by jam 45 Replies latest jw experiences
Just to let you know. ..
I HAVE JUST WIRED $1 MILLION TO EVERY JWN MEMBER'S BANK ACCOUNT!
it should appear in your next statement.
Invisibly of course!
DAMN!!! you had my hopes up!!!! How am I supposed to spend invisible money? at the invisible wal-mart I suppose?
Surely one's faith should be so secure that it requires neither proof nor confirmation. With that prescription, invisibility comes in handy - extremely so.
The dictionary has an apt word to describe that kind of faith: Gullible.
OK folks lets think about this for a second.
Jesus father was invisible (according to Mary, that,s
what she told Joseph). His father God , invisible. Angeles
except the time when some of them became horny.
The heavens are invisible (the Bible heaven), so we can
conclude if the heavens , Jesus, God, Angeles and Satan are
invisible then the paradise earth will be invisible.
Ok, I was trying to make a point but my thoughts disappeared.
Enough of Jesus invisibility.
Alan Feuerbacher
A few years after the complete collapse of everything C. T. Russell had predicted, J. F. Rutherford began a process of replacing Russell's unfulfilled predictions with a series of invisible and spiritual events associated with the years 1914 and 1918. By the early 1930s the process was complete.
An interesting comment on this transformation was made by Carl Sagan in his book Broca's Brain (New York: Ballantine Books, 1979, pp. 332-333):
Doctrines that make no predictions are less compelling than those which make correct predictions; they are in turn more successful than doctrines that make false predictions.
But not always. One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and -- while the events of that year were certainly of some importance -- the world does not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, "Oh, did we say '1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014.' A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvenienced in any way." But they did not. They could have said, "Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth." But they did not. Instead, they did something much more ingenious.
They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
Don't know what purpose it serves, but Marvel comics has a lot to answer for. The original idea/excuse was thought up while the GB was sitting around reading the Fantastic 4.....
It makes so much sense now!
Obviously Stan Lee is ghost writing for the gb!
But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
Carl Sagan summed up the gullibility of the religious experience so well: It is resistant to rational inquiry.
That said, the gullibility becomes even greater - and more astonishing - when believers who have had one type of religious experience denigrate those who have had another experience and vice versa, trading insights such as "duped", "doomed" and "misled".
We can but shake our own heads in amazement that we have awoken from this brain-numbed slumber in which we were under the spell of an organized idiocy that we said was "the truth".
Jesus invisible presence in 1914, what purpose did it serve?
It helped the WTS. attract attention to its published works.
Evidently since nothing happened on earth of any profound and unusually significance since 1914.
Oh well maybe he'll return in 2014
Bible Jesus is a metaphorical construct who is always available invisibly to believers, with nothing special about 1914.
Watchtower Jesus is another matter. He showed up invisibly in 1874, raptured some dead people and then went away on an unknown matter, perhaps to attend to the salvation of the inhabitants of Pollux IV. He returned invisibly in 1914 and invisibly toppled all the worlds governments and clergy over the next few years. He also invisibly selected the cross bearing Christmas celebrating people of the Watchtower as his true religion, and was so sneaky that they did not know about this deed for over a decade after it happened. However, some of them were clever enough to see him and insisted that he submit to a shave and a haircut while he was visiting, so that he might be acceptable in a theocratic way.
To me that Jesus up there kinda looks like Dr Smith from Lost in Space.
VM44
That was one of the quotes that had me really thinking , the book "Life how Did It Get Here By Evolution or Creation" quoted Carl Sagan as though he was in agreement with the watchtowers point of veiw , yet that was certainly not the case. It was a clear distortion of the facts and misrepresentation of what was actually said ,which in turn led me to other quotes taken out of context to give a distorted veiw.That`s when I saw how deceptive and dishonest and manipulative the WTB&TS really is
smiddy
