AlanF

Furuli does no such thing. A number of commentators have disproved every piece of his "research": Carl Jonsson, Ann O'Maly, etc. Furuli demonstrated, for example, his incompetence in interpreting the output of a simple astronomical display program.

A crucial date in Neo-Babylonian chronology is the date of Nebuchadnezzar's accession to the throne of Babylon. The date has been completely established by reference to a number of ancient historical documents. One such document is Ptolemy's Canon, also known as the Royal Canon. Various scholars have shown or remarked how well 605 BCE for Nebuchadnezzar's accession year has been verified. For example, Edwin Thiele, writing in A Chronology of the Hebrew Kings (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1977, pp. 68-69) wrote concerning contents of a contemporary cuneiform tablet called the Babylonian Chronicle (now in the British Museum, described in D. J. Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings (626-556 B.C.), London, British Museum, 1956): << The tablet for the year 605 is of particular interest, for according to Daniel 1:1-6, that is the year when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and took Daniel and his three companions hostage to Babylon, together with a number of vessels from the temple. According to the Babylonian account, Nebuchadnezzar inflicted a crushing defeat on an Egyptian army at Carchemish in 605, beat it into "nonexistence," and then "conquered the whole of the Hatti-country." Since it was in that area that Judah was located, 605 would be the year when Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem and took Daniel to Babylon. The Babylonian account for that year states further that Nabopolassar, after twenty-one years on the throne, died on the eighth day of the month of Ab, August 16, and that Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon "and on the first day of the month of Elul he sat on the royal throne in Babylon," September 17, 605. Two [lunar] eclipses establish beyond question 605 as the year when Nebuchadnezzar began his reign. The first took place on April 22, 621, in the fifth year of Nabopolassar, which would make 605 the year of his death in his twenty-first year, and the year of Nebuchadnezzar's accession. The second eclipse was on July 4, 568, in the thirty-seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar, which again gives 605 as the year when Nebuchadenzzar began to reign. No date in ancient history is more firmly established than is 605 for the commencement of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. The year 605 B.C. can thus be accepted with all certainty as the year when the first attack of Nebuchadnezzar on Jerusalem was made, and as the year when Daniel was taken to Babylon and when the seventy-year captivity in Babylon began (Jer. 25:9-12). >> So Nebuchadnezzar's accession year 605 BCE is firmly established by two lunar eclipse texts dated some 53 years apart. The texts are independent of each other. It is widely recognized that two or more independent sources that indicate the same historical date are extremely strong evidence that the date is correct. Another extremely important date with respect to the several captures of Jerusalem is 597 BCE, when Nebuchadnezzar's forces captured the city and took King Jehoiachin and most of the non-peasant-class Jews captive to Babylon. Concerning this date, Thiele continues (pp. 69-70): << The Babylonian record for Nebuchadnezzar's seventh year, 598/97, is also of unusual interest. That record reads, "In the seventh year, the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his troops, marched to the Hatti-land, and encamped agaist [i.e., besieged] the city of Judah and on the second day of the month of Adar he seized the city and captured the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice [lit., heart], received its heavy tribute and sent [them] to Babylon." This is a striking confirmation from a contemporary Babylonian document of the biblical record of 2 Kings 24:10-17. According to his own account, Nebuchadnezzar started against Jerusalem in the month of Kislev, the ninth month of the Babylonian and Hebrew year. That month began on December 18, 598 B.C., so Jehoiachin must have been on the throne during the last days of 598. Jerusalem was taken on the second of Adar, the last month of the Babylonian year, which was on March 16, 597. So the three-month reign of Jehoiachin can be set with complete certainty as 598-597 B.C. The king who was set on the throne of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar was Zedekiah (2 Kings 24:17, 18), Judah's last king. That Jehoiachin was a captive in Babylon is confirmed by a Babylonian tablet dated 592, which lists him and five of his sons as receiving rations in oil, barley, etc., at that time. In 2 Kings 25:27 is a record concerning the end of Jehoiachin's captivity: "And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he began to reign did lift up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah out of prison." Since Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon in 597, the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of his captivity would be March or April of 561. That, according to the biblical record in Kings, would be the last month of the accession year of Evil-merodach. According to the Babylonian records, Nebuchadnezzar ended his reign and Amel-Marduk began his reign in early October, 562, which would bring the twelfth month of his accession year at the very time indicated in the biblical account. The release of Jehoiachin on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month, just before the beginning of the new year's festivities, would be a fitting time for the release of political prisoners placed in custody by the previous ruler. >> In The Gentile Times Reconsidered (4th edition, pp. 293-294) Carl Olof Jonsson quotes two scholars as follows: << the 597 date is one of the very few secure dates in our whole chronological repertoire. [Dr. Edward F. Campbell, Jr., personal letter to Jonsson dated August 9, 1981.] [The date for] the capture of Jerusalem in 597 . . . is now fixed exactly. [Dr. David N. Freedman, personal letter to Jonsson dated August 16, 1981] Based on the above data, Nebuchadnezzar's 1st year would be 604 BCE and his 18th 587 BCE. Therefore, the Royal Canon in conjunction with Jeremiah 52:29 show that Jerusalem fell in 587 BCE. Far more can be said about how perfectly lunar and solar eclipses verify the above. Carl Olof Jonsson, in The Gentile Times Reconsidered, details how several dozen lunar eclipses described in various Babylonian tablets all converge on what has become the standard Neo-Babylonian chronology. I'll leave off here for now.

