Apognophos

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Posts by Apognophos

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  70

  DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.

  im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.

  http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.

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  Apognophos

  If JWs mean to indicate that the creative “days” were "thousands of thousands" of years long, they surely do not mean the same for “day” seven. This would indicate that the “days” of the creative week are not the same length! Now, JWs have never said that, have they?

  Hmm, interesting point. You have me re-thinking my opinion of their beliefs. Now I'm wondering if they really are hiding a continuing belief in 7,000 year "days". It's all so silly because there's no reason at all why, if the days are not literal, they have to be the same length. They could have their cake and eat it too by making some days millions of years and leaving the 7th day as 7,000 years.

  That being said, I do think you underestimate the Society's willingness to use weasel words when you point out that "thousands" is not "millions". It's well within their known record of distorting word definitions to use "thousands" to allow for the possibility of "thousands of thousands".
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  70

  DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.

  im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.

  http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.

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  Apognophos

  they always clearly differentiate between the millions/billions of years before creation and the "days" of creation.

  You might well be right. It could be that there are some old-timers at HQ who won't let the 7,000-year thing go, or that they internally see some reason why it needs to be true in order to support their beliefs. It's probably just tied to their intense desire to see the end come in their lives.

  Personally I don't know where the 7,000 years came from. We had a discussion on this a few months ago that basically concluded "*shrug*". This old, more careful discussion also concluded "*shrug*". I suppose it was just too convenient for people who wanted to believe they were in the end times, as you said. This isn't just a notion of the Witnesses; this specific formulation of "six thousand years and then the Thousand Year Reign" probably started in the Second Adventist movement. In the 1800s, Russell taught that the 6,000 years ended in 1872, I believe. In the second link I just provided, interestingly enough, it seems that people were suggesting "six thousand years of man's existence" 2,000 years ago!

  I feel like that ought to be allowed, even if it isn't technically…

  Of course people post the Society's stuff here all the time, so you may feel that there is precedent. I think one is legally supposed to be able to post excerpts from their writings, so maybe video stills will be allowed under that same principle. But lawful or not, they can probably issue a takedown notice on the basis of copyright, so one day you may find that your host has shut down your site. You might be able to get it back up again by simply removing those images, but I just thought I would give you fair warning.
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  15

  A Religious Quest

  by ReligiousQuest in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my name is louie and i'm seeking some help regarding a paper i need to write for a class.

  it is meant to be an individual study project regarding a faith that is different from your own and intrigues you.

  what i am asking is for someone who is willing to answer 10-15 questions regarding their faith.

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  Apognophos

  So, uh, ReligiousQuest, you should be aware that this is a forum populated 99% by former or non-believing Witnesses. You're not going to get many people willing to advocate for the religion. You'll probably get honest answers to your questions, albeit with a heavy tinge of bitterness, but if you're looking for active, believing Witnesses then you will have a hard time finding them there.
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  37

  Why is it wrong for Christians to celebrate Christmas?

  by james_woods in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this was inspired by terry's thread.... it is something that raises many questions about the jw belief system.. .

  for one thing - the bible certainly explains all the details of the christ birth.

  it certainly does not tell people to avoid celebrating it with feasts, customs, etc.

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  Apognophos

  The Great Disappointment only disappointed his fellow nutjobs. The rest of the maybe-yes, maybe-no followers simply went back to church!

  So what?

  So, even though Miller's computations were DEAD WRONG (proving himself a False Prophet) enough nut-jobs hung around for a second disappointment.

  And a 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.

  [...]

  Miller begat the 2nd Advent sect.

  The 2nd Advent sect begat the Bible Students.

  I was just reading some old Watchtower material (1800s, I think) that actually claimed that 1844 was part of the Bible's numerological timeline too, that is, you could derive it from Bible numbers just like with 1914. Even though 1844 was called a "great disappointment" in the article, it stated that the divine purpose of 1844 was to get people paying attention and looking for the correct time of the end.

  I wonder if people here have seen this quote or I should post it. It's interesting because they were using the "eager mistake that served a purpose" rationale even back then, and for someone who wasn't even a part of Russell's movement!
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  70

  DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.

  im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.

  http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.

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  Apognophos

  Not that I expect you to go through that much trouble

  Naw, it doesn't take long to make a list as I'm reading through an article. I won't do them all at once though :-) But keep an eye out for PMs in the days to come.

  I do want to touch on the subject of the length of the creative days, because I see that you are putting a lot of emphasis on it. On the Dinosaurs page you say flat-out that the days are believed to be 7,000 years long, but on the Creative Days page you acknowledge that the Society is currently being vague about the length. Are they simply trying to hide their 7,000-year stance?

