slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

• 
  23

  792 baptized this weekend at one convention

  by dropoffyourkeylee in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  at a 3-day convention in nairobi, kenya this week 12-2-16 through 12-4-16, they had 70,000+ attendance, and there were 792 baptized (i presume the baptism was yesterday).

  i was amazed to hear this; i guess now we know where the wt's growth is coming from..

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  slimboyfat

  Zambia is the most JWfied country on the planet. Something like 1 in 20 people attend the memorial there. If that happened in the UK there would be over 3 million at the memorial, more than ten times the number that actually attends.
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  32

  Have any ex-jws considered joining the Bible Students?

  by Rainbow_Troll in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  their fundamental beliefs are much like jehovah's witnesses sans the paranoia, authoritarianism, stifling rules, and end-times enthusiasm.

  you don't even have to become a bible student to be saved, you could be an idol worshipping heathen and still get resurrected in the milenium.

  if i still believed in the divine inspiration of the scriptures, i would be a bible student.

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  slimboyfat

  Do Bible Students actually exist as local congregations? Or are they largely a collection of online ex-JWs? I've never found evidence that they still have any kind of organisational or community structure left in the UK at least. Maybe there are still Bible Student groups in the US worth speaking about.
• 
  23

  792 baptized this weekend at one convention

  by dropoffyourkeylee in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  at a 3-day convention in nairobi, kenya this week 12-2-16 through 12-4-16, they had 70,000+ attendance, and there were 792 baptized (i presume the baptism was yesterday).

  i was amazed to hear this; i guess now we know where the wt's growth is coming from..

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  slimboyfat

  I didn't know they still held conventions as large as this. In Europe it seems to be around about 10,000 normally.
• 
  23

  792 baptized this weekend at one convention

  by dropoffyourkeylee in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  at a 3-day convention in nairobi, kenya this week 12-2-16 through 12-4-16, they had 70,000+ attendance, and there were 792 baptized (i presume the baptism was yesterday).

  i was amazed to hear this; i guess now we know where the wt's growth is coming from..

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  slimboyfat

  I don't think there are that many JWs in Kenya. Was this an international convention?
• 
  62

  Meeting Attendance levels

  by freddo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i attended a sunday meeting today after missing a couple due to a bout of chronic apathy.

  out of 74 publishers we had a grand total of 33. wonderful.

  for those that attend, how are you finding the numbers?.

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  slimboyfat

  I've only been to a couple of meetings in the last 5 years. There seem to be around 55 at the meetings from a similar number of publishers. From what I hear, the congregation peaked in the 1980s when there were around 80 at meetings. Meeting attendance, in the time I was there, has fluctuated between 40 to 60 for the past 20 years or more. In the early 2000s was probably the lowest when it was nearer 40. At that time there were 3 elders and a neighbouring congregation sent elders to take some of the meetings. Now there are 11 elders, I think, 1 ministerial servant, and 10 pioneers. So it improved slightly in numbers and a lot I terms of number of elders.
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  11

  JWs target Syrian refugees. 40 already converted.

  by usualusername1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  https://twitter.com/revolutionsyria/status/772234488353058816.

  i could not post video.

  this was the best i could do.. paul.

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  slimboyfat

  I don't know, JWs have never had a big reputation for converting "rice Chrisrians". Frankly they're too cheap for that.
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  14

  What Is This Thing Called Enlightenment?

  by Brokeback Watchtower in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been doing personal research on this for quite some time.

  what do mystical experiences have to do with it.

  what is this thing they call liberation?.

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  slimboyfat

  Was ist aufklaerung?

  I like Foucault's reply.

  http://folk.uib.no/hlils/TBLR-TOTALT-221015/TBLR-Contemp-Paris2015-27.12.15/Foucault%20What%20si%20enlightenment.pdf
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  19

  Do you have a Virtual Reality headset for your smartphone yet? Be prepared - Soon all the press will be using VR to tell stories

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  for your information, i'm absolutely not in the virtual reality (vr) headset business, but take it from me, you should get one.

  soon all the press will be using vr to tell stories, so get prepared for extraordinary experiences using your vr headset and your smart phone.

  “virtual reality!

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  slimboyfat

  I don't even know what this involves. A headset - is that like goggles?

  I remember Ray Kurzweil predicting that we would all use a Internet glasses by now. That didn't happen - yet. Is that like this?

  The singularity may be postponed rather than cancelled.
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  7

  Readers Digest - Early Text of the New Testament

  by TheWonderofYou in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  https://books.google.at/books?id=ttnrzxcvggyc&pg=pa162&lpg=pa162&dq=p38+papyrus+michigan&source=bl&ots=iwzmjy4bmu&sig=lpsfa1rd31f4d-olxunuztjhuqg&hl=de&sa=x&ved=0ahukewiek-eh3cvqahvcfhokhzkgdagq6aeistak#v=onepage&q=p38%20papyrus%20michigan&f=false.

  i recommend to read the introduction (free preview) at google preview containing stuff about.

  - early text and original text p3- papyri and early text- classifying early papyri readings- text quality - earl text a free text?- transmission quality- public and privat copies- textal and scribal culture- book trade in the roman empire.

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  slimboyfat

  Thanks for the video. I can understand some German but the German in this video is quite difficult for me probably because of the technical language.

  You are right JWs have no good explanation why they accept the canon of the fourth century church without accepting the authority or validity of the church. They don't mention here either (maybe they do elsewhere) that it was Athanasius who is regarded as supplying the first complete canonical list as now accepted in his Easter letter 367 AD.

  What draws you to textual criticism? Personally I find it fascinating, also the nomina sacra and books on paleography and the codex.
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  3

  A gaping hole in Theism

  by evilApostate in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  being in a jw family while not being a jw yourslef is pretty hard.

  to them, you're just as good as dead because all unbelievers will be eternally destroyed at armageddon.

  this problem exists in many other religions.. i once had a friend from work tell me that she wanted me to become a christian like her because if i didn't, i would burn in hell for all eternity.

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  slimboyfat

  I have tended to think this way. It even seems obvious that God is not bound by petty notions of doctrine and right practice. He must be above all that. But I've become wary of "obvious" things. So then it also occurs to me that there are other possibilities too. For example the idea that God must be good is culturally specific. The ancient gods were not good, they were capricious and looked out for themselves. Another possibility is that God is good in a sense that we cannot understand. There are perhaps yet more possibilities we can't even imagine.

  I like the Kingdom of Heaven quote. But it makes me suspicious because I like it. It somehow forces God to be a liberal, enlightened version of a deity made in man's image. Isn't that a bit too convenient? What if God is so completely other that we cannot describe in terms of personality, goodness, or even action? When we presume to say anything positively about God we presume a lot.