I am with you on this one, Alice, being one who has slightly more education than the average JW. I frequently would like to see more in-depth studies when it comes to questions like this one - evolution - and also trinity, certain single Bible passages, chronology etc. - but when you are to publish literature that is to reach the African farmer and South American miner as well as the Spanish unemployed and Belgian civil servant, it all gets a bit tricky. So as you say, I find more arguments in non-JW literature. As for the evolution debate, I have found much of value in the writings of Scherer and his "basic units" theory, and also Behe and others; on the trinity there are many books out there. Etc. Of course, I would like that all JW literature was spotless when it comes to quotes. But the literature of one camp cannot gain the applause of the other camp. I find it very improbable that a book issued by the creation camp would be hailed by the evolution camp and likewise the other way around. And as for quotes, there is a difference between what the author specifically said and what his meaning or thoughts around the point were. You have this quote where an author says that the dynamics of evolution is indeed very, very improbable. Then in the next sentence he says that this is exactly what happened. Did he say what is quoted as the first sentence? Yes, he did. But was his opinion that an evolution after all had taken place? Yes, it was. Still I find no problems in giving the first sentence as a quote and the stop there, because he DID say it was very improbable. I find this quoting game very tiresome, because of the line between actual quotes and then the authors theories surrounding these quotes.
TheOldHippie
JoinedPosts by TheOldHippie
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67
The Origin of Life / Was Life Created - Utter Lies!
by God_Delusion in"peter faces a dilemma.
his parents have taught him that god created the earth and all life on it.
they say that the bible's account of creation is trustworthy and that evolution is simply a theory-one not supported by the evidence.
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New Generation understanding tied to Freddie Franz
by 5thGeneration inalso don't know if this has been mentioned previously.. our speaker yesterday, gb member br.
pierce, tied the overlap theory directly to fred franz's lifetime.. did anyone else catch this?.
evidently (and i'm paraphrasing), anyone anointed after franz's death in 1992 is not of the 'generation'.. 5th.
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TheOldHippie
"The first group was on hand in the year 1914 when the sign of Christ's presence first became observable."
OK, but what about the "original first group", the one that was on hand in 1874 when the first Bible Students clearly saw the sign of Christ's presence, and those who wrote to Russell around 1905 and asked if there might not be a mistake in his calculations, because in the light of the tough prevailing world conditions, they could not imagine how the world system could manage to make it thru to 1914, because surely the collapse must come before that time because everything was in upheaval? (As opposed to what is now said, that the world was such a quiet place before 1914.) Does that mean that those of the remnant who died prior to 1914 after all were not of the remnant?
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Factual errors in the literature
by IsaacJ22 ini've been chipping away on a writing project--basically, an essay/web article.
i thought i could ask for some input from the group while also creating an interesting thread.
if it hasn't already been done to death someplace else, that is.. i'm working on a particular point regarding factual errors in the literature.
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TheOldHippie
What about factual errors from other sources?
I remember at school, must have been 1963 or 1964, that the teacher told us man would never be able to land or wolk on the Moon. Why not? because since it had no atmosphere, it was covered in a layer of dust some 10 feet deep, so if a person would step out of a space ship of some kind, he would sink deep into this layer and be fullt entangled in it and die.
and another teacher told us about how it was travelling in an aeroplane, that one would suddenly come upon pockets where there was no air, "air-empty-space", and the plane would then fall downwards until it hit air again. And therefore it was very scare when you were in the landing process, if the plane was 300 feet above ground and it suddenly hit upon an "air-empty-space" which was 200 feet deep and therefore would fall direclt downwards 200 feet and stop just 100 feet above ground. Perhaps a very strange way of trying to figure out what turbulence was.
There have been a lot of factual errors down thru the centuries. When WT has produced its share, I feel it has been when they have tried to make Scripture coincide with or support some of the latest scientific ideas - finds which at a later stage have been found to be not quite verifiable.
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WT September 15, 2010 - The Faithful and NOT SO Discrete Slave
by Designer Stubble inthe wt of september 15, 2010 (kool-aid version) has two articles on unity.
one is titled: unity identifies true worship and the other christian unity glorifies god.
of course it is more uniformity, not true unity.
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TheOldHippie
So there is a super-thin thread between "following the lead of (the GB)" and not "following a leader (GB)".
You are to follow the lead but not a leader.
It will be interesting to see it in other languages.
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JWs in UK appealing for charity donations for beds
by edmond dantes inwhile the watchtower leaders smugly bury their glorious leaders and eulogise about their dedication to jehovah i.e.
watchtower publishing company , their brothers and sisters of the lower order in the uk are begging for charitable donations through the jah jireh care home home site.. it seems as if some of the millions who will never die are now doing just that and are in need of urgent help because armageddon or cloud cuckoo land as it is known to the sane, refuses to show up.. maybe the past w/t presidents who have reached their sell by dates residing in the heavenly realm can speed things up a little.. if you would like to make a donation go to the jah jireh website and check out the latest news..
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TheOldHippie
So it is a terrible thing that the JWs have NO charity work, but it now is just as terrible that they seem to HAVE a charity work?
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What happens if you are unbaptised publisher for many years?
by XPeterX inare they going to kick you out of the congo if you don't get baptised?what is going to happen?.
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TheOldHippie
"It varies by congregation, I know people that went on and off the unbaptized publishers list several times. They were treated simply as persons needing encouragement and that would one day get their act together."
My experience too.
"If it's children, they will hound the parents to make sure they get baptized or the hounding will not stop."
No-one has ever been hounded in any of the congregations I have been to.
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Not Allowed to read other religious literature? Quotes Required Please
by ThomasCovenant ini've tried some searching but can't find instances where reading other religious literature is discouraged.. is it true?.
thanks.
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TheOldHippie
sabastious - that is a nice one, regretfully a nice one, but nice.
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Not Allowed to read other religious literature? Quotes Required Please
by ThomasCovenant ini've tried some searching but can't find instances where reading other religious literature is discouraged.. is it true?.
thanks.
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TheOldHippie
I cannot help seeing a difference between "reading religious literature" and "false religious propaganda". JWs are disencouraged in the quotes from reading for example a pro-Trinitarian book - but for my part, I have found great arguments and never-thought-of lines of reasoning in non-JW literature on the fallacy of the Trinity teaching, as for other topics as well.
Cannot speak for anyone but myself, but I keep on reading as many books as I can on theological topics, and there ain't nobody able to stop me from doing so.
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Every available photo of previous governing body members....Rutherford, Russell, etc
by EndofMysteries ini'm wondering if there is any site or link someone can post with a collection of all available photos?
or has someone collected a bunch they can upload to a .rar or .zip file?
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TheOldHippie
Oh man, here we go again ........................
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Jaracz' funeral talk to be on Monday June 14
by sir82 injust saw an e-mail, passed on thru numerous hands before it got to me.. actual e-mail topic was something else, but the funeral info was included way down the chain.. location was given as "brooklyn" - not more specific than that.. probably some place deep inside the bethel compound, to keep potential troublemakers away, i reckon.. one wonders what the service will be like.. he had a lot of influence, and was feared, but based on what i've read, not really loved.
will a lot of people show up?.
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TheOldHippie
I bought Sydlik stuff .....................