TheOldHippie

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Posts by TheOldHippie

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  8

  Spanish defenders of the Watchtower? (Or other languages!)

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  are there any unofficial watchtower defenders publishing in spanish?

  i'm doing a survey and i think i've got most of those writing in english covered.

  then there's gerard gertoux and a few others in french, furuli from norway, matteo pierro in italian, johannes wrobel and others in german.

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  TheOldHippie

  Has nothing to do with Spanish - but in both German and English Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig writes interesting books on his field of research, which is molecular biology of both plants and animals. He is now retired, but was a professor at the well known Max Planck Institute. His book on the supposed evolution of the long-necked giraffe is well worth reading, and he recently has a book published on dog species or breeding as well. That one is also downloadable free of charge from his website. His books are available from Amazon. He has small, nice phrases interwoven in his texts from time to time, as in his book on giraffes, in the acknowledgments section, where he gives thanks to those who have inspired and helped him, and towards the end writes that the greatest thanks go to the Creator of such marvelous creatures as the giraffes. He was interviewed in Awake some years ago, in a special issue on creation.
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  46

  The Elders are Coming Help!

  by LaurenM in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  so the elders keep bugging me and pestering me about having a meeting with them to "introduce me to my new congregation" for some reason (do any ex elders know what that even means??).

  i keep postponing and making excuses and they are getting more and more aggressive.

  i finally agreed for them to come over today, but really don't want to..should i hide from them again?

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  TheOldHippie

  Funny thread.

  Perhaps they are nice, caring persons just wanting to drop by and say hello and see if they can be of any help or support - and here "half USA" is online trying to scare the shit out of each other 'cause some man eating monsters are coming.
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  27

  The Exodus confirmed..

  by Crazyguy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  for those of you that don't research this stuff i will give a little back story.

  we all know about the moses exodus, but history and archeology didn't seem to confirm this event.

  the only exodus out of egypt ever recorded was that of a group of asiatic tribes that had taken over egypt for a bit over 100 years called the hyksos and the followers of the pharaoh akhenaten who perpetuated a monotheistic idea of worshiping only one deity the aten.

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  TheOldHippie

  It is way more interesting to read the books and web site of David Rohl and associates, dealing with "The New Chronology". What you refer to, seems to be a spin off from that.
  
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  63

  What were Satan and his demons "doing" up in heaven, before being "cast down" in 1914?

  by Dunedain in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was just thinking about how the wts has been spouting off for years that satan and his demons were cast down to the vicinity of the earth in 1914, but really, when you think about it, what was the difference before 1914 or after 1914?.

  its not like satan and his demons did not have access to the earth.

  satan and his demons always were messing with earth.

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  TheOldHippie

  "Nothing happened in 1914."

  No. No war or anything. Just another quiet year.
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  63

  Why does the Watchtower leadership slap its own defenders in the face?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  take the case of rolf furuli.

  i don't think there has been a specific thread on the hebrew verbs u-turn in the nwt, and how the society has responded to the work of perhaps their brightest and ablest defender in their history.

  so here goes.. rolf furuli has defended jws on multiple fronts in many different settings, on issues ranging from chronology, mental health, doctrines, bible translation and the blood issue.

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  TheOldHippie

  I wonder what Jason BeDuhn would have to say on the Greek text, considering his praise for the NWT in "Truth in Translation".
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  63

  What were Satan and his demons "doing" up in heaven, before being "cast down" in 1914?

  by Dunedain in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i was just thinking about how the wts has been spouting off for years that satan and his demons were cast down to the vicinity of the earth in 1914, but really, when you think about it, what was the difference before 1914 or after 1914?.

  its not like satan and his demons did not have access to the earth.

  satan and his demons always were messing with earth.

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  TheOldHippie

  "They must have been so boooooored all those millions of years "

  Remember, though, that time only exists when matter does. So when there is no matter, no "stuff", there is no time, just an eternal "now". Before creation of matter started, there was no time, and so therefore one is wrong in stating that Jesus was with his Father for countless billions of years before they started creating the Universe - before the Universe there was no time. For someone outside of the Universe, outside of matter, it all happened at one moment, one "now", but the results would take action in time ahead of that "now".

  So how can you be bored if all you have is "now"?
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  44

  Decrease of numbers in Jehovah's Witnesses via Deaths, DFings, or Turning Inactive

  by flipper in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  so i'm sure a good number of us saw the chart that i believe the poster splash put on another thread of figures since 1990 regarding how many baptized and % of increase each year .

  i started analyzing it ( and i know some referred to it briefly on the other thread ) and guessing of reasons the % of increase didn't match the number of newly baptized.

  and of course common sense tells us that either jw's leave the cult each year through death, fading into inactivity, or getting dfed.

