Posts by neverendingjourney

27

"Crises of Conscience"

by Olivia Wilde in

i just finished reading chapters 11-12 of raymond franz, crises of conscience & i must admit, i am pretty strong person, however the way ed dunlap & ray franz were treated left me crying, i had tears rolling done my eyes driving home from work on friday... & how ed was kicked out by wt, left me feel soo disgusted & outraged.... it was very obvious he needed to stay at bethel because of his age & medical conditions but i admired he didn't compromise his conscious, it's sickening to me how cold & callous these men can treat a christian after all his service.... & of course ray franz situation was no exception either, the witch hunt they did to get him out was, well, there's just isnt enough adjectives to describe their disgusting motives against him... he was 59 yrs old trying to make a honest living with his wife & for them to go after him was devious & demon like.... i'm soo grateful i came across this book & i wished i had much much sooner.... i know god will reward both ed dunlap & franz plus many many more who have been unjustly & unchristian like treated during that time & this time, sooo sickening.....i still feel very much upset & emotional over the whole thing .... i never met any of them & then yet i feel deep christian love for them......

neverendingjourney

@Nathan Natas

Are you off your meds?

15

Any William Miller Scholars out there?

by neverendingjourney in

for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

see this chart:.

if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

neverendingjourney

" Advertise, Advertise, Advertise, The King and His Kingdom."

Interesting take. James Penton in Apocalypse Delayed argues he brought this focus with him from his days as a judge/politician. Elected judges were politicians and had to run successful campaigns to get elected. Back then it was common for politicians to go door-to-door canvassing for support.

15

Any William Miller Scholars out there?

by neverendingjourney in

for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

see this chart:.

if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

neverendingjourney

This book argues that the early Bible Students were not an offshoot of Adventism by any means.

Have you read it? If so, is it worth a read?

It'd be interesting to read a different take. Obviously, CTR had many other influence. Pyramidology comes to mind, but from what I've seen Adventist thinking was the primary influence.

15

Any William Miller Scholars out there?

by neverendingjourney in

for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

see this chart:.

if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

neverendingjourney

Miller dated the invasion of Israel and capture of Manasseh to 677 bc.. That was when he reckoned Israel no longer was a nation. So that was why he started from there.

That's interesting.

It goes to show how subjective prophecy interpretation can be. Did the gentile times begin when the king of the northern kingdom of Israel was taken captive or when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed? How could someone possibly come up with a definitive answer to such a subjective question?

15

Any William Miller Scholars out there?

by neverendingjourney in

for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

see this chart:.

if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

neverendingjourney

I guess it appeals to me because it is internally coherent.

The last vestiges of internal coherence went away after the 95 generation change.

When I was a child there were a lot of smart but uneducated elders who felt like they were doing legitimate Bible scholarship researching in their WT publications.

Now it's laughable. Geriatric bureaucrats standing in front of an overlapping-generation chart daring members to say "the emperor has no clothes."

15

Any William Miller Scholars out there?

by neverendingjourney in

for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

see this chart:.

if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

neverendingjourney

I've come to the conclusion that early Bible Students should be classified as a Millerite offshoot.

Wikipedia seems to agree with me:

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventism

Rutherford really left a mark on the religion and steered it away in many ways from its Adventist roots, but it's still palpable.

Fascinating video on the topic if you have an hour and fifteen minutes to spare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_c-PdT0SsE

15

Any William Miller Scholars out there?

by neverendingjourney in

for those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the adventist preacher william miller.

see this chart:.

if you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years).

neverendingjourney

For those who may not be aware, the 1914 date was arrived at by Russell by using the same framework of the failed prophetic interpretations of the Adventist preacher William Miller.

See this chart:

If you look at the top right of the chart, he uses the same 7-times reasoning to arrive at the 2,520 years (7 times=7 multiplied by 360-day years=2,520 years). Except he begins counting the beginning of the gentile times in 677 B.C. when Israel was supposedly carried captive. Since he began counting in 677 B.C. and not 607 B.C. as Russell did, Miller arrived at 1843, not 1914.

