Posts by TerryWalstrom

42

Feeling Sad After Uncovering TTATT

by pale.emperor in

my initial pangs of unease and doubt led me to research some things.

well, a lot of things really.

i've never felt comfortable using the bible to try to calculate dates (1914).

TerryWalstrom

See: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/427480001/waking-up-dub-effective-communication

To be as succinct as humanly possible, your World View has ruptured and you are now an orphan with only your native intelligence to rely on, and even that has been compromised by indoctrination and disinformation.

You are like a baby bird whose Mamma used to drop food in your little beak.
Now, you've fallen out of the nest into 3 lanes of traffic!

1. Stay away from the Bible, religious discussion, personal investigation (beyond debunking videos with actual information), conspiracy theories, New Age, your friendly neighborhood church and speculation about anything supernatural for at least a year.

2. Focus on educating yourself about basics of Science, Math, History, Geography, Philosophy, Logic, etc. Those are the pillars of Enlightenment.
3. Avoid debates, arguments, controversies and blame-gaming.

4. Don't ask other people to think for you or give you their opinion. Nobody knows a damn thing. It is ALL opinion and it's just noise.
5. Discover who your real friends are. Anybody urging you to make decisions a certain way is suspect. Those who support YOUR decisions without trying to talk you out of them are good candidates.
6. Make a list of what your basic NEEDS are and list ways of achieving them.

7. BE AWARE you have been damaged! The same mind and mindset that got you into a cult (yes, it was a cult) is STILL PRESENT! You are going to have to dismantle each and every single concept you own and redefine the meanings.
8. The good news is this. The bright light of personal freedom is shining on you and all it takes is baby steps to cross the threshold into total ownership of your life.

9. Celebrate!

I didn't make much progress at all away from entrenched JW ideas for the first 20 years!
Why would I? How could I? I didn't know anything that was real! I was accustomed to being absolutely convinced of the "truth."
I was dead wrong!

I would recommend a book which really helped me.
It might help you recalibrate the basic meaning of ideas, concepts, definitions, thinking, logic, reasoning, rational thought, notions of the objects of consciousness, the nature of the human mind, the nature of language, of knowledge, of moral principles, of free will, and even the nature of happiness.

Here is the PDF link:
http://nemiga.no-ip.info/literature/Adler/Mortimer_J._Adler_Ten_Philosophical_Mistakes__1985.pdf

70

Witness Carts - A Vehicle for Significant Decline

by slimboyfat in

i was stalking to a jw today about her recent experience on the carts and with being a jw generally.

until this conversation i considered the carts as just an ineffective preaching method and a harmless waste of time.

but now i wonder if the effect of the carts might be to produce noticeable decline in jw numbers.

TerryWalstrom

Well, I have a completely different conjecture to offer.

I think the Watchtower rationale has completely changed from balls out evangelizing with blood in the eye to self-preservation.

Meaning what?

In the old days (pre-Internet) witnessing was like gunslinging where you stood at the door and shot it out and watched the unindoctrinated bodies fall in a crumpled heap on the doorsill.
Post-internet, however, a conversation with another human being is likely to be more of a death trap for the JW because Ex-JW's have wallpapered with FACTS every search engine pitstop there is.

I go to Google and type the words "Jehovah's Witness" and what do I see in response?
The first 4 responses are PAID links to JW.ORG!

After that--the anti-JW material appears.

Bottom line?

The WT Society fears interpersonal contact for the first time in its existence!

Young publishers and housewives are vulnerable to anti-JW factoids and that must be avoided by FEAR and tactical evasion.

I'm close friends with a 21-year-old JW who has made it abundantly clear to me
how terrified every Witness is of encountering the dreaded Apostate Lies and Satanic brain meld!!

I don't think JW's really "witness" any longer.
Most evangelizing is for 3rd world countries just like it is for mainstream Christendom, communists, and anarchists.

8

Missing: my history of Topics and posts going back 10 years?

by TerryWalstrom in

i've noticed a comprehensive revision to this board in reference to the history of topics and posts.there has been a total reboot.are my 1700 topics gone forever or is there a repository someplace?thanks.

TerryWalstrom

2+2=5 wrote:

I just did a quick search and read all 1751 topics for Terry and another 68 from the TerryWalstrom user account.

That makes 1809 topics so you have actually gone over your 1700. Don't worry, all of them are good I just had a scan over.

1809 topics and none of it is 'old light', amazing.

_______________

Well, I cheated quite a bit by recycling and editing old topics quite a few times.
There are plenty of them I'd delete for sure.

But, I can see changes in my thinking over the years and how sloppy a writer I was and completely full of offal.

8

Missing: my history of Topics and posts going back 10 years?

by TerryWalstrom in

i've noticed a comprehensive revision to this board in reference to the history of topics and posts.there has been a total reboot.are my 1700 topics gone forever or is there a repository someplace?thanks.

TerryWalstrom

Simon--

Ahhhhh. . . okaaaay.

When the board changed over to the new format way back when--I couldn't get in, so, I started a new account. That's what happened.

I don't need two accounts (unless I'm schizo) but, if they can't be melded into one--at least I know what's what.

Thanks!

8

Missing: my history of Topics and posts going back 10 years?

by TerryWalstrom in

i've noticed a comprehensive revision to this board in reference to the history of topics and posts.there has been a total reboot.are my 1700 topics gone forever or is there a repository someplace?thanks.

TerryWalstrom

I've noticed a comprehensive revision to this board in reference to the history of Topics and Posts.
There has been a total reboot.

Are my 1700 topics gone forever or is there a repository someplace?

Thanks

22

Hitchhiking robot embarking on coast-to-coast tour across US

by TerryWalstrom in

hitchhiking robot embarking on coast-to-coast tour across u.s.. .

did you hear that, honey?

i dont have time for tv!

