Posts by Apognophos

20

Elders: Born-Ins vs Recruits

by breakfast of champions in

this is an unofficial survey.. was curious as to the number of currently serving elders who were born-in and/or raised as jw versus those who were "recruited"( i.e, not born in or raised as jw.).

for instance, right now in the hall i am assigned to:.

2 elders were born-in and/or raised as jws.. 5 were not (recruited as adults).

Elders: Born-Ins vs Recruits

by breakfast of champions in

this is an unofficial survey.. was curious as to the number of currently serving elders who were born-in and/or raised as jw versus those who were "recruited"( i.e, not born in or raised as jw.).

for instance, right now in the hall i am assigned to:.

2 elders were born-in and/or raised as jws.. 5 were not (recruited as adults).

I don't think we should expect the ratio among elders to deviate from the general ratio among Witnesses. If 66% of Witnesses are born-ins (to make up a number), then 66% of elders should be born-ins. The way the religion works on the mind, a convert can be just as much a captive of the concept as a born-in.

112

Scientists Should Not Dismiss Genesis So Quickly

by Chris Tann in

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.

Apognophos

Actually, what I've read about the "circle of the earth" in Isaiah 40:22 is that chug does mean a circle. Looking at the word's entry on BibleHub, you can see that the concordances give the definitions "circle", "horizon", and "vault". It would be nice if there were more usages from which to get a sense of the word, but there's only three. As you can see, the second is in Prov. 8:27: "when he inscribed a circle on the face of the deep". Both the Isaiah and Proverbs verses would make sense if referring to an Earth that is flat and round.

The other usage is in Job 22:14, where it refers to God walking on the vaulted ceiling of the sky. This complicates the definition a bit and I'm not clear on why chug can mean both "circle" and "vault". Perhaps the three-dimensional nature of a vaulted ceiling is why some claim that chug can mean circle, but all it tells us is that God is dwelling above some kind of round structure, which could also refer to the firmament as a sort of hemisphere.

If you look at the page I linked to on Contradictions in the Bible, there's illustrations (approximate ones) which show a literal interpretation of the Bible's word-picture. Part of that word-picture is given in Genesis 1 when God hammered out an inverted bowl shape (raqia, the firmament) in order to create a space for life in the formless waste. The reasoning for calling the raqia a bowl shape is given in footnote #1 in the Contradictions article. You can see the same definition of raqia if you look at the Brown-Driver-Briggs entry for the word on BibleHub.

As for the scripture about hanging the earth upon nothing, the verse takes on a different sense if you focus on the word "hanging" rather than "nothing". The writer is not necessarily saying that the earth is in the middle of an empty place like outer space; he is simply saying that it's not hung from anything. That's because the Bible speaks of the earth resting on foundations (Prov. 8:29). Contributing to the idea of a flat earth (more accurately, a flat land) are scriptures like Isaiah 41:5, 9 which refer to the "extremities" of the earth (a sphere has no extremities, right?).

The fundamentalist argument is that this sort of phrasing is poetic language, and certainly that's what I believed as a Witness. It was a striking thing when I first contemplated that these verses might have been meant literally at the time they were written (similar to how the Bible refers to the heart as a place where thoughts occur, which is taken poetically now but was meant literally at the time).

This post may not be as coherent as I would like because of my tiredness, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say.

50

My friends don't believe dinosaurs existed ....

by wannabefree in

i just found this out last night.

(preface: this is a husband and wife that i have come to be friends with after leaving the borg, they are christians).

we were sitting around visiting last night and having a good time when my friend starts in on illegal immigration and politics and starts throwing out his hate speech which eventually turns to homosexuals.

Apognophos

Phil, I think the problem here is that not all JWs are on the same page. The Society does not argue over the age of the earth, accepting the scientific "billions of years". So they do believe that dinosaurs walked the earth before humans did.

112

Scientists Should Not Dismiss Genesis So Quickly

by Chris Tann in

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.

Apognophos

Sorry, but the Bible consistently describes the sky as a vaulted ceiling that holds the waters back: http://contradictionsinthebible.com/genesis-1-waters-above-firmament/. This was exactly the kind of conclusion that we would expect an ancient thinker to arrive at.

The ancient failure to realize that light came from the Sun also makes sense, since they did not understand how light rays disperse in atmosphere. Since they observed that daylight could be present without a direct line of sight to the sun (before dawn, or on a cloudy day), they thought day and night could exist without the sun and moon. Thus Genesis tells us that the two "luminaries" were simply for "shining" like torches, and for marking the change from light to darkness, but not that the sun was the cause of daylight (they also thought the moon emitted light, instead of reflecting the sun's light).

