@Anony Mous wrote:
The Watchtower of 15 October 1969, page 622:
"More recently earnest researchers of the Holy Bible have made a recheck of its chronology. According to their calculations the six millenniums of mankind’s life on earth would end in the mid-seventies. Thus the seventh millennium from man’s creation by Jehovah God would begin within less than ten years ... Would not, then, the end of six millenniums of mankind’s laborious enslavement under Satan the Devil be the fitting time for Jehovah God to usher in a Sabbath millennium for all his human creatures? Yes, indeed!"
Ok, six millenniums of mankind's enslavement under Satan's rulership came to an end by the year 1975, but what doesn't add up?
@djeggnog wrote:
What are these "creationist days" to which you refer? Jehovah's Witnesses do not teach and never have taught a thing about "creationist days, so I'd like to know what these "days" are, and what is [it] you meant here when you wrote that "if 1975 didn't match with the creationist days"?
@Anony Mous wrote:
No comment ;-) They do teach about the days of creation - you have to reject the whole Bible if you don't accept that.
Again, what are these "creationist days" to which you refer, and what did you mean by "if 1975 didn't match with the creationist days"?
@Anony Mous wrote:
You can't take everything the Bible (or the JW) say literally or interpret it according to anyone's faith.
@djeggnog wrote:
While Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe and have never taught that everything that one reads in the Bible must be understood to be literal, two questions: (1) What role do you believe faith has with Jehovah's Witnesses' interpretation of the Bible? and (2) what role do you believe faith has with anyone else's (other than Jehovah's Witnesses') interpretation of the Bible?
@Anony Mous wrote:
Faith has nothing to do with the JW's interpretation of the Bible imho since their 'faith' changes every 6 months. Thus it cannot be faith that drives a JW's interpretation of the Bible since faith conveys the thought of confidence, trust, firm persuasion (also Insight book).
I agree with you that faith conveys the idea of confidence, the idea of the kind of trust that you might place in someone or have in some particular thing, but you contradict yourself when you suggest that the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses "changes every 6 months." But how can someone or some particular thing that undergoes a change after six months' time be said to be on a par with confidence, with faith? You're not making any sense to me, so let me provide an example to you of what faith is, so that you might understand one way in which faith is synonymous with confidence, but that faith cannot change "every 6 months" as you claim because I really don't think you have a clue as to what faith is, generally speaking, or what it means for someone to have it.
Three months in advance, you book a flight for you, your spouse and your two minor children on some airline to fly 1,800 miles to where many of your relatives plan to gather for the next family reunion. You are a part of a pretty large family, and this is the kind of thing that your family does every odd year, so just as you did in July of 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, you have booked a flight this year in July of 2011 and will no doubt be booking a flight two years from now to the next family reunion after this one in July of 2013.
Now you have hope that you will see all of your family members at the family reunion this July, which is an assured expectation that you will definitely get to see your two favorite cousins and your favorite uncle will be there because you know for a fact that they, like you and your spouse, will always make an effort to be present among the attendees at the family reunion, even though these realities won't demonstrate themselves until July when you believe will behold their smiling faces when you and your family arrive at this year's family reunion.
Note that the confidence that you have in this scenario in the fact that there will be a family reunion this July is what drove you to buy four round-trip plane tickets for your family some three months in advance, and plane tickets are typically less expensive when purchased more than a month out, so your confidence brought you a side-benefit as well. Another word for "confidence" is faith, for "faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld."
Without faith, you wouldn't have purchased your plane tickets three months in advance, for lacking faith, you would have spent a prohibitive amount of money buying plane tickets in the week before the family reunion is scheduled to take place when tickets prices are go for an extremely higher cost, but your faith made you do things in expectation that there was going to be a family reunion and you needed to buy these plane tickets for the trip in advance.
Note that the confidence that you have in this scenario in the fact that you will see your favorite relatives at the family reunion, so that you don't procrastinate about buying the plane tickets in advance of the trip, but, instead, you picked up your telephone and purchased the planet tickets in advance believing the reunion would take place and your favorite relatives would be among the attendees. Another example:
You and your brother-in-law (b-i-l) live about 10 miles away from one another, but you both work at the same oil refinery, and because your car is in a repair facility to have a new starter installed, since the one that is being replaced has begun to fail you after only two years of service, your b-i-l offers to drive to your home tomorrow morning and pick you up for work and to drop you off at the car repair facility after work so that you can pick up your car.
