Posts by EdenOne

29

Conti Appeal Oral Arguments slated for 9 A.M., Jan. 14, 2014. Recap of Defendant Watchtower's Complaint of Errors for your info.

by AndersonsInfo in

conti appeal hearing-summary of watchtowers complaint of errors with plaintiff's reply.

the following statements were taken from the introduction of respondents brief a136641 -attorney richard simons' response for plaintiff.

defendants argue that the affirmative duty imposed by the trial court impinges on their religious freedom.

2013 Publisher Statistics now available from 2014 Yearbook.

by jwfacts in

the 2014 yearbook is out, and i have scanned the publisher figures into a more readable format at 2013 service year report.

i have updated some of the graphs at http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php and will do the rest tonight.

there are no real surprises, with very similar results as during the last couple of years.

EdenOne

That's one brilliant reasoning, Bugbear !

Eden

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

EdenOne

The point I'm making, DocHouse, is this:

BEFORE you even consider who has the truest interpretation of the Bible, who adheres to the teachings of Christ more closely, who best represents God on earth, you must FIRST consider carefully and unbiasedly if the collection of books that you build your entire belief upon is reliable, historical, factual, or simply a man-made collection of stories that came to be to fit a man-made religious agenda. It's really pointless to go any further unless you establish that first, in complete honesty - and by 'honesty' I don't mean 'sincerity'. I mean integrity, reliance in facts and not devotional readings. I suspect that you have so far treated that subject too lightly, otherwise you wouldn't be having these discussions in the first place. It's ok, I made that very same mistake. But you need to educate yourself a lot more if you want to be taken seriously.

Eden

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

EdenOne

The four 'canonic' gospels + Acts as we know them today do not truly represent the core teachings and deeds of the historical Rabbi Jesus and his early disciples. They represent a later, highly fictionalized version of his life, including some snippets of somewhat unreliable historical events * and sayings transmitted via oral tradition across decades, then coupled with a lot of fiction, tailored to fit a conceptual religion invented by the apostle Paul, that departed from judaism ** into something that the intellectuals of the Roman-Greek world could accept. And it worked! Paul was genius. And it would be wonderful if it were true. It's a great story, but sadly it doesn't adhere to reality. Therefore, it rightfully deserves its place among mythology, where there are elements of historical truth [Jesus existed, was a gallilean, an itinerant teacher/preacher of the Law, had disciples, clashed with the establishment, was executed by the Romans], but in pretty much everything else he never intended to start a new religion, dismiss the Mosaic Law, had a pre-human existence, etc ...

[* For an example of this, consider that Jesus was never a contemporary of Herod, The Great. Herod died at least four years before Jesus was born. Luke got his timeline wrong.]

[** Hint: If you want a much closer version of what the historical Jesus really taught that managed to survive in the pages of the Bible, your best choice is the epistle of James. It's no surprise that it's so much at odds with the epistles attributed to Paul. James was a traditionalist, who kept circumcision, nazirite vows and going to the Temple, while Paul was "teaching an apostasy against Moses" (see Acts 21) If you want an example of that, just look at how different is Paul and James' theological stand regarding salvation: by faith alone vs. salvation by works.]

Eden

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

EdenOne

I think Simon decided that making this site look cool, defeating the horde of Nigerian Scammers and posers is much more important than defending the anonymity of those current and potential members still "in" who risk being exposed. Bottom line, that's what this is. If I recall correctly, some similar reasoning was behind the inexcusable breach that happened on AAWA's Facebook last year, which indeed resulted in a few people getting exposed and in serious trouble.

I'm not the one to judge you, Simon, but I didn't sign for this. While it's my decision if I carry on posting here once that feature is activated, I worry what may happen if my past posts will be associated with my country's flag. And what sort of responsibility are you willing to take if I'm exposed through the association of the flag with my posts, I wonder?

Eden

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

EdenOne

My OPINION is that God USED the RCC to help preserve the scriptures- even tho they also helped preserve some counterfeit books. In the meantime, copies were being made in other lands, too.

Oversimplistic, as expected.

By the same token, one could say that the astrologists that travelled to see the newborn Jesus were used by God, because they were instrumental in the fulfilling of a bible prophecy - at least according to Matthew. But that's not the WTS reasoning, actually it's the opposite. God would NEVER use people who practice something he despises in order to accomplish his designs. So, again I ask: Did God use the RCC to preserve his word? Why wouldn't God use "pure" Christians instead? Wasn't he capable of maintaining the purity of the congregation? Has Jesus failed in refining the original Christian congregation? What about the other books that the RCC also preserved? Are they God's word too? What is the criteria? Do you know?