Nothing of which addresses the issue: Did the writer of Isaiah mean that God is the source of the modern scientific concept of energy as embodied in Einstein's equation E=mc^2 ? Corollary: does the Isaiah passage really refer to the Big Bang and such?

Arauna said: This has nothing to do with the meaning of Isaiah 40:26. Ah. Kind of like in the many African religions where spirits inhabit physical objects. Good conclusions? Witchcraft is more like it. "Truth"? LOL! Provide references for your claim. Oh? Do enlighten us with your astute analysis of my words. Wrong. Your references were to Watchtower traditions, not the Bible. Would you like me to list them? I had already burdened you with several really, really hard concepts that I knew you couldn't deal with. I didn't want to add a further burden. Besides, you didn't make a point of it. And of course, you failed to respond to any of my answers, just as I had thought. You're quite predictable. You obviously don't know how problematic this passage is. What is "the northern sky"? What is "empty space"? What is "nothing"? Are you aware that the Hebrew word for that is the same as is translated in Genesis 1:2 in the NWT as "formless" (tohu)? Can you figure that out? Of course not. I can point you to a much more comprehensive discussion of this and related passages, but I doubt that you would read it, much less understand it All of which is entirely consistent with the Babylonian view of the universe, from whom the Jews borrowed their concept. For a picture, see https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre13.htm .

Quite so. But remember that this was translated by good old Freddie Franz, who never hesitated to distort the Bible text whenever existing Watchtower doctrine or "good arguments" could be made to rationalize it. His thinking was obviously: "Aha! Energy! Sounds like Einstein!" -- even though he was astute enough to understand that a Hebrew word for "power, strength" had nothing to do with the modern scientific concept of energy. Franz was a master of the bogus argument. All such expressions are meaningless. What does it mean to keep the stars in place? Certainly not the actual stars zooming around in our Galaxy or in the trillions of other galaxies. They're zooming around at hundreds of kilometers per second. And even from the earth's viewpoint, their configuration certainly changes over periods of centuries and more. As for constellations, all they are, are patterns of stars seen from the earth's tiny viewpoint. They are NOT PHYSICAL OBJECTS. Their stars do not move as one (the Pleiades is an exception). Their stars range in distance from a few light years to thousands. And what does "none are missing" mean? Missing from what? The catalog of stars given in the Bible? The expression is meaningless. Or perhaps it means, "none that we've seen before have now gone missing". Still meaningless. Think of the star that went supernova hundreds of years ago and now is the Crab Nebula. If one insists on viewing expressions such as in Isaiah 40:26 as literally scientific, one is obviously up a creek without a paddle.

