Of course you don't want to debate that Greybeard -- you have no amunition at all!
The Watchtower's Delicate Mastery Of Deception
by metatron 23 Replies latest jw friends
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AnneB
Braincleaned: you might not want to antagonize Greybeard, I hear he has a large and very supportive family. Besides, he only has 10 posts a day and it would be a shame to see them go to waste in a fruitless argument with you.
Blessings to all (and hoping there are leftovers from yesterday's love feast),
AB
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metatron
Greybeard, you're approaching my point about Pantheism - seeing "God" as a system, or background of reality. Stop asking 'who created the Universe' and start asking, 'what maintains it'.
There is no morality in Nature, any more than there is 'morality' in dirt or rocks. It just "is" and so, "God" is more of a universal spirit such as older animist religions used to believe. How can people observe intelligent design in Nature, as a property and then fail to notice that it has no moral order to it such as one would expect from a common conception of God?
As for the darker side of the Watchtower under the Nazis, there was a guy named Norm who a big site full of that stuff. I recall that these indirectly complementary comments by the Gestapo were in the supporting documents in the book, "Nazi Persecution of the Churches". The Nazis had big plans for the Witnesses to support their empire. They wanted to use them to 'pacify' areas of Eastern Europe and Russia, to prevent rebellion.
In Total War, the idea of neutrality, as not supporting a war is just nonsense. If you are a farmer, retail merchant or day laborer, whatever you do supports the overall war effort. That's just the way it is.
metatron
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truman
I think I may have found the passage in the book (on google books) metatron referenced. Very interesting.
The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933 -- 1945
by John S. Conway
(pages 196-7)
But the Nazi persecution of the Witnesses was not simply due to their refusal to cooperate loyally with the Nazi state, to join any Nazi organizations, or even their refusal to be conscripted for military service. Rather it stemmed from the Nazi belief that this tiny sect presented a real political danger. In the first place, the international connections of the Witnesses and their reliance on Old Testament apocalyptic prophecies were together taken as 'proof' of their being disciples of the Jew Karl Marx and 'pacemakers of world Bolshevism'. But even more significantly, in the Witnesses' ‘petit bourgeois’ milieu, their messianic message, their fanaticism and readiness to make ultimate sacrifices, and their skillful manipulation of propaganda, the Nazis believed they saw a new form of their own Party organization. Since the Nazis could not credit the reality of the Witnesses ’ so-called theological beliefs, they believe that these must be only a subtle disguise for much more dangerous political purposes, designed to repeat their own astonishing success in achieving total control of the country within a matter of years.
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metatron
You got it. Skillful manipulation of propaganda.
metatron
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jay88
All the WT publications follow a rubric: make a general statement, pick everyone else's rubrics apart, fill the torn out places with the WT version, then close with the nearness of the blessings to be gained by "doing Jehovah's will". Oops! Almost left out a part: right after the topic is introduced be sure to dwell on how every objection is motivated by evil forces bent on keeping the reader from learning "The Truth". That's the insurance clause, it keeps a person questioning the motives of anyone who doesn't agree.
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Sounds similar to what male lions do, to get the female lion in heat(enabling receptiveness of the male)
jay,
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scotoma
I like the clever design of the cookie cutter shark. Look up the images on google. They take nice circular plugs out of the sides of other sea creatures.
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willyloman
Met: Nice topic, hope it has legs.
Kudos to AnneB for insightful remarks.
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sir82
Alligators
Crocodiles
Tigers
Guinea worms
Mosquitoes
Tapeworms
Tyrannosaurus Rex
Met, Met, Met....
Evidently you haven't been reading up in your old bound volumes!
All of these creatures age vegetation prior to the flood.
They used their teeth and claws to shred coconuts.
(This actually was in print some time in the 60's).