Gandalf

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Posts by Gandalf

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  33

  What happened to the fish in the great flood?

  by Beans in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  now if the world was covered in water was it salt water or fresh water and how did all the fish survive who were not adapted to the other type of water?

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  Gandalf

  Reply to Adonai: the reason that fish fossils are sometimes found on mountains is due to the movement of tectonic plates. Most sea fossils are found in ancient coral reefs where there is strong deposition of coral and other organisms that build up deep layers of sedimentary rock. Later, when the coastline collides with another continent the land is 'squashed up' to form a mountain range. One example is the Peak District in England near where I live, a small mountain range made of limestone which was once a reef and is filled with ancient sea fossils.
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  7

  Anyone answer this for me?

  by Gandalf in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  you know the verse that prophecies that the city of tyre will become a 'drying yard for dragnets' and '"never will you be rebuilt" for i myself jehovah have spoken'(ezekial 26:14)?

  so how come tyre still exists today?

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  Gandalf

  You know the verse that prophecies that the city of Tyre will become a 'drying yard for dragnets' and '"never will you be rebuilt" for I myself Jehovah have spoken'(Ezekial 26:14)? So how come Tyre still exists today?
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  7

  Life Cycle of a JW

  by Wren in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  this is an introduction.

  my jw life, i admit now, is typical.

  in ways its typical for: jw demographics, life passages, time in a high control group.

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  Gandalf

  Yep, been there, done that. We all feel like fools for having taken so long to see the light. But we have to remember what a great acheivement it is for someone raised in that sort of religion to EVER escape. I once met the director of an academic institution for the study of new religions in London and she told me that for her, the big mystery was not why people joined a cult, but how anyone raised in one could escape! So let's not feel like fools but feel proud of a great acheivement.
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  16

  Please put a JW hat on...

  by zombie in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  if you had a jw hat on, how do you explain to someone why in the gospels that women who were "known sinners" were not stoned?.

  why wasn't the woman who washed jesus feet already dead?

  why were prostitutes allowed to live there in jerusalem?.

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  Gandalf

  Trying to find internal logic to the Bible is a waste of time. Its a collection of myths and fables recorded over hundreds of years with a sprinkling of facts (that Christians and Jews repeat with tiresome regularity). The problems you cite, plus hundreds of others, prove this point. The big battle to decide whether the Bible was the inspired Word of God was waged and lost in the middle of the 19th century. Unfortunately, many people have since grown up without knowledge of this event or the reasons why the battle was lost.
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  19

  JW Numbers Are Set To Grow

  by Defender in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  despite the lackluster records of jw number growth in the past 6 years, i believe that their numbers will start to swell again and remain high for at least another 10 years here is why.. the society is becoming more and more business like in its approach (especially after last year's re-org) on how to maintain and increase growth.

  the wts, like any corporation when it becomes acutely aware of stagnation, begins to formulate a number of new techniques in order to bolster its sagging membership or sales.

  this could include, tv ads (i believe intuit39 mentioned something to that effect), radio, newspaper and magazine ads and direct mailings.

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  Gandalf

  I disagree. The JW's are in decline in the developed nations and continue to increase mainly in countries with poor education, recent internal war and/or high levels of poverty. As these countries improve their levels of economic prosperity and levels of education the JWs will become less attractive. To summarise: they are a spent force that is becoming ever more dependent on rearing new Witnesses to replace the dying and dissafected. They will become, in my opinion, a dying church similar ti the 7th Day Adventists, the Christadelphians, and the like. th JW religion will continue for a few centuries probably but in continuous decline. They will also, judging by other dying sects, become more reasonable and we can expect them to abandon their extreme beliefs including the ban blood transfusions and disfellowshipping. The door-to-door work will probably diminish and the number and length of meetings will continue to reduce. As the organization becoems smaller it may well become a more freindly place to be a part of, much as it was in the middle of the last century. Without their more extreme beliefs the opposition will also decrease which will help the Witnesses to relax their 'bunker' mentality and be able to merge with mainstream society. Eventually it will become a small harmless sect. I don't believe that fierce opposition will accelerate this decline, in fact it may well delay it.