Is "dynamic energy" a Proper Translation In Isaiah 40:26? In various Watchtower publications the writer argues that the phrase "dynamic energy" that the New World Translation uses in Isaiah 40:26 implies that God inspired Isaiah with divine knowledge of Albert Einstein's most famous equation E=mc^2, i.e., that matter and energy are equivalent. But is this a valid claim? I will show that it is not. The 1998 Watchtower book Is There a Creator Who Cares About You? contains a typical example of this argument in chapter 6, "An Ancient Creation Record--Can You Trust It?" (pp. 90-91). After explaining what Einstein's equation means, that matter and energy are intimately related, it says: << From beginning to end, the Bible points to the One who created all the matter in the universe, the Scientist. (Nehemiah 9:6; Acts 4:24; Revelation 4:11) And it clearly shows the relationship between energy and matter. For example, the Bible invites readers to do this: “Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them even by number, all of whom he calls even by name. Due to the abundance of dynamic energy, he also being vigorous in power, not one of them is missing.” (Isaiah 40:26) Yes, the Bible is saying that a source of tremendous dynamic energy--the Creator--caused the material universe to come into existence. This is completely in harmony with modern technology. For this reason alone, the Biblical record of creation merits our deep respect. >> The argument is wrong in several ways. We note that the scriptural quotation is from the New World Translation. The key phrase here is "dynamic energy". The book claims that this somehow has to do with the modern scientific concept of "energy". Does it? Let's go a few verses farther into Isaiah 40 and see. Verse 29 says of God, "He is giving to the tired one power; and to the one without dynamic energy he makes full might abound." Now, does that sound like God is giving "energy" in the modern scientific sense to the one who is tired and lacking power? Of course not. By the same token Isaiah 40:26 is not saying anything about the relationship between matter and energy. This can be seen further by looking at the meaning of the Hebrew word 'ohnim that the NWT translates as "dynamic energy". A variety of Hebrew lexicons yield the following definitions: "great strength, might, power, manly vigor", and these quite properly describe God. A better translation of these verses might be this, from Tanakh--The Holy Scriptures by the Jewish Publication Society: "Because of His great might and vast power, not one fails to appear... He gives strength to the weary, fresh vigor to the spent." It seems clear that the author of the Creator book has relied on a misleading translation to make his point. All that Isaiah is saying is that God is really, really big and strong.

Arauna said: Oh, so some animals just decided to eat meat, rearranged their teeth and lots of other apparatus, redesigned their digestive systems, and installed new, predatory instincts. Do you have the faintest idea how ludicrous your claims are? What "grave pits"? Provide source references. Your memory is crap. JW Insider said: That's what she's saying, although she's too stupid to know it. Note that this is another young-earth creationist website, and suffers from most of the usual problems: most of the sources are hopelessly out of date (1945, 1966), the arguments leave out important facts, etc. -- pretty much the same dishonesty as you find in Watchtower literature. Recent fossil discoveries have shown that there were a lot more types of mammals living before the dinosaurs died out. All were no bigger than a raccoon, and most were the size of a mouse. That appears to be true all the way back to when relatively modern mammals appeared toward the end of the Triassic Period, around 200-220 million years ago. Right. But the article clearly tried to give the impression that fully modern mammals and birds lived with the dinosaurs. Which goes back half a billion years. Arauna said: Less complimentary terms are warranted. You know this how? Ah, 10,000x sped up evolution in action! Yes, they just magically decided to change themselves. LOL! T-Rex teeth are not suitable for eating vegetation. There are plenty of examples of ancient animals whose teeth are clearly made for eating vegetation. According to Hezekiah chapter 23? Or what?

