Max Divergent

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Posts by Max Divergent

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  9

  Could use some advice

  by missy04 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  could you guys give me some advice?...

  i may or may not vote..i was wondering if it really would be "being part of the world" to vote??.

  i know what the witnesses' take on it is, but i won't base my decision on that.

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  Max Divergent

  Being born makes you part of the world, not voting...
  
  Voting means you hope a candidate might make a difference, the WT wants all your hope to themselves...
  
  You choose...
  
  Max
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  7

  Safran vs God

  by BLISSISIGNORANCE in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  .

  have a look...........big hit in australia.. .

  http://http://www.boblarson.org/australian_tv_/australian_tv_.html.

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  Max Divergent

  It was truly compelling TV... Safran was obviously deeply affected by the experience, as was everyone I watched it with.
  
  One part of me wonders if the Jehovah bit of the JW's isn't all true, maybe the demon bit is...
  
  ...but the rationalist in me noted though that there was a lot of suggestive material given to Safran before the exorcism.
  
  Safran was shown videos of earlier exorcisms, met others who'd 'benifited' before and was told repetedly and authoritivly how badly possessed he'd be as a result of all his particiation in rituals. From there there I just wonder if he was led to a vulnerable and highly sugestable state and then succumed to hypnotisim?
  
  He did A LOT on the Mormons over the series. On one show he went preaching door-to-door in Salt Lake City wearing Mormon 'uniform' right down to teh bike and black badge saying 'Elder Safran - Athiest' using Darwin's Origin of Species as his 'literature'!
  
  But he never, ever even once (that I saw) mentioned the JW's... I wonder if he can do almost anything to offend his birth religion (Jewish) except utter 'the name'?
  
  It's very insightful TV, hopefully PBS or Channel 4 might screen it in the US & UK.
  
  
  Cheers, Max and any (un)friendly spirits I'm sharing with leading me to rationalise it away...
  
  
  (BTW, we just had 80mph winds through which ripped big limbs off big trees in the yard and brought hail like ping-pong balls... the temp just before was about 120F... yuk...)
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  11

  This not British V American---------------BUT

  by vitty in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  as an english speaking person, with an english accent, living in england.

  why were we subjected every year to the conventions drama with an american voice over.. could they not have had tapes with an english accent?.

  i have nothing against the american accent, some are very pleasent .

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  Max Divergent

  avishei: Jesus Christ!!!!Thanks for that info, God, I don't know what I would have done without it!
  
  Then you can thank your lucky stars that now you know...
  
  I remember a visitor to my country (who had his address broardcast via Assemby Halls to every JW in the land) spent 20 minutes or more re-educating us on how to pronounce Isaiah.... Since then a JW's sprirituality was measured on whether he pronounced Isaiah the old way or the 'right' way...
  
  On the accents... every English speaking country has pleasent and awful accents used by differnt people, but it seemed at one time that JW America had only whining, nasel, drawling accents to offer the drama ... they were horrible... (as opposed to TV America which uses good accents). Later on they improved their choice of voices, especially for the video's and readings - they weren't too bad, if a bit overly gandfatherly.
  
  I think avishei should now be required to spell according to OED, not Websters, and use only British colouqualisims in all his future posts...
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  29

  The 7000 year "Creative Day"

  by Fe2O3Girl in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  when i was a youngster, the creative days of genesis 1 were always referred to as being 7000 years long.

  i believe the 1975 hoo-hah was related to this teaching as 6000 years since adam's creation plus a 1000 year reign neatly wraps up a 7000 years seventh day of rest.. in another thread narkissos quoted a wt article from 1983 that repeats the 7000 year day teaching.

  i don't think anyone much younger than me, or anyone who bacame a jw in the last 10-15 years is aware of this belief.

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  Max Divergent

  I remember this coming up the first time the old blue creation book (early 1980's?) was studied at the Group and also when reading the old green Daniel book (published in the 1950's?) for private study. It was a very dishonest book, and I remember one guy saying so. He left the JW's... why didn;t I listen to him closer??? There's a 'critical analysis' of that book at http://www.aetheronline.com/mario/Heretic/critical.htm and it mentions this issue citing a 1/1 1986 QFR...
  
  This is the whole section on the 7000 year thing....
  
  
  p27, par 7 - when you say "millenniums", you mean each creative day was only 7000 years long
  
  Today there is overwhelming evidence that the creative "days" must have been far longer than "millenniums" - they were undoubtedly millions of years long at least.
  
