TheOldHippie

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Posts by TheOldHippie

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  18

  What shocking stories did you ever hear about?

  by Truthexplorer in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  as a pre-awakened ms, i heard of 2 stories that i found very shocking at the time.

  please keep in mind, i was following wt blindly at the time and was part of what i thought was the true religion.

  the first shocking story was when i attended a large meeting for elders and ministerial servants covering our circuit.

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  TheOldHippie

  South Korea.
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  26

  Evolution is a Fact #7 - Human Egg Yolk Gene

  by cofty in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  exploring the human genome is like roaming around an historic town.

  some places are pristine and obviously still in everyday use.

  others have been unused for a while and starting to show signs of decay and if you look carefully there are relics of buildings that were abandoned long ago.. in this post we are going to look at a gene that we still carry in every cell in our body but which fell into disuse 10s of millions of years ago.. humans are placental mammals.

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  TheOldHippie

  "The reason for this is that they stopped drinking milk regularly like western cultures do and as a result, when a gene required to produce lactase - the enzyme used to digest lactose - became damaged, because there was no selective pressure to keep the healthy genome, the damaged genome became pervasive."

  Isn't that Lamarckism?
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  67

  Is proselytizing less condescending when evolutionists do it?

  by paul from cleveland in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  is it just me?

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  TheOldHippie

  " evolutionists do not proselytize , they present verifiable facts "

  Strange, the, that some of the foremost of them admit that if there is one thing they are, then it is being great story tellers.
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  52

  New Field Service Report

  by cognac in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  has anyone seen this?

  when did that happen?.

  http://www.jw-archive.org/post/137681838624/new-service-report-jwinspirational.

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  TheOldHippie

  It is replacing the old one. This is the one to be used form now on. There is no time limit on the videos, so the 2-3 minutes long ones showing what goes on at a study, in a hall etc. are meant.
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  28

  Dear God,

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i miss you.

  you were supposed to be a hope in bad times.

  when i was in my darkest hour you weren't there.

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  TheOldHippie

  I shouted at him in my darkest hour, yelled at him. I have come to the conclusion that he is big enough to understand why I did it, and that he does not hold it against me, he knows the depths of our darkest hoours and understands why we react as we do. He understands and forgives our yelling.

  But - my perception of him has changed since then. I no longer see him as an all-powerful old grandfather in the sky, who all the time watches over me and wants only the best for me and tries to find the best way out of situations for me. He did not intervene and prevent the darkest hour from coming, I have problems forgiving him for that, and so I have certain problems finding out his exact role in our daily life. Why do they say that he so much cared for certain people that their crop was not damaged and their car did not break down and there was an envelope with the exact amount of money outside their door one morning - but he allowed the darkest hour to strike others.
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  13

  A Country where no-one under 25 believes the biblical creation story.

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  no icelanders under the age of 25 believe the creation story that god was responsible for creating the universe, a new poll claims.the poll, commissioned by the icelandic ethical humanist association, claims that 93.9 per cent in the under 25 category responded that the universe was created by the big bang.

  just over 6 per cent responded with ‘don’t know’ or ‘other’.

  none of the respondents, however, believed that the universe had been created by god.

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  TheOldHippie

  Since it was the Humanist organization that asked the question, they probably got the answers they wanted. It should have been interesting to see the questions, as Big Bang and God need not be mutually excluding.

  Iceland in other connections is told to be the country having the largest percentage of people on Earth believeing in ghosts, fairies, ghouls etc. It puzzles me, and I so would like to have someone trying to explain how one can believe in an afterlife of souls but not believe in a creator god? Do people believe that an immerial soul somehow evolved? I am not trying to make fun of any idea or perception, so it is in fact a serious question - how can one (given that one believes in ghosts etc.) account for an immaterial afterlife without there being a god?
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  12

  A 17 Year Old's Journey To Freedom

  by DLou278 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  hey guys!

  i have written an article on my exit from the watchtower.

  i am 17 years old and leaving has been the best decision that i have ever made.

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  TheOldHippie

  Welcome back when you are 67 and know A BIT more ..................................
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  26

  United States baptism stats 1969-2015

  by the comet in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  whenever the new yearbooks come out, we all look at the figures and see the publisher increase never really matches up with the baptism figures.

  it never should match up as all newly baptized ones are already publishers, and may have been for many years.

  i, as an example, became an unbaptized publisher at age 11. i didn't get baptized until i was 17. .

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  TheOldHippie

  There is no reason why you should try to make the death rate so complicated. 1 % is a common rule when it comes to larger population groups. To make it simple and not having to look at the age groups and different "racial" groups, just stick to the 1 % rule. Each year, deduct 1 %. Some years ago, it was stated 1 % was df'ed each year and 2 % left. The problem with these two latter groups, of course is that up to half of them return. So using them in the calculations is tricky - but then, these are the ones you want to find the size of, so just use the 1 % death rate and you will get there.
  
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  7

  What's up with the HEBREWS translation?

  by TTWSYF in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this book states in verse 8 chapter 1 that the father calls jesus god.

  the nwt is very different.

  i wonder which one is the most accurate?.

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  TheOldHippie

  "What there isn't is any accolades from Professor so and so from Harvard or Princeton or Yale or any other scholarly source."

  Who, regretfully, can be quite as biased as Bill and Tim and Dan. Being a professor from Harvard and at the same time chairman of the board of the XXX Bible translation committee at times makes it plain where the mental attachment is.
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  74

  Living Through the Brief Liberalization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Never Recovering

  by TMS in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  with the book crisis of conscience detailing the turbulence at bethel during the early to mid 70's, the transformation from autocratic rule to governance by committee or a body of men, many of us can speak to how that felt among the rank and file of the local congregations during those years.

  we learned new concepts based in large part to research done for the aid to bible understanding volume, then we were asked or coerced into unlearning those principles, going back to the old ways.

  some of us never readjusted, finding ourselves very different from our more hardline compadres.. the inertia for the changes that eventually were initiated in the congregations came from the discovery that the greek words episkopos and presbyteros were used biblically to refer to all qualified men in a congregation, not just one.

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  TheOldHippie

  I remember the kind of people who joined during that period – in the congregations in my area we welcomed a couple of medical doctors, a couple of pharmacists, quite a few artists – painters, singer/songwriters – many educated people, a couple of lawyers – one of them well-known – one scientist, political interested people, some from the hippie movement.

  Now the majority seems to come from among the poorer and vulnerable layers of society.