i watched the second part of richard dawkins program yesterday evening -the root of all evil?- i really have enjoyed this program and have found dawkins to come across as genuine and humane.
the problem i have with the program is that i do not want to believe his point of view, but i am feeling more and more drawn towards it.
the point i notice most about his stance is that he feels religion and science just cannot sit side by side, you have to believe one or the other.
You could do what Phillip E. Johnson did and read Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker" and Michael Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" side-by-side.
What bugs me about Dawkins (I agree he is a fundamentalist) is his attitude that only stupid, ignorant people believe in a God. Neither fair nor true. But he has some valid criticisms on the dark side of religion or religious people and I like to hear what he has to say.
Woodsman, you are right on the nail. It was checking out the scriptures on the foreigners and alien residents that convinced me there was something greatly amiss in the way the WTS applied the OT patterns to support their 2 classes doctrine. Circumcised foreigners were to celebrate the passover and partake of communion sacrifices the same as the natural Israelite. Also, after the exile, the alien residents were to be allotted the same inheritance and land rights as the natural Israelite (Ez. 47:21-23). Therefore surely, if we're talking about prophetic patterns here, the 'spiritual foreigner' would have the same inheritance and 'land rights' as the 'spiritual Israelite' (cp. Matt. 5:3-12).
are there jws who prepare for the tribulations they assume are around the corner?
when i visted the us once in 1999 i met a few guys who were expecting a global meltdown due to the millenium bug.. as a consequence they had generators, guns, ammo, tins of food, bottled water, fuel, all kinds of stuff to help them through a civil disorder situation.
does anyone know or remember any jws who have prepared like this?
We put a new roof on the KH. One elder thought Jehovah would use it to protect us from falling debris.
my father showed me a watchtower, i thing it was feb 1st 2006. the last sentence of the first article said something like the reader could live to see god's judgement.
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anybody has the latest issues at hand?
Nooooo. The context of the paragraph is taking in knowledge and learning. If the reader does that, they'll learn how to cope with evil now and learn ('see') how Christ will conquer evil ultimately (bringing the thought around to the theme on the front page 'Will Good Triumph Over Evil'). That's what they're trying to say here - not that the reader will see Christ conquer evil.
hi everyone.. i'm keen to read more books about jw's.
i've so far only read crisis of conscience but now have the appetite.i'd be more interested in the background of the organisation and what kind of people russell and rutherford were etc, but i'd also like to read any "apostate" exposes, especially ex elders.
thanks in advance.
hi im one of jehovahs wittnesses.and from what i can see the bible clearly shows the seventy years apply to the captivity of the jews in babylon.so its all down to what you think the scriptures say.so if the scriptures say it doesnt apply to the jews in captivity.then we are wrong.but if it does.then you can forget what people say about the date 586 bce because if you use the bible Gods word as your guide the lenth of captivity was longer than 50 years.a lot of people prase men who wright these books on how the wittnesses are wrong.and fail to see that these people are made of flesh and blood just like the men in the watchtower organition.the way i view it is. if the date was 586 bce was correct it doesnt change the fact we are in the last days.and with out twisting things what group on earth bring prase to jehovah as being allmighty God?so by saying that i mean the bible promises that jehovahs day is coming and he says he will save the person who does his will so dates and who is right and wrong are not importent. when it comes down to being saved its about how we live our life. and from what i can see of carl o johnsons work his faith isnt a strong one he wrought a article on noahs flood and was saying it was more than likely a local flood.well for a man who says he wanted to stick to what the bible said and not the watch tower he isnt doing a very good job because if it was just a local flood then why would there be need to build a ark to put animals in if the flood is off small proportion.and the list goes on for arguments against it being just a loal flood.there are also things ive seen were he quotes from watchtowers as saying things about appostates. i checked the watchtower article he was refering to and half of it was made up.so why do people take what these men say as absoulute truth.a number of reasons to put it simple one good reason is people would love to see jehovahs wittnesses be wrong because they clame to have the truth of the bible some ex wittnesses simply didnt want that life style so finding somebody who says there wrong is like a comfort to them.talking of ex jws they say they have been told what to do and what to think by a group of men.well surley by reading such books as gentile times reconsidered.is simply beleaving another mans view on things.
Hi PMJ and welcome to the board. You raise a lot of issues here and make judgments based on superficial grounds. This in turn makes you diss the people who have written about them. I was where you were once, so I understand how you're thinking. I suggest you put what you thought you knew into the background and start over, looking afresh at the Scriptures, asking 'how do we know? why do we assume?' questions and examine a wide variety of research materials on history (including WT history) and biblical exegesis. Then you'll be better equipped to make judgments on the validity - or otherwise - of the arguments presented against the WTS view on certain subjects.
put aside all of the 607 b.c.e., there is another question that i'm not familiar with and mabyee some of you know what there explanation is, or if they don't even address the issue.
we are all familiar with the account in daniel chapter five, and nebuchadnezzars dream about the tree.
daniels explanation of this dream begins: .
If any one remembers the list of 'great crowd' typologies from the 'Survival' book (p.190), it might be understandable why Dan 4 is viewed as having a dual fulfillment.
in compliance with the terms of a settlement agreement, my information and research web site, http://quotes.watchtower.ca, is now "dark".
the domain "watchtower.ca" has been transferred to wts (i assume they will have it pointing to borg.org watchtower.org asap).
my copies of the site have been destroyed, the files deleted, and my wt library cd has been destroyed, in accordance with the settlement agreement which will afford a "discontinuance" of their suit against me.
Quotes now hosted in China too!I hope this is not a repeat of information, but this recent version of Quotes, is hosted and registered in China, so it might be a bit harder for the Watch Tower to closedown.
http://www.reexamine.org/quotes/
It also gives instructions on downloading the whole lot to your hardrive (about 42MB) here:
http://www.reexamine.org/quotes/admin-mirror.htm
One thing that made me laugh is the WHOIS site named owner is registered as “C.T. Russell and Ass”.
I just learned about this site a couple of hours ago from elsewhere so I had to come here for an update. Nemesis, this is too funny. You've made my day!
in compliance with the terms of a settlement agreement, my information and research web site, http://quotes.watchtower.ca, is now "dark".
the domain "watchtower.ca" has been transferred to wts (i assume they will have it pointing to borg.org watchtower.org asap).
my copies of the site have been destroyed, the files deleted, and my wt library cd has been destroyed, in accordance with the settlement agreement which will afford a "discontinuance" of their suit against me.
I'd just like to say Thanks, Quotes, for all your hard work with the site. It was an invaluable resource. Glad there has been some resolution for you (although not totally the desired one).
I'll be keeping my eye open for the dozens of little cockroach nymph sites hopefully appearing on the web soon.
just finished reading the big news essay....gotta read it again because i'm so ticked off i probably missed a few points.
the bottom line that i get from this is that a witness can take blood and it is totally a conscious matter and has been for years!!!
no matter how you cut it, if you can take particles a/b/c/d/e/f/ from blood you might as well take the whole thing.
The society had us all believing that we couldn't store our blood but hey, I guess we were all duped on that one as well.
Nope, no dupe. Maybe a temporary softening, but the new blood card in the UK says, "I also refuse to predonate my blood for later infusion." There. No ambiguity.
i need some numbers - please help.
us monthly publisher numbers - august 2005-present .
us monthly baptism numbers - oct 2004-present .
Humm. I can't help you there, I'm afraid.
