Hi Sea Breeze. Thanks for your question. I read your earlier post very shortly before I had to start getting ready to go to work. I thus read it very quickly. I was focused on your words of the following. "Can you explain why JW's are so reluctant to provide an reason for their faith when questioned? Is it embarrassing to you personally that you cannot or will not defend your faith in Jehovah?" Those are the questions I was referring to in my prior post. I had skipped over the following two sentences of your post, and then I read the final sentence of the post, namely "It is an honest and simple question directed at God Believer." Regarding the question of "... By what circumstance or device would you ever hope to be found righteous as a JW?" I don't think I was ever asked that when I was JW. However, I had been asked something similar, and so I would reply that the Bible says that our faith must be backed up with works, otherwise the faith is not real. I also would mention that even Paul said he would not be saved until the end, that he had to remain faithful to the end to become saved. I also would admit that that JWs believe their salvation (prior to entering the New Order or heaven) is not completely certain. But your question of "By what circumstance or device would you ever hope to be found righteous as a JW?" was never asked me. Since I no longer believe in Jehovah I won't bother formulating an answer to it, other than to say that when I was a JW if I had been asked that question I might would have said I would have past the final test that Revelation mentions would happen when the 1,000 years of the abyss of Satan will end, after I will have been raised (by Christ) to perfection as a human.
Disillusioned JW
JoinedPosts by Disillusioned JW
-
49
Military Service Confusion
by Sea Breeze incan someone please call these three guys and tell them that the first gentile christian was an active duty roman military officer named cornelius.
these guys have been locked up for 25 years!.
-
-
-
49
Military Service Confusion
by Sea Breeze incan someone please call these three guys and tell them that the first gentile christian was an active duty roman military officer named cornelius.
these guys have been locked up for 25 years!.
-
-
Disillusioned JW
Sea Breeze, I am surprised to read that "JW's are so reluctant to provide an reason for their faith when questioned'. When I was active believing JW I had reasons for my belief in the religion and I defended a number of the teachings when I went door to door. But I don't think anyone ever asked me to provide me a reason for believing the JW religion. It would have been very easy for me to have done so though, and part of the defense would have been stating reasons for why I believed in the Bible and why I believed in the existence of Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. But now I know that the vast majority of the religious teachings of the WT and the Bible are false.
-
47
The Evidence of Human Evolution keeps getting stronger and stronger
by Disillusioned JW indespite the wt's and young earth creationists' teachings against human evolution (namely macroevolution from non-humans) being a reality, the evidence of human evolution keeps getting stronger and stronger.. consider for example two science news articles and one other science article, each pertaining to the fossil that is nicknamed "little foot".
below are links to three science articles, listed in order of the articles from oldest to newest (except i don't see a date for one of the articles).
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2187639-exclusive-controversial-skeleton-may-be-a-new-species-of-early-human/.
-
-
Disillusioned JW
When I first learned of Australopithecus africanus I was very impressed with the shape of its cranium (at least of the skull specimen called "Mrs. Ples" and the skull specimen called "Taung Child"), since it strongly suggested to me that the species might have been a ancestor to our species.The skulls of that species looked much more human to me than those of Australopithecus afarensis.
Years later I learned that as a result of the discovery of Australopithecus afarensis that most anthropologists came to believe that Australopithecus africanus can not be an ancestor of ours. That greatly disappointed me and made me very sad, because it took away the joy I had in believing that Australopithecus africanus was an ancestral species of me. Two of the reasons why anthropologists abandoned Australopithecus africanus as an ancestor of our species are because: (1) Australopithecus afarensis had been dated as about one million years older than Australopithecus africanus and (2) because the molar teeth of Australopithecus afarensis were of about the same size of those of our species, whereas those Australopithecus africanus were bigger than those of ours. Because of those two factors it was thought that Australopithecus africanus evolved from Australopithecus afarensis and that our species descended from Australopithecus afarensis and some descendant species of it, but not from Australopithecus africanus.