Now while you have hope that your b-i-l will pick you up so that you will have transportation to work tomorrow, even though this reality will not demonstrate itself until tomorrow morning when you believe you will behold your b-i-l's smiling face when you and your family arrive at this year's family reunion, which is an assured expectation that you will definitely get a ride to work tomorrow, even though this reality won't demonstrate itself until tomorrow morning when your b-i-l is expected to show up at your home.
Note that the confidence that you have in this scenario in the fact that you will be getting a ride to work, so that there is no need on your part to hire a rental car for tomorrow so that you can drive yourself to work, and today you did change your routine a bit so that you got up at an time earlier than you would normally get up, and got dressed for work a half-hour earlier than you typically would be getting dressed.
Again, another word for "confidence" is faith, for "faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld." Without faith, you wouldn't have been ready to go and waiting for your b-i-l to arrive at your home the next morning, for lacking faith you would have incurred the expense of a rental car, but your faith made you do things in expectation that your b-i-l was coming to pick you up that morning.
Most other religions have faith that the Bible or at least the creation account has to be taken literal and some hold that scientific findings will redeem their view eventually.
Everyone will have their own viewpoints regarding creation, but in your saying this, you're saying what now?
@djeggnog wrote:
How do you know that Jehovah's Witnesses are "right" about anything? What makes you say that Jehovah's Witnesses are right if science and what the Bible says "match up"?
@Anony Mous wrote:
I didn't say they were right but their viewpoint comes the closest to REALITY and PROOF.
Whose viewpoint comes the closest to reality and proof? What does science teach as far as science is concerned that the Bible does not teach or "match up" with science? Please name one thing besides evolution, since evolution is only a theory and not provable.
@djeggnog wrote:
What is "proven" now? That the universe was alive? That the earth was alive? That living things have been on the earth for more than 12,000 years? I'm thinking now about dinosaurs which were obviously here for much longer than 12,000 years, so from where does this "12,000 years ago" number come? Are you saying that "12,000 years ago" is the view of an evolutionist, the view of a creationist, or what exactly were you saying here?
@Anony Mous wrote
12,000 years ago is the longest stretch of time from the viewpoint of most classical creationist and old-style JW's (now to Adam + 6 creation days of 1000 years).
I don't know what you mean: Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe and have never taught that each of the creative days were 1,000 years in length, so why do you mention 1,000 years at all as if Jehovah's Witnesses have been believed or taught to this effect?
It is PROVEN by the laws of physics that light was existent before the first day of creation in which God 'created' light.
And your point is what? That the Bible contradicts science?
According to JW's we are living in the 7th creation day and it's nearly the end (<1,000 years away)....
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that we are living during the seventh creative day when Jehovah rested from all of His creative work, and we know that mankind has reached the 6,000 plateau back in 1975, but since we do not know when Adam's wife, Eve, was created, we cannot possibly know when the sixth creative day ended and the seventh creative day ended, and we speculate that if we did know when Eve was created, then we speculate that we would be able to calculate with accuracy when the 1,000-year Millennial Reign of Christ Jesus would begin, for we would need to know, not when 6,000 years had lapsed from Adam's creation forward, but when 6,000 years had lapsed from Eve's creation forward, assuming a 7,000-year creative day.
Even along this calculation, shit has been here longer than 7 * 7,000 years. If God created Adam at the end of the 6th day, how come the oldest homo sapiens remains are 42,000 years old?
You may have heard scientists or others claim that mankind has been in existence for as long as 42,000 years, while one would conclude from reading the Bible that this number is quite high, but one has to choose whether to believe these scientists or to believe what the Bible has to say about this, for using the Bible, one can prove that man has been in existence for a little more than 6,000 years (6,036 years to be exact!) while science cannot prove that mankind has been in existence for as long as 42,000 years.
@djeggnog