Posts by Apognophos

22

Christmas Beliefs!

by J-DUBBED in

do jehova wingnuts believe jesus birthday isn't dec 25?

or do they just plain and simple not believe in any birthday?.

JW Doctor mis-Illustrates a Blood Doctrine

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

today i added a new article to my blog addressing an article written by a jw medical doctor in a regional medical journal.

it's part of an initiative giving attention to how licensed medical professionals among jws have dealt with the blood transfusion subject.

what they say, how they say it, and what they don't say are all very telling.

Interesting, Marvin, though this admission only makes them consistent with their revocation of the ban on organ transplants. When they lifted the ban (or disapproving stance, at least) on transplants in 1980 they wrote that, contrary to what they stated in 1967, an organ transplant could not be considered nourishment in the manner of food because the organ was taking the place of the previous one that failed, and eventually was incorporated into the body and replaced cell by cell over time. This same argument would naturally hold true for blood as well, and it seems that the Society has decided to acknowledge that. But it's surprising that they would do so since this reasoning is supposed to be the link between the Jewish stance on eating blood and the JW stance on not taking blood!

180

Please post new forum feedback or questions here

by Simon in

well, the switchover happened - there were a couple of things i had to fix which meant the posting was disabled for longer than i planned but it's now enabled and some people have already posted.. if you have any questions about the new format or suggestions on how to improve it, please post them here.. if you are having trouble signing in or posting then you'll need to email me instead.. many thanks to everyone for their patience during the changeover !.

Apognophos

Have to make a separate post for an issue I just noticed. I see you added a quote-style button to the main toolbar, which is great. Unfortunately I cannot get the style to "turn off" in the way that it used to work on the old forum. Normally I could click the button again and it would remove the styling from the line I was on, and I could continue typing in the plain style after that point. The new button doesn't seem to work that way. All new lines created after invoking the quote style will get the quote style applied to them, and selecting the quote-style text and hitting the quote-style button doesn't undo the style.

180

Please post new forum feedback or questions here

by Simon in

well, the switchover happened - there were a couple of things i had to fix which meant the posting was disabled for longer than i planned but it's now enabled and some people have already posted.. if you have any questions about the new format or suggestions on how to improve it, please post them here.. if you are having trouble signing in or posting then you'll need to email me instead.. many thanks to everyone for their patience during the changeover !.

Apognophos

Many thanks, Simon, for correcting the forum text that I mentioned earlier, it makes me happy that I could contribute in some way. I just wanted to let you know that you missed one line:

Discuss anything Jehovah Witness, JW.org or WatchTower society related

is missing the "'s", and there's a couple capitalization issues. My suggestion would be:

Discuss anything Jehovah's Witness, JW.org or Watchtower Society related

21

Did you know about the organ transplant ban when you were a believer?

by Apognophos in

back when i was learning ttatt, i was shocked to read on jwfacts about the organ transplant ban from 1967 to 1980. this was a large piece of evidence for me that the society could not be god's organization.

growing up as an earnest witness, and living near the headquarters, i knew a lot of the organization's embarrassing history, and it didn't faze me, but i'd never heard of this ban before, and it shocked me.

it's gotten me wondering why no one i know ever talks about it, when it must have affected many witnesses during that time (or were they getting transplants on the sly?

Apognophos

I don't think that's too condemning of you, NVR2L8, or at least none of us can throw the first stone. Those of us who came after the organ transplant ban still agreed with the blood transfusion ban because we trusted the Society's interpretation of scripture. It's the same as that.

Where it gets interesting is that the Society removed the ban on organ transplants and knocked down their previous reasoning on why it was wrong. I think it's more interesting to ask, not what JWs thought of the ban, but of the lifting of the ban. But I've learned that not everyone was even aware that the Society's stance had changed.

13

New Forum Layout

by Awake at last in

i suffer from depression and have also been diagnosed with asperger's syndrome, so it is not surprising that about 20 minutes ago i was feeling very depressed about the new look of my favourite ex jw forum, that is, this one.

i have been living under a rock obviously because i had no idea any change was about to happen.. now i am beginning to understand how it works, everything is ok or soon will be.

i like the like button and have already used it once.. now you understand why i left the borg.

Apognophos

Yes, having a dedicated quote-style button in the toolbar would be nice.

