Posts by Apognophos

42

My questions for YOU

by Terry in

jw
friends

i'm curious about human intelligence and beliefs as a natural phenomenon.. i've long suspected that even the most "normal" and well-educated person harbors "fringe" beliefs.. the purpose of this thread is not to mock beliefs of any kind.

rather it is for all of us to toss in to a pile our own unprovables so .

we can, as a group, evaluate how natural and non-neurotic such thinking might well be.. .

Apognophos

1.UFO's.

I believe that people have been unable to identify flying objects :-) I will say that any scientific objections about aliens traveling here are nullified by the concept of worldships or generation ships.

2. Ancient Astronauts/Alien kidnappings

I don't believe in ancient astronauts and I don't think it's likely that aliens would bother to keep kidnapping people. The psychological explanation for why people claim to have been abducted, though, interests me.

3.E.S.P. and Psychic powers

I don't believe in what are typically referred to as psychic powers, but science is continuing to discover interesting new senses in our bodies that seem almost magical; for instance, nerve 0: "a tiny, relatively unstudied nerve sprouting from the base of the brain whose function is only now becoming clear: subliminal sexual attraction. Many scientists believe that pheromones, those silent chemical messages exchanged by members of the opposite sex in search of mates, relay subconscious signals to the brain through this obscure nerve." (From this article.)

4. Conspiracy theories

I generally don't believe in these. There are certainly people in power who want to subtly manipulate us, but they all have conflicting agendas, so it's not as if all the world's leaders can actually agree on some direction for humanity like a "new world order". And, as pointed out already, national conspiracies such as a moon landing hoax would require too many people to keep a secret.

5.Angels

Nope.

6.Revelations by God

Nope.

7.Any other belief

Nothing major. Some are too personal (identifying) to list here. I do tend to believe that humans are meant to play some special role in the universe, or perhaps just that life as a whole is proceeding according to some plan, but it's just a hunch and I'm not dogmatic about it, nor does it necessarily affect how I make decisions in my personal life.

80

The "Pop-In"

by Mr. Falcon in

so last night the wife is working, the kids are getting ready for bed and i'm watching futurama.

doorbell rings.

now it's dark, snowing and i live on a back road, so it's very odd to have a visitor.

Apognophos

I laughed , saying it was a ficus with lights.

They had to look into my windows to see my houseplant.

Wow. What knuckleheads. Let's not even get into the subject of Witnesses looking in windows... but we know they get plenty of practice at that while in service!

38

How long did it take you to prepare for talks or parts in the KM school?

by OneDayillBeFree in

several years ago, whenever i got a talk slip i would get really nervous but accept it and work on it almost immediately.

of course that was way back when i still believed it all.. now they gave me a #3 talk out of the blue about a month ago and i had forgotten all about it till the meeting night.

i really thought about not showing up at all but at the last minute, i decided to go.. so when i got there the meeting had already started and so i just stayed in the back looked at the info, found 2 scriptures and then without any notes i went up and gave the stupid talk!.

Apognophos

I envy you guys, it takes me hours to do a #3 (that's the research-based talk, used to be #4, and maybe even #5 before that?). I used to script everything out, which took hours but was less nerve-wracking, but a school overseer encouraged me to use outlines, so now the talks are much more arduous to prepare because I'm really bad at extemporizing from an outline. I don't know why I still work so hard on them, not being a believer. Maybe pride, maybe fear.

51

Did we ever fulfill Mathew 24:14?

by raymond frantz in

i know ... many mistakes and a nasty leadership ,but did jehovah's witnesses fulfill even partially matthew 24:14 :"the good news will be preached in all the inhabited earth and then the end will come "are we to expect a final or a completely different fulfilment of this verse ?

.

Apognophos

Just to be clear, Pterist, I was being sarcastic, and drawing attention to an interesting definition of "good news". I thought it was jarring that they would quote 24:14 and then ask how many religions were talking about gov'ts solving man's problems. This is the Society's method of distinguishing themselves from "Christendom", since they can't claim that they are the only religion sending missionaries to preach about the saving power of the ransom sacrifice.

51

Did we ever fulfill Mathew 24:14?

by raymond frantz in

i know ... many mistakes and a nasty leadership ,but did jehovah's witnesses fulfill even partially matthew 24:14 :"the good news will be preached in all the inhabited earth and then the end will come "are we to expect a final or a completely different fulfilment of this verse ?