Arauna said: Are you really as dumb as you sound? How does what you said have anything to do with what I said? Totally clueless. Both animals that tolerate poison and the poisonous plants evolved together, at the same time and by small steps over a long period of time. LOL! Those mathematicians are almost ALL creationists, like Berlinsky. The rest are evident crackpots in the field of evolution. That was sarcastic, Einstein. No, you also lap up young-earth and ID-creationist nonsense. And you remain stuck in 40+ year old Watchtower teaching. Not cats. So? Their bodily systems can handle it -- those of cats can't. Look at modern pet foods. All well and good for carrion eaters, but most such critters are also active predators. And then you have the many pure predators such snakes of all sorts, spiders, centipedes, scorpions, etc. etc. etc. Why do you think they have nerve and muscle toxins? Why are constrictor snakes obviously designed to kill by constriction? Of course. Huge serrated, steak-knife teeth? What do you think those were for? Quite a number of prey animals have been found, such as Hadrosaurs, that had bites taken out of them, which healed, as shown by the growth of new bone. Do you think that God resurrected them? LOL! Most paleontologists and many other scientists do a great deal of fieldwork. You're too ignorant for words. And? Duh. But even that's wrong: ever hear of the packs of wild dogs of Africa? And packs of hyaenas? Obvious herbivores have teeth very different from obvious carnivores. You have no idea what you're talking about. Wrong. "The eye position of Tyrannosaurus rex was similar to that of modern humans." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur_vision ) Apparently its huge jaws were sufficient to dispatch prey. You don't know the half of it. What is the source for this? T-Rexes are now known to have been somewhat social animals in that they cared for their young, but so far as I'm aware there is no evidence that they lived in groups larger than immediate family groups. Your point? You know this how? Noooo!!! These are not historical sciences. As I already explained, historical and observational sciences like physics are different animals and by their nature, must follow different rules. Nonsense. Evolutionary Theory takes full advantage of historical science. I've already given you links on this, which you've duly ignored. Such as how historical science helped with the 2004 discovery of that most incredible intermediate fossil Tiktaalik ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiktaalik ) I've told you TWICE already: U-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. With the earth 4.55 billion years old, a bit less than half the original amount remains. Why do you keep pretending that I have not already answered you? Are you completely senile? You keep asking questions I've already answered several times.

JW Insider said: Yes. The more likely explanation is that there is no such God. Tell that to your young-earth creationist friend Arauna. This harks back to the 1943 book "The Truth Shall Make You Free", which ridiculous book had chapters on how the earth was formed. An amusingly cartoonish romp. He was in his attempts to get the Governing Body, in the 1990s, to take the child molestation business seriously. He was thoroughly dishonest in his writings about evolution/creation, the notion that the Bible is scientifically accurate, and many other things. I'm in the middle of an essay that examines various Watchtower publications on the evolution/creation question and so forth. Peloyan clearly wrote a thoroughly dishonest Awake! article on this in 1963. From the writing style and the repeated false arguments and the overall manner of dishonesty, I can also see that he wrote the 1967 Evolution book, the 1985 Creation book, the 1998 Creator book, and several W/G articles along the way. Of course. Several ex-Bethelites told me about that, and Peloyan didn't deny it when I challenged him about the dishonesty in that book. He didn't admit it -- he rationalized that misquoting was not actually dishonest. Exactly.