180

Please post new forum feedback or questions here

by Simon in

well, the switchover happened - there were a couple of things i had to fix which meant the posting was disabled for longer than i planned but it's now enabled and some people have already posted.. if you have any questions about the new format or suggestions on how to improve it, please post them here.. if you are having trouble signing in or posting then you'll need to email me instead.. many thanks to everyone for their patience during the changeover !.

Apognophos

A couple issues here:

I had written "see towards the end of this thread", and then double-clicked "this" and clicked the Insert Link button. When the link was inserted, it moved the word "this" to a new line :-\

Second problem: The posting process hung at the step shown in this screenshot, but when I checked the thread in another tab, the post had actually been made. Edit: This post also fell victim to the "Hung on 'Queued for processing'" bug.

Third issue:

When I went to use "text-dragging", where you hold down the mouse button on selected text and then drag it to move it, the post window converts to a "Drop image" mode and I cannot re-position the text. You can see the word "this" in the middle of being dragged through space here.

This is on Firefox on a Mac.

15

What Are changes reflected in New Bible teach book?

by Joshua.r in

except picture changes, what are the content changed in new bible teach book?

which pages?.

Apognophos

Yes, see towards the end of this thread, but unfortunately the comparison is much harder to read.

15

What Are changes reflected in New Bible teach book?

by Joshua.r in

except picture changes, what are the content changed in new bible teach book?

which pages?.

Apognophos

The statement on p. 205 that "it would not be proper for Christians to decorate their homes with images of Christ impaled" now says "images of Christ on a cross", which actually changes the meaning.

On p. 206, "The first observable new moon nearest to the spring equinox marked the beginning of Nisan" now says "the first day of Nisan". "Passover came 14 days later, after sunset" now says "Passover began 13 days later".

The statement on p. 208 that the NWT "consistently" renders nephesh and psykhe as "soul" now says that they are rendered "soul" "either in the main text or in footnotes" since the rNWT often uses the word "life" now instead. Subsequent to this, various references to the footnotes were added for the same reason. This makes this section of the Appendix much more awkwardly-phrased.

The same problem occurs with the following section on Sheol and Hades since the words are not used in the main text of the rNWT, only the footnote.

On p. 208-209, "the life that a person or animal enjoys" is now "the life that a person or animal has".

The 1914 chart on page 216 is now in color but otherwise unchanged except for an update to a NWT quote.

On page 220, a statement about Babylon the Great was reworded from:

"Her fornication refers to the alliances she has made with the rulers of this earth and explains why she is called 'the great harlot.'" to

"She has practiced such immorality by forming alliances with the rulers of this earth and has done whatever is necessary in order to gain power and influence over them. That is why she is called 'the great prostitute.'"

I think it's interesting to note that there's a number of references to page numbers of the Reasoning book. If the Reasoning book is to be updated, it may alter these numbers.

The ending page of the book used to read:

"Would you welcome more information? You may contact Jehovah's Witnesses at www.jw.org."

And now reads:

"For more information, visit www.jw.org or contact Jehovah's Witnesses."

...which is amusing to me because the phrase "contact Jehovah's Witnesses" now offers no advice on how to do so.

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

Well, that's it. No doctrinal tweaks, just lots of updates concerning the simplified language of the new NWT. The changes on pages 71, 74 and 205 were most interesting to me personally, as well as the Photoshop work and mistakes that I noted.

15

What Are changes reflected in New Bible teach book?

by Joshua.r in

except picture changes, what are the content changed in new bible teach book?

which pages?.

Apognophos

Two new scriptural citations have been added to a statement about the end times on page 151: Revelation 16:14 and 19:19-21.

The word "on" is now preferred to "upon".

The meaning of the Greek word rendered "baptize" is now given on page 175 as "dip under water" instead of just "dip".

"It if appears that you qualify for the public ministry" is now "If it appears that you qualify to participate in the witnessing work" on page 177 and "public ministry" on p. 177-178 is now "field ministry".

The phrase "being baptized" on p. 178-179, 182 is now more correctly "getting baptized".

Holy Photoshop, Batman! Four or five NWTs on page 180 were changed to rNWTs, but they forgot to update the appearance of the Bible Teach book itself, which is still gold.

The pictures on p. 184-185 are now color.

Lots more "come to know"s in place of "take in knowledge"s.

The sentence on p. 197 "So Jehovah can become whatever is needed in order to fulfill his purposes" now has the additional statement tacked on, "and he can cause to happen whatever is required with regard to his creation and the accomplishment of his purpose".

The material on the 2,520 years is completely unchanged.