now the majority of people nowadays do no go by the hope of old times.
now the reason for this is important and goes beyond mere words.
our culture sees ethics especially national or civil politics as the rules and standards by which we guide ourselves.
Can we please start again...? (Please no.) And if we do, could somebody please explain to me what existence "in principle" means?
And then, when the existence "in principle" is explained, could we please stop discussing things in this thread...? Please...?
No?
Okay...
lets say you are able to go back in time to the first man( their belief adam) 7000 years.. now you are magically transporter back to adam time with the knowledge you have from.
todays world..would you make life a little easier for you and your family???
you may move.
James Mixon - All the comfort you have today I think it would be very hard to adjust to that life style.
Well, yes, it would be incredibly hard. However, it is something that we do even today. When we lose a job, when we get seriously sick, when someone we know dies, when we grow up and go to college or university for the first time... We always have to adjust.
Now, I personally don't come from a family in which we had the privilege of luxuries. The North American standards were a new thing for me. So, I personally wouldn't mind living in primitive standards. I mean... hauling water from the stream every day? Yeah, sure, why not? If I gotta do it every day, why not make it a journey every day? Additionally, this Jehovah's Witness ideology of the Paradise earth presupposes that animals would not eat meat anymore and therefore would not attack us under God's alleged protection. Of course, it's unrealistic, but would I mind living in primitive standards—without cars etc.—if there were no danger to human life? I would not mind at all.
Now, of course, there are many problems with this ideology, and we could talk about economy and stuff like that... Those problems are why I, in the end, don't believe in this paradise (along with my lack of belief in God.) But, if we are to talk about only what the question deals with—that is, the standards of living—then, no, I would not mind living in that paradise at all. I say teleport me there right away!
Keep in mind, though, that I don't believe in this paradise anyway... I'm just assuming another worldview with which I disagree on grounds other than what the question itself deals with—namely the standards of living.
last weekend was regional convention and mark sanderson was the bethel speaker for the last talks every day.
his talks were video streamed from zurich to other cities in switzerland, austria and germany.
one interesting point was that he wore an apple watch, stainless steel edition (link).
sparky1, you raised important points as well...
video is entitled "beware of deceit" he uses the letter of jude to show that current day apostates are deceitful and that they use "trickery" to and "twist facts" to try to "grab our mind".
warning: your head might explode.
especially past the 5:30 mark.
Londo111 - I don't even think the quote was falsified by reading further down. Russell seemed to simply added some qualifying backtracking to cover himself.
I don't think it's falsified either. The language Russell uses fits.
this statement may seem odd at first.
you may think of jehovah's witnesses as being an american religion in a country where freedoms exist and are prized.
you may think of the organization's legal battles in the supreme court to protect certain rights and freedoms.
I couldn't agree more. Even though I am a weak atheist—that is, I will not tell others that God doesn't exist—I have an extreme opinion in regards to Jehovah's Witnesses. I do not think that this organisation should be allowed to operate in any country. All Jehovah's Witness practices should be deemed illegal because they are extremely abusive and damaging. Maybe Jehovah's Witnesses are right... Maybe one day the governments will turn against them. I surely hope so.
last weekend was regional convention and mark sanderson was the bethel speaker for the last talks every day.
his talks were video streamed from zurich to other cities in switzerland, austria and germany.
one interesting point was that he wore an apple watch, stainless steel edition (link).
konceptual99 - Far more hypocritical is the paying of $4000 a day to keep embarrassing documents away from the authorities. Far more hypocritical is the sale of billions of dollars worth of real estate whilst asking for ice cream money to build nice new homes in the US, UK, South Africa without doing anything for the real needs of suffering people on the ground.
I agree.
konceptual99 - Sure, another brother might have been counciled about a showy display of one's means of lige and certainly, Sanderson might have shown some discretion but, given we don't have any idea how he came into the owning the watch, the danger is that the indignation can be seen as petty point scoring by those who think all apostates do is scrape around for silly points of contention when there are some really serious issues around how the WTS goes about it's commercial operations and charitable works.
You raised a valid point. I agree that it isn't so important when compared to other issues.
now the majority of people nowadays do no go by the hope of old times.
now the reason for this is important and goes beyond mere words.
our culture sees ethics especially national or civil politics as the rules and standards by which we guide ourselves.
Did I tell anybody how I love this: 
? This... This simple yet beautiful emoticon... It's so...
Ah, I don't have words for it. It's just so lovely. I like it. It's better than a thousand words used to express the same emotion as this emoticon shows.
so--ive bought a house--got the keys yesterday--took a car full of stuff over to it today--i'm upstairs--heard my wife talking to someone downstairs at the doorstep.............. yep--2 dubs--handing our invites to an assembly next month.
but its in a town called bournemouth ( uk )--which means an hours car journey--plus a very expensive ferry crossing.
( i live on an offshore island ).
Another proof that God guides the preaching work! And he wants you to repent, too!
video is entitled "beware of deceit" he uses the letter of jude to show that current day apostates are deceitful and that they use "trickery" to and "twist facts" to try to "grab our mind".
warning: your head might explode.
especially past the 5:30 mark.
Another follow-up here... I would have to say that, after considering all things, Flodin does lie in this video. It's true that Charles did encourage everyone to read the Bible and not take the Watchtower's word for truth. However, he also did say that the Watchtower is the Bible itself.
video is entitled "beware of deceit" he uses the letter of jude to show that current day apostates are deceitful and that they use "trickery" to and "twist facts" to try to "grab our mind".
warning: your head might explode.
especially past the 5:30 mark.
Just a follow-up here... The whole reference I gave above (the three paragraphs) comes from this archive. The paragraphs can be found on pages 689 and 690.
Thank God for Google!
