What I find funny about that book is that the opening statement matches the warning Jesus gave his followers at Luke 21:8. In other words, any student of Luke 21:8 has very good reasons to think that the author of Revelation is one of those false prophets that Jesus warned about. Who knows, maybe Luke 21:8 was emended/inserted by one of those very early christian theologians who didn't like the book of Revelation and wanted to discredit it.
Island Man
JoinedPosts by Island Man
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7
Revelation already fulfilled
by stockholm_Syndrome init appears to me revelation was 'fulfilled' 1st century and we are fooling ourselves to think it applies to present times .
let's start with the opening statement:.
a revelation by jesus christ, which god gave him,+ to show his slaves+ the things that must shortly take place.. hmm-- shortly take place ?
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Do any of the governing body of JWs exercise their conscience?
by Half banana inthe members of the governing body, by being at the reins of a large corporation, must be confronted with situations which force them to think about the validity of their doctrines.. the australian royal commission hearing must have highlighted for the gb, especially jackson, the rational inconsistency of using an iron age dictum of "two witnesses" in a world which has moved beyond such rough justice.
today we have a scientific approach, we examine forensically, we have psychologists who can tell us about individual's minds and behaviour.
today, children's voices are not ignored.. the first and last resort of jws and their leaders is the doctrine of the "inerrancy of the bible".
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Island Man
The indoctrination overpowers their conscience. They tell themselves that they cannot trust their natural, humane conscience because it is imperfect and flawed. So they ignore their natural conscience to obey their "bible-trained" conscience. The rank and file do the same thing when it comes to issues like shunning and let their child die from lack of blood.
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Poopie has a thought what do you think child molestation
by poopie inso here's my thought what should be done to an elder that is accused of molesting a child and there no 2 witnesses ?
1. the elder should immediately step down or be removed.2.
the child should be protected.
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Island Man
"No reporting countries or states."
Whether or not local law mandates reporting is irrelevant! The church, if it is any truly righteous church that cares for its children, should have a policy of mandatory reporting of all allegations of pedophilia to the police, whether or not local law mandates reporting.
Only a callous and irresponsible church would use the absence of mandatory reporting laws as an excuse to not do the right thing by reporting the matter to the police. A church shouldn't need laws to force it to do the right thing. It should be morally sensitive enough to do the right thing without requiring secular laws to force it to do the right thing.
Any religion that refuses to report allegations of pedophilia to the police because local law does not mandate reporting, is a wicked church that cares more about its image than the welfare of its most vulnerable parishioners.
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Poopie has a thought what do you think child molestation
by poopie inso here's my thought what should be done to an elder that is accused of molesting a child and there no 2 witnesses ?
1. the elder should immediately step down or be removed.2.
the child should be protected.
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Island Man
The matter should be reported to the police immediately for proper and professional investigation. The result of the police investigation will then determine whether or not the elder should be DFd. He should not continue serving as elder while the allegation is hanging over him and the police are investigating. Reporting to the police should be mandatory and should be the first step.
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What will humans look like in 1000000 years?
by James Mixon inok, the bible is a fascinating book of fairy tales, so we move on..e. zolfagharifard, some guy states "humans will be very different creatures in just 1000 years from now due to climate change,artificial intelligence and genetic mutations are all set to transform our bodies in drastic ways.
a mixture of biology and machine on the inside.
this is only 1000 years from now, what the hell will humans look like in 100000 years????
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Island Man
I think we would see more artificial modifications to our body through genetic manipulation and the incorporation of bionic interfaces. Our "evolution" will be largely driven by artificial selection through genetic engineering, and the incorporation of technological devices into our bodies. Natural selection will no longer be an influential factor driving our evolution and its role will be fully supplanted by technology.
You'll probably see humans walking around with pointed, spock-like ears, purple skin and other weird body changes done through technology, with the same ease and frequency as we apply tattoos today.
There is also a very real risk that, as a species, we would become dumber. As computers become more powerful and as artificial general intelligence takes off there will be less need to use our own minds to solve problems and remember things. With technology doing all our problem-solving thinking for us there will be less selective pressure to preserve our huge brain size and conscious problem solving abilities.