Arauna said: Your view of science is grossly deficient. No historical sciences can reproduce anything that happened just once in history. Your statement is another straw man. By your 'reasoning', all forensic science is invalid. All history other than that written down in books is invalid. Hypocrite! Do you need me to explain this a THIRD TIME? You're such a gross liar! Nope. As Wolfgang Pauli said about a colleague's misbegotten hypothesis: "It's not even wrong." But I've already told you about this, so either you remain abysmally stupid, or you're lying yet again. Which is it?Point being: before the earth and solar system coalesced, supernovas occurred that scattered uranium and other elements over the cosmos. When the earth coalesced and was bombarded by smaller bodies, it incorporated that uranium and such into its structure. No more uranium accumulated, nothing was "replenished". I already told you: a supernova "brough it here from that distance". You don't think so? Argue with the so-called "pillars of creation" photo from the Hubble telescope featured on the cover of the 1998 Creator book. Nonsense. Not to their lack of ability to synthesize the amino acid taurine (cf. https://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/cardiovascular/c_ct_taurine_deficiency ). To adapt, your God would have to modify all cats to be able to synthesize taurine -- it could not happen on its own -- unless you allow that evolution could occur in one generation. This is among the most ignorant statements I've ever seen. Let's just say: It's not even wrong.

TrueTomHarley said: You're abysmally dishonest, TTH. I did not say they demur -- I said they directly answered the question. Obviously you don't, as will be immediately shown. Not necessarily. Watchtower leaders are well known for saying different things out of both sides of their mouths, and acting quite differently from their moral pronouncements. The two-facedness of JW leaders is much like that of the Pharisees: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every sort of uncleanness. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." Simple, eh? They're vicious in that they tolerate no dissent, not even from sincere dissenters. They declare such ones "wicked apostates" worthy of eternal death at God's hands. Nope. Argue with Jesus, not me.

Arauna said: That's why you're stuck in obsolete Watchtower teachings more than 40 years old, and continue setting forth young-earth creationist talking points. Yes indeed, you've certainly done your own research.

TrueTomHarley said: They certainly do. This is not subjective, as your excuse claims: it is objective. If a quote changes the meaning of the original, or misrepresents what the original author intended, it is a misquote, a misrepresentation, period. There are hundreds of examples of this in Watchtower literature. Another straw man. Nothing -- as long as you also quote enough to show that he explained why the seeming absurdity is a misconception. That lack is why the Watchtower's misuse of Darwin's "eye quote" in the 1985 Creation book is so egregious, as are so many other misrepresentations. This is very simple: an honest writer does not misrepresent the words or views of those he quotes.

JW Insider said: Your mother is hopelessly out of date here. Even the Society accepts the reality of the fossil record. What else does he have? Your son is far wiser than most JW kids. True on both counts. No Scientific Theory is ever final. It only becomes better and better verified over time, to the point where, as Stephen Jay Gould said, "It would be perverse not to accept it." Like the Theory of Gravity etc. Exactly. Yep. And if such a maverick theory stood up to all manner of rigorous tests, as the modern Theory of Evolution has, most scientists would be happy to adopt it. Right. Such disagreements are normal for a dynamic field of science. WTS writers are so well known for this dishonesty that most scientists laugh at them. Exactly. I've posted about such many times. Harry Peloyan, editor-in-chief of Awake!, once told me why they do it: they enjoy making secularists look bad. Apparently it didn't dawn on him that such tactics make the Watchtower Society a laughingstock in all arenas but the echo-chamber of the JW community. That's not a well thought out question. Since it's produced in supernovas, along with most other elements, it just IS. What use people put it to is a different issue. There's a lot of radioactive materials inside the earth. Some people have proposed that the earth's core is more or less a giant reactor. In any case, this internal radioactivity generates a lot of heat, which in turn drives plate tectonics, which in turn has made the oceans and continents into what they are today. Without those things, the earth's surface would long ago have eroded below sea level. Not entirely. For that to work, God would have to chain the brains of most predators. Or perhaps assign an angel to each predator. And of course, what would meat-eaters eat? Cats require meat, not vegetables. Half a billion. All of which goes to prove my contention: the Bible Creator is not loving.

