Yup! and how many 'generations' have come and gone in the centuries since. And yet, untold millions (who made up the generations) have believed that it will happen "one day." Idiot christians !!!!!
Reasonfirst
JoinedPosts by Reasonfirst
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34
Forget 1914, the 1975 generation are now passing away!
by nowwhat? inwe still have quite a few elderly here that came in as young families in the late 1960's-early 70's because soon, yes very soon they would enter the new system and never grow old.
it's now one year away from 50 years since 1975. just in the last couple years i've seen them come down with alzheimer's, cancer, brain tumors, becoming invalid etc.
the children of them that are now around 60 are just so distraught at seeing their parents deteriorate.
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Elder abuser in Sunshine Coast down under (?)
by carla innot sure if this has been posted or not, apologies if it has.
i did a quick search and did not see it.
https://archive.md/5zcdi -a sunshine coast jehovah’s witness figure accused of horrific sex crimes has been remanded in jail for fresh offences which allegedly occurred the same day he attended court.. and https://archive.md/r2o6x -a sunshine coast jehovah’s witness figure who allegedly used his position in the church to sexually assault young men has been arrested by police.
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Reasonfirst
Considering all the accusations, I'm left wondering why this guy stayed associated with the witnesses?
You'd imagine that he could have found BDSM* groups where he could have had whatever 'satisfaction' he got from his activities.
* BDSM (if you don't know already) stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism
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Is AI going to change the world?
by Reasonfirst inhad lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.
of one of australia's best universities.
he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.
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Reasonfirst
Is it another "end-of-the-world" narrative - it's source is suggestive.US Warned AI Poses ‘Extinction-Level Threat’ to Humanity – Time
Global governments including the European Union, United States and China are exploring ways to regulate AI. Image: FreepikA US Government report has warned that lawmakers must move quickly to avert the risk of an “extinction-level threat to the human species” caused by artificial intelligence, Time reported.
The authors of the report spoke to more than 200 government employees, experts, and workers at frontier AI companies – such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and Meta – and, according to the story, came to some unsettling conclusions.
“The rise of advanced AI and AGI [artificial general intelligence] has the potential to destabilise global security in ways reminiscent of the introduction of nuclear weapons,” the report cautioned lawmakers, recommending sweeping and unprecedented policy actions that, if enacted, would radically disrupt the AI industry.
Read the full story: Time
ClIpped from Asia Financial:
https://www.asiafinancial.com/us-warned-ai-poses-extinction-level-threat-to-humanity-time?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=AF%20Daily%20-%20Mar%2012%20%2801HRS4JP6XT9ZQ9WNDRPYQ0SAM%29&utm_content=%E2%80%9Cextinction-level%20threat%20to%20the%20human%20species%E2%80%9D%20caused%20by%20artificial%20intelligence%2C&_kx=FHRLEhs7CpUctQDICsT-perNf3c4-PdRP4kZsPpokeA.JGevqp
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Old Greek Daniel's Son of Man
by peacefulpete inagain this is large topic, some of which has been discussed elsewhere on this site.
the basic question i want to discuss is the identification of the 'someone like a son of man" in daniel 7. as we all know christians understood the figure to be the messiah (christ), so the question posed is did the author intend it to be a singular personage or a collective symbol of the holy of israel as jews typically read it?
or how about the unexpected idea that the "someone like a son of man" was the very same character as the "ancient of days" in another role?.
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Reasonfirst
I decided NOT to enter this discussion, beyond this post,* but if it interests you, you may find Ch.1 of Daniel Boyarin's** book, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ, informative.
* I hope no arguments are presented that may change my mind - such discussions get tedious and pointless as they discuss an imagined world, far removed from reality.
** IF your reading list is still that of an unreconstructed JW, Boyarin is described as follows: (Quote) "Daniel Boyarin is an Israeli-American historian of religion. .... citizenship. He is the Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley."
Likely he knew more about the topic, than the late and un-revered Freddy F
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The secret 10 year plan to save the watchtower .
by gavindlt inhttps://youtu.be/pszy22hzj8o.
new light?.
https://www.dadseekingtruth.com/.
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Reasonfirst
nowwhat? - ' If my congregation is any indication of the majority of jdubs, the gb can say and do anything and no one would blink an eye.'
That's standard for most, if not all, bible based religions.
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"Beast" Memories
by NotFormer ini've been crapping on the wt a lot lately, which sometimes seems a bit unfair to me, especially since i was never in, therefore i don't really have a dog in the fight.
to provide a bit of balance, i'll reminisce about the rampant prophecy speculation going on in mainstream christianity (i refuse to use the wt's pejorative term: "christendom", especially since by definition, they're part of that classification 🙄) in the 70s and 80s.
to be fair, the churches themselves had been around long enough to realise that end times interpretations are like arseholes, everybody has one.
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Reasonfirst
Interesting experience, though it all escaped my memory. But what it does tend to support, is the idea that all 'xtianity' is bullshit.
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A talk about 1975 from 1972
by Nostromo ineverybody knows the famous "stay alive still 75" audio clip but here is a clip from 1972 with english subtitles.
harold mouritz was the branch committee member in finland when he gave this talk.
later he became the coordinator of the australian branch.
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Reasonfirst
I remember Viv Mouritz. He came from a large family of JWs. His Brother, John was well know in Sydney, and another brother Doug., was a circuit overseer. There was another brother who (I seem to remember) was quite as 'faithful.'
