i've always hated story #53: "jepthah's promise".
i always felt sorry for the daughter who had to spend the rest of her days at the tabernacle because her father made a numb-nuts promise to god.
who did he think he was, making promises for other people?
Interesting, I got to the same URL; I wonder why it doesn't work when pasted here? Testing... http://www.hebrewoldtestament.com/B01C022.htm
That works for me. Seems that something funny happened because you didn't paste in the "http://". Not sure why.
http://tv.jw.org/ is up and running.. see bro lett stumble his way through the introduction.
he really does have a good face for radio.. http://tv.jw.org/#video/vodmonthlyprogramming/pub-jwb_e_201410_1_video.
nice sweaty top lip at 15 mins onwards - the pressure is showing!!.
Yes, millie210, everyone sees it, even many believing JWs :-) I think that Lett was probably raised in a cloistered environment. Some JWs are Asperger's-esque just because of the lack of honest feedback from peers in their life. JWs put up with stuff that others would take a stand against, or even mock.
I mean this in the kindest possible way, Sam... how the hell do JWs show love? I'm curious to hear your answer because JWs talk a lot about love, but do they teach by example?
not usually a subject the watchtower likes to touch ,the giants that lived after the flood are a fact of ancient record and archeology .how tall were they ?
where did they live and how tall was og the king of bashan ?.
from this week's highlights deuteronomy 3:11:"for king og of bashan was the last remaining one of the rephaim.
What are you guys doing, is this like trying to guess the weight of the turkey at the fair?
True fact: All of the bones of Biblical giants were magically swapped with dinosaur bones before any modern men could find them.
this is my first post here.. i was raised in "the truth", and am an ex-bethelite who worked in brooklyn for several years back in the 90's.
a few years after i left bethel, i started to become disillusioned after doing research about the society and reading crisis of conscience (i know..i wasn't supposed to do that lol).
i eventually stopped attending meetings and going out in service.
That quote from C. S. Lewis really is hopeless, though. Scientific ideas prove their worth by providing a model for interacting successfully with the universe to achieve our aims. Calling scientific thoughts "accidental" isn't even wrong, it's a meaningless statement.
jesus, mark 9-40 (nwt).
the jehovahs witnesses assert exclusivity.
that is, they are the only true christian faith.
Well, it was nice to meet you Don; I kind of wish you'd stick around, but I know you really wanted to find a forum with believing JWs, and there's only a handful here. I understand your reluctance to try to dash someone's faith to pieces, as well as the admonition in Mark (we actually did consider that scripture many many times as Witnesses; I'm surprised humbled doesn't share that memory). The fact is, what doesn't work for one person may work for another. The religion meets some needs of some people. More importantly, hardly any JWs (or, in fact, human beings) are open-minded enough to reconsider their worldview based upon a challenge from another person. Cue the old saying about leading a horse to water.
On the subject of anyone's erudition, I'll just say that some of us have been educating ourselves feverishly to make up for lost time since learning TTATT and being freed from our mental prisons. I've learned a great deal of fascinating info about the Bible in the last couple years which is kept from the Witnesses. However, as I said, we are a non-representative bunch. Some of us just happen to be introverted bookworms, and so we naturally read lots of science and SF and this broadened our horizons even while we were still true believers.
Having a love of reading is something that doesn't seem common among JWs; interestingly, in my case it did not carry over to the Society's literature, in which I could hardly muster enough interest to glance over. I wanted things that stimulated me intellectually, and for the most part this was absent from the literature, though I admit a fondness for the much-maligned Revelation book as well as the Greatest Man book, which even many embittered ex-JWs have to admit they like because it stands apart from the majority of the literature by focusing on Jesus' life and the actual Bible passages that relate it, without much eisegetical nonsense (unlike the Revelation book, *cough*).
Anyway, as an avid SF reader, it's funny to hear someone bring up "The Last Answer", as I made a thread about that here a while back to bring it to the attention of a few more people. It's frighteningly thought-provoking.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/life-after-death-largestever-study-provides-evidence-that-out-of-body-and-neardeath-experiences-may-actually-be-real-9780195.html.
"experts currently believe that the brain shuts down within 20 to 30 seconds of the heart stopping beating and that it is not possible to be aware of anything at all once that has happened.. but scientists in the new study heard said they heard compelling evidence that patients experienced real events for up to three minutes after this had happened and could recall them accurately once they had been resuscitated.".
how are people having "experinces" while there is no evidence of heart or brain activity?.
One could say that people in a coma with low brain activity should also not be able to know what's going on around them, but some who've come out of comas relate that they had some awareness.
Anyway, I'm not really clear how awareness of one's physical surroundings says anything about life after death. I suppose they're implying that their soul was hovering above the table watching the goings-on, I don't know, but why can't they simply be underestimating how long the brain remains functional?
To me, evidence of life after death from NDEs would consist of, "I went into a white light, and I saw my Uncle Joe, and he told me I was going to live, and he asked me to ask Aunt Susie about my long-lost half-brother that I never knew about, and then when I woke up, my family confirmed that they were keeping this family secret from me."
i've always hated story #53: "jepthah's promise".
i always felt sorry for the daughter who had to spend the rest of her days at the tabernacle because her father made a numb-nuts promise to god.
who did he think he was, making promises for other people?
You probably were also referring by "crude rendering" to the fact that paleo-Hebrew looks like chicken scratch, strikingly primitive. Though it makes sense to have a simple script since the language had to be inscribed into surfaces like clay, it conveys just what a primal era it comes from. Anyway, I wanted to mention, that link isn't working for me for some reason. Just gives a 404 page.
re: jw broadcasting.
dear brothers:.
we are writing to inform you of an exciting initiative that was announced on october 4,.
I know what you mean, Justnowout. Those of you who weren't at the 2013 AGM probably don't know this, but when the techy brother was on stage introducing us to the apps, the convention hall's screens filled with the logo of each OS for a few seconds -- the Apple logo and the Android logo -- as they began the demo for the apps on that platform.
Seeing those logos writ large on the screens, by themselves on a black background, felt strange. It seemed like the audience was uncomfortably silent. I've never known the Society to mention brand names from the platform before, let alone to blast their logos in our faces. I suppose there was never a reason to mention brand names of products before this sudden tech adoption phase that they are going through.
"Hey, sorry I said you guys were like ISIS." "No biggie. Want to read the Watchtower for us?"