  Why then is our "official" viewpoint still that each day was only 7000 years long? ( w87 1/1 30 Questions From Readers).
  
  Ironically, from time to time our publications indirectly admit that each creative day must have been millions of years long, yet, the "official" figure is repeatedly set at 7000 years.
  
  For example, in the Awake!, September 22, 1986, on page 18, paragraph 4, (prepared by, as is stated in big lettering, "a nuclear physicist of many years experience in both research and industry in the field of radioactivity"); it clearly says that from radioactive dating "WE LEARN THAT THE EARTH ITSELF HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE FOR A FEW BILLION YEARS".
  
  Fine, so the earth is billions of years old.
  
  Now, if rocks that are reliably dated to be about 3 billion years old CONTAIN CLEAR SIGNS OF EARLY BACTERIAL LIFE, DOES THIS NOT MEAN THAT THE CREATIVE DAYS HAD ALREADY BEGUN BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO?!
  
  Why do we adamantly adhere to a viewpoint that flies in the face of fact?
  
  Also, why in par 14 does the separation of the waters from the land have to ?no doubt involve tremendous earth movements (catastrophism)?? Would not a slow, natural process taking millions of years also be in agreement with Genesis 1:9,10?
  
  Clearly it would.
  
  Why then the need to resort to fantastic events like catastrophism, a term seldom used in science, and which only applies to uncommon things like mass extinctions caused by meteorite impacts?
  
  In this day and age, the 7000-year creative day argument stands out in stark contrast to the other reasonable and sound views that we hold as Jehovah?s Witnesses. This causes many informed people (like the ones I work with) to dismiss us without giving us as much as a second thought.
  
  And it all seems so unnecessary, since modern scientific facts can very easily be reconciled with Genesis.
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  135

  Cost of War

  by teejay in

  1. social
  2. current

  cost of war

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  Max Divergent

  Generations of Americans will have to pay the price for the decisions made.

  No one sound really believed the 'case for war', but maybe there were other good reasons... like shifting the power base in the Middle East or somthing... but the countries that followed the US into invading Iraq (UK, Aust, Poland) must have done so to support America and to bolster their US alliances, not for the publically stated reasons for invading Iraq.

  You can see that because Blair knew to 'sex up' intelligence reports, Howard never really repeated the worst parts of the Bush story so he couldn't be accused of lying, and Poland tried to keep their involvement a near secret.

  So, I guess America can choose of that sort of decision making to continue, or they can vote for a change. Either way, I think the United States is the best thing to happen to the world in the past 1000 years and continues to do a lot to relieve poverty and environmental damage accross the world - but has still done more damage to the world than it should have politically, economically and environmentally in more recent history.
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  13

  SHOWDOWN in the New Hampshire Supreme Court today!!! (JW Abuse Suit)

  by loveis in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it is the civil suit against the wts filed by the berry girls, as seen on "suffer the little children" in the uk and "fifth estate" in canada.

  a thread has been going on this in the child abuse section .

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/8/79251/1.ashx.

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  Max Divergent

  "Hamilton disputes that church elders are covered by the religious privilege, because they are not trained as clergy. "
  
  Amature voleteers appointed as local overseers within a group are exactly the sort of people for whom these kind of laws were enacted - to force them to bring abuse to the attention of the authorised bodies to deal with, not to deal with it themselves.
  
  The consequences in this case speak from themselves.
  
  Max
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  56

  Are you an atheist? ...

  by Nicolas in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  personally, i consider myself as a "soft-atheist".

  i don't believe in god but i keep an open mind and if someone can come with a real proof of god's existence, i'll take it.

  for now, i consider that believing in god, is just as silly as believing in santa claus.

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  Max Divergent

  I thought (hoped?) I was an athiest, but really I'm a highly skeptical agnostic...
  
  
  But I think it's a bit context driven... in the context of the strict JW, most of us are athiests because we attempt to prove Jehovah does not exist like he's described in the WT - hence we deny the existance of God.
  
  
  But if there's some sort of a god or superior spiritual entity(s)'out there somewhere' that we wouldn't try to deny becuse we're not sure that they don't exist, then as I understand it that makes one an agnostic.... I can't deny 'somthing might be out there', so I'm impure in thought & belief... :-)
  
  
  
  
  
  Max - an apostate JW and heritic athiest :-)
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  12

  Jehovah saves them in Russia allows them to die in Zambia

  by BONEZZ in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  news from some lame-ass site called jehovah's witness world news......

  witness escapes terrorist school bombing

  dear friends:.