The end result is that we will become a dumber species, on average, with the intelligence gap between the average human and the nerds being very great. There is even the risk of countries becoming cybercracies - countries governed by artificial general intelligence systems instead of humans once it becomes obviously apparent that such systems are better at crunching big data and making better decisions that humans.
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I think my house is haunted
by Steel inthings seem to go bump in the night.
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any idea if i should talk to the elder or what they would say?.
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Island Man
The only things that haunt houses are animals - bats, owls, rats, mice, cockroaches, termites, squirrels, possums; the wind; temperature variations; living people - burglers, pranksters, junkies; etc.
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Where Does It Say JWs Can't Read Pubs By Other Churches?
by Cold Steel incan jws read publications by other churches?
or by atheists?
i've always heard these are apostate materials.
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Island Man
It is not explicitly stated in print as far as I'm aware. But it is alluded to. Just a few years ago there was a kingdom ministry article that advised JWs on what to say to "tactfully" refuse christian literature given to them by a householder.
They regard literature from other churches as spiritual poison that can lead them away from the truth if they read it. They also equate accepting such literature with giving moral support to "Babylon the Great", the world empire of false religion. A JW who persists in reading or listening to religious material from other churches would be regarded as being spiritually unclean and would likely be disqualified from having any privileges in the congregation at the very least, possibly even disfellowshipped for apostasy or interfaith activities depending on the particular case and the disposition of the elders.
When offered literature by other christians most JWs would refuse giving excuses like:
"We do not exchange literature"
"We came to your house to offer you our literature so if you want us to accept yours then you have to come to our house to offer us" (yes i've actually heard that very petty and infantile reasoning from a JW)
"We are not looking for the truth we already have the truth so we see no need to accept your literature"
"We only accept literature that talks about God's kingdom" (this is the lying excuse that the KM article suggested they use to decline literature offered to them by other christians)
A few JWs will accept the literature only to discard it at the nearest bin when out of sight of the householder.
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Island Man
John 20 in Jamaican patois:
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Showing Kindness To Strangers
by FedUpJW ini feel pretty foolish after reading the drivel in today's wt.
here i was operating under the impression that showing kindness to strangers was something that one did unselfishly.
boy was i wrong!
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Island Man
The article was an exercise in hypocrisy. They actually had the nerve to print the words "religious prejudice" in the article, when talking about how the Egyptians may have treated the Jews when they were in Egypt. The fact that JWs are themselves steeped in religious prejudice completely escaped their notice. Because of their religious prejudice they derogatorily label all non-JWs as "worldly" and "bad associations" and are not to marry them nor befriend them. Talk about blind hypocrisy!
And since hospitality is kindness to strangers, isn't showing kindness to non-JWs a greater measure of hospitality than showing kindness to JWs - brothers and sisters ... spiritual family? Isn't a non-JW more of a stranger to the JWs than a fellow JW from a foreign land? But they show disdain for strangers when they bigotedly label non-JWs as "wordly" and "bad associations" and impute bad motives and bad morals to them, purely on the basis that they're non-JWs and before they get to know the person.
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Was the ransom premature? Shouldn't the effects of Adamic sin have been reversed at the time of Jesus' death?
by deegee inif the ransom was paid at the time of jesus' death (mark 15:45, matthew 20:28, 1 timothy 2:6, hebrews 2:9), then why weren't the effects of adamic sin (sickness & death) reversed at that time?.
it seems to me that either:- the payment of the ransom was premature.
- god was not satisfied with the payment of the ransom; it was not sufficient to make up for adam's & eve's so-called "sin".hasn't god extracted enough from mankind as payment for adam's & eve's "sin" given the billions of persons who have lived and died?.
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Island Man
Another thing is the way the condemnation of death due to Adam's sin, falls on all his offspring automatically without them having to put forth any effort or exercise any faith in his transgression. Yet, the ransom is not applied the same way - it is not automatic, but beneficiaries have to exercise faith in it and work at proving worthy of the undeserved kindness by not willfully practicing sin.
It is not fair. Since the condemnation was automatic and not the fault of Adam's descendants, the ransom should likewise be automatic. Christianity unfairly stacks the odds against the innocent offspring of Adam who inherited his sin through no fault of their own. It is a fundamentally immoral worldview where the innocent are blamed and punished for the sins of their ancestors.