TD

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Posts by TD

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  30

  PROVE IT!

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  that’s my attitude toward anyone making an assertion.

  i’m sick of people saying such and such is true simply because we are saying it.

  i would think that those here would agree because we all have been jehovah’s witnesses.

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  TD

  Just because the news media, the politicians, “science”, etc. say it is so, I say PROVE IT! I’m no longer going to take your word unless I get facts from both sides.

  Well said, Min, and I completely agree.

  Proof, unfortunately is very often predicated on a level of knowledge commensurate to the claim itself.
  

  You cannot, for example, "prove" that the hypotenuse of a right triangle with legs of 3 and 4 is always going to be 5 to someone who cannot or will not accept that 9 and 16 make 25.

  You cannot prove that the earth is round to someone who lacks basic spatial skills and at least an intermediate understanding of mathematics.

  You cannot prove that the Greek verb, γινώσκω conveys a level of intimacy that's completely lost in the rendering, "taking in knowledge" to someone who is not familiar with Greek literature of the period.

  Proof is not "proof" unless it's understood.

  If I'm misunderstanding and this is an allusion to American politics, I honestly don't know who is telling the truth and who is not. I'd like to see some proof myself.
  
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  15

  Memorial date

  by DomineIvimus-DI in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  can someone please help me with this, if you’ve looked into it before?.

  i read somewhere that the witnesses didn’t celebrate the memorial on nisan 14 according to the jewish calendar.

  i did a quick google check - seems next years memorial is on tuesday (nisan 13) rather than the wednesday, nisan 14 according to the jewish calendar.

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  TD

  Can someone please help me with this, if you’ve looked into it before?

  There are a several factors at work here:

  1. JW's treat each year as independent of all the others, No leap years, no other holidays, events or festivals to integrate into a year to year calendar. (Once you set the date for one holiday, you've set the date for all the others throughout the rest of the year.) Sometimes there is nearly a month's discrepancy.

  2. JW's, like most other fundamentalist groups believe Jesus died on the 14th, the exact same day the lamb was sacrificed. So on the afternoon of the 13th, JW's hurry home, get dressed and go to the Memorial. By the time they pass the emblems, the sun has set and the 14th has technically begun, sometimes by just a few minutes. The next day, when they wake up, it will still be the 14th.

  In Judaism, the lamb is sacrificed on the afternoon of the 14th and Passover occurs after sundown on what is technically the 15th. (Numbers 33:3 clear says the next daylight period after Passover was the 15th, not the 14th.)

  3. JW's like most fundy groups, believe they know more about the intricacies of the Law and the Jewish calendar (Both of which are quite complicated) than observant Jews do themselves. We've had some striking examples here on the forum in years past.

  Hope this helps
  
  
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  17

  The new JW Bible

  by silas hobbs in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was recently informed that the new jw bible was reviewed by some academic type person who rated it as one of the best translations available.. has anyone heard of this person and if so what is his reasoning for giving it such a compliment?.

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  TD

  JW sources tend to omit the fact that BeDuhn raked them over the coals for their use of the name Jehovah in the NT.
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  19

  What was your favorite video game?

  by LoveUniHateExams in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  i've never been that big on video/computer games but i used to have a ps2 and my absolute fav game was star wars battlefront ii, released by pandemic in 2005.. you could choose to play as three different classes of soldier and fight for the rebels, the imperials, the republic or the battle droids.

  as you played and gained points by killing the enemy, you could unlock a fourth and fifth class of soldier.

  you could also play as a hero or villain - such as darth vader, luke skywalker, princess leia, etc.. there was something absolutely awesome playing as darth vader and cutting down or force-choking rebel soldiers on the tantive iv.. .

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  TD

  I don't have a lot of time, but when I do, I enjoy the sandbox style of games, like Fallout4 for example. (A daughter got me hooked...)

