Apognophos

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Posts by Apognophos

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  6

  Can you imagine what that would be like?

  by cookiemaster in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hey guys, here's something to think about.

  in my country there's a small town of a few thousands people were most people are jws.

  can you image what's like living there?

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  Apognophos

  Wow, that could be a recipe for losing one's mind. A real life Watchtowistan!
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  32

  Jehovah's organization growing like never before: but bible studies are way down. Huh?

  by kneehighmiah in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so the governing body likes to keep claiming incredible growth.

  at the same time they claim bible studies are way down.

  are the finally admitting what we've known all along, that they can no longer recruit outsiders?

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  Apognophos

  Others have made this observation before me, but now that they mentioned it, I'm hearing it at my meetings too. When the friends are asked to relate encouraging experiences from field service, they're often of the form:

  "The householder objected with X, but I responded with Y, and we had a good conversation. They didn't take anything, but it was a good conversation."

  "The householder was an atheist so I asked him the question Q, which I prepared for any atheists I encountered. He still isn't interested, but maybe it got him thinking."

  "We didn't talk to anyone today, but we had a good upbuilding conversation in the car group."

  "...Well, at least people know that we're out doing the work that Jesus commanded us to do."

  -------------

  It's my theory of the moment that the Society sees the writing on the wall w.r.t. field service, and in order to continue to be able to boast about growth, they are moving towards other figures that they can reliably brag about, such as translation and web site statistics.
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  41

  What really woke me up: I started noticing most JWS are weirdos..

  by kneehighmiah in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  thankfully my parents are converts so they aren't wierd.

  seemed pretty popular by all accounts.

  they are "popular" jws even now.

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  Apognophos

  Considering that the original disciples were (generally) "unlettered and ordinary", I didn't give any thought to the fact that JWs often were uneducated or outright strange. As a born-in, I also had nothing to compare it with since I did not associate much with non-believers.

  What did start to wake me up, though, on a similar note, was when I observed Witnesses passing dubious urban legends onto each other. It was a red flag for me that JWs were so credulous towards information that came from fellow believers. Their lack of skepticism got me to wondering what other things they were accepting uncritically.
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  112

  Scientists Should Not Dismiss Genesis So Quickly

  by Chris Tann in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  nasa discovery proves the bible scientifically accurate.

  the debate.

  for decades there has been a long standing debate between science and religion as to the validity of the biblical genesis account of creation.

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  Apognophos

  The summary of this, interestingly, has already been given in a number of the Society's writings. For instance the explanation of the seemingly too-late creation of the sun and moon with the response that 'from the point of view of someone on the Earth, the sun and moon did not exist until they were actually visible from the ground' has been stated in the WT literature as well.

  There is really just one broadly valid point here, which is that both the Genesis account and the scientific account agree that things started off chaotic (unformed) and became more organized. Any further specific correlation with science has to be forced rather than naturally read in Genesis.

  This voluminous apologetic does not address other thorny issues with Genesis, such as chapter 1's creation of plants before the sun was shining, or chapter 2's creation of animals before plants. An honest reading of Genesis, with a respectful attitude towards the culture that actually told the story, shows a very different, primitive view of the world that does not jive with science at all, nor with the Christian concepts of the nature of God.
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  37

  Do Jehovah witnesses exploit the most vulnerable in society?

  by Blind_Of_Lies in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  during my final few years being active with the jws i noticed that the vast majority of people who were studying or joining the group in general where those that the rest of society would consider disabled and/or severely mentally ill. now by disabled i dont mean i lost my leg in nam kind of disabled... in some cases these people were mentally retarded, had the minds of children, were severely abused as children or even as adults and as a result had personality disorders that put them on the edge of society.... and then we had the full on crazies... about 15 years ago one of the brothers who worked at the local welfare office somehow started a study with a person who was a paranoid schizophrenic.

  he met her because she was a client of the welfare office.

  she got handed off to a sister who studied with her, then started driving her to her doctors appointments, and to get grocerys, and took her to congregation events.

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  Apognophos

  I observed this too -- that most converts were mentally ill or social misfits. But I viewed it as evidence of the love in the religion that JWs would work so hard to bring these people in and help them go out in the ministry. I still think it's to the credit of any JWs who have the patience to deal with these people, but counter-balancing that, I also am aware now that the JW is motivated to make converts in order to affirm his own beliefs, and I'm also concerned over the pros/cons of being in the religion.

  People who are adrift in society or who have substance abuse problems may in fact be better off in the religion than they were before, but what about the pressures that the religion places on them? And even within the religion they'll always be a second-class citizen if they are not capable of "reaching out" for "privileges".
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  39

  why didnt God just do this?

  by sowhatnow in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for one thing, i cant get past genesis, but no matter.. when god told adam and eve if you eat from the tree youll die.

  so why did he not simple let them die and not allow the offspring to?.

  you see, if i was a god, and i told two people that, id let them die , .

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  Apognophos

  This story actually makes plenty of sense in its original context, and is self-consistent. It only stops making sense when you bring science, modern ethics, or a Christian perspective into it. Read the story on its own terms before you trash it.

  - As was already touched on, the concept of inherited sin was considered fair at the time, so there was no reason for God to warn Adam and Eve about their children inheriting their curse.