Eden

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

EdenOne

You can start by answering this: Who decided what books would be considered "canonical", when, and why? What were the criteria used? This should get you started.

Eden

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

EdenOne

Being a national chatroom, we were all of the same country. Then, based on my work and general area I lived in (note: there were at least 80.000 people in that area), that person figured me out correctly from the yellow pages. I ended up having to change telephones, and ultimately, move.

Fortunately, my stalker is now dead.

Eden

263

Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon in

the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

EdenOne

Simon, on my last effort to try to talk you out of this flag nonsense, consider this situation.

Over several months, some poster named "Joaquín" in a small country, let's say in Central America, on the assumption that his/her country information isn't known to other posters and readers, shares informations across several posts such as:

"I'm an active Witness, but an undercover apostate, and I have close family "in".

and

"I'm privy with some Bethel heavies here"

and

"I attend a congregation near my local Bethel"

and

"Our local Bethel branch is closing down"

and

"I used to be an Elder / CO / MS / Regular Pioneer"

and

"My parents are in the truth"

and

"A relative of mine is a District Overseer"

and

"I'm married and have children"

and

"I attended university"

and

"I was disfellowshipped once and now am reinstated"

Now, the above information is vague enough WHEN THE COUNTRY OF THE POSTER IS UNKNOWN. However, the moment the poster's country is known, some casual lurker reading JWN, let's say, a keen uber-Witness with a witch hunt mission happens to be from that same country. He's surprised to see an active Witness from his country posting here and his curiosity is sparked. He decides to dig into that member's posts to dig out information. Also, in that country, not many people are fluent in English, but obviously this poster is fluent in English. So, in a country with only a few thousand Witnesses, do you think it's so hard to figure out the identity of Joaquín, based on the unique set of informations collected?

Tell you what, Simon. I was a victim of real life stalking before, and it all started with information that someone gathered about me in a national chatroom over months. That person tracked me, just for the fun of it, found my telephone and address. Heck, that person even figured out I was a JW based on a casual remark I made regarding a chatter's username. It's NOT FUNNY, and I ended up having to involve the police to get protection, because at some point I felt that my life and my family's life were at risk. So, excuse me if I feel more than a little paranoid about this. It is a serious betrayal of my trust, especially when it comes to posts I made in the past in the assumption that my country was unknown. It's really bad.

Eden

245

Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

by DocHouse in

yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

EdenOne

DocHouse,

At one point I was capable of being just like you. I could live with the doctrinal "adjustments", and even tolerate the theory that the Almighty God could operate perfectly via an organization made up of imperfect men.

I began to wake up when I saw the hypocrisy of a religion who puts so much emphasis on honesty - to the point of it being the tilting point on a Judicial Committee, in case you don't tell the whole truth in a confession to the Elders - and then they go and practice historical revisionism, obfuscation of events, outright lies and glaring omission of inconvenient facts in order to look good in the eyes of their flock, when it comes to account for their own history. THAT, in itself, raised the first big red flag in my mind after decades of faithful service. Nevermind "theocratic warfare" - how come these people have to go to such great lengths to obfuscate the truth about their own history? If they can be dishonest about their own history (when it would be fairly easy to admit they were mistaken, had bad calls), then how much more willing would they be to be dishonest when it comes to doctrine? After all, didn't Jesus taught: "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much." - Luke 16:10

Upon further extensive research, I've also came to the conclusion that the Organization had also been dishonest about doctrine. To give you a small example, about the hope for Christians. The "earthly hope" is a poorly concocted religious HOAX, put simply. It's something that belonged to the ancient Israelites, and tied them to their aspirations towards their holy land, but it's NOT the hope presented to Christians in the Greek Scriptures. The only Christian hope is the heavenly hope. That's what the canonic gospels, the apostolic epistoles and Revelation clearly point to. The Watchtower has stolen that glorious hope from the masses and reserved it for a poorly defined elite of 144.000, something that reality is demonstrating to be a false claim. Religious deceptions such as these - and many more concocted in the minds of Rutherford and Freddy Franz, such as the murderous blood ban doctrine, the silly type/anti-type speculations, the absurd 1914 chronology - turned out to be nothing more than propaganda stunts to make the JW's look "different" than mainstream Christianity and carve a niche for themselves in the religious market. To them applies aptly the words: "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering." - Luke 11:52

