Difficulty believing we live in the last days? Watch this!

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Vigilans
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12 Apr 2013, 12:44 pm

Fnord wrote:
139 years of false prophesies, and still the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses / Watchtower Bible and Tract Society continue to spread their lies.


There are probably 8 million JW's out there; they believe 144,000 of them will sit beside God and rule the universe after judgement day; so... what happens to the millions of them besides the 144,000...?


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Janissy
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12 Apr 2013, 12:46 pm

kxmode wrote:
video clips don't lie.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79Cp8V9uE18[/youtube]


The people who said we were living in the last days during the bubonic plague had a much better case. But they were still wrong. The people who said we were living in the last days during the cold war also had a much better case. But they were also wrong. If humans had yet existed alongside dinosaurs when that asteroid struck and changed global conditions and caused mass extinctions, they would have had the best case of all. But still wrong.

The bottom line is that shatteringly fatal things have been happening to life forms at regular intervals ever since life first evolved. It isn't the end (although it is sometimes the end for a particular species). Life goes on.



TheBicyclingGuitarist
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12 Apr 2013, 3:55 pm

The Jehovah's Witnesses have quite a history of failed prophecies. I guess they don't tell their members about those? But even worse, why or how can I possibly trust their opinion on anything (especially spiritual matters) when they are so very wrong about something so easily checked as the FACT of evolution? if we did not evolve and share a recent common ancestor with chimpanzees and other great apes, then why oh why does all the evidence of the physical world make it look so much like we did?

I'm talking nested hierarchies of many different types of data that all produce the same tree of life, backed up by the fossil record, backed up by the DNA and geographical distribution of living species, backed up by observations of evolution in the field and in the lab, and on and on...

To paraphrase Richard Dawkins: Anyone who denies the fact of evolution is either ignorant of the evidence, too stupid to understand it, insane, or wickedly denying it for some nefarious purpose. I don't agree with that notorious atheist on some things, but he nailed it when he said that.


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naturalplastic
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12 Apr 2013, 4:22 pm

The only thing unique to our times in your video is the existence of video technology itsself.

It doesnt portray anything that didnt happen in every era for the last 2000 years: corruption, immoralty, natural disasters, wars, mass murders, floods, tsunamies, famines, to some degree- even climate change.

They just didnt have video footage of it.

So...has every era for the last 2000 years been "the End Times"?



CyborgUprising
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12 Apr 2013, 5:07 pm

Those silly Jehovah's Wetnesses...
I have a chuckle at any "end-of-the-world" propaganda.



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12 Apr 2013, 5:29 pm

Fnord, that's an impressive and quite damning list of abject failures. I'll be interested to see kxmode's explanation, and why what he asserts in this thread should be given any serious consideration over them - especially given the little problem with Deut 18:20–22 and that JW's present themselves with some authority on the meaning of the word of God.

It seems quite unambiguous, but I expect there's a cop-out clause somewhere and that bit somehow doesn't apply. :wink:

New World Translation bible (Deut 18:20–22) wrote:
20 However, the prophet who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die. 21 And in case you should say in your heart: “How shall we know the word that Jehovah has not spoken?” 22 when the prophet speaks in the name of Jehovah and the word does not occur or come true, that is the word that Jehovah did not speak. With presumptuousness the prophet spoke it. You must not get frightened at him.
http://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/deuteronomy/18

American Standard Version bible (Deut 18:20–22) wrote:
20 But the prophet, that shall speak a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.

21 And if thou say in thy heart, How shall we know the word which Jehovah hath not spoken?

22 when a prophet speaketh in the name of Jehovah, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which Jehovah hath not spoken: the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously, thou shalt not be afraid of him.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se ... ersion=ASV


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ArrantPariah
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12 Apr 2013, 5:31 pm

^^^That verse could come in quite handy some time--I'll have to try to store it in my repository.



pezar
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12 Apr 2013, 8:43 pm

Fnord wrote:
139 years of false prophesies, and still the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses / Watchtower Bible and Tract Society continue to spread their lies.


It's called "brainwashing". JW is a cult, and cults, by definition, brainwash their members. The sheep in the cult will literally commit suicide for the cult leaders/beliefs. kxmode is just regurgitating the brainwashing. Trying to reason with such a person is like trying to reason with a cow-all you'll get is blank stares and mooing. The JW's, by the way, emerged from an earlier doomsday cult, the Millerites, who were founded by a guy named Miller who predicted doomsday for October 21, 1844. When it didn't happen, the cult split. Some became Seventh Day Adventists, following Ellen White and gradually becoming less apocalyptic. (The Adventists currently own Millerite historical sites, including Miller's farm, site of the "Great Disappointment".) Another group gradually coalesced around Charles Taze Russell, and became Jehovah's Witnesses. The JW's have been predicting the Last Days for over a century, as you noted, and have consistently failed. They tell their kids not to plan for their futures, since Jesus is coming. Instead, the kids work towards being employed at "Bethel", the JW HQ in Brooklyn. Those who have been employed at Bethel are held in high regard. kxmode is likely a shill typing from his PC at Bethel, spreading the "word of the last days" on the say so of JW head mucketymucks.



pezar
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12 Apr 2013, 8:52 pm

Vigilans wrote:
Fnord wrote:
139 years of false prophesies, and still the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses / Watchtower Bible and Tract Society continue to spread their lies.