It's noteworthy that Miller and Russell made the same mistake: not realizing there was no 0 year. Miller fixed this by moving the end date from 1843 to 1844. Russell did the opposite. He moved the start date from 606 B.C. to 607 B.C.

Seeing as how this is the same reasoning, does anyone know why Miller chose 677 B.C. as the start date? Obviously, it was because it would have come during his lifetime and people seem to have a built in bias to believe their era is a particularly meaningful one, but what might have been his scriptural reasoning?

Link to full-size chart: http://www.bible.ca/pre-miller-1843-ellen-white.gif

52

Time to Spill my Guts

by Hadriel in

been lurking around here for several weeks.

posted once or twice but not too much.

i'm a covert fade at the moment.

neverendingjourney

If you haven't already, read this thread by new boy:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5183783305216000/my-bethel-experience-part-3

It's in line with various accounts of bethel life I've heard over the years. It might help you rethink the notion that the GB are good people who are just as much the victims as the rank and file.

Oh they might buy into it lock stock and barrel but it doesn't mean they aren't terrible people. The higher up you get, the bigger a-holes you tend to encounter.

42

Is the Pioneer School being eliminated?

by wannaexit in

jw
friends

i heard from the semi reliable source that the pioneer schools will go the way of the dodo bird next year.. i could see this happening.

it used to be that you went to the the pioneer school once.

then they allowed dubs to go every 5 years.

neverendingjourney

I was a regular pioneer back in the mid-90s. I'd graduated a year early from high school and spent what would have been my senior year in high school (which for many people is one of the best years in their lives) out in field service.

The regular pioneer troupe in my congregation was mostly a collection of psychologically disturbed individuals: vicious gossips, sexually-frustrated and incredibly insecure young men, a guy who was completely disconnected from reality and found ways to count time in creative ways (he said if your neighbors saw you wearing a tie it was a witness and therefore you could count your time), a known pervert who was likely a pedophile...you get the picture.

I'd often find myself waking up early in the morning, taking time to prepare for field service, getting ready and so on only to meet up with the troupe at a restaurant where they'd literally spend hours. It'd be 1:00 p.m. and I'd have zero time to show for it, but they didn't seem to care.

Finally I started pushing back against the waste of time and was told repeatedly in the most condescending way possible that I didn't understand how things worked. I hadn't been to the pioneer school like they had. If I had, I'd know that you didn't have to stop counting time just because you were at a restaurant, shopping or running errands. You see, they were provided information at the school that even elders didn't have.

Who was I to argue with them? After all, they'd been pioneers for years.

The day finally came for me to go to the school and I couldn't wait for all this unique super-secret knowledge. Well, to the surprise of no one who's reading this, the school was just a boring rehash of old watchtower study articles organized by subject, especially subjects dealing with field service. There was nothing top secret about it.

You'd think I'd be furious but I'd begun to figure it out by then. I still wasn't ready to reevaluate the religion altogether but I felt as if I'd been stuck in a particularly awful congregation and it was some trial I needed to endure.

Nope. Just a bunch of crazies across the board in that religion.

I don't miss any of that nonsense one bit.

22

The new Fred Franz?

by careful in

of course, no one could ever fully replace "our oracle for over 50 years" (ray franz quoting karl klein or someone else on the gb back in the days of gb i in cofc somewhere ), but i have to wonder just who on gb ii has come to fill fred franz's shoes the most.

it seems like it is david splane.

he appears to be in charge of the writing department, proposes and pushes thru the gb most of the doctrinal changes (he announces them so they're his baby), and like ff, fancies himself musically inclined.

neverendingjourney

GB today strikes me as a collection of uninspired bureaucrats. They rose through the ranks due to their unyielding loyalty.

It's exactly the wrong kind of leadership the watchtower needs at this time but the morons who selected them never expected we'd still be around in 2016.