Posts by TonusOH

75

WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ocufvpm3t04?si=75zmussxknhlsrs7.

the first watchtower for 2025 is out, and immediately, articles 4 and 5 drew my attention.

these will be studied near the memorial season, a time the witnesses prepare for their yearly commemoration of jesus’ death, i will be returning on this articles near at the time.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: So, How can you claim that the only outcome of free will is catastrophe ?

If we were incapable of committing sin, everyone would be loyal to God and no one would suffer. The world would be a utopia, the afterlife would be spent in heaven with God for eternity.

If people are capable of committing sin, everyone suffers during their lives. They disappoint God and let him down frequently. It got so bad that at one point God wiped out almost all human life on the planet, and doing that did not stop the sin and the suffering. In addition, many people will suffer eternally as a result of exercising free will to commit sin.

How is the second outcome not a catastrophe?

75

WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ocufvpm3t04?si=75zmussxknhlsrs7.

the first watchtower for 2025 is out, and immediately, articles 4 and 5 drew my attention.

these will be studied near the memorial season, a time the witnesses prepare for their yearly commemoration of jesus’ death, i will be returning on this articles near at the time.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: I can’t see a correlation between an inanimate product and beings with agency and free-will.

If there is a flaw in the design, the designer must be at fault. We should assign blame accordingly.

Sea Breeze: Are you saying God should have made people without free will?

If the only possible outcome of exercising free will is catastrophe, what good is it?

75

WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ocufvpm3t04?si=75zmussxknhlsrs7.

the first watchtower for 2025 is out, and immediately, articles 4 and 5 drew my attention.

these will be studied near the memorial season, a time the witnesses prepare for their yearly commemoration of jesus’ death, i will be returning on this articles near at the time.

TonusOH

If human judges were responsible for the creation of the universe and everything in it, including the design of humans and the human mind, we could apply that reasoning to them.

Under your belief system, we are the products of an advanced intellect bearing unlimited power and energy to create, and capable of perfection in everything he does. His product is defective. He blames the product. Would you allow a human manufacturer to get away with this kind of reasoning?

121

PRESIDENTIAL predictions...let the prognosticators have their say!

by Terry in

jw
friends

my only prowess in making predictions stems from my 77-years of life in the united statesgrowing up under president truman, eisenhower, kennedy, nixon, .....etc.

etc.i was a widdle kid sitting in front of a tiny black and white tv set when the very first broadcastsof political conventions, deal-making, debates (nixon vs kennedy), assassinations (jfk, rfk, martin luther king, etc.

) i grew up with duck and cover under my elementary schooldesk, the cold war, the iron curtain, the korean war, the vietnam war and i went to federal prisonas a jw conscientious objector while hippies, flower children, political activists protested and universitystudents were fired up on by troops.i grew up reading newspapers (2 of them).

TonusOH

peacefulpete: The rest of the first world will shake their heads in disbelief and mock American credulity and embrace of hate.

The USA has been the 800lb gorilla in the room for decades now. With that kind of attention (and with our history) the rest of the world has been holding its collective nose for a long time. That won't change.

I have no idea who will win. I do know that the losing side will almost certainly cry foul and head to the courts, while the winning side will decry this action, even though we know they would both do the same thing if the roles were reversed. Either way, we will not have people in place to really deal with the global issues we are facing, and we will have four years of turmoil.

Maybe we will fuck things up badly enough for the electorate to realize that putting idiots and decrepit geezers in the White House is a stupid idea. We might not have many bright lights in politics, but can we at least get someone in there who isn't too old or utterly incapable? Is this the best we can do, out of a pool of hundreds of millions?

31

Where do you see the Organization in the next 10 years?

by ukpimo in

realistically, between now and 2034, what do you think watchtower will change or reform to appear more mainstream?

what business opportunities do you see watchtower getting involved in?.

my predictions are as follows: .

TonusOH

mikeflood: It's gonna be just weekly meeting on any weekday... ruining weekends shouldn't be tolerated...

Most Christian denominations meet primarily or exclusively on weekends. Having one meeting during the week and none on the weekend seems unusual to me. A one or two-hour meeting on a Sunday morning would be pretty typical for most Christians, wouldn't it?

