The Haszardisation of apostasy, it's nothing new.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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46
Some apostates are coming across as crazed psychopaths
by jambon1 ini'm not sure whether or not my view on this is correct so please leave your input.
in recent months i've been viewing youtube videos.
again, it might just be my view but there has been an increased amount of random people grabbing a camera and doing vlogs.
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17
1917 - What REALLY happened?
by neat blue dog inregarding what happened post russell in 1917, if you ask a jw, they'll say it was the fault of the ousted board members who were 'self willed'.
if you ask an ex-jw, they'll say it was a 'power grab' by rutherford.
the latest yearbook elaborates on the situation:.
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slimboyfat
It's a highly tendentious account in the yearbook, but I don't know if there are any factual mistakes. The directors are described as ambitious whereas Rutherford is described as a leader. It's in the eye of the beholder.
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Governing Body Discontinues the New World Translation as 'OLD Light'???
by Ruby 1976 ini just saw this posted on a facebook group.
anyone know if there is any truth to this?.
http://www.exjehovahswitness.com/gb-discontinues-new-world-translation-as-old-light.html.
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slimboyfat
Fake news/parody website, Onion style. See other articles.
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How do you categorise the Society - Cult or High control religion
by UnshackleTheChains ini have often seen many categorise the organisation in different ways.
some say cult, some say high control religion.
cult or high control religion?.
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slimboyfat
In sociological terms JWs are often described as an "established sect". I think that description has merit. From a psychological perspective the term "high control group" might have merit too. I don't have much use for the term "cult", as it tends to be either a lazy media pejorative, or a term used by the state to suppress groups they don't like.
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Lies, and more lies.
by biblexaminer ini have seen some discussions related to the "kingdom" book, and the recent studies, but, i didn't see the one pertaining to the second chapter of the "kingdom" book.
i may have missed it.
if i have ...mea culpa.. chapter 2, paragraph 29 & 33.
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slimboyfat
JWs have such a low bar for what passes as proof that these statements make perfect sense to them.
The fact that anything at all happened in 1914 and they had pointed to the year beforehand, is to them astonishing proof of the accuracy of their predictions.
Just like any vague mention of a round earth in the Bible is astonishing proof that the Bible is scientific.
General prophecies about the destruction of various middle eastern cities are astonishing proofs that the Bible is inspired by God.
The fact that Bible writers appear sometimes to write unflattering things about themselves is astonishing proof of superhuman candour.
That you can build a loose narrative holding different parts of the Bible together is astonishing proof that God must be the ultimate author.
Assemblies involving thousands of people where litter is properly disposed is astonishing evidence that JWs are on the brink of forming a new world society.
And so on.
The only astonishing thing about most of the arguments JWs make for their various extraordinary claims is the incredibly low bar for proof they set themselves.
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Now I'm Convinced There Probably Is No God
by pale.emperor inyesterday i made a visit to the museum in my city.
the top floor is the planetarium, which has a connecting room with a huge dome ceiling where they project lessons and lectures and you have a 360 view of the night sky etc.. this particular lecture explained about our galaxy, and how it's only one of billions in the universe.
and then we learned about each planet, some of their moons and the sun.
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slimboyfat
Everything rests on something else, but God is that upon which all ultimately rests and in turn rests upon nothing else. It's like objects in relation to gravity on earth. And God is like the earth itself.
A hat rests on a head. A head is part of a human. The human sits on a chair. The chair rests on the floor. The floor is part of the building. The building has foundations. The foundations are secured to the ground. The ground is part of the earth's geology. The planet itself is the ultimate ground of orientation. What does the planet rest upon? The planet does not rest upon something else the way the objects on it rest upon it. It is its own source of orientation.
God lacks contingency in a more fundamental sense, this is just an illustration. But it shows how there can be a series of things that are contingent upon each other, but the ultimate source is itself not contingent upon anything else.
This is among the best arguments for God in my view.
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Now I'm Convinced There Probably Is No God
by pale.emperor inyesterday i made a visit to the museum in my city.
the top floor is the planetarium, which has a connecting room with a huge dome ceiling where they project lessons and lectures and you have a 360 view of the night sky etc.. this particular lecture explained about our galaxy, and how it's only one of billions in the universe.
and then we learned about each planet, some of their moons and the sun.
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slimboyfat
All created things are contingent. God is said not to be contingent. That's the best argument for God in my view.
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More congregations? One of the strategies they used to inflate the numbers in my city.
by Tempest in a Teacup ini looked at the 2017 yearbook figures this morning, and it reminded me of something which happened in my former congregation 2 years ago.
it was a tiny foreign language congregation with at most 25-30 publishers.
comes and splits a 30 member congregation into....three.
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slimboyfat
Thanks, interesting example. So that's six congregations on the Isle of Wight down to five so far?
Islands are interesting places to watch decline play out in microcosm.
I note, for example, that the number of congregations in Iceland decreased from 7 to 6 over the past year, while publisher numbers remain static. Decline shows itself most clearly as congregations closing down.
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Aron-Ra: Meteorology and the Flood
by schnell ina few days ago, aron-ra posted a new video commencing what he promises to be a new series debunking the noachian flood.
he did this despite the fact that every adult should know it didn't happen, and yet many do.. i'd like to remind everyone what the insight book says: .
the genesis account of creation tells how on the second “day” jehovah made an expanse about the earth, and this expanse (called “heaven”) formed a division between the waters below it, that is, the oceans, and the waters above it.
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slimboyfat
Evolution is too big a thing to be a fact. Facts are small things and relatively meaningless. Interpretations are large things and full of meaning.
For examlple take these statements about reality:
World War 2 began in 1939 - is a fact.
World War 2 was a result of the failed policy of appeasement - is an interpretation.
Evolution is much closer to the second statement in terms of interpretative scope. The more focused a statement the more closely it resembles as fact. The wider in scope, and full of meaning, the more it resembles an interpretation rather than a fact. But if we want to be pedantic, ultimately there are no pure facts, as such, but only interpretations. It's all a matter of degree. Evolution is much too grand an idea to be confined within a small box labelled fact.
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More congregations? One of the strategies they used to inflate the numbers in my city.
by Tempest in a Teacup ini looked at the 2017 yearbook figures this morning, and it reminded me of something which happened in my former congregation 2 years ago.
it was a tiny foreign language congregation with at most 25-30 publishers.
comes and splits a 30 member congregation into....three.
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slimboyfat
The number of congregations has never been a statistic that JWs have especially trumpeted. Far behind the publisher number, baptisms, pioneers and so on. Which is another reason why it's a good one to watch for a true reflection of their position.
I guess they could split congregations into smaller and smaller congregations in order to claim an increase in number of congregations. But why would they bother? All that administrative hassle for a number that they don't particularly focus upon anyway? And since there is already a chronic shortage of elders, they would have real trouble making new smaller congregations viable. Any CO who went around creating new congregations only for them to be later disbanded because they are unsustainable would not be very popular with the branch. And his work would be reversed out of necessity.
The best argument in favour of the number of congregations as a measure of decline is the facts, not theory. In countries such as Japan, South Korea, Netherlands and Denmark, where there has been a decline in JWs, that decline has shown up greatest in the decline in number of congregations. So all the arguments about inflating congregation numbers does not match the reality in declining countries. The statistics show that where JWs are in decline, that decline expresses itself most clearly in the reduction in the number of congregations.
Which is why the decline this year in number of congregations in countries like the United States and Germany is so promising in terms of the prospects for overall JW decline.