one of the first things that shook my faith as a teenager was learning about egypt and how its history goes back as far as 3500 bc, much earlier than the flood.
also learning about the first settlements like çatalhöyük, which flourished around 7500 bc, much earlier than the creation of adam.
the only answer i got from my mother was that this world is dominated by satan and thus we cannot trust in worldly chronologies.
You're going down the same road I did that eventually lead to me leaving Jehovah's Witnesses.
It sounds like evidence or facts don't matter if they conflict with the teachings of the Bible, especially with Jehovah's Witnesses.
Your mother is using circular thinking to negate your argument.
My favorite argument has always been that Superman is real because Action Comics tells us so. That is no different than stating that anything from the Bible is true if it is only found to be in the Bible.
we know that the wt claims all sorts of distinctions between the "anointed" 144,000 and the great crowd.
-- the "heaven" verses apply only to the 144,000; the "earth" verses apply only to the great crowd.
-- "unless you eat of the flesh of the son of man..." applies only to the 144,000, etc.. in fact, when you show jws some passage the wt doesn't follow, they often say, "oh, that only applies to the 144,000.".
Interesting.
Have you made a list yourself and be willing to share?
what single big change do you think could back fire and bring the cult down ?.
me: tithing..
If the Watchtower told all the congregations that there will only be one meeting a week and that it will be at your local Assembly Hall, combined with other congregations (super congregations). Then the Watchtower sold all the Kingdom Halls. Every meeting the Accounts Overseer would say that they are in the red $15.00 X total number of publishers scheduled to attend. Literally having to raise on the average of $9,000.00 per meeting or about $500,000.00 per super congregation annually.
For many Witnesses this new arrangement would mean an hour or more commute one way per week per meeting and an expected donation of no less than $60.00 a family per meeting or $240.00 a month. All for a 2 hour weekly meeting. Field service meetings would be held after the meeting to plan the entire week's field service activity (i.e. "cart witnessing").
This business model...er, spiritual arrangement would bring in millions of dollars a year. This does not include the billions raised in the sales of Kingdom Halls, which, according to new light, are not longer required. After all, Moses to call the nation of Israel into small groups. Moses called big national conventions. Jesus preached to groups of thousands. It would only befitting of Jehovah's modern day organization to do the same.
just thought i'd start a thread about lucas revisiting star wars films and making new edits - for better or for worse.. first off, let me say that george lucas has a tremendous imagination and star wars (1977), also known as episode 4: a new hope, and the empire strikes back (1980) - episode 5 in the franchise - are two of my favourite films.
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as progress has been made in special effects, including the development of cgi, it makes sense for lucas to go back and retouch the spaceships, laser blasts and light sabres, improving what was 70s and 80s effects.. but i feel that lucas' tinkering has been a mixed bag - some have been bad choices, some unnecessary and others have been good.. what do you think ... .
As a Star Wars purists snob, I only consider the following movies to be true Star Wars -
1. Rogue One
2. Episode IV - A New Hope
3. Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back*
* The Empire Strikes Back all the way to the point when Vader is about to reveal to Luke that he is his father. Stop the film just before he utters those words "No. I am your father."
George Lucas had help writing The first two films (A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back). Return of the Jedi is A New Hope with Muppets. Lucas wrote Episodes I, II, and III by himself and it shows. Pure garbage.
What about the new films - The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi?
Horrible! Absolutely horrible!
The Force Awakens is A New Hope 3.0. Rescue the Rebel and blow up the Death Star...I mean Starkiller Base.
My hope is that Disney will re-release the original trilogy in it's original form in Blu-Ray or 4KUHD.
i hope hollywood helps make her the democratic nominee.
she sounds like she’s testing out the waters.
good luck ms. winfrey.
People in countries outside of the United States are shit scared of anything that Trump does in regard to foreign politics. For example. Recently he goes to Israel and lets the Israeli prime minister make Jerusalem the capital of Israel. There were enough tensions between them and the Palestinians as it was.
Just for clarification - Israel is considering moving their nations capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. President Trump decided that if such an event occurs he would recognize Israel's decision by moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Israel is a sovereign, recognized nation. President Trump did not let Israel do anything. Israel does as it pleases.
In addition, there will always be tensions between "Palestinians" and Israel as only Israel supports a two-state solution.
greetings, dreamers:.
i guess it's never going away: daytime carryovers of jw-related stuff seeping into my dreams.. the majority of these dreams take place at conventions but with really weird trappings.
last night i dreamed i arrived at the site with no books, no lunch, nothing but my car keys.
I would say almost monthly if not weekly I have at least one dream related to being a JW. They usually involve a younger version of me, still living at home with me parents, but being consciously aware of the fraud the religion is. The setting is always at a meeting (usually the Kingdom Hall I remember first attending) or at a convention.
it's a cold 13 degrees fahrenheit in tennessee this morning where i live.
glad i'm retired and don't have to work outside today.
what about where you live.
20 in the northern part of the Lone Star State.
another brilliant episode.
true and poignant.. https://youtu.be/9yuiowdey60.
The "Reasoning" book, no longer available, but a reliable source of old light...
the following is a qfr from the april, 2018 watchtower.
just a couple of articles back the organization was explaining how jws need to be encouraging and even when admonishing congregations jesus would start out with encouraging words.
we see none of this in the qfr, rather, it is heavy handed and legally incorrect.. why is it not permissible to post publications of jehovah’s witnesses on a personal website or on social media?.
This may be off base, but I believe this is all in the interest of one particular Watchtower publication - "Shepherding the Flock" aka "Elders Secret Manual".
just wanted to wish all of you the best christmas / holiday / festivus, and a happy new year!only the second christmas i will be celebrating!.
Merry Christmas everyone!
After being born in and raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses it is truly wonderful to be free from the cult and say these simple words.