There are probably 8 million JW's out there; they believe 144,000 of them will sit beside God and rule the universe after judgement day; so... what happens to the millions of them besides the 144,000...?


I once asked a JW girl I knew how the 144,000 knew they were part of the "elect". (In the JW faith, only the 144,000 can take Communion.) She never did give me a straight answer. "They know it in their hearts." I suspect that there's a list at Bethel (what JW's call their HQ) of the 144,000. I always thought that everybody else went to hell. So basically, 144,000 people will go to heaven, and everybody else goes to hell. My interpretation of the 144,000 verses is that only that number of the angels who were sufficiently virtuous in their earthly lives will be saved, everybody else goes to hell, no matter how great of a Christian you were. It seems awful that only 144,000 Christians will be saved, and the other 2 billion get to burn.



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12 Apr 2013, 8:56 pm

Cornflake wrote:
Fnord, that's an impressive and quite damning list of abject failures.

Thank you. History - especially religious history - has been a special interest of mine for a few decades. It's amazing what you can find against any given religion when you examine their own archives!

Cornflake wrote:
I'll be interested to see kxmode's explanation...

IF he dares to make one, what will it be?

Ad Hominem? "I don't expect an ATHEIST to possibly understand Scriptures!" (I am not an Atheist, and I've been to Seminary.)

Appeal to False Authority? "MY Elders teach me all that I need to know!" (No, kid; they teach you only what they want you to know.)

Selective Evidence? "The Book of Deuteronomy was written of, by, and for Jews, not gentiles." (Either the entire Bible is valid for everyone, or it isn't.)

Or will he just ignore the truth and pretend that it doesn't exist? "There is no elephant, and this is not a ballroom." (Yeah, kid ... whatever ... :roll: )


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Fnord
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13 Apr 2013, 1:18 am

Later that same day...

Image

:lol:



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13 Apr 2013, 2:24 am

CSBurks wrote:
evidence

That single word towers above every last bit of hogwash extracted from the bible.



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13 Apr 2013, 7:10 am

pezar wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
Fnord wrote:
139 years of false prophesies, and still the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses / Watchtower Bible and Tract Society continue to spread their lies.


There are probably 8 million JW's out there; they believe 144,000 of them will sit beside God and rule the universe after judgement day; so... what happens to the millions of them besides the 144,000...?


I once asked a JW girl I knew how the 144,000 knew they were part of the "elect". (In the JW faith, only the 144,000 can take Communion.) She never did give me a straight answer. "They know it in their hearts." I suspect that there's a list at Bethel (what JW's call their HQ) of the 144,000. I always thought that everybody else went to hell. So basically, 144,000 people will go to heaven, and everybody else goes to hell. My interpretation of the 144,000 verses is that only that number of the angels who were sufficiently virtuous in their earthly lives will be saved, everybody else goes to hell, no matter how great of a Christian you were. It seems awful that only 144,000 Christians will be saved, and the other 2 billion get to burn.

That's not quite it.

Leaving aside the differing interpretations of what "Hell" is, JWs generally think the 144,000 "best" people get to live with God. Another number of good Christians get to live on a new Earth, free from sin.



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13 Apr 2013, 9:07 am

Vigilans wrote:
Fnord wrote:
139 years of false prophesies, and still the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses / Watchtower Bible and Tract Society continue to spread their lies.


There are probably 8 million JW's out there; they believe 144,000 of them will sit beside God and rule the universe after judgement day; so... what happens to the millions of them besides the 144,000...?


The will burn in a lake of fire for all time because God loves them so much.



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13 Apr 2013, 9:34 am

Fnord wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
I'll be interested to see kxmode's explanation...
IF he dares to make one, what will it be?

Ad Hominem? "I don't expect an ATHEIST to possibly understand Scriptures!" (I am not an Atheist, and I've been to Seminary.)

Appeal to False Authority? "MY Elders teach me all that I need to know!" (No, kid; they teach you only what they want you to know.)

Selective Evidence? "The Book of Deuteronomy was written of, by, and for Jews, not gentiles." (Either the entire Bible is valid for everyone, or it isn't.)

Or will he just ignore the truth and pretend that it doesn't exist? "There is no elephant, and this is not a ballroom." (Yeah, kid ... whatever ... :roll: )
Past performance would suggest one of the two I've bolded.
Either way, I won't be holding my breath waiting.


Edit: typo.


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Last edited by Cornflake on 13 Apr 2013, 9:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Cornflake
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13 Apr 2013, 9:35 am

CSBurks wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
Fnord wrote:
139 years of false prophesies, and still the members of the Jehovah's Witnesses / Watchtower Bible and Tract Society continue to spread their lies.
There are probably 8 million JW's out there; they believe 144,000 of them will sit beside God and rule the universe after judgement day; so... what happens to the millions of them besides the 144,000...?
The will burn in a lake of fire for all time because God loves them so much.
Maybe they could form a rather long and incredibly patient queue, taking turns to sit next to God and join in the ruling bit?
It might take a while but at least everyone would get a chance to look mighty and throw a thunderbolt or two. :wink:


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