Island Man

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Posts by Island Man

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  45

  Pagan Origins

  by tinker in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  a currently active jdub acquaintance occasionally stops by to say hello and we share a wee dram or two.

  after the general small talk of new cars, exotic vacations and sports we often get into the "why" we are xjubs.

  he is a well educated publisher who holds a phd in child psychology.

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  Island Man

  The funny thing is that the bible itself indicates that a Christian can eat meat that was sacrificed to idols provided he did it innocently as a regular meal and not as a religious rite, and was not stumbling anyone. Paul told the Corinthians that they can eat meat given them without inquiring of its origins. This shows that the pagan origin of the meat doesn't really matter to God. What matters is the intent with which it's eaten by the Christian and whether eating it in the presence of others with weaker consciences could stumble them. See 1 Corinthians 10:25-30

  In contrast, JWs adopt an overly scrupulous pharisaic attitude of feeling compelled to research the origin of obscure practices to make sure there're no pagan roots hidden somewhere in its history. They are missing the point completely. According to 1 Corinthians 10:25-30 God does not stigmatize an otherwise innocent practice engaged in with innocence simply because of past association with paganism.
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  6

  Watchtower Society wins the 'PINK ELEPHANT' award for 2014

  by Esse quam videri in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the international pink elephant committee has just awarded the 'watchtower society' the 'pink elephant' award for 2014. .

  the committee's press release stated, in part;.

  '... usually our ten committee members have to research a number of organizations to determine which one will receive the yearly award.

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  Island Man

  :musical_note: For they're a sorry stink to-wer,
  from us Watchtower does co-wer,
  from truth JWs co-o-wer ...
  which nobody can deny :musical_note:

  "Hip-hip-hip
      Hooray!
  Hip-hip-hip
      Hooray!
  Hip-hip-hip
      Hooray!"

  
  
  
• 
  263

  Poster country flags and privacy

  by Simon in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

  before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

  first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

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  Island Man

  Also, I can even see a kind of tradition or rite of passage developing, whereby whenever someone with the generic flag has fully extricated himself from Watchtower and is no longer afraid of or care about, being shunned or DF'd he goes into his profile and changes the flag from being generic to being his actual flag signalling to all that he is finally free, having fully escaped Watchtower's stateless "no part of this world" prison and rejoined the real world society of his homeland.
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  263

  Poster country flags and privacy

  by Simon in

  1. forum
  2. announcements

  the new forum originally had a little country flag next to each post showing the country that the post was made from based on the geoip encoding (the country the ip address is from).

  before i switched over to the new site someone made an issue about it violating their privacy and i didn't want to complicate and confuse the switchover with policy debate at the same time as technical issues so removed the flags even though i disagreed.. someone has already requested it as a feature and i think it should be added back so i thought it's now time to open the discussion and get everyone's opinions.

  first, the reason i think it should be shown:.

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  Island Man

  I like the idea of having to choose between having your real flag shown or a fictitious generic flag that does not identify a real country. I think that is a very good compromise and I fully support it.

  The generic flag can have an icon on it that conveys the impression of being a fugitive of Watchtower in hiding to indicate that we do not want our location being known. Just an idea.
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  26

  Watchtower Study today Jan 4 2015 , Fallacious Reasoning (issue Nov 15 2014)

  by BluesBrother in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the subject of the study was jesus resurrection .

  my post is not about the subject and whether or not that can be believed in.

  millions of christians do and it is not my place to debunk religious faith.

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  Island Man

  The subheading that said: "Why we know Jesus was resurrected" was rather ambitious in its use of the word "know". Repeatedly the paragraphs would give reasons why we "know" Jesus was raised up.

  It shows that the writing dept. is going beyond what is written and doesn't know the difference between knowledge and belief/faith. Christians today can't know that Jesus was raised up. They can only believe/exercise faith in it. If they knew it then they would not be able to exercise faith in it as Romans 10:9 instructs them to, because knowledge of a fact renders faith in that fact obsolete.

  Christians don't even know that God exists. Scripturally speaking, they believe that he exists. (Hebrews 11:6)
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  245

  Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

  many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

  but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

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  Island Man

  DocHouse: "I look at myself and others as those in ancient Israel who had to endure foolishness (and oft evil) in their king and/or priests....
  