But a very recent article (dated June 27, 2022) in a science journal states that numerous fossils of Australopithecus (including ones of Australopithecus africanus) are now re-dated as being one million years older that they previously were thought to be. The scientist who re-dated them is the same scientist who dated the fossil of Little Foot. If the new dating is correct then it means that the species Australopithecus africanus is about as old as the species Australopithecus afarensis (and older than the fossil called "Lucy") - and that Australopithecus africanus did not descend from Australopithecus afarensis (except possibly from a small early population of A. Afarensis). It also means (at least to me) that Australopithecus africanus might be an ancestral species of ours after all (and that Australopithecus afarensis might not be an ancestral species of ours). The science journal article is at https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2123516119 and is called "Cosmogenic nuclide dating of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein, South Africa".
The science journal article says the following. "Australopithecus fossils from the richest hominin-bearing deposit (Member 4) at Sterkfontein in South Africa are considerably older than previously argued by some and are contemporary with Australopithecus afarensis in East Africa. Our dates demonstrate the limitations of the widely accepted concept that Australopithecus africanus, which is well represented at Sterkfontein, descended from A. afarensis. The contemporaneity of the two species now suggests that a more complex family tree prevailed early in the human evolutionary process."
The science journal article has a lot of technical terminology in it, but a number of news articles describe the significance of the findings in a much easier to understand manner. One of those articles is at https://www.sciencealert.com/cradle-of-humankind-fossils-may-be-a-million-years-older-than-we-previously-thought . It says the following.
'Multiple ancient hominin remains from caves in South Africa may be much, much older than previous estimates suggested.
The Sterkfontein limestone cave system, not far from Johannesburg, has yielded so many ancient bones from the hominin genus Australopithecus over the last century that its location has been dubbed the Cradle of Humankind – deeply important to the study of human evolution.
Now, new dating techniques suggest that the remains date back nearly 4 million years – making them even older than the famous Australopithecus afarensis individual Dinkinesh, nicknamed Lucy.
... Most of the Sterkfontein Australopithecus remains have been recovered from a cave infill called Member 4. That's exactly what it sounds like: material that filled what was previously a cavity, resulting in a sedimentary deposit; in this case, concealing but preserving ancient hominin remains. Member 4 previously yielded the famous Mrs. Ples skull, the most complete example of its kind ever discovered.... the team discerned that the Australopithecus-bearing sediments all date from between 3.4 and 3.7 million years ago. That means the remains recovered from the deposit are all from around the beginning of the Australopithecus era, and not its end as previously thought.
... "Younger hominins, including Paranthropus and our genus Homo, appear between about 2.8 and 2 million years ago," said archaeologist Dominic Stratford of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, Sterkfontein research coordinator.
"Based on previously suggested dates, the South African Australopithecus species were too young to be their ancestors, so it has been considered more likely that Homo and Paranthropus evolved in East Africa."
The new result, consistent with the dating of Little Foot, suggests that Homo and Paranthropus – also found in the Cradle of Humankind – emerged nearly a million years after the Member 4 individuals lived, which means the order of events, and where they occurred, can be revised.'
For related news articles about the findings see the following.
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/28/world/sterkfontein-cave-australopithecus-fossils-age-scn/index.html . This article says that based upon the dating from decades ago that "... researchers up until now have accepted that South African Australopiths were descended from East African species, like Lucy and other members of Australopithecus afarensis." But the article continues by saying the following. ' “What our age shows is that this cannot be true, because they are virtually the same age,” Granger said. “There must be an older common ancestor. It also gives much more time for the South African species to evolve, and reopens discussion about the role of the South African species into later hominins such as Paranthropus.” '
- http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/sterkfontein-australopithecus-fossils-10944.html . This article says the following.
'The team’s results show that the entire Australopithecus assemblage at Sterkfontein dates to 3.4-3.7 million years ago.
These australopiths were thus early representatives of the genus, overlapping in age with a morphologically diverse range of mid-Pliocene hominins, including Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus deyiremeda at Burtele, Australopithecus bahrelgazali in Chad, Kenyanthropus platyops at Lake Turkana, and Australopithecus anamensis at Woranso-Mille.
“The Sterkfontein hominins predate Paranthropus, Homo, and Australopithecus sediba at nearby sites in the Cradle of Humankind by over a million years,” the authors said.