TerryWalstrom

The Watchtower Society, almost from the very beginning, has been sending out Robots to preach their weird doctrines. So, nothing new here.

24

Baiting Dubs for fun and amusement

by TerryWalstrom in

jw: "wha-a-a-t?

mormon: "okay.

other jw: "that's just .

TerryWalstrom

JW's have become more insular, hermetic and isolated from debate, controversial writings and the dreaded Internet Apostates I can't help but think they've simply ossified.

What is used, develops and what is not used, atrophies.

13

What is the SIGNIFICANCE of the Astounding KORAN Manuscript discovery ?

by TerryWalstrom in

bart ehrman's blog reveals some very interesting facts about the recent discovery of a manuscript of the koran.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksxmo9moqk.

"in case anyone is missing the significance of that, here is a comparison.

the first time we have any two-page manuscript fragment of the new testament is from around the year 200 ce.

TerryWalstrom

CRAZYGUY: How many actual pages were found Terry?

Consisting of two parchment leaves, the manuscript in Birmingham contains parts of what are now Chapters 18 to 20.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/world/europe/quran-fragments-university-birmingham.html

13

What is the SIGNIFICANCE of the Astounding KORAN Manuscript discovery ?

by TerryWalstrom in

bart ehrman's blog reveals some very interesting facts about the recent discovery of a manuscript of the koran.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksxmo9moqk.

"in case anyone is missing the significance of that, here is a comparison.

the first time we have any two-page manuscript fragment of the new testament is from around the year 200 ce.

TerryWalstrom

Ehrman says this about the process of dating the manuscript:

"Let me say that carbon-14 dating is indeed a science, but it’s not a highly exact science. It dates organic material based on the deterioration of its carbon-14 isotope, and so can give a range of dates that are statistically determined to be of relative accuracy. Even so. This dating is remarkable. The dating was done by a lab devoted to such things in Oxford. It turns out that there is a 95% chance that these pages were produced between 568 and 645 CE. How good is that? The prophet Mohammed, who (in traditional Islamic teaching) was responsible for producing the Qur’an was engaged in his active ministry in 610-632 CE. These pages may have been produced during his lifetime or in a decade or so later."

13

What is the SIGNIFICANCE of the Astounding KORAN Manuscript discovery ?

by TerryWalstrom in

bart ehrman's blog reveals some very interesting facts about the recent discovery of a manuscript of the koran.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oksxmo9moqk.

"in case anyone is missing the significance of that, here is a comparison.

the first time we have any two-page manuscript fragment of the new testament is from around the year 200 ce.

TerryWalstrom

Bart Ehrman's blog reveals some very interesting facts about the recent discovery of a manuscript of the KORAN.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKSxmo9Moqk

"In case anyone is missing the significance of that, here is a comparison. The first time we have any two-page manuscript fragment of the New Testament is from around the year 200 CE. That’s 170 years after Jesus’ death in 30 CE. Imagine if we found two pages of text that contain portions, say, of the Sermon on the Mount, in almost exactly the same form as we have them in what is now our Gospel of Matthew, and suppose that these pages received a carbon-14 dating of 30 BCE – 40 CE. Would we be ecstatic, OR WHAT???"

____________

"If these pages of the Qur’an do indeed show that the text of the Qur’an is virtually the same in, say 630-40 CE as it is in 1630-40 as it is in 2015, that would suggest that Muslims are indeed correct that at least in some circles (it would obviously be impossible to prove that it was true in *all* circles), scribes of the Qur’an simply didn’t change it. "

__________________

BART RAISES AN IMPORTANT QUESTION WELL WORTH ASKING:

"If Muslim scholars over the centuries – from the very beginning – made dead sure that when they copied their sacred text they didn’t change anything, why didn’t Christian scribes do the same thing??? "

"Christian scribes did not do the same thing. We have many thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament. They all have mistakes in them. Lots of accidental mistakes (hundreds of thousands) from times that scribes were inept, inattentive, sleepy, or otherwise careless; and even lots of mistakes that appear to be places that scribes altered the text to make them say something other than what it originally said."

"For Christians the New Testament was a sacred book, the Word of God. Why didn’t they *make sure* that it never got changed? I can understand on one level why they didn’t. The scribes who copied it, especially in the early period, were not professionals. In the early centuries, the copyists were simply the local people who happened to be literate who could do a decent job. And they made lots of mistakes and changed the text in places intentionally. But why didn’t anyone go to the trouble of making sure that didn’t happen? It’s a genuine question."

Ehrman goes on to point out an important fact:

New Testament manuscripts all differ from one another and contains many thousands (hundreds of thousands) of differences among them, so that even though we can be relatively sure of what the authors wrote most of the time, there are numerous places of disagreement and some of these places really matter. There are some passages where we will probably never know the exact wording.

That may not be the case with the Qur’an.

"The fact that you do (or do not) know what a book originally said, has no bearing – no bearing at all, not a single bearing – on the question of whether you can trust it or not. It is completely irrelevant to the question. An absolute non sequitur. I wish Christian apologists would learn this, instead of continuously filling people’s heads with nonsense. Being the best-attested book from antiquity has no bearing on the question of whether the things that are said in the New Testament are true. No bearing at all."

"We appear to have evidence – better evidence than, say, for the Gospel of Matthew, or Paul’s letter to the Romans, or the epistle to the Hebrews – that the Qur’an was (at least by some scribes) very accurately copied over the centuries from the time it was produced. Does that “prove” that you can trust what it has to say? Of course not. But for historians it is an absolutely stunning, marvelous, and wonderful discovery nonetheless."