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  TheOldHippie

  You cannot do the math this way. The only certain thing is that 1 % of a population die each year. But otherwise, the math is totally incorrect, Why? Because you do not have to be baptised to be counted as a publisher. Therefore, you have persons coming into the numbers as a publisher, then quitting after a year, then coming into the figures again etc. Furthermore, the df'ed ones to a certain degree also come back, and they then also quit - reenter etc. In the math shown above, the same persons therefore appear many times and thus are counted twice, thrice etc. The only way such a tabulation could be correct, were if baptism was a must for preaching.
  
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  78

  Revelation - it's grand climax is at hand

  by Listener in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  some people point out the subliminal pictures in the wtbts publications but sometimes things are just so obvious, such as the title of the book above.. the person who came up with the title for this book must have had a good old laugh.. interestingly, this book first came out in 1988 and has not been included in the online library but nothing has replaced it.

  the org is really going backwards when they ditch old light and cannot come up with anything new.

  they are real wankers ;)..

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  TheOldHippie

  "Interestingly, this book first came out in 1988 and has not been included in the online library but nothing has replaced it."

  It is on the CD-rom
  
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  74

  Jehovah's Witnesses May Have Peaked in Membership at 8 Million (+/-)

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't have all the details of their new "service year" numbers, but i have read enough on jwn to state my opinion pretty strongly.. memorial attendance for 2015 was down.while they kept saying they were going to build a bunch of new kingdom halls, and everybody is still in recovery from watchtower taking all the local money away, they say pretty much that there isn't enough money to build new kingdom halls.putting gb members on the videos at jw .

  org has allowed people to really put a face and personality to these guys and remove the mystery of how they should be such deeply spiritual serious men.

  instead they see silly thoughts about tight pants and, really everything that comes out of lett's mouth is delivered ultra-goofy, along with the money reports.. the gb lost credibility a little more with every new light that shone down, with the strangest one being "overlapping generation.

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  TheOldHippie

  Let us get down to business:

  Let us see it from within:

  It is God's organization. How can God show His displeasure, show that He is angry with what is happening? He can let the organization experience stagnation or decline.

  How? He cannot do it thru letting "members" flee from His organization, because whereto would they then flee? (I am careful in choosing the wording "where" and not "whom" here). Should they flee to Christendom? No way. It is His organization, it sticks to the core beliefs He wants it to uphold, such as trinity, soul, hell, hereafter etc. He does not want His followers to join organizations supporting unchristian belief. He can do it, therefore, in slowing down the pace of new members entering, thus showing that this no longer is His clean organization to which He wants His followers to enter.

  What has changed? A decade ago, the number of new converts was at an all time high. Have the members changed? No, they are the same, they are as firm in their belief as before, He would not condemn them. The elders are the same. There are problems with paedophilia etc. sure, but the elders are the same as a decade ago. On the membership and congregational leaders' level nothing has changed.
  

  Beliefs and methods have changed. The servant, sheep/goats, mark in the forehead, fewer magazines, more on the internet, television, fewer meetings, lots of stuff. But that is only a result, not a reason.

  What is different now and 15 years ago? What has changed?

  Think hard.

  Done it?

  A frightening thought:

  What has changed, what is different - is the GBv2 towards the GBv1. The members.

  Gone is the gentle Barr. Gone is the beloved Sydlik. Gone is the humble Booth. Gone is the Swingle who KNEW. Loesch is the same, but all the rest are new ones.

  So what is it God can disapprove of?

  ............... Right. You've got it.
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  74

  Jehovah's Witnesses May Have Peaked in Membership at 8 Million (+/-)

  by OnTheWayOut in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i don't have all the details of their new "service year" numbers, but i have read enough on jwn to state my opinion pretty strongly.. memorial attendance for 2015 was down.while they kept saying they were going to build a bunch of new kingdom halls, and everybody is still in recovery from watchtower taking all the local money away, they say pretty much that there isn't enough money to build new kingdom halls.putting gb members on the videos at jw .

  org has allowed people to really put a face and personality to these guys and remove the mystery of how they should be such deeply spiritual serious men.

  instead they see silly thoughts about tight pants and, really everything that comes out of lett's mouth is delivered ultra-goofy, along with the money reports.. the gb lost credibility a little more with every new light that shone down, with the strangest one being "overlapping generation.

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  TheOldHippie

  "I don't have all the details of their new "service year" numbers, but I have read enough on JWN to state my opinion pretty strongly."

  Yeah, nothing is a good as strongly stating one's opinion without having bothered with the details ....