jp1692

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Posts by jp1692

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  61

  Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

  he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

  an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

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  jp1692

  Bible prophecy invalidates bible prophecy.
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  115

  UC Berkeley orders cancellation of Ann Coulter speech

  by freemindfade in

  1. social
  2. current

  uc berkeley administrators canceled a scheduled speech by right-wing pundit ann coulter, saying they can’t protect participants from rioting if it goes ahead.

  http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/uc-berkeley-orders-cancellation-of-ann-coulter-11084299.php.

  now i am no ann coulter fan (although the sjw police on here will accuse me of being a fan shortly after posting this), but i am a fan of free speech!

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  jp1692

  The lack of viewpoint diversity and the suppression of free speech at many American universities is a growing problem as some of the above commenters have observed.

  There is a groundswell of committed professionals that are trying to reverse this unhealthy trend. The other day I was directed by a colleague to this website created by some of these people:

  • Heterodox Academy

  Here is a snippet from their welcome page:

  We are a politically diverse group of social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and other scholars who want to improve our academic disciplines and universities.
  
  We share a concern about a growing problem: the loss or lack of “viewpoint diversity.” When nearly everyone in a field shares the same political orientation, certain ideas become orthodoxy, dissent is discouraged, and errors can go unchallenged.
  
  To reverse this process, we have come together to advocate for a more intellectually diverse and heterodox academy.
  
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  20

  April 19, 2017 BOE Re: Kingdom Ministry School for the 2018 Service Year

  by wifibandit in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  april 19, 2017 to all bodies of elders and ministerial servants re: kingdom ministry school for the 2018 service year.

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  jp1692

  Thanks for posting WiFi!

  I noticed a PS: "Please ensure that all ministerial servants receive a copy of this letter or are informed of its contents."

  Is this new that "elders" and "servants" get copies of letters? It used to be that no one was supposed to make copies of any of these letters!
  
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  115

  Could a petition to make shunning illegal work?

  by aboveusonlysky in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we're currently watching leah remini's series about scientology and the main thing she seems to focus on is the shunning policies of the scientology organization which let's face it are very similar to jw procedure.. i was wondering with all that's in the media recently about bullying could a petition be put together to get the goverment to consider making religiously mandated shunning illegal?

  has such a thing been tried before?.

  https://petition.parliament.uk/help says the following - .

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  jp1692

  In his famous letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s wrote: "One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

  King wasn't encouraging us to break laws just because they were wrong and unjust. He had a purpose in mind and that purpose was to bring about change.

  Similarly, when injustices are allowed under the law, we have a moral responsibility to seek to change those laws.

  Our history is replete with many examples of bad laws that were challenged and changed. These have included outdated laws, some which allowed gross injustices such as slavery to exist with the blessing of the state, and others that limited or even prevented basic human rights such as the freedom to marry whomsoever you may choose.

  Something may not be "against the law," but if it is wrong it should and must be stopped. For better or worse, in the modern world our only source of redress is generally an appeal to the ultimate authority wherever we are, which is usually the central government of the state or country in which we live.
  
  
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  14

  World's oldest person Emma Morano dies at 117

  by jp1692 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the world's oldest person has died in italy at the age of 117, reports say.. emma morano was born on 29 november 1899 in the piedmont region of italy.

  she was officially the last person born in the 1800s still living.. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39610937.

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  jp1692

  I gotta say, I'm pretty surprised that most of the above comments do not address the significance of this event to JW/WT theology.

  As Paul Grundy points out on his JWfacts article, "Changes to the Generation Teaching":

  "In 1968 [Watchtower publication] said that a person as young as 15 could 'discern' the beginning of the time of the end." That would mean that "this generation" would have to have referred to people born no later than 1899.

  Grundy then cited the Awake! magazine which said:

  Jesus was obviously speaking about those who were old enough to witness with understanding what took place when the 'last days' began. ... Even if we presume that youngsters 15 years of age would be perceptive enough to realize the import of what happened in 1914, it would still make the youngest of 'this generation' nearly 70 years old today. - Awake! 1968 Oct 8 p.13

  Up until November of 1995 the Awake! stated in the masthead of each issue that this system would end "before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away."

  The fact is clear: with the death of Emma Morano, that generation has passed away. They are all gone, dead. It's over.

  
  
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  43

  How long has it been since you have seen your family?

  by Christian Gutierrez in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  howdy guys!

  so how long has it been since you have seen your jw family or friends?

  or do you even care to have them in your life anymore?

