

  by raymond frantz in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://youtu.be/jsmbtv4nafi?si=ezj0dnudyjls4knc.

  there was a time they preached the great tribulation was a short period of time between the fall of babylon and jesus coming back to save them, now they realize there are difficult years ahead of us, watch this latest morning worship video by per christensen on this subject .

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  TonusOH

  WingCommander: But in hindsight, the extreme fear in the 1980's of "any day now the Great Tribulation is going to break out", evaporated.

  That's a good point. They learned not to set hard dates after 1975, but they did want to keep the urgency of the end times in place. The 1980s may have been the last hard push. 1984 was seventy years after 1914, so the end had to be near. 1986 was the UN's 'year of peace and security,' so the end had to be near. 1989 was the fall of the Berlin wall and communist Russia, so the end had to be near.

  By 1990 most JWs had to be exhausted by it. Maybe that is why I started a slow and reluctant fade. Being disappointed so many times takes a toll, especially if you wanted it to be true. Maybe that is also why the 1995 change regarding generations was done so quietly. But at this point you also had the year 2000 panic, which meant that... the end had to be near. And nothing happened.

  When you go through this over a 20-30 year period, the excuse that "they didn't really say it was the end" not only rings hollow, it is insulting. And it becomes clear that they are trying to have it both ways, making you believe that the end is almost here, then blaming you for 'misunderstanding' their bullshit. In 20-30 years, someone will be saying that Lett's "last part of the last days" talk was misunderstood by people who were too eager for the end to come.
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  72

  The Watchtower's Depiction of 'paradise'..

  by Ron.W. in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  perhaps we could post the pictures the wt have presented in their literature that depict their version of paradise here for comment/discussion:.

  from: spirits of the dead​—can they help you or harm you?

  do they really exist?.

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  TonusOH

  I suppose that, if asked to choose between spending eternity kneeling before god or spending it in an unending mid-summer picnic, I would be strongly inclined to choose the latter.

  Neither seems like a fun way to spend eternity, though. Especially since we couldn't make bacon cheesburgers.
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  95

  Are you glad you got the Covid Vaccine? Did it help?

  by liam in

  1. social
  2. current

  i didn’t get the covid vaccine, but i admit, i was scared as shit i made the wrong decision because there was so much confusion out there.

  practically all my family and most of my friends took the vaccine because everyone was depending on those in charge to speak the truth.

  now a lot of them are sick, and they can't figure out why.

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  TonusOH

  I grew up as one of the early generations of children getting a full range of vaccinations. Parents were well aware of the horrors of polio and smallpox and had lived through other disease outbreaks, so there was no real pushback when vaccines were developed and given to children. But we are human, and one thing that happens is that we have to find a tiger in every bush. So, as vaccines became common and many scary diseases disappeared or stopped being scary, we decided that the vaccines were the tiger, instead.

  I got the first COVID shots because I needed to; my employer insisted on them. I didn't get the boosters mostly because I was being lazy about it. I did get COVID; it lasted two days and I was very tired but otherwise was fine. I don't know if the vaccine made a difference, but I am not complaining.
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  20

  The org's "new lights" - corrupting Proverbs 4:18

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  proverbs 4:18 says, "but the path of the righteous....grows brighter and brighter until full daylight.".

  the bible "light" doesn't get brighter - it never changes - it's a person's direction & course of life which gets brighter.. w11 9/15 p. 14 par.

  15 - "when spiritual light on some matter gets brighter, do you try to understand the underlying scriptural reasons for the adjustment?

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  TonusOH

  The changes have little effect on JWs because they are rarely aware of them. When I was a JW, I felt confident that I knew the organization's history better than any outsider. How could I not? I was a JW! I had the books, and those books had the history, and I had lived that life for decades.

  Then I get out, start reading, and am surprised to find that I knew almost nothing about the organization's history. What little I did know what severely skewed by the WTS to present the version they wanted me to know. And then I realized that JWs know less about their own religious organization than most people, because even the stuff we do know is false or so skewed that it may as well be false.

  And frankly, the concept of "new light" is a convenient cover for the fact that religious beliefs have to change as humanity learns more about ourselves and the world around us. The illumination isn't coming from god; it's coming from people. Even today, after more than two thousand years, we still can't agree on what the Bible says or means in a lot of places. How 'bright' can it be?
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  75

  God won't lift a finger to help you.

  by nicolaou in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  sea breeze: @nicolau,i stated my case rather succiently, which you failed to address.

  if you have a better solution to the problem of evil than what jesus offers, then why don't you present that in a new topic?.

  pathetic diversion.

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  TonusOH

  Halcon: If you truly believe and understand this, then you would refrain from categorizing what God does or doesn't do as 'good' or 'bad' yourself.

  I don't believe it, I am basing my comments on the view of a Christian who subscribes to the theory of divine command, where good and bad are based entirely on what God decides they are. I believe that it is possible to understand what makes an action moral or immoral; that there is a basis for determining this. That belief runs counter to the idea of divine command, so I am taking the divine command theory to its logical conclusion.

  Halcon: You assume you understand what is the eternal future as God knows it.

  I am basing my understanding on God's past actions and the notion that his nature does not change.

  God is either predictable --with a past that gives us an understanding of what he is like-- or unpredictable. The latter runs into the issue that any action he takes is good, and thus he is capable of anything, regardless of how we might view that action. The former gives us an image of a person who expresses cruelty on a recurring basis.

  I don't think the god-of-the-gaps argument works here. Either God is comprehensible to us, or he is not. Either way, we would be facing an uncertain and quite scary future if he was real.
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  27

  MANY DIFFICULT YEARS AHEAD : PER CHRISTENSEN

  by raymond frantz in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://youtu.be/jsmbtv4nafi?si=ezj0dnudyjls4knc.

  there was a time they preached the great tribulation was a short period of time between the fall of babylon and jesus coming back to save them, now they realize there are difficult years ahead of us, watch this latest morning worship video by per christensen on this subject .

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  TonusOH

  The thing is, we probably should have seen these changes coming. Or, at least, that there would be enough changes to move them in a new direction. They've done it before, though in the past it was usually after the WTS president died and the new one stepped in, ready to mold it into his vision. I guess I expected that to stop after they formed the GB, but nothing is as constant as change.

  We might be at an early stage of a revamp of the religion. So now I'm intrigued as to what other changes they might make. Maybe holidays and birthdays are not as far-fetched as I thought...