TrueTomHarley said: Pentecostals generally don't do that. Apparently you just make up "news" out of thin air -- just like your idol Trump. Correct. And obviously you have no answer against my proof. I never lie. You're doing what ever-Trumpers do very well -- project their own faults onto their opponents. LOL! Such a transparent liar. I explained all that in excruciating detail, and of course, accompanied all of my claims with quotes from Watchtower publications. And of course, "within the 20th century" obviously means "in or by 2000". More grasping at straws.

For Big Old Woman Arauna: For the most part from here on in, I'm going to turn Arauna's dishonest "debate tactics" back on her: ignore some arguments, falsely claim that responses were never given, and so forth. Already answered. Now you answer similar ones. Where did God come from? Who created God? Where did God get all his "dynamic energy" from? How long has God existed? You just pulled that out of your ass. No one has such a "hypothesis". I think what you've done is confuse the 11 dimensions proposed by one of the string hypotheses with some of the multiverse hypotheses. But your senile old brain isn't firing on all cylinders. But you're too cowardly to let him evaluate answers such as I've given you about the decay of uranium-238 -- which I've given you two times now, and you've ignored each time. Wow, not only dishonest to a fault, but cowardly and senile! To some things, sure. To things like "what does the fossil record show?" they have plenty of answers. You just don't like them because they destroy your world view. Like, Who created God? LOL! Yet another creationist talking point. That's just one figure. And of course, you cannot name your source. And as I've carefully explained several times, the number is entirely subjective because it depends on exactly how one defines "explosion". You just don't learn. Nevertheless, even 10 million years is a long time for life to proliferate. LOL! Yet another instance of Orwellian crimestop. We note the refusal to self-educate. I already did. You've again ignored what I've said because your Orwellian crimestop kicked in.

b4ucuhear said: Then you're an apostate, because that's what your Governing Body requires. You're a master of understatement. The cases of Carl Olof Jonsson and James Penton being prime examples. They think that because JW leaders have made it a disfellowshipping offense to disagree. I'm happy to meet one of the few JW apologists who straightforwardly admits to such faults, so good for you! I met an elder nearly 30 years ago with whom I had some frank talks. He had been an especially respected elder for several decades, and had a realistic view of the JW organization reminiscent of yours. He didn't believe about 80% of JW teachings. He said he had become an elder mainly to damp down "the bears", meaning elders who he felt mistreated "the flock". Despite his being an undercover apostate, he often entertained GB members and other Watchtower officials. Go figure. On an individual basis JWs tend to be exactly that. But the leaders are vicious, and no different from those of the 'Christendom' they love to bash. In certain ways they're even worse, since most such leaders make no arrogant claims to be divinely directed and are often not as hypocritical. JW leaders are well known for talking out of both sides of their mouths, claiming virtual inspiration out of one side, and excusing their false teachings and predictions out of the other side. You can see this sort of gross hypocrisy in several of the most rabid JW apologists posting on this board. I often taunt them in order expose their wicked attitudes. Indeed. Another instance of gross hypocrisy by JW leaders. Exactly. Even for an ostensibly good person, thinking that one speaks for God often emboldens one to act especially wickedly. As physicist Steven Weinberg said: << With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion. >> Would that JW leaders act accordingly. Yet, you know that if push comes to shove, the majority of JWs would act according to the tribalism they've been ingrained with, and side with their leaders irrespective of facts or "Bible standards" of honesty and morality. Thousands of instances of this have been posted online for decades. I've sometimes tested JWs who came to my door: "What if your organization began teaching that the moon is made of cheddar cheese? Would you reject such obvious nonsense?" Most have answered that they would go along with their organization. Tribalism at its best. Yes it can. And there is no reason to think that there must be a "best place to be". How about just quietly living a reasonably moral life free from as many bad influences -- like religion -- as possible? I see no change for the better. Rather, I see the opposite, as JW leaders circle the wagons and demonize critics more than ever. More than forty years ago when I was still a practicing JW, I understood quite well that to raise questions without a demeaning level of obsequiousness would get one disfellowshipped. After the April 1, 1986 Watchtower and other communications clearly indicated that even expressing contrary opinions privately -- not trying to teach them to others -- was grounds for disfellowshipping for apostasy, I realized that the JW leadership was unrepairably corrupt. Who in his right mind would want to be part of such an organization? As for "the promises found in God's Word", you first have to prove that this God exists, and that the Bible is His Word. But the Bible contains, as I'm sure you're aware, many contradictions with facts, such as in the Genesis account. In this area the Society has been especially remiss, publishing all manner of lies and misrepresentations.