75

WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ocufvpm3t04?si=75zmussxknhlsrs7.

the first watchtower for 2025 is out, and immediately, articles 4 and 5 drew my attention.

these will be studied near the memorial season, a time the witnesses prepare for their yearly commemoration of jesus’ death, i will be returning on this articles near at the time.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: Why is it bad if God desires to rescue his Children?

I did not say that it was bad for God to offer to save us. I pointed out two things:

1. He is the one who condemned us. In all but two cases, he did so before we even existed.

2. He is not obligated to take any action, as there is no one who can compel him to action.

In other words, anything that happens is his fault. All of it. His convoluted plan to "save" a world that he condemned through his poor planning just makes him seem that much more evil, because we cannot ascribe it to incompetence when we are talking about a being of endless knowledge and understanding.

If it happened, it is what he wanted. He is offering to rescue us? He's the one we need rescuing from!

75

WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ocufvpm3t04?si=75zmussxknhlsrs7.

the first watchtower for 2025 is out, and immediately, articles 4 and 5 drew my attention.

these will be studied near the memorial season, a time the witnesses prepare for their yearly commemoration of jesus’ death, i will be returning on this articles near at the time.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: God offers a substitute for the death penalty that we are under

We are under that penalty as a result of his actions and his decisions. God is not obligated to do anything. No one can compel him to action. The outcomes are what he specifically desires, because he created everything. Not just the universe, or the planet, or the life on that planet. He wrote the rules. The physics, metaphysics, moral structures, laws of nature... all of it. Nothing happens that is not expressly his desire, or his design, or his fault.

Threatening me with eternal punishment under those circumstances is not just unreasonable, it is supremely unjust.

29

WT vs Norway - WT sends letter to the goverment saying they have now changed their practice on DF. Asks for their funding back

by liam in

disfellowshipping is slowly fading into the night.. last efforts to survive.. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/1gh3ilq/wt_vs_norway_wt_sends_letter_to_the_goverment/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button.

TonusOH

It's interesting. They really do not want to give up shunning as a way of controlling behavior. The letter explains that they will try really really hard to be as fair as possible and that young people who are DF still have family support, but they are pretty clear that they are not going to abandon shunning. They are offering to make it less onerous, but will not give it up entirely.

I hope the response to this letter is that they encourage the WTS for taking a first step, then tell them that it is not enough. "We shun, but not as much as we used to" is not acceptable when you are asking the government to reinstate a recurring million-dollar gift.

75

WATCHTOWER JAN 2025: WHY IS THE WATCHTOWER OBSESSED WITH THE RANSOM?

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ocufvpm3t04?si=75zmussxknhlsrs7.

the first watchtower for 2025 is out, and immediately, articles 4 and 5 drew my attention.

these will be studied near the memorial season, a time the witnesses prepare for their yearly commemoration of jesus’ death, i will be returning on this articles near at the time.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: God has decided that the spirit of man is unfixable, it must die.

So... his original design was broken and must be fixed through lifetimes of suffering and eventual death, and then we spend an eternity in an afterlife that is determined based on acknowledging that God is in charge, and not on the kind of life we lead and the kind of person we became?

That doesn't seem reasonable. I don't think that a being who behaves this way is following a standard that we would recognize as just. Or good. It doesn't make sense.

31

Where do you see the Organization in the next 10 years?

by ukpimo in

realistically, between now and 2034, what do you think watchtower will change or reform to appear more mainstream?

what business opportunities do you see watchtower getting involved in?.

my predictions are as follows: .

TonusOH

Fallen_Winter: my Bible Study Conductor believes that the end will be in less than 20 years.

This is common amongst JWs. I was raised a JW and I was convinced I would not graduate grade school (then junior high, then high school) before the end came. The belief that the end was very near was constant. To this day, my mother is convinced that the end will happen any moment now, because conditions around the world are too difficult to see any way out. She has been repeating that line for decades, now.

If you point this out, she will fall back on the excuse that Jehovah is patient and that time moves differently for him. When JWs say "soon" they mean from God's point-of-view, and to God a day is like a thousand years and vice-versa. Of course, they are not thinking this way when they are warning of the end being soon. They only pull that excuse out when you point out that they have been saying "soon" for more than 100 years now, and most people define "soon" very differently from that.

It is a form of self-deception that is kept in place by the sunk cost of having already invested so much. Many do finally wake up and get out. But quite a few of them --my mother included-- will never give up the hope and expectation.