.

Apognophos

Hasn't the Society been saying in recent years that not all nations will necessarily get a witness before the end comes? Or am I imagining that?

On a more concrete note, here is what the Reasoning book says about JWs fulfilling Matt. 24:14:

Are its members active witnesses concerning God’s Kingdom? Jesus foretold: “This good news of the kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations; and then the end will come.” ( Matt. 24:14 ) What religion is really proclaiming God’s Kingdom as the hope of mankind instead of encouraging people to look to human rulership to solve their problems?

So there's your answer, tec, Pterist et al.: the good news is that governments cannot solve our problems, only God can! And you thought the Witnesses didn't know the good news ;)

57

Did YOU Go A Bit Wild or Crazy When You Left The "Truth"?

by minimus in

jw
friends

just curious..

Apognophos

Haha, nice story, ODIBF. I don't know what will happen when I'm physically out. I don't have any plans to cut loose. If anything, I'd like to live more strictly than the JWs, just to spite them.

27

Dunkin Donuts........... is anything made there anymore????

by DaCheech in

my kids were good yesterday, so i promised them that i would get them dunking donuts in the morning on the way to dropping them off to school...... on the highway, there is a gas station convenience store with a corner dunkin donuts.............. they usually have everything there.. well my kids could not have their donuts, or muffins, or croissants............... they were not delivered i guess.. so, i left.. i went to another dunkin donuts 3 miles away............. and the same problem.. the other dunkin donuts was a dedicated dunkin only place!!!.

there's no baking in the place anymore!!!!.

what are we coming to!.

Apognophos

At least as of a year or two ago, they were still baking in my local Dunkin' Donuts. A disappointing lack of variety, though. But getting one of their bagels hot and fresh was a great experience when I once stood around waiting for them to finish a new batch.

26

Fascinating 1914 exchange between CT Russell and a colporteur

by cedars in

i'm just doing some research for my book, and i uncovered a real gem from the watch tower of july 1st 1914 - published three months before the "gentile times" were due to end climaxing (as they thought back then) in armageddon.. a rather brave "colporteur" (pioneer) wrote in to the magazine asking whether the studies in the scriptures series of books advocating 1914 to be the end of the world should cease to be circulated after october.

not only does the question itself prove that the expectations of publishers back then were entirely contrary to what the society repeatedly implies them to be, but the answer given by russell shows the same arrogance and evasiveness that we see in modern literature from the society, showing how little has changed since those days.. here is the clipping.... .

notice how russell falls back on the same line of argumentation used by the society, namely "we have not attempted to say these views are infallible.".

Apognophos

Ah, of course, thanks AnnOMaly and wantingtruth. I'm not a chronology buff, and I've never seen someone use "A.M." dates before, or count from the creation of man. That makes sense.

50

The Watchtower Society has come to grips with the futility of D2D preaching

by wasblind in

you don't even have to read between the lines, they say it straight out on their website.

" in many countries, more and more people obtain information online.".

who'd a thunk it .

Apognophos

Blah, when I said "TMS" above, of course I meant "SM", it was a Service Meeting part; I don't know why I make that mistake sometimes. I agree, Sulla, the overlapping generation concept was pretty ingenious!

26

Fascinating 1914 exchange between CT Russell and a colporteur

by cedars in

i'm just doing some research for my book, and i uncovered a real gem from the watch tower of july 1st 1914 - published three months before the "gentile times" were due to end climaxing (as they thought back then) in armageddon.. a rather brave "colporteur" (pioneer) wrote in to the magazine asking whether the studies in the scriptures series of books advocating 1914 to be the end of the world should cease to be circulated after october.

not only does the question itself prove that the expectations of publishers back then were entirely contrary to what the society repeatedly implies them to be, but the answer given by russell shows the same arrogance and evasiveness that we see in modern literature from the society, showing how little has changed since those days.. here is the clipping.... .

notice how russell falls back on the same line of argumentation used by the society, namely "we have not attempted to say these views are infallible.".

Apognophos

I'm familiar with Ussher's chronology, but I'm confused as to why Russell wrote that it "shows the birth of our Christ in the year 4004". As opposed to something like "man's creation occurred 4004 years before the birth of our Christ". He seems to be saying that Jesus was created right before Adam was. Since Jesus was supposed to be the first creation of God, that doesn't make sense unless Russell believed in a 6000 year-old universe.