by Red Piller 443 Replies latest jw friends
I cannot believe this thread has gone on so long.
To defend the watchtower is silly. To suggest that it was a few rouge followers that trumped up 1975 is silly. To suggest that the overlap, or shingle generation, is an acceptable new light is silly.
To suggest that anyone within the organization cares, is also silly. They have a life time vested interest in their life time of vested interest. As someone said in a silly tv show, "don't confuse me with the facts."
djeggnog said:
..but why does our having to admit when we were wrong in our interpretations of certain Bible passages have to mean that we don't have the truth?
Maybe a venn diagram will help.
Notice how the set of "truth" does not intersect with the set of "wrong":
The problem isn't that the WTS has been wrong.
The problem is that they claim to be Jehovah's sole channel of communication and that to disagree with them is to be in rebellion against God and in danger of everlasting annihilation.
okay so i just cant read any of dj's really long-winded posts ... just cant do it
so perhaps this has been answered, but i'd REALLY like an answer to this:
if dj is such a good witness, why is his name: djeggnog? eggnog is a drink associated with christmas ... so would a good witness have an avatar name associated with CHRISTMAS?
i just cant read his posts because his name is djchristmas ..
@Witness My Fury:
I can see quite clearly from this one though that you are under heavy mind control and can barely think for yourself. The repeating of the WT stance on private matters like oral and anal sex reveals this to be true. It looks like you have googled all the STDs that could possibly be [associated] with these sexual practices and listed them here for our "benefit".
You sound to me as I read the beginning of your post as if belonging to the camp to which @dogpatch and @Lady Lee belong in "discerning" that I am "under heavy mind control" and in concluding that "[I] can barely think for [myself]." These folks I just mentioned are part of an elite group of posters that come off to me as experts on brainwashing, or, to use your phrase, "heavy mind control," and in reading their posts it was apparent to me that they really do think themselves to be experts on the brainwashing of Jehovah's Witnesses. Having said that, I found it sad that these "experts" that want to free Jehovah's Witnesses from the mind control to which they evidently believe that they themselves were victims before leaving "God's organization" -- my term, certainly not theirs -- sound as if they were disciples of the teachings of Mao, except "Mao" here is Robert J. Lifton, M.D., a professor of psychiatry who in 1954 undertook a 17-month study, a "stimulating psychiatric investigation" as he describes his work over this 17-month period, about the effects of indoctrination or "thought reform" programs as had been applied on the Chinese. The book Dr. Lifton wrote -- "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" -- is the basic textbook for @dogpatch and @Lady Lee's views on how such apparent brainwashing ostensibly impacted themselves, as impacts all Jehovah's Witnesses generally. What's interesting to me is that what you and folks like you claim to be against you yourselves seem to me to be, namely, victims of what Dr. Lifton refers to as "totalism," a group think mentality by which you all accuse Jehovah's Witnesses as being victimized.
Yes, Jehovah's Witnesses are about making our minds over so that our thinking accords with God's viewpoint and reflects a spiritual perspective, and I suppose what things the Bible teaches could loosely be described as a group think ideology, since Christians are instructed at 1 Corinthians 1:10 that we as a group "should all speak in agreement" and that we be "fitly united in the same mind and in the same line of thought," except this last portion of the verse -- our being "united ... in the same line of thought" is overlooked. Christians are compelled to use their thinking ability, to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God along with their "power of reason," and "be transformed" by making their composite mind over" (Romans 12:1, 2), so while it may be argued that the apostle Paul is here advocating a group think mentality among Jehovah's Witnesses, here in this scripture you should find a clear departure from Dr. Lipton's ideological coursework. How so?
In that there is no human figure around whom our "group think mentality" revolves, no body of persons that is the final authority over our conduct. Jehovah's Witnesses are urged 'to prove to themselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.' Only when Jehovah's Witnesses have proved to their own satisfaction the good, acceptable and perfect will of God do we enjoin ourselves to a group think mentality. Dr. Lipton speaks to the brainwashing of the Chinese who were forced to conform to a human point of view, but, in contrast, Jehovah's Witnesses choose to enjoin themselves to God's point of view.