In addition to the new dates at Sterkfontein based on cosmogenic nuclides, the they made careful maps of the cave deposits and showed how animal fossils of different ages would have been mixed together during excavations in the 1930s and 1940s, leading to decades of confusion with the previous ages.
“What I hope is that this convinces people that this dating method gives reliable results,” Dr. Granger said.
“Using this method, we can more accurately place ancient humans and their relatives in the correct time periods, in Africa, and elsewhere across the world.” '
-
30
What is your PSI / ESP potential?
by manon inexperts estimate that one person out of twenty possesses an unusual degree of extrasensory perception-esp or psi energy.
the following questions may determine your own psi potential:
1- is it unusual for you to be reduced to tears?
-
-
Disillusioned JW
scooby_future, in your dreams (or visions) which later come true are any of the events something people also see (such on TV. If so It would be great if you post online a summary of some of your future dreams (after you dream them), if they are the kind in which you think the depicted events will appear on TV. That way I can see if they come true.
Today while siting on my bed (while feeling sleepy) while trying to see clearly in my mind (with my eyes closed) a book which I had looked at a few seconds earlier (before closing my eyes), I saw the following. I saw a brief video (not a still frame) of a modern style boat (probably motorized) on the water moving slowly to the right towards a wall. The portion of the wall which was above water was much taller than the portion of the hull of boat was above water. I did not see the very top of the wall (the top of the way was not inside my mental field of vision). The boat ran into the wall. The vision/dream then ended and I opened my eyes. I don't know what the mental vision/dream signifies, if anything. I was not consciously thinking about a boat or a wall prior to having the visual (at least not in the immediate time frame, but obviously in multiple times in the past I thought about boats, sea water, and walls). I don't recall ever seeing a boat run into a wall.
The wall I saw was solid (with no holes in it) and looked like a stone or concrete wall. The boat was white. The wall was also white, or at least the wall was very light in color.
What do you think of that mental visual?
-
49
Military Service Confusion
by Sea Breeze incan someone please call these three guys and tell them that the first gentile christian was an active duty roman military officer named cornelius.
these guys have been locked up for 25 years!.
-
-
Disillusioned JW
What https://ancientromelive.org/christians-the-roman-army/ says is very relevant to this discussion.
-
-
-
Disillusioned JW
In addition, it might be helpful to read Mark 13:33-36 in between reading Matthew 24:42 and Matthew 24:43, since that makes a more logical sequence in the narrative. It makes a better conceptual link between verses 42 and 43 of Matthew chapter 24. Shortly after I got that idea I noticed that an arrangement very close to that is in the book called A Harmony of the Gospels for Students of the Life Christ: Based on the Broadus Harmony in the Revised Version, by A. T. Robertson.
-
-
-
Disillusioned JW
Holy spirit! Notice that the last sentence of Matthew 24:51 (at least in the 1984 NWT) has the exact same wording as the last sentence of Matthew 25:30 (at least in the 1984 NWT, and in the latter part of both verses in both the 1901 ASV and the 1995 Updated NASB)! Also notice that Matthew 24:44 speaks about an hour that you don't know and so does Matthew 25:13. These factors suggest to me that very possibly Matthew 25:13-30 (or Matthew 25:14-30) should be right in between Matthew 24:44 and Matthew 24:45, or right after Matthew 24:51! If that was the case in extant ancient Greek manuscripts of the book of Matthew then it would be much easier for readers to discern the identity of the "faithful and discreet slave"! Talk about a revelation, or at least an insight!
Furthermore, perhaps Matthew 25:31-46 should immediately following Matthew 25:13!
-
-
-
Disillusioned JW
Correction to the last two sentences of the second paragraph of my prior post. I meant to say the following. "One Christian woman (who attends a Bible Church) says I am an agnostic, even though I have many times told her I am an atheist. Perhaps that is because I sometimes say things (including explaining things) about the Bible from a Bible believing Christian's perspective - though as part of looking at ideas from both sides of the issues. In my presence (at her church's dinning room, when I go there for a free dinner that is open to all of the public) sometimes she tells people that I know much about the Bible and that I am very intelligent."