TrueTomHarley said: I clearly said that, you moron. Can't you read? Or is your brain still dead? Nope. You are committing the fallacy of not understanding what you read. I already went through that with various degrees of child molestation. Yep, a great big straw man alright -- invented because you can't understand written English. Any objective person reading your ridiculous responses and general lying would disagree. I unhesitatingly call spades spades and liars liars. You don't like it because you know you're a liar. Arbitrary? My 'criteria' are generally part of The Law and clearly indicated by so-called Bible Morality. You obviously know nothing of logic and intellect.

Especially in the JW community.

b4ucuhear said: You're covering over the fact that in most regions only certain religious and other public officials are required by law to report. In the U.S., in most cases and due to the influence of religious leaders on lawmakers, elders are not so required. But they ought to be. That's why elders are supposed to check with the Service and/or Legal Departments, to see if they're required by law to report. So in most cases in the U.S., since the law doesn't require them to report, they don't. b4ucuhear said: The key concept here is spoken of. As I have repeatedly said, that means that such 'appointment' by God is only in a manner of speaking. It is not literal, direct appointment such as described of the Old Testament prophets. But JW leaders deliberately confuse the two concepts, hoping -- and mostly succeeding -- to convince their followers that they themselves are quasi-inspired prophets who speak in God's name. Since they are admittedly not inspired, they do not speak in God's name, and so they are false prophets. They are also false prophets in the sense that anyone who claims to speak in the name of a god is a prophet by definition. Thus, such prophets who teach falsehoods of any sort are false prophets. The rest of your post is a standard whitewash of the JW organization. But this organization demonstrably teaches all manner of falsehoods, and so is a false teacher and false prophet. As for the JW preaching work, hardly anyone takes notice. Ask most anyone walking down the street, "What do you think of the message JWs preach?" The answer is usually along the lines of "What message? Aren't they the loons who don't take blood transfusions?" As for the size of the JW community and its influence on the world, its 'unity' and so forth, note that the worldwide loose group known as Pentecostals has grown from virtually zero size 120 years ago to upwards of 300 million today. They are strongly united in many ways -- just not the same way JWs are united. For the most part, both Pentecostals and JWs as individuals are highly brainwashed by their cultish leaders.

Anna said: Exactly. I guarantee you that in my extended family, an uncle who was known to have done that to one of my female cousins would have become a pariah. I suspect that this was many years ago, when such things were often shrugged off by most everyone. When my mother, a real hottie, was about 16, a prominent Watchtower official molested her in the sense that he touched her breasts, bottom and other private parts. She was horribly naive and didn't think of it as sexual molestation, but only as uncomfortable. She didn't tell anyone until she was in her late 60s. Do you think she was molested or not? Then in my reply to you I said: I think it's ignorance of how child sexual molestation really works, and naivete regarding "repentance" is what has caused all the doo doo.to happen. I mentioned that elsewhere too. No one thinks child sexual molestation is ok. Except for molesters like Greenlees. And enablers like certain elders and GB members who make or enforce policies whose result is covering over the crimes. We know that molesters are never really cured, just stopped or slowed down. So yes, it's likely he would have gone on to bigger and better things. Very likely. Many years ago, yes, that's how these things were perceived by most people. All good points, but that have nothing to do with Leo Greenlees, because no one aside from those he molested (like Mark Palo) were aware of his perversion. Not just 'appears' -- it IS that way. Through at least the late 1980s it was unofficially stated but strongly enforced Watchtower policy that "keeping Jehovah's name spotless" was above all other goals in handling judicial and other matters. "Jehovah's name" was deliberately conflated with "the Watchtower Society's reputation". Thus, elders' prime goal was usually to keep all sordid situations under wraps. Hundreds of examples of this have been reported in various public and private media. Good points! Tolerance is a form of enabling, which in some cases is even worse than the crime.