Right now, in this instance, you are speaking to a mind that thinks, that uses his power of reason to analyze the things he hears and reads, and can recognize when someone is speaking from a group think mentality. I've read these very sentiments of yours expressed by other posters to JWN so my question to you is this: Do you know how to think for yourself? Let's see. Since you prefer to put your faith in Dr. Lipton's ideology, then I'm going to assume for no other reason, except I just want to, that you are a proponent of evolution, that you believe chance to be responsible for your life, my life, the lives of your partners in anti-Jehovah's Witness "group think", despite the fact that it is a stretch to believe chance to have been responsible for the production of a single protein molecule, let alone the production of a cell. Believers in evolution embrace the following six (6) tenets of their "belief system": (1) a primitive atmosphere, (2) an organic soup, (3) proteins, (4) nucleotides, (5) nucleic acids (DNA/RNA) and (6) a membrane. These six things are what evolutionists' faith is based.
Although there is no real way that I can be sure what it is you've ever learned or even cared about when you were in school, I want to learn what it is you know about the physical world in which we live, about the building blocks of creation, the building blocks of all material things (e.g., plants, animals, rocks, oceans), that are composed of three particles, electrons, protons and neutrons, also known as the atom. You claim to be able to recognize when someone is "under heavy mind control," so let's take this discussion up a notch.
I'm sure you have heard of Émile Borel, an eminent authority on probabilities ("Elements of the Theory of Probabilities," 1965, by Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel ("infinite monkey theorem"), translation of the 1950 edition of Dr. Borel's 1909 book, "Éléments de la Théorie des Probabilités"). Borel stated that if there is less than a 1 in 10^50 chance for something to occur, or --
1:100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
-- then that thing should be considered impossible, that it will never happen. I usually refer to this yardstick as the "Borel rule," so I mention this so that you will know exactly what I mean when I use it below.
In attacking this third tenet of your faith, I will typically point out how Sir Arthur Eddington, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S., Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory, University of Cambridge, estimated there to be no more than 10^80 (or 3,145 x 10^79) particles in the universe, so assuming the universe is 30 billion years old (or 10^18 seconds), and that each particle can react at the exaggerated rate of one trillion (10^12) times per second, then the total number of events that can occur within the time and matter of our universe would be 10^80 x 10^12 x 10^18, correct? Add the exponents (80 + 12 + 18) together, we get 10^110, which means there really isn't "enough time and matter in our universe to 'guarantee' production of even one small protein with relative specificity," quoting Jean Sloat Morton, Ph.D., Cellular Studies, George Washington University, in Impact, No. 90, December 1980, regarding the above hypothesis.
You seem familiar with doing Google searches, so I'm sure you can find Dr. Morton's article on your own to verify whether my quote here is an accurate one. Maybe @TD, who is a smart guy (but how smart really can anyone be if they should deny the existence of God?), will chime in here to either help you or to confuse you if you should require help in comprehending what I've said here so far.
Eddington says in quoting Morton says there isn't enough time and matter in our universe to guarantee the production of a single small protein with relative specificity. How does the Borel rule force a thinking person, one that doesn't have a group think mentality like the evolutionist, to conclude about the possibility that chance was actually responsible for the production of a particle, let alone a single protein molecule?
You mention how I repeated in my post "the WT stance on private matters like oral and anal sex," but I didn't say in my post that these things were private matters; you did that. I pointed out how the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, teachings that are based on the Bible, have served a good purpose in helping our young people to think about the consequences of sexual promiscuity by presenting to them how their obeying God's command to "abstain from ... fornication" have protected them from a variety of sexually transmitted diseases through oral sex and anal sex. You want to beat a drum here about how our young people engaging in such sexual practice are "private matters," but I don't care what you think.
Your daughter's sexual activities with respect to oral sex and/or anal sex could impact someone else's son during childhood and into their adulthood; she might not be able to bear children for her husband and he might not be able to become a father to his own children. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in in vitro fertilization, so what you are calling "private matters" are family matters, except that family may never be born! Parents have a responsibility to raise and protect their children while they are still children until they should reach their majority, and giving them a condom only promotes promiscuity, advice that the children of Jehovah's Witnesses will never receive. Obedience to God is a protection to us.