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  jp1692

  2,859 days.

  That's 7 years, 9 months and 29 days.

  I have one grown child that lives less than a mile from me and yet-except for the random time a few years ago when I saw them driving on the freeway near our neighborhood-we have not seen really seen each other in almost eight years.

  Why? I don't actually know. I have repeatedly made attempts to reconcile. I have repeatedly asked for an explanation for their treatment. The closest I got to an answer was this: They won't talk to me because I no longer attend meetings at the Kingdom Hall. I have never said anything to them against the religion, I just simply don't go.

  Anyone considering joining this religion needs to know the truth, the REAL truth: It is a highly destructive cult that destroys families.
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  10

  Special Public Talk - 2017

  by Nicholaus Kopernicus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  during yesterday's public talk, i noted the speaker did not make a full reference to the first outline point following the second reference to romans 12:21 - "but keep conquering the evil with the good".this first outline point as i call it, is as follows: "be willing to forgive others whenever there is a basis for doing so".

  interesting conditionality i thought!

  it references the aw of june 8th 1995 page 10 paras 6-7. in part it says there... "what though, if others sin against us in a more serious way, deeply injuring us?

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  jp1692

  We forgive for ourselves first, the other later, if at all.

  Forgiveness is a choice, but until we forgive we cannot begin to heal. Those that hold onto anger and resentment only injure themselves.

  In my personal experience, JW's overall are not anymore forgiving than the average "worldly person," generally less so. A lack of forgiveness tends to go along with their overall judgmental nature.
  
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  38

  Cirencester Congregation UK: My story

  by erbie in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  dear all,.

  i have been a member here for some years although mostly in the background.

  many of you have bravely shared your own experiences and i am very grateful for that but i have never been open about my own experience.. nevertheless, i would be very grateful to those of you who would now take the time to read about my own personal journey from the jw religion and the circumstances that caused me to abandon that way of life and how i landed up where i am.

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  jp1692

  People behave badly and then blame you!

  It's not just JWs that do that, but it is all the more egregious when they act hypocritically and STILL try to insist on their own "moral superiority".

  Sorry you've had to endure this. Let the healing begin.
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  8

  "Has the Large Hadron Collider Disproved the Existence of Ghosts?"

  by unsure in

  1. social
  2. current

  "if i understand what you just declared, you just asserted that cern, the european center for nuclear research, disproved the existence of ghosts.".

  "yes," cox replied.. http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2017/02/16/has_the_large_hadron_collider_disproved_the_existence_of_ghosts.html.

  what do you think about this relating to.

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  jp1692

  Well those selected quotes proves nothing of the kind.

  For the record, I do NOT believe in ghosts, but Cox' line of reasoning (as presented in the linked article) contains at least two flaws that cannot lead to the conclusion promised in the title of this thread or in the linked article:

  1. First, obviously our bodies do move (Cox clearly knows this so I suspect there was more to his argument that was omitted), and
  2. Second, we still have no idea from whence conciousness arises.

  I kind of hate it when non-scientists report on things they don't understand. They so rarely get it right because they don't know what to include and what to leave out. The result is usually provocative sound-bites that are incomplete at best and mid-leading or just plain wrong at worst.

  In other words, Ross Pomeroy, I happen to agree with you, but you explained it badly and made Mr. Cox sound like a dogmatic prig.

  Because we can't currently detect or measure something is absolutely NOT proof it doesn't exist. The history of science is rife with many examples of things we didn't know about until we discovered or invented new ways of "seeing" or understanding. The change from the Ptolemaic geocentric universe to the Copernican heliocentric view is one notable example. Lavoisier's discovery of oxygen another. Both involved major paradigm shifts and a willingness to see what had always been there, but not understood because of the limitations of the current popular belief systems of how reality is and the limitations of current technology at the times to measure the phenomena under investigation.

  That is what makes science so exciting!

  But one must have an open mind. This is why almost all new scientific discoveries have been made by someone young or new to the particular field.
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  33

  Anyone know what the special talk is this weekend?

  by charity7 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  non jw so thank you for bearing with me.

  do special talks happen with individual congregations or is it throughout?

  i was told by my husband that i had to go with him and the rest of his family to the special talk that was happening this weekend.

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  jp1692

  I appreciated this point in the "Note to the speaker""

  Use verified experiences to illustrate the superiority of Christian peaceableness over protest and retaliation

  The trouble is, the best examples are from people like this:

  
  

  Hmmm, none of these people are JWs!!! That can't be right.