There's a previous thread on Viv; https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/246746/viv-moritz-australian-experience
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W.W 2 - 1940's Australia Bethel helps out war effort!!
by Witness 007 inaustralia bethel had from 1938 began to make big money!
they employed many brothers.
they opened a saw mill, bakery, 20 kingdom farms, and an engineering company.
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Reasonfirst
I was a kid in 1939-40 so was never near a WTS farm or even a bethel. But when I did become a JW, my father objected on the basis that that the witnesses wouldn't join the army but would sell food to soldiers in the next door army camp.
I'm not defending the the witnesses, but in the interests of 'truth' want to make a few points (that may not please all readers here).
I. The so-called kingdom farms and the road side stalls existed for some (forgotten - likely due to old age and a desire to forget all things witnessy) time before 1939. I think that refusing to serve soldiers from those camps would have been legally difficult. In fact, one brother told me that he, when young, and not a JW, when he enlisted was in Ingleburn Army camp, and had bought food at the stall, and appreciated being able to buy fresh fruit etc. So two different attitudes, my father's viewpoint and this other brother.
That said, I believe that, due to the war, and the need to train soldiers, creating more demand, the then branch (branch overseer was named Mcgiilivray* -see footnote) had added staff to cope with the demand.
Of course, there's another problem, that may have been a peculiarly Aussie problem, there wasn't a particularly high standard of morality among the witnesses at that time. I've had a few folk who worked at that stall, tell me that the brother with oversight of the stall ran an illegal SP betting shop on the side, and on saturday afternoons would retire to his office, shut the door and work on his "books."
Others who worked there also complained that they were not very well treated.
2. Why did all these things happen, one long-serving brother who transferred from Melbourne (where the branch office was previously located) when the Strathfield property was bought told me that there was no money left over. But that there was a lot of unused printing paper left over in one of the buildings and a guillotine. Someone had an idea, cut the paper up and sell it. They did and made quite a lot of money out of it.
And, that raises an aspect of the (then, anyway) Australian character - When you have a problem, 'Quit wingeing, get of your arse and do something about it." And, they did that! And, the WTS (Aussie branch) was soon involved in lots of off-christian activity.
How much commercial work was going on when Rutherford visited in 1938? Some of my informants suggest that R. was not told about the commercial activity.
Anyway, the money that was made, enabled the building of office space and much better printing facilities.
I was only new (as a JW) and somewhat alarmed by my Dad's accusations, so set out to find out what had happened. What I've said above is what I remember of it.
There were only a couple of thousand or so, witnesses in the1930's, and since the great depression (that started in the USA and badly affected Australia, In fact it was still influencing life in Aust,. in 1939) and I guess, they could not have financed anything from the membership of the time.
I've forgotten the details, but most of the property owned by the society was bequeathed in wills or gifted in some other way.
Not every witness, got involved in that commercial work. Bill Schneider, A soldier in WW1 refused to stop pioneering and take on some work that the branch wanted him to do, so he was sent to some far-western NSW town, until Knorr's visit.
Footnote: McGillivray - there's a good story about him. I found it hard to find out anything about him. His former secretary was in my first congregation and thought he was wonderful. Others blamed him for anything wrong with the witnesses in that time.
There's thread here somewhere in which I tell the story about him being shot by an Army sentry. Briefly re-capitulating. The WTS was accused in the first few years of the war of giving information to the enemy, and banned (The High court of Australia later found that the charge was false and exonerated the witnesses). But at the beginning the Army occupied the Strathfield Bethel, but the bethel family were allowed to continue living there. McGillivray came home late one night, and on being challenged by a sentry said something stupid, who promptly shot him (in the shoulder).
Footnote; My father's first job was as an apprentice, he was laid off in from that company in 1929, did a few ways to try to eke out a living and eventually got a government job (his future father-in-laws influence) His first assigned area covered an area about 20 miles long. He was given a bicycle to get around that area.
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Even with recent changes it’s a struggle to get people to attend
by hoser inthe kingdom hall is still empty.
even with amalgamation of 2 congregations.
the elders are handling the microphones and there was only one comment from zoom at the watchtower.
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Reasonfirst
QUOTE: "Foolednomore - Face it, Jwism does not work. Just a lot of BS! "
Yup! But we can extend that thought - It's not just the JWs, but all of Xtianity is bullshit. -
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Is AI going to change the world?
by Reasonfirst inhad lunch with a friend, whose a lecturer in the accounting dept.
of one of australia's best universities.
he told me he expects to lose his job at some point in the next 5 years, as the accounting dept, will disappear, as all accounting will be done by ai programs, so why teach it.. if his fears are correct, that means that any profession that involves the mind, may one day face the same future.
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Reasonfirst
There's an very interesting court case coming up in the USA. The NY TImes is suing Microsoft and OpenAI, ( the creator of ChatGPT) claiming misuse of articles published by the NY Times.
It brings into the open, an interesting aspect of AI, as the NYTimes case points out, AI has to be fed data - which I guess is exactly what happens with humans through various forms of education and training, including, of course, religious ideas.
I have little understanding of how Microsoft and OpenAI may have "misused" the NY Times copyrighted information, but perhaps it means that data fed to an AI program can be slanted - again just as in the example of the human mind.
A human mind fed with biased information can refuse to examine contrary ideas, our experiences as JW's (or, any other religion, for that matter) illustrates the problem, Rubbish in - rubbish out, some call it.
Will AI be like that???
FYI, I reads about this case, on an Australian Media service, the ABC, a government owned (but, supposedly independent) media group.
Check it at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-28/new-york-times-sued-microsoft-bing-chatgpt-openai-chatbots/103269036
Global governments including the European Union, United States and China are exploring ways to regulate AI. Image: Freepik