So, they've been dishonest about their history and about their doctrine. But, they can all be excused because they act in the sincerity of their hearts, right? Wrong. Were the nazis who sincerely believed in the Nazi Party propaganda - and thus participated in crimes against humanity - excusable because they were sincere believers? No, they were rightfully punished based on their refuse to follow their conscience and ability to reason. If even the lower officers were condemned, how much more the leadership who generates and spreads that propaganda! That's the great sin of the WTS leadership since its inception. They know what they're doing. Doesn't matter if they do it while believing it - the surely know exactly what they're doing. It's not that they lack information at their disposal. The library of the writing committee in Bethel has many, many great scholarly works that they read - and go to great lengths to misrepresent, when they quote them.

But then comes another much more serious issue: The foundation of it all - the Bible. Just how reliable is the Bible? I used to think that I could live with an unreliable Old Testament ("Old Light"), as long as the New Testament ("New Christian Light") was rock-solid. After extensive, unbiased research (believe me, I went through more scholarly works that I can enumerate from memory), the results were devastating. The so-called "canonic gospels" aren't but a collection of quite inharmonic accounts about the life of Jesus, who have been extensively reworked a posteriori to paint a picture of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the being that became god-like (or God, according to certain views) after his resurrection. But, tragically, that is a FABRICATED STORY by the apostle Paul and his followers, who eventually took over the charismatic jewish sect that followed this Rabbi Jesus. This fabricated story was designed to appeal to the religious palate of the Greek/Roman world, and it went on to become incredibly successful, but it has no roots in reality. Unfortunately.

Because the historical Jesus - and I am confident that he existed - was through and through a Jew, a teacher, a defender of the Mosaic Law, who had the liberty to re-interpretate it, like the most brilliant rabbis did, but who never intended to start a new religion, didn't see himself as the only begotten, pre-existent Son of God. Those stories were superimposed LATER into the gospel narrative, but it wasn't how Jesus regarded himself. He was an apocalyptic prophet of his day who ended up having his prophecies wrong, especially regarding the establishment of an earthly kingdom coming from heaven within his generation. Later on, his followers, on the wake of the shock of the destruction of the Jewish nation and the temple by the Romans in the aftermath of the Jewish revolts between 66-136 CE, concocted other supernatural explanations to overcome the obvious: Jesus was wrong in his prophecies. Yes, Jesus was a great teacher of ethics, but he was far from original, as history can easily tell you.

Now, you are free to believe in whatever you want, Doc. It's a free world, free speech, democracy, blah blah blah. No one is going to stop you from believing nonsense, or to dedicate your life to follow a myth. People have been doing it for millennia and mankind has survived and thrived. There are many positive things that Christianity - not to mention other religions - have offered mankind. Many atheists argue that such ethical achievements would have been attainable without the assumed existence of a deity. I think it's impossible now to prove that claim, so let's just accept things as they are. It's also no less truth that in the name of religion and deity much suffering has been inflicted upon mankind, making the observation recorded in Ecclesistes 8:9 a given: "All this I have seen and applied my mind to every deed that has been done under the sun wherein a man has exercised authority over another man to his hurt."

But the question is (going back to your OP): Who has in fact a rafter in the eye and is pointing fingers? From my decades inside the WTS, it's them who point fingers constantly at everyone else, while they have huge rafters in their eyes. Worse, they constantly add more thickness to that rafter, and indoctrinate their rank and file to become more blind to reality and to blindly follow them. And when you defend them and throw stones at the critics, YOU are the one with the ratter in your eyes. And frankly, God, if he indeed exists as a person and takes the least of care about us as his creation - which I'm strongly skeptical at this point - could do so much better than using the Watchtower. Or the RCC. Or the LDS. Or Scientology. Or ...take your pick. If God was really interested in our well-being, he wouldn't need to test us through faith. He wouldn't need to be an illusive being who only "reveals" himself indirectly through creation and a flawed, crooked book. He wouldn't hide behind the excuse that he's so powerful that "no human can see him and remain living". That's, sorry to say, bullshit. An all-powerful God would have no issues in making himself visible to every single human being, so that all could observe him and serve him based on EVIDENCE. Because, if you believe that God made us the way we are, then God would also know that we rather lead our lives based on evidence and facts, rather than in stories and faith.

Eden