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  Max Divergent

  They're named in this article from The Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia
  http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,10724666%255E401,00.html
  
  Shannon Farmer (the cousin of the dececed who didn't take the plane ride) is (was?) the Chair of the Blood Liason Cmty in Perth and a well regarded Bro.
  
  A very sad event.
  
  Regards, Max
  
  
  Australian family dies flying over falls
  By Holly Nott and Tim Clarke
  10sep04
  
  A THREE-week African holiday ended in tragedy when a joy flight over Zambia's spectacular Victoria Falls resulted in the deaths of three members of a Perth family and two of their friends.
  
  A spokesman for the family today confirmed Shirley Watters, 58, her son Matthew Watters and his wife Justine Watters, both aged 26, all died in the light aircraft crash north of the world-famous falls yesterday.
  
  The Watters, from Darlington in the Perth Hills, had been travelling with unnamed British friends, described as a couple aged in their 20s, who were also killed, along with the Canadian pilot.
  
  Officials in Zambia and from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in Australia are continuing their investigations into how the Cessna 210 crashed 33km north-east of Livingstone, on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border, killing all six people onboard.
  
  Zambia's civil aviation director Chitalu Kabalika confirmed that shortly after take-off the pilot relayed he had an engine problem.
  
  Less than 50 minutes later, the wreckage of the light aircraft was found in the Zimba region of Zambia, between Livingstone and Kalomo.
  
  The two young couples had chartered the light aircraft from Zambian company Airwaves Airlink to fly some 700km from a tourist camp in South Luangwa National Park to Victoria Falls on Wednesday morning.
  
  Shirley Watters joined the two couples on the flight, while her husband Kim, along with his cousin Shannon Farmer, and Shannon's wife Kristen - who also are from Perth - remained at the safari camp.
  
  "After flying to Victoria Falls they stayed overnight and their return flight departed at 3.30pm (11.30pm AEST) on Thursday," the family spokesman, who declined to be named, said.
  
  "Some 20 minutes into the flight the aircraft transmitted a mayday advising that the engine was losing oil.
  
  "That was the last that was heard of the plane and a search and rescue helicopter discovered the wreckage shortly thereafter."
  
  Formal identification of the bodies has not yet been completed. However, a search and rescue helicopter found the wreckage late yesterday and confirmed there were no survivors.
  
  The family spokesman said Kim Watters and Shannon and Kristen Farmer were advised of the tragedy by representatives of the airline at 5.30pm yesterday (1.30am Friday AEST).
  
  DFAT said consular assistance from the Australian High Commission in Harare was being provided to the remaining members of the party, who are due to return to Perth within days.
  
  "We're saddened to learn of the death of three West Australians from the same family in a plane crash near Victoria Falls," a DFAT spokeswoman said.
  
  Mr Kabalika said the light aircraft was registered in South Africa, to the Travel Africa company, and had been chartered by Airwaves Airlink.
  
  Airwaves Airlink managing director Theo Goveia refused requests for an interview when contacted by AAP today, but was quoted by the Times of Zambia as saying the plane crashed because of mechanical failure.
  
  He told the newspaper that under aviation rules and regulations, maintenance works on foreign aircraft were not permitted to be carried out locally.
  
  Acknowledged as one of the natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations.
  
  The falls are 1708m wide, making it the largest curtain of water in the world. It drops between 90m and 107m into the Zambezi Gorge and an average of 550,000 cubic metres of water plummets over the edge every minute.
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  72

  Rationalism and religion

  by Narkissos in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i've not been too good at creating topics thus far, but for my 1000th post (in case you wouldn't notice .

  we often oppose reason (ratio) and belief, as if those were mutually exclusive.

  reason always works from presuppositions.

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  Max Divergent

  More a pseudo-rationalism maybe? Rule or formula following more than a seeking out of reason perhaps?
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  35

  Serena Williams (Dishonors) American Flag!

  by Voyager in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  friends, i apologize if this is old information.

  sometimes i can't keep up with (all) the posts here.

  the thread lists this as (janurary 25, 2003) so thats why i thought it to be old.. i remember that serena williams had (won) the cup and championship, and was photographed carrying the american flag, or engaging in what (some people) considered as (idolatry),--but what was (news) to me, was the fact that she was also photographed (dishonoring) the american flag as well.

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  Max Divergent

  Of course Wednesday, no dispute from me - I respect any nation's flag, not just my own.