However even you must realise that the WTBTS has overstepped the mark by sticking its nose into what is clearly the private matters between marriage mates. If we were to apply the "inference" model used here to all other aspects of a JW's Christian Living (tm) then we would need to eliminate almost the entire marriage customs used for the wedding itself. Inference is a great tool for control purposes.
I can see the kind of thinker you are: Both reckless and thoughtless. At Matthew 28:20, Jesus commanded that his followers should be "teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you." This is what Jehovah's Witnesses do, period. We don't pick and choose which Bible doctrines we are going to teach; we teach all of it.
I encourage you to read the passage at proverbs 5: 15-19 again and ask and answer YOURSELF exactly HOW that squares with the WTBTS view. Please dont fall into the trap of turning this back on me and call me a pervert. I am still a virgin FFS, so DONT even go there.
I am familiar with what Proverbs 5:15-19 and it doesn't say that we should behave stupidly and ignore the diseases I mentioned in one of my previous posts as if they don't matter to us or to our own children. I don't think you to be a pervert. I don't care that you are still a virgin either. Being either is your business, your choice to make. What I care to explore with you though is this idea that Jehovah's Witnesses are "under heavy mind control" because they have taken a stand against immorality and don't hold back from denouncing sin of all forms, including what you believe to be "private matters" associated with things "like oral and anal sex," which "reveals" or suggests to you that this notion of yours that we are under heavy mind control "to be true." Let's talk about your Mao-like viewpoints and group think.
@warmasasunned:
wow what a heavy thread, it reminds me of being a witness....phew wee! and it all started out so simple
Yes, this thread has become a "heavy thread," and I've just taken it up a notch.
there is no way "god" if thats what you [believe] in would make finding "the true path" this hard. its all bullshit to me.
That's fine, but despite what you believe, Jesus made the point that "the true path" is a difficult one to find, saying at Matthew 7:14 that "few are the ones finding it." That's not "bullshit"; check what your own copy of Bible says. If you consider yourself to be above what the Bible says, if you believe the things that the Bible says doesn't apply to you, then it's your life, your choice, your decision to make.
@designs:
There was only one way for us to read Fred Franz's theology on Septemillennialism that is 6000 years from Adam to the beginning of the 1000 year rule of Jesus. The only event between the two periods is Armageddon.
I disagree, but ok.
There are thousands of us still around to remind the Witnesses and the Watchtower Society of this simple fact no matter how many times they try to rewrite or spin their history.
You can "remind" Jehovah's Witnesses of our history until you are blue in the face and your reminders will still be myth.
@Listener:
The immediate future is certain to be filled with climactic events, for this old system is nearing its complete end. Within a few years at most the final parts of Bible prophecy relative to these "last days" will undergo fulfillment, resulting in the liberation of surviving mankind into Christ’s glorious 1,000-year reign. What difficult days, but, at the same time, what grand days are just ahead!
This was written in 1968 and although it doesn't state 1975 it does state within a few years. Now that it is 2010 does the period from 1968 to 2010 constitute a few years?
What do you think? We weren't making a prediction, but just stating what we know will soon become a reality, and hopefully during my own lifetime. Of course, you are free to infer from these words whatever it is you wish, which you have evidently done.
Wasblind recently started an interesting thread pointing out how the public version of a WT is different to that of a study version and wrote this
In the Sept 15, 2010 WT, study edition for Witnesses only on page 13 paragraph 8 states: "This spiritual food is based on Gods word. Thus, what is taught is not from men but from Jehovah."
I have to agree with you eggnog - that interpretations are from man but the org does not often make this clarification and instead point to speaking from God. You can see this from a very recent article. Some of what they teach are interpretations and they claim they are from God.
There is no difference; this distinction that you say @wasblind makes between the public version of the Watchtower and the study version of that same Watchtower suggests a deceitfulness on our part, when both versions of the Watchtower are available on the 'net for public consumption. I'll leave it to @wasblind and you to form your own conclusions, which is how it should be.