  - God could not have prevented them from sinning because he was not always around. The idea of an "omnipresent", "omniscient" God did not exist yet at the time of this story. He was only present and aware of what was happening in the Garden when he walked through on one of his afternoon constitutionals. That's why he couldn't find Adam and Eve when they hid from him. All the verbs used for God's actions in this account point to him being a powerful man-like being who can breathe life into forms he molds from clay -- not some immaterial being in the sky, watching everything.

  - As to what the tree of knowledge was doing there in the first place, it was for himself and/or the angels. That's why eating it will make the humans "like God". So to cover the times when God wasn't there, he left Adam and Eve with a warning not to eat from it. The next time he entered the garden on one of his afternoon walks, he noticed Adam and Eve were missing. When he coaxed them out of hiding, he saw their makeshift clothing and realized that they were no longer the childlike creatures he had created, ergo they had eaten some of his knowledge fruit.

  - Adam and Eve hadn't had children or even sex right off the bat when Eve was created, simply because it would not have occurred to them. Exercise for the reader: How old were Adam and Eve when they were created? physically? mentally? Forget your assumptions or what you've seen in illustrations made by an entirely different culture -- what does the account actually tell us, or not tell us?

  - As sowhatnow already said, there was no concept of perfection in the story. Adam and Eve were never "perfect"; this concept had not been invented yet when this story was told. They were simply animals like all the other animals that God created. The one thing that made them special was that they were made in God's image (they looked like him and had his greater intelligence, but lacked his knowledge and power). Then they actually became inferior to the other animals in some ways when God cursed them, making it harder for them to obtain food and to give birth than what any of the animals experienced.

  - Why didn't/couldn't Adam and Eve just eat from the tree of life and live forever? While they may have been cast out before they were in the Garden very long, it's also possible that they had eaten from the tree many times already. Exercise for the reader: Where in the account does it say that the the tree of life magically grants one immortality with just one bite of its fruit? And why didn't God tell them not to eat from it if it was not meant for them? He said they could eat from "all the trees" except the tree of knowledge, didn't he?

  - Adam and Eve were probably not equal before Eve's curse. The verse that is read to mean that Eve was subjugated to Adam can also be interpreted to mean "you will have a sexual desire for your husband and he will lay on top of you". It's a statement referring to the awakening of sexual desire and the future of the woman in terms of her lot in life -- to be impregnated and to suffer a "sorrowful" pregnancy (morning sickness, etc.) and "painful" childbirth.

  - As Mum just said, the snake was a snake. The account has nothing to do with Satan, who had not been conceived of yet. This snake could talk, but possibly all snakes could, at least before they were cursed -- notice that the snake was the most cunning of all the animals. This is a typical "trickster god" animal, as found in many cultures' mythology.

  So, viewed in the right cultural context, I find the account to be quite sensible. It simply requires the modern reader to jettison the assumptions and interpretive framework of the culture in which he was raised, which come from a gradual evolution of religious concepts over the last few thousand years which would have been totally foreign to the ancient Hebrew listening to this story.
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  35

  Overlap what???

  by dugout in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  just out of the blue i asked my wife whos been a jw for some 30 odd years can she explain the overlapping doctrine.

  she said to me she never heard of this and said she will have to look it up.

  i thought oh s#^%!.

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  Apognophos

  His comment....and this blows me away..... "Like what?"

  Why would you expect him, as a zealous JW, to say anything different? He wanted to know what issues you meant. This is an opportunity to give him some new information, so it's exactly the response you should have wanted.
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  61

  Zone Visit feedback, from ones still in??

  by Crazyguy in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  just wondering if any one has heard from ones still asleep, what their feedback has been and what comments have been made by the rank and file??.

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  Apognophos

  What's that scripture about how 'the whole assembly of them were in confusion and didn't know why they had been called together'? Basically the zone visit was a meeting meant for Bethelites and for some reason it got accidentally broadcast to much of the JW world and we were accidentally asked to watch it. It had little to do with us and I have no idea why they didn't broadcast the annual meeting instead.

  I do know one thing... people with weight problems shouldn't be bragging about their ability to get to breakfast on time.
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  29

  wow, shaking my head

  by Hortensia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my neighbor told me she had been talking about me recently.

  "i was saying to carrie in the office i just don't see how anyone can deny the existence of a higher power.

  she needed some q-tips, and found a box of them on the free table by the office.

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  Apognophos

  Good for you, Hortensia. I know you don't want to offend your hippy-dippy neighbors, but sometimes, even if it doesn't change their mind, for your own sake you have to stand up for logic and reason.
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  75

  My Parents have gone FULL CULT MODE! Having a job is SATANIC!

  by BU2B in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  to give a little background, my parents are in their late 50s.

  around a year ago, my elder dad got laid off from his job.

  he worked as a auto mechanic making ok money.

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  Apognophos

  Any conversation you have with them is likely to be very uncomfortable but failing to have an honest conversation about their planning for the future and whether that should adversely affect your own future and those of your own family is ultimately going to hurt them more in the long run.

  Yes, and this is easier said than done, but don't wait until they are running out of money and turning to you before you inform them that you can't help them out with financial support. They need to know that now, or soon.