The serpent was indeed later identified as Satan, but only by Christians, not Jews. Religions are entities which evolve over time. Just as Christianity was initially a form of Judaism before it deviated under Paul's teachings, so Christianity has continued to evolve. For instance the New Testament has little to no inkling of several later Christian doctrines like the Trinity and the Immaculate Conception. We can even see the story of the life of Jesus evolving when we read the Gospels from oldest to newest.

Widespread stories like that of the Flood are just as easily explained as "people everywhere have experienced floods". There is simply no special knowledge to be inherited from our ancestors. All the records we have of their beliefs are scientifically and morally primitive, and that includes the Bible. We can see a steady increase in knowledge as we look at each successive civilization throughout history. Jews did not have any special knowledge, for instance, that the earth was round despite claims that their scriptures say such a thing, nor did they grasp the true nature of the sun and moon.

Everything that we reliably know and upon which we have based our civilization was learned by observation and experimentation -- science -- not received through divine revelation. God apparently did not see fit to leave even one useful piece of scientific information in his book, such as how to cure diseases, leaving people to suffer from polio, for instance, until the 20th century when the vaccine was invented.

It will always be possible to represent Bible verses as being scientifically sound if one is willing to layer enough additional explanations on top of the actual texts. It all hinges on how hard one is trying to believe that ancient sheepherders actually knew more about our world than we do today, as scientists do things like study the cosmic microwave background for evidence of multiple universes.

Do yourself a favor and read what scholars have written about the Bible -- not these unqualified apologists' web sites. Like science, Bible scholarship has advanced a lot since the 1800s, though fundamentalists don't know that.

9

Anyone know of df'ing for taking a br. to Court (esp. if Cdn)?

by berrygerry in

most jw's have been told that taking a fellow jw to court is wrong.. the shepherd book uses wts speak: "if an individual ignores god's word on this matter, it may affect his congregation privileges.

" (italics theirs.).

the following are from an interesting case in canada ( link ):.

Apognophos

My thoughts on this are that disfellowshipping is a lot stronger punishment than removing some privileges, as the Shepherd book alludes to. Also, this legal language seems to be referring to a situation where someone involved in a case is trying to obstruct justice. So a brother who is punished for taking his brother to court would not fall under this heading unless the defendant was an elder who then removed the plaintiff's privileges or got him DFed.

11

Satan, perfection, new world, and being s***ted on again

by Tenacious in

according to the bible man was created a little lower in abilities to that of angels.

this means that angels are a tad higher in regards to their perfection.

perhaps they have a word for it in the spirit realm as we mere mortals do not.

Apognophos

The JW answer to the question about a future rebellion is that Jehovah would simply destroy a second Satan when he started to rebel. The universal sovereignty issue only needs to be settled once.

As for why Satan rebelled if he was perfect, why did Adam and Eve rebel, temptation aside? Why would Jesus be able to provide a ransom with his perfect life unless it was possible that he could decide to sin? These perfect beings had free will and could choose to sin, and some of them did (so the story goes).

On a deeper level, it is difficult to conceive of how free will would work, or how God is allowing free will to be exercised when he promises to flatten anyone who "freely" chooses not to obey him. However, if one believes in the magical concept of free will (and I find most people do, including many atheists), then the answer is simple: a free moral agent can choose to do whatever he wants.

16

Why do self-righteous hypocritical people ...

by hoser in

jw
friends

why is it that people who display self-righteous hypocritical behaviour are so blind as not to see what kind of people they really are?.

Apognophos

It's just human nature to imagine ourselves as being superior to the masses. We give ourselves a pass on the same things for which we criticize others. The ego seems to be a critical component of our psyche and thus needs to be fed by a biased perspective. One can observe this taking place even on this very forum every day.

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Apognophos

Flipping El, please read this thread started by Muddy Waters: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/284634/1/Female-Perspective-about-WTS-marital-relationship-control. There's a possibility that your wife is trying to ask you if you're going to leave her since you left the religion.

59

How to wake up and reverse the trance???

by J-DUBBED in

how do you wake up someone taken from us by these screwed up people?.

our son was hooked by a jw at the age of 25. within 3 months they were married and we never even new about it.

he is now 29 and has nothing to do with his family(except his sister the odd time, when he needs something) of any freinds.. we are lost and have been for four years.. .

Apognophos

Unfortunately, the reasons why people become Witnesses are varied, and they go back to deeply-seated aspects of the human mind. We really need a psychology paper to be written on this so I can point people to it....

Suffice to say that the religion is meeting one or more of his needs. It might be anxiety over what the future holds, or fear of death, that drew him to the religion. But I bet it's probably his desire to stay sober that is motivating him. The religion has been known to attract addicts who are looking to clean themselves up and need a regimented environment to do so (sometimes it comes down to being a JW or joining the army...). So the religion can at least do that much good for someone, even as it causes other problems.

On another note, I think one pertinent question is why you would rather have him talking to you and doing drugs than leaving a cleaned up life and not talking to you. Don't you want what's best for him?