  Yet, they ARE my brothers and sisters"

  A Catholic or a member of some other religion in "Churchianity" that you deem to be false, can make the very same argument to justify remaining in and defending their religion, yet you hypocritically use this reasoning to look at your religion as "the Truth" and would reject the same reasoning from that other person to condemn their religion as being false, a part of "Babylon the Great". How is your position really any better than theirs? Because the errors of your religion are different to the errors of theirs? Jehovah winks at some false teachings but condemns others, does he?
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  245

  Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

  many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

  but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

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  Island Man

  Cofty in harmony with that second point you made about christians belonging to Jesus, note how the presumptuous and blatantly erroneous insertion of "Jehovah" into the NWT's rendering of Romans 14:8 obscures this point:

  "for both if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. Therefore both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah."

  Here the NWT replaces kyrios ("Lord") with "Jehovah". But it is very clear from the next verse (Romans 14:9) that the "Lord" mentioned in verse 8 is referring to Jesus and not Jehovah, for verse 9 actually justifies/explains verse 8 by saying (see the highlighted portion):

  "for both if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. Therefore both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah. 9 For to this end Christ died and came to life again, that he might be Lord over both the dead and the living."

  The phrase in verse 9 "Lord over both the dead and the living" is really a restating in different words, of the point being made in verse 8 and the fact that verse 9 opens with the word "For" shows that it is an explanatory continuation of the point made in verse 8. Therefore the Kyrios of verse 8 has to be the same Lord over the dead and the living mentioned, and explicitly identified as Christ, in verse 9. The insertion of Jehovah into Romans 14:8 utterly corrupts the meaning of Romans 14:8-9 causing the explanation given in verse 9 to no longer connect logically with verse 8. The NWT is falsely attributing the lordship of Romans 14:8 to Jehovah when it really should be attributed to Jesus as clearly indicated by the context of verse 9.
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  245

  Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

  many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

  but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

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  Island Man

  "Doc- Jesus came to make his God and Father known (John 17), and the name "Jesus" means "Salvation of Jehovah". So you can't have one- no, you can't have one- no, you can't have one without the ooooooooo-thhhher!"

  It's all well and good to say that but what is written in the NT makes it undeniably clear that early Christians focused heavily on witnessing about Jesus and, quite unlike JWs, show a complete lack of obsessive fixation on the use of the name YHWH or Jehovah. If a modern JW had written the NT you could be sure it would be totally void of most of the references to Jesus and would focus almost exclusively on Jehovah. A JW bible writer would never have written what 2 Peter 3:18 says! JWs consider it inappropriate to say such things of Jesus! This is a fact that you know and should be ashamed of!

  JWs culture is a strange, deviant culture that is alien to first century Christian culture. First century Christians were not afraid to openly honor Jesus with their lips. JWs seem to shy away from honoring Jesus with their lips. They consider it to be idolatry. They scorn the idea of honoring Jesus. JWs are like the voice of strangers that Jesus warned about in John 10.

  JWs scorn the scripturally given role of bearing witness to Jesus, which the NT sets forth for Christians, in preference for beggarly returning to OT culture. It's very telling that they completely ignore or play down the plethora of references in the NT to being witnesses of Jesus, to harp on one verse in Isaiah 43 that was a statement made to Jews under the old covenant. What did Jesus say about putting new wine into old wine skins?
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  245

  Still pointing your Finger when having a Rafter in your eye?

  by DocHouse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  yes- everyone has faults and makes mistakes; an organization even more so.. yet, you ignore all the fingers pointing at you.. many here have no faith.

  many here go to churches who lie about everything biblical; look at x-mas!.

  but at least we know god and christ and try to live up to their name!.

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  Island Man

  Not even the bible agrees with DocHouse's assertion that organizations tend to be more corrupt than individuals. The bible indicates the very opposite for it says that in the multitude of counselors (the plurality of minds as exists in an organization) there is wisdom and the one isolating himself (an individual acting on his own individual wisdom) will break forth against all practical wisdom. The bible also says that two heads are better than one. There is absolutely no wisdom to the idea that an organization is prone to making more mistakes than an individual. With the plurality of actors in an organization the shortcomings of one individual tends to be counterbalanced by the strengths of others. The plurality of heads means that issues are tackled by multiple brains as opposed to just one with the result that the correct solution is more likely to be arrived at and errors or bad decisions averted.
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  22

  Seen smoking a cigarette

  by Godsendconspirator in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i won't say i got "caught" because that would imply i was keeping my habit hidden.

  i'm tired of constantly doing that with these guys.

  yesterday, my friend and i were waiting for some people and decided to smoke a cigarette to pass the time.

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  Island Man

  I just started a new thread on the subject of Watchtower's position on smoking, if anyone's interested:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/18390002/watchtowers-position-on-smoking-consistent-position-on-masturbation