A classic instance of cultists sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling La-la-la-la-la!

TrueTomHarley said: Yet you're unable to show that it's ridiculous. All you can manage is an unevidenced denial of what I said. On the other hand, in earlier posts in the now-chopped-up thread, I've set forth detailed reasons why it is so. And in no case has anyone shown why the reasoning is wrong. That's right, and again not a single JW apologist has refuted that. In fact, only one (Arauna) even tried, and her 'reasoning' was completely lame, and I proved it false. To recap: *********************** The Bible says God is loving; 'creation' says the Creator is not loving. The Bible says God knows all; so God knows when parts of 'creation' are not acting lovingly toward other parts. God sees this and approves, because he created it to be so. Reality cannot contradict itself. Hence, either the Bible is wrong that God is loving, or the evidence from 'creation' that says the Creator is not loving is wrong. The half-billion-year-old fossil record of 'creation' is fully established as scientific fact. Hence the Bible's claim that its God is loving is false. Hence, either the Bible is false, or God does not exist, or both. QED. *********************** Look at the videos below of leopards eating live warthogs and tell me that leopards act lovingly toward warthogs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhXUrFdWeoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4Id4OSe2to A handful of especially stupid apologists will claim that leopard behavior is a product of "man's sin" or even that Satan created such things. But they forget that these things began occurring half a billion years before man or Satan came to exist 6,000 years ago (according to the Watchtower Society). Note that the above reasoning in no way argues that some sort of creator does not exist -- only that such a creator is not loving. Ok now, Einstein: show why the above logic is wrong. Put up or shut up.

TrueTomHarley said: I think you're so blinded by your Watchtower blinders that you don't see your comments for what they are -- abhorrent to anyone with moral decency. Note this one: << And sometimes you wish that there was more differerentiation in “molestation.” At present, anything from a hand on the inner thigh or rear end to outright rape is described (and sometimes deliberately confused) as “molestation.” None of those actions are great, of course, but there is a substantial difference between them. >> As Anna explained, in principle there is no difference between "a hand on the inner thigh or rear end" and outright rape. All are violations of law, and of New Testament principles for sexual misconduct, and all are forms of molestation -- despite your protests to the contrary. The 'minor' violations, if not checked, inevitably lead to major violations. Your obvious attempt to minimize some forms of molestation is saying exactly, "Molestation is no big deal!" That's exactly what JW leaders have always done, and continue to do, and is why they're in such trouble with the Law and molestation victims. I think you need to go back to square one on what constitutes morality. Coming from someone with a demonstrably defective moral sense and little critical thinking ability, that's rich!

Anna said: Very good! But the Watchtower Society claims that Greenlees, other GB members and all elders are appointed by God, thus contradicting the fact that Greenlees was not. If Greenlees was not, then the rest were not either. This is simple logic. Why do you refuse to accept it? The point is that the mere claim that one is following the directions in the Bible in no way means that one is actually following those directions. The proof is in the pudding, and the JW organization's 'pudding' proves that it often does not follow the directions. Hence it is not what it claims: God's earthly representative. Deliberately missing the point again. The point is that, despite the Pope's and many other leaders of 'Christendom's' claims to be appointed to their positions by God, and to speak for God, you and all other JWs reject those claims. Why? Because according to your beliefs, despite their claims, they are not doing God's will according to the Bible. Once again the point here is that old Tom, Dick and Harry can claim to be doing God's will, but that claim in no way means that they are actually doing God's will. Their actions prove or disprove it.