Posts by TheOldHippie

11

How do Jehovah's Witnesses get around this one?

by runForever in

i am the vine; you are the branches.

if you remain in me and i in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.if you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.".

according to jehovah's witnesses this only applies to the annointed brothers of christ.

TheOldHippie

The parable does not only apply to rthe anointed, check http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2003084?q=I+am+the+vine&p=par

24

Today's WT study (10/12/14) - a sales seminar!

by OneEyedJoe in

this cult is getting really shameless.

the wt study was always supposed to be for discussion of 'the deep truths' of the bible.

the wt may have always been filled with utter nonsense, but at least it had the appearance of a topical discussion of bible doctrine.

TheOldHippie

"Am I right that this is a first, or was I just not paying attention before I woke up to ttatt?"

It was NOT a first, there have been similar studies earlier, after new pieces of literature have been issued, including tracts, so I am afraid you have not been paying attention ............

43

Account of Jehovah's Witness Women Prisoners in Auschwitz (very creepy)

by objectivetruth in

a book titled written by a long ti me ss member .rudolf franz ferdinand hoess.

here is a quote from this book : .

"a pleasant contrast to this type were the female jehovah's witnesses, called "bible bees" or "bible worms.

TheOldHippie

"The Bible Students weren't part of the Watchtower Society at the outbreak of WW2"

I think you here have a very USA-based view on the matter and try to make that view true also for Germany, but that is utterly false. The name JW did not "hit" in Germany, and they were known as Bible Students - Bibelforscher - all the way down to and thru WWII. True, there were a very few BS in the US sense of the word also imprisoned, but in Germany JWs were known as BS and hence were very much part of the WT.

As to what the female prisoners are told to have said - I think it so very easy for us living under more or less peaceful conditions to think that "now that was strange!" when we see how people reacted in the camps, what survival strategies they chose etc., but it is so totally impossible for us to imagine what it would be like to live under such conditions. I think it is more than probable that quite a few us would have signed any paper at all or given names away freely only to get 5 minutes more, when the guys with guns and sticks and dogs gave us the best of what they had been taught to give ........ Austrian JWs suffered the highest amount of victims - deaths - as they were most "fanatical" of the JWs and refused to greet guards, to work etc., whereas the German JWs found strategies they could defend as to work, food, greetings etc., they gave a little, bended it a little, so that they could survive - survive to tell and to continue their work.

And who are we to judge people who suffered so extremely that it is impossible for us to comprehend?

17

Still nothing credible?

by Separation of Powers in

i can hardly believe that anything new is gonna be announced at the annual meeting.

i mean, there is absolutely no one i know in this organization capable of keeping a secret and we haven't heard anything but "big changes are coming" "just wait and see" "big things are in the works" and my personal favorite posted by one of our members who was told not to diassociate because "things are gonna be announced that will change your mind".. no one i know at the hall or in positions of responsibilty has ever been able to keep anything confidential.

it's always been like the character on in lving color, "i aint one to gossip...but you didn't hear that from me.".

TheOldHippie

At 2 o'clock ............

36

Replacing Guy Piercehow big is the pool from which to choose?

by L3G in

respectful_observer's thread on guy pierce's death,.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/277198/1/heard-a-rumor-guy-pierce-died-this-morning#.uyq-pv21x1n.

got me thinking.

TheOldHippie

"Isn't it curious that none of the GB members are asian, or african or hispanic or aboriginal or ....?"

Pierce was a native North American Indian, was he not?

49

It's a one-word question.

by new hope and happiness in

jw
friends

" dinosaurs" .

i mean why didn't the bible cover it?.

.

TheOldHippie

'Cause they were long-time dead and gone.

And by the way, the great philosopher of the 18th century Enlightenment Age, Voltaire, dismissed the whole idea of fossils and dinosaurs and stated the bones found were nothing but left-overs from earlier generations' lunch parties.

18

The myth of persecution, early Christians weren't persecuted.

by jam in

jw
friends

anyone read candida moss book how early christians invented.

a story of martydom.

the romans did not terget, hunt or.

TheOldHippie

So far, Finkelstein's cur-and-paste has been nothing more than taking it from the easiest of all sources,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians

So much for "heavy researching"

18

JW.org statistics and the decline in first world countries.

by OneEyedJoe in

cross posting from another thread.

it seems that i might not be the only nerd here that's interested in statistics like this so maybe it deserves it's own topic.. so i was playing around with google.com/trends with some jw related search terms.

i found the results a bit surprising, and certainly interesting, so i figured i'd share.. first off, the link to what i tried.. one of the most surprising things that stood out was the regional interest.

TheOldHippie

I found a 50 % increase from June to August in "jw.org" when I did the search you started the thread with ...............

96

Chile and the flag: It's true!! Undeniable evidence!!

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

joe, sorry, you'll have to eat some humble pie.. .

thank you so much for the poster on extj.com who sent these pics!!

can't have been better!!.

TheOldHippie

"How would the U S A Witnesses react if one of their number took to wearing a lapel pin of the national flag?"

How did they react when the Williams sisters saluted the flag as they won the Olympics?

18

JW.org statistics and the decline in first world countries.

by OneEyedJoe in

cross posting from another thread.

it seems that i might not be the only nerd here that's interested in statistics like this so maybe it deserves it's own topic.. so i was playing around with google.com/trends with some jw related search terms.

i found the results a bit surprising, and certainly interesting, so i figured i'd share.. first off, the link to what i tried.. one of the most surprising things that stood out was the regional interest.

TheOldHippie

"Decline in real numbers must be seen as a fact, and future decline, I predict, will accelerate."

Funny how that line has been repeated over and over again ever since around 1978, but still the numbers are growing .

Kaik, your comments are worth reading for all those commenting on decline or growth in individual countries. Japan has an ageing population, I even think it is declining, and therefore it is not to be expected that a growth should take place. Poland, Lithuania, Roumania and other countries see the young people leave the country and set out for Western Europe, and so the remaining population is ageing and declining. In some of the Northwestern European countries, the especially Polish immigrants constitute aroung 7-8-9-10 per cent of the JWs.

So in stead of quickly and easily looking at the figures for Poland and shouting out that "Look! There is decline in the number of Polish JWs!", you would have to add the members of the Polish-speaking congregations throughout Europe as well as the ones being in the "native speaking" congregations.

Statistics is becoming more and more tricky with this damned open world - it was easier when there were walls dividing us