However, Bible prophecies are from God, while the interpretations of Jehovah's Witnesses are our own based upon what the spirit says in God's word. Anyone that doesn't understands the difference between a Bible prophecy and an interpretation, anyone that doesn't appreciate how the spirit guides our understanding of Bible prophecy, that is, through what things the Bible says, would be in darkness on this issue. I can assure you that I am not in darkness.
@Ding:
What the WTS said in 1968 doesn't matter to a loyal JW.
What the Bible says in 1968 applies to Jehovah's Witnesses equally in 1968 as well as today. But ok.
@jgnat:
I agree that active Witnesses are notably silent regarding the new generation doctrine. I think they are embarrassed by it, don't like it, understand it, or deep-down believe it. The hope of the entire boomer generation for a swiftly arriving armageddon is dashed.
How so, and why only the boomer generation? What about those men and women of faith that are mentioned in the Bible and their hope? Are you suggesting that their faith in God was for naught?
@djeggnog
scary post, stay away from that nut job
Yes, Jehovah's Witnesses are about making our minds over so that our thinking
accords with God's viewpoint and reflects a spiritual perspective,....DjEggNogg
........................ 
...OUTLAW
Leolaia wrote : "Nor did the schematic calendar have only 360 days in a year, for there were also four epagomenal days that lay between the months as markers of the four seasons (the two equinoxes and the two solstices), giving a total of 364 days in a year"
For a while I nurtured the wild hope that Armageddon would occur in 2069, or 2089.
(doing the calculation on the basis of 365 day years, 7 times are 2555 years and ole' 1914 turns into (- 607 + 2555) = 1948, + 1 = 1949. Adding 120 years to make room for father Noah we get to 2069 or (to one's taste), 2089 if Jerusalem was destroyed in - 587.)
Now Leolaia tears that hope to pieces with her 364 day year, so 1914 falls on 1942 and Noah will bring A in 2062 or in 2082.
Who will relieve us from this unbearable uncertainty ?
djeggnogg said: There is absolutely no one that can produce a single shred of evidence that Jehovah's Witnesses ever took a firm position as to 1975 beyond proclaiming it to be the year that marked 6,000 years of mankind's creation (from 4026 BC).
You are quite right about the "firm position" on 1975. It was more like a very strong position on 1975 possibly being the end because the Watchtower said that 'reliable' chronology was pointing to that year, and a very "firm position"on the end coming before the generation of 1914 passed away.
The Watchtower May 1, 1967 page 262 in the bound volume:
THE END OF 6000 YEARS
In examining these scriptural facts, something else also captures our attention. According to Bible chronology, we are already over fifty-two years into the wicked system of things' "Time of the end." That time began in the autumn of 1914 C.E., at the termination of the "Appointed times of the nations," and it is already far advaced. Jesus said that "this generation" that saw the beginning of this time period in 1914 would also see its end. the generation that was old enough to view those events with understanding in 1914 is no longer young. It no longer has many years to run. Already many of its members have died. But Jesus showed that there would still be members of "this generation" alive at the time of the passing away of this wicked system of things in both heaven and earth. (Luke 21:32, 33)
How much longer will it be, then, before God takes action to destroy the wicked and usher in the blessings of his Kingdom rule? Interestingly, the autumn of the year 1975 marks the end of 6000 years of human experience. This is ascertainable from reliable chronology preserved in the Bible itself. What will that year mean for humankind? Will it be the time when God executes the wicked and starts off the thousand-year reign of his Son Jeus Christ? It very well could, but we will have to wait to see. Yet of this we can be certain: the generation that Jesus said would witness those events is nearing its close. The time is close at hand. On God's "timetable" we are in the closing days of a wicked system of things that will soon be gone forever. A glorious new order is immediately before us. This is therefore, good reason for Chriestians everywhere to rejoice. Yes, they rejoice because fulfillment of their prayers for the kingdom of God is now at hand.
Splat..
DjEggNog is back on the Mat..
........................ ...OUTLAW