Further information: About two weeks ago she said that she has asked God to make her gray hair go away, but that it hasn't gone away. That reminded me of what I learned online about catalase in onions having the ability to neutralize peroxide build-up in the skin, and thus restore a hair's natural color. I wanted her to know what I had learned, so I jokingly told her the following. "Maybe God is speaking to you right now, through me, even though I am an atheist. If God can use an ass ('donkey') to speak to Balaam, then God can use an atheist to speak to you right now." I then told her what I had leaned about why hair turns gray and what can restore the natural color.
-
-
-
Disillusioned JW
A moment ago I checked my notes that are in my old Bibles about the two chapters, but the notes did not pertain to the verses about the faithful slaves and the wicked/evil slave. Thus, the conclusion I reached today about the identity of those slaves is the first time I drew that conclusion (at least in the fuller sense I now understand it) - though many years ago while an independent Christian I had tried to discover the answer. [Using the NIV Study Bible, another study Bible, and some non-JW Bible commentaries I found some proposed explanations, and one was close to what I mentioned in my prior post except it did not use chapter 25 to make the determination. (At least I don't recall them doing so.) As a result I was not completely sure of the identity of the "faithful and discreet slave" of Matthew 24:45-47. While I thought it might mean faithful Christians in general, I thought (perhaps due partly to WT influence) that more likely it meant faithful Christian ministers/pastors/elders of the congregations. Now I know what the Bible reveals its identity to be.]
I continue to study the Bible and my understanding of the Bible keeps getting better. It is very hard for me to permanently cease studying the Bible; some aspects about the Bible fascinate me (though some other aspects of the Bible anger me). Some Christians might interpret these matters to mean that I became saved and that I am still saved (and that Jesus is with me), even though I've been an atheist for more than 10 years who tries to persuade people to becoming atheists. One Christian woman (who attends a Bible Church) says I am an agnostic, even though I have many times I am an atheist. Perhaps that is because I sometimes say things (including explaining things) about the Bible from a Bible believing Christian's perspective - though as a part of looking at ideas from both sides of the issues.
Hypothetically speaking, if there is a heaven in the sense of a spiritual realm with God and Jesus maybe I will end up there. But if so, I sure hope that God is much more loving than the frequent portrayal of him in the Hebrew Scriptures OT Bible. The description of the Jesus Christ of the gospels seems mostly very good and very loving and very kind. Some evangelical Christians say "Once saved, always saved" and a long time ago (during the time period I partook of Memorial emblems at my home by myself) I did pray to Jesus, saying I accept him as my savior.
-
-
-
Disillusioned JW
I can read it if I enlarge it by clicking the "+" key of my PC keyboard multiple times while holding down the "Ctrl" key, since my web browser responds to that way of zooming in on a page. Another way to do it is use the pull down menu of the browser for enlarging a web page. However despite enlarging it is fuzzy and hard to read, but I can manage to read it.
Hey if the WT is saying that all faithful JWs are the "slaves" mentioned in Revelation 1:1 then they should also conclude they are "the faithful and discreet slave" mentioned in Matthew 24:45-47. That should especially be the case since the article cites Matthew 25:14, 19. How so. Well consider the following. Matthew 25:21-23 says that the industrious slaves of the group mentioned in Matthew 25:19 each are a "good and faithful slave" who will be rewarded by being appointed over many things! Furthermore, Matthew 25:24-27 says that the non-industrious slave of the group in verse 19 is a "wicked and sluggish slave". It thus just now dawned on me that Matthew 25:20-23 identifies who is the faithful slave of Matthew 24:45-47, and that Matthew 25:24-27,30 identifies who is the evil slave of Matthew 24:48-51! Wow! Holy spirit! Jesus Christ. Yahweh God Almighty! Eureka! Dynomite
Perhaps I had that insightful conclusion over 15 years ago when studying Matthew chapters 24-25 very carefully, but forgot about it. I do know that in some of my NWT Bibles I have notes in the margins in which I relate some of the passages of chapter 25 to some of the passages of chapter 24. I will re-examine those notes to see if any pertain to the two slave groups.