  I was surprised that a modern video game is every bit as big a production as a motion picture. If I'm not mistaken Liam Neeson was one of the voice actors in the Fallout series.
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  60

  Did You Think Jehovah’s Witnesses Were Typically “Racists”?

  by minimus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a jw from infancy.

  we had a melting pot type of congregation.

  i grew up with all types of witnesses , all with different backgrounds.

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  TD

  I saw no prejudice toward black Witnesses...

  JW's on the whole tried way more than most.

  The only thing that comes to mind is that some of their criticism of modern (i.e. Rock) music was borrowed from other fundy sources, which claimed that the insidiousness of this music was the evil jungle beat brought in from Africa. Perhaps it was not intended to be racist, but there were some who took it that way.
  
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  49

  A deeper examination of The New World Translation

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  shorturl.at/ouakr.

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  TD

  Scholar:

  Αυτή είναι η απάντησή σας; Ακούγεται σαν παρθένο μιλάμε για σεξ

  Humor aside, I did not say the passage had been mistranslated prior 2013 (And have actually chided other people on this forum for using that term.) There are any number of ways a passage may be rendered without definitely stepping outside of standard definitions and rules of grammar, but that does not make them all equally valid.
  

  The phrase, "taking in knowledge" did not capture the subjective and was esoteric inasmuch as the verb was replaced with a noun. Your church has clearly rethought their use of it in this instance and adopted a clearer and more mainstream rendering. (That's a compliment.)

  The point I was actually trying to make still stands. Prior to 2013 it was virtually impossible to have a respectful and lucid discussion with a JW on this subject.
  
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  49

  A deeper examination of The New World Translation

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  shorturl.at/ouakr.

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  TD

  It is up to us to decide which interpretation makes more sense.

  Yes.

  it's really tough to find a decent discussion on the merits of the NWT.

  On one hand, legitimate criticisms, (Like the horrible rendering of John 17:3 which took many years to fix.) are dismissed out of hand by JW's because "God's channel" can't possibly be wrong on a matter as serious as translation.

  But on the other hand, the NWT is criticized in areas where robust discussion and a plurality of thought exists.
  
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  20

  Boys pre-teen sexuality / erections.? Why ? If only for procreation ?

  by smiddy3 in

  1. social
  2. family

  this has been a bug bear my whole life i think and not really sure how to address it as nobody else ever seems to do so.. and it relates to the question if god really created humans .

  he did a shithouse job in this regard.. i can`t speak for females this is entirely a male thing.

  from my perspective.. male adolescents at a very ,very young age , babies , get erections periodically and it has nothing to do with sexual fantasies ,because they don`t even have an awareness of sex between a male and a female at this time.. and it is second inbuilt nature to masturbate to relieve, get rid of the erection .

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  TD

  Why? If only for procreation?

  Because human sexual response in both genders is a mixture of voluntary action and autonomic function
  

  The autonomic side of the equation pretty much parallels the development of the nervous system

  I suppose we could ask why God (If he exists) chose to automate this one function instead of giving males conscious control over it.

  Perhaps because one less thing to think about frees up your mind for some of the more important aspects?
  
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  32

  Another Professor Renounces Darwinism

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  david gelernter, a famed yale university professor, has publicly renounced his belief in charles darwin’s theory of evolution, calling it a “beautiful idea” that has been effectively disproven.. article.

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  TD

  Another (And IMO more correct than the OP's) perspective:

  https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-ditching-darwin/
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  54

  Confession Time - Music You're Embarrassed to Admit Listening To

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  admit it, we all have things that we reel off when people ask what our favourite music is, just the same as if people ask what our favourite movies are.

  we're meant to say "citizen kane" and "casablanca" and not "battleship" or "pacific rim" but we know what we're going to watch if they are ever on tv at the same time (and which ones we've never actually seen).. so how about some confession time?

  what do you listen to when no one else is in the house?.

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  TD

  Ever since someone here mentioned this as a mesmerizeing video 6 months ago, I cant get it out of my head. Maybe its just the pretty girls too...

  Schlager....

  --And I'm relieved that I'm not the only one
  

  Here's one more for the ladies:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaZ0oAh4evU