Posts by Apognophos

28

I am going to pioneer after the holidays!

by snakeface in

jw
friends

yes, you heard right.. as you know, most christian organizations publish and distribute little tracts with their gospel message.

well they also make some that expose the lies of the wt, and explain how it is a cult.

even if people are not interested in the "gospel message" in these tracts, the tracts do a good job exposing the wt as a cult.. now, those of you who are now agnostic or athiests or just non-religious, please keep reading, to understand what i plan to do.... i am expecting to receive $$ for christmas.

Apognophos

I for one support your idea, snakeface. I have been thinking of doing the same once I am out of the organization (I can't give an anti-witness where people know me, for family reasons). It's worth it if it helps the occasional person who might have gotten drawn in. That being said, very few people are being drawn in these days, so it's hard to say how many people you might have to talk to before you reach one who was studying with, or vulnerable to, the Witnesses.

Then again, an educated friend or family member can also save someone who is interested in the JW religion, so when you factor in social connections, it raises the odds that someone will be helped. We've all experienced as JWs that situation where someone at the door showed interest and then abruptly changed their mind before we visited them again, and we knew it was because someone 'got to them' -- a family member or friend, spurred on by Satan no doubt Well, how did that person know to warn their relative/friend? We can be the ones to provide a warning that is passed on to that person.

As far as apathy goes, I think that the story of an ex-JW will be much more interesting to them than any JWs that ever came to their door. Personally, I have tried anonymously blanketing a street with TTATT leaflets through the mail, but it's hard to know how much good they will do. It's better to speak to people in person so they can hear your story. But as far as the leaflets go, I would suggest using a non-religious one unless the community is religious and close enough to that denomination. Otherwise it might make the householder feel like they're stuck between two people bickering. I like the secular approach used by the one on JWfacts: http://jwfacts.com/watchtower/pamphlet.php

42

Creationism emails from a JW

by TheStumbler in

earlier this year, i received an email from a jw family member with a link to this video:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ruhkgqjug.

i wrote a long reply debunking the video (mostly copying talkorigins info).

Apognophos

Ha, I can relate to that, j dubb. Snopes is useful for many things, but not one's popularity with gullible acquaintances

50

What were the calculations used to arrive at the 1874 date of Christ's return?

by Zoos in

we all know the calculations used by the wt to arrive at 1914. fall of babylon in 607 (false year), gentile times, no zero year, ta-da, 1914.. what did they use before that?

i know it wasn't russell who came up with it - he just adopted it.

i'm just curious what they had to explain away when they made the transition.. .

Apognophos

Yes, true, Matt. 24:36 should have been sufficient to show that anyone claiming the end was near would have to be wrong. Plus the scripture about not going after those who say 'the time is at hand'.

9

Life On Mars?

by metatron in

jw
friends

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-finds-evidence-of-life-on-mars-9929510.html.

perhaps life in mars would be more accurate.

also, recent study of martian meteorites have yielded organic material.. .

Apognophos

Imagine if fossils of advanced lifeforms (i.e. animals) were found on Mars. I wonder how the Watchtower would try to spin an explaination around that.

Why would that be a problem for Watchtower teaching?

85

Mormons getting hollowed out: The tipping point has occurred.

by Qcmbr in

ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.

to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.

you can only paint sh*t so many ways.

Apognophos

It's surprising to me that Mormons could be in decline and not Witnesses -- as someone pointed out here recently, Mormons are encouraged to have children and Witnesses are discouraged from doing so. Then again, Mormons do much less preaching than JWs do.

7

F & DS - the Domestics

by Listener in

i was just considering the copyright issues that the wtbts impose on other people and thought about their so called appointment of the fds as discussed in matthew 24:45 "who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics ?.

this is how tje governing body identify the domestics.

who, then, are the domestics ?

Apognophos

This is sort of a non sequitur. The preaching work is intended to make more domestics, i.e., to bring more people into the household. The authority to preach comes from having the correct interpretation of the Bible, which they claim they do. The only thing that follows logically from the text you quoted is that the Governing Body does not have spiritual authority over worldly people.

50

What were the calculations used to arrive at the 1874 date of Christ's return?

by Zoos in

we all know the calculations used by the wt to arrive at 1914. fall of babylon in 607 (false year), gentile times, no zero year, ta-da, 1914.. what did they use before that?

i know it wasn't russell who came up with it - he just adopted it.

i'm just curious what they had to explain away when they made the transition.. .

Apognophos

I think it would have been almost impossible to challenge Russell's ideas because who could keep up with everything he was writing? I imagine that any loyal readers were just hanging on for dear life trying to keep up with all the claims he was verbosely making in his Studies volumes, the magazines, etc. I haven't read a lot of his writing, but it seems like Russell's ideas were constantly mutating. So before you could challenge his writing in any large-scale way, you would first need to assemble it into a coherent worldview (as of a certain point in time), and at that point you'd still need to find a way to test it against reality.

And after all, who could really say if Portugal was one of the horns or not? There was no basis for saying it was incorrect except to say that your own common sense found it absurd, or that you didn't personally believe that Revelation had anything to do with the 16th-20th centuries. The only way you could disprove him is if he made a prediction, or his work made an implicit prediction, which did not come true. The last that Russell knew, his 1914 prediction may have at least partly failed, but he still expected to see the end of the world before the Great War was over -- and then he died in 1916.

The same issue is probably the case with Rutherford's "colorful book" period. There were so many claims being made, with multiple books published per year, that I wonder if anyone ever bothered to assemble them together and try to debunk them (not that I think it's worth the time). All you can do is kind of back away from the details and try to look for something to test, or question the overall dispensationalist approach to scripture, but it's not really possible to challenge a myriad of little subjective interpretations. Likewise, it seems that he may have expected the end of the world to come before World War II ended, but he died first in 1942.

I think it's easier now to debunk the teachings because, despite some claims on the forum that the religion is changing rapidly, the teachings have been fairly locked down for a while now and most of the literature is devoted to repeating the same doctrine over and over. Also, we have the advantage of over a century having passed since Russell started writing, which allows us to see a collection of wrong predictions that the Society has made. If I had lived back in Russell's time, I don't know if I would have been frightened by his craziness or impressed by his Bible interpretations, but things are much clearer now.

42

Creationism emails from a JW

by TheStumbler in

earlier this year, i received an email from a jw family member with a link to this video:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ruhkgqjug.

i wrote a long reply debunking the video (mostly copying talkorigins info).

Apognophos

You wrote "Quaran" above, though. I don't think that's correct. Just pointing that out in case you haven't sent the response already.

42

Creationism emails from a JW

by TheStumbler in

earlier this year, i received an email from a jw family member with a link to this video:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1ruhkgqjug.

i wrote a long reply debunking the video (mostly copying talkorigins info).

Apognophos

I've never seen that spelling of "Quran" before But yes, I think it's a good approach to take.

23

The best way to debate JW's without being labeled an apostate

by cookiemaster in

hey guys!

here's what i found to be the best way (for me at least) to debate jw's without earning the laber of apostate.

this is mostly valid when debating jw's that don't know you personally, but it could help with those that do too.

Apognophos

Start every sentence with either ...

C.T. Russell said,

Then you'll get labeled a Russellite Though that may not be a bad angle for JWs who don't know you (if you don't mind fibbing): "I'm a Bible Student and here are the problems I have with your beliefs."