  It's been suggested by someone here that when they say "thousands of years" in more recent writings, they are trying to avoid stumbling the older JWs who remember 7000-year days, while not directly contradicting the "millions of years" stated by science (after all, millions are thousands of thousands).

  So we can't really nail them down as believing in 7000-year days when they won't come out and say it anymore. That's why I think I'd recommend not leaning so heavily on that point. If the last time they said "7,000" was in 1980, then they have not said it in the lifetime of young JWs, and if a JW doesn't think this is what their beliefs say, they will feel that all your arguments which are based on 7000 years are invalid criticism.

  P.S.: I have a feeling you're going to get in trouble for the use of Society art, but it's your decision whether to worry about that.
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  70

  DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.

  im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.

  http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.

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  Apognophos

  Tell me why are the stones bogus?

  1. One red flag is that they are depicting the sort of "ABC" dinosaurs that we all learned about as kids -- tyrannosaurs, brontosaurs, triceratops, and stegosaurs, which is awfully convenient. It's a cornucopia of dinosaurs packed into one little space.

  2. They are a bit too "orthodox" -- one would expect some surprises in their appearance since we really only know the skeletal structure and can guess at musculature. There is no indication of feathers or cartilage structures that we don't know about today but it's theorized might have existed. Also, the T-rex is standing upright, which is a discredited posture. They had a massive tail that was used to counter-balance them as they bent over parallel to the ground.

  3. They lived in two totally different eras, the Cretaceous and the Jurassic, about 90 millions years apart. One would have to have very good reason to call into question the dating methods used to determine this.

  4. A massive conspiracy theory would be required to prevent people from having heard about these.
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  70

  DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.

  im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.

  http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.

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  Apognophos

  Hotdogs, I like your site. You've put a lot of care into writing these pages. I don't see any clear errors yet in your statements on JW doctrine. I do, however, notice a number of typos, some of which will trip up the reader. Would you be interested in seeing a list of typos for each page, in order to fix those?
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  70

  DINOSAURS - What do Jehovah's Witnesses Believe?

  by Bloody Hotdogs! in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as part of my deconversion catharsis, i have been building a(nother) website to highlight some of the more ridiculous jw beliefs.

  im a looong way from done, but i wanted some early feedback on one article: dinosaurs.

  http://www.jwbeliefs.com/dinosaurs/.

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  Apognophos

  Me have drawn pictures on stones with them.

  I don't really know what that sentence means, but if you're saying those stones are authentic ancient drawings, then I'm sorry, they're totally bogus.
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  12

  Taking the Bible "too" literally

  by Coded Logic in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i once heard it said that the only people who care about what the bible says are the village priest and the village atheist.

  it seems to me most believers only care about "god's word" in very general terms and think it's all up to interpitation (religion a la carte ).. it the watchtower especially good at making agnostics and atheists because of their fundamentalism or is this true of many ex-religious groups?.

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  Apognophos

  Yes, well said, PSacramento. If someone is trying to reconcile scientific knowledge with the Genesis account, they are not reading the account literally at all. When people study the Bible in an academic setting and learn the original languages, they read the Bible literally. People who only read the Bible with a filter over their eyes that was installed by their upbringing are not actually reading the Bible literally, even if they say they are.
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  6

  Spiritually Dead Children

  by suavojr in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is a gem... charles sinutko had great skills at parenting.

  you can download from here, http://da.getmyip.com/.

  the pale horse of death had just ridden again.

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  Apognophos

  Wow, that's a heaping helping of guilt, isn't it?

  You hear stories of the mafia on how these lads grew up in the mafia, did all sorts of awful things but they never wanted mother to know, or father....why? They cared for their mother and father. We have children who go out and do things and just fling it in our face and not even care.....either like it or don’t like it. Do you feel that’s a good boy, that’s a good girl?

  [...]

  Some of you boys here, you sons, you can hardly know how you’ve cut your mother to the heart by your apathy, your indifference, your lack of excitement over the truth, how her nights have been sleepless over you because you have not loved her God. You should be able to tell; just look at her sunken eyes and her fleeting youth. And daughters, can you not know the stabbing pain in the heart of your father who once viewed you as a beautiful and untarnished virgin and hoping you are going to stay the same?

  Parents are always inclined to worry about their kids out there in the big wide world; many already have trouble accepting that their kids are going to grow up and lose their innocence. A talk like this just makes it worse.

  Also, how dare these kids think for themselves and lead their own lives unashamed? Granted, some JW kids do simply rebel for the sake of rebelling, but Sunutko was not exactly giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. He paints everyone with the same broad brush.

  I think what bothers me is that, if the kids know they have good reasons to leave, they won't be bothered to hear something like this, but it makes the burden on the parents far worse. How many parents of children who left must have been in tears throughout the talk?