exjw's of a certain age will remember randy's site well.
freeminds was instrumental in waking me up along with ray franz's books.
if net soup and armageddon okies mean nothing to you you're probably under 30.. whatever caused randy to post what he did recently is something i can only guess at but it won't be what i remember him for.. randy, i wish you well and thank you for all you've done over the years .
Yes I read Randy's website back to front when I first got on the internet in 2000. The history articles in particular were a revelation.
Freeminds, Watctower Observer and JWD - the holy Trintiy of early online apostasy.
Not quite ancient enough to have worshipped the old deity H2O but heard the stories.
i gathered the data for the memorial partakers every year since 1935 (the first year they had data) until now.. the latest figures haven't been that high since 1954!.
this stat looks very bad in watchtower land because the decreasing # of partakers was given, for decades, as proof that the end was near!.
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Exactly. They condemn themselves, overlapping nut cases. (Apologies to nut cases)
i gathered the data for the memorial partakers every year since 1935 (the first year they had data) until now.. the latest figures haven't been that high since 1954!.
this stat looks very bad in watchtower land because the decreasing # of partakers was given, for decades, as proof that the end was near!.
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I'd prefer the graph starting at zero on the Y axis.
Plus the number drops extremely sharply between 1935 and 1940 from around 53 thousand to 23 thousand. Playing devil's advocate, the JWs could argue that many partakers in 1935 later "realised" they were other sheep. So only around 25,000 or so should be counted from this period. That would still leave room for modern anointed, first century anointed, and a trickle in between, as has long been the teaching. Add in a percentage who are wrong or leave JWs and they could still string this out for a long time. Basically until the number partaking itself reaches near 144,000 they'll probably still argue it all makes sense.
The fact the it's increasing when it should be decreasing is a bigger problem that the overall number. They could abandon the teaching, stop publishing the number, or call most partakers liars or crazy. So far they seem to be going with the crazy option and burying their heads in the sand.
i'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.
Haszardisation of apostasy.
My coinage, a reference to the infamous Danny Haszard. He attacked elderly JWs at his door with a pepper spray and made a thread about it on here. I can't find the original thread. Only other threads referring to it.
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/145868/female-danny-haszard
i'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.
The Haszardisation of apostasy, it's nothing new.
regarding 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:.
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.
i 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.
Fake news/parody website, Onion style. See other articles.
i have often seen many categorise the organisation in different ways.
some say cult, some say high control religion.
cult or high control religion?.
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.
i 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.
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.
yesterday 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.
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.
