Ann O'Maly

2 Tim. 2:19 doesn't help answer the question 'how do you know Rev. 12:7-12 'actually' started its fulfillment in 1914?', Eoin. You did provide a text that said love 'believed all things,' etc. However, I countered with Jesus' warning about not believing everything people would claim about his presence. You also offered this: Satan, the ruler of the world, is present. But Satan was present as the ruler of the world back in the 1st century CE (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 1 Pet. 5:8). What changed in 1914? So far your certainty is based on wafer thin reasoning. Have you anything more substantial to present?

A Mobile Phone From 1922? Not Quite History often plays linguistic tricks on us, especially when it comes to rapidly changing technologies By Matt Novak smithsonian.com January 17, 2012 Title card from the 1922 short silent film "Eve's Wireless" (source: British Pathe) I recently came across a short, silent film from 1922 called Eve’s Wireless. Distributed by the British Pathe company, the film supposedly shows two women using a wireless phone. Apparently this video has been making the rounds for the past few years. Could it be an early demonstration of some futuristic technology? I hate to be the Internet’s wet blanket, but no. It’s not a mobile phone. Rather than an early mobile phone, think of the box they’re holding as an early Walkman; because the two women on the street don’t have a telephone, but rather a crystal radio. The confusion comes from the fact that the term “wireless telephone” was widely used in 1922 for what we simply call “radio” today. ... Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-mobile-phone-from-1922-not-quite-21291812/?no-ist

Which one? Satan's presence as ruler of the world? Or Jesus' presence as ruler of the world? (Rev. 11:15) Matt. 24:23-27

How do you know Rev. 12:7-12 'actually' started its fulfillment in 1914? And if they were wrong about the date of Christ's invisible presence and wrong about discerning the sign of it, how are you sure they are right about it today?

I don't think they are meaningful lyrics but vocal sounds and syllables.

When did Pope Francis do this? Which Catholic conference was it? As will become apparent, Pope Francis did no such thing. Alan Murdock has pointed out that this is old news. The catholicsay article goes on to copy much of the March 22, 1987 Awake! article verbatim. Given how old the information is, the 10,000 figure attributed to La Republica will reflect peak numbers of converts in the 1970s and '80s. If anyone's that interested, they can access Yearbooks from that period online to check the numbers being baptized. But it has to be said that firstly, not all who were baptized would have been Catholics (e.g. what about all the homegrown JW children?) and secondly, there have only been about 4,000 or 5,000 baptisms per year in more recent times. The Awake! provides a more specific reference ... In an editorial dealing specifically with Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Jesuit magazine La Civiltá Cattolica of February 18, 1984, wrote: [etc.] [bold emphasis mine] ... and here is the original online, for any Italian speakers here - scroll to pp. 313f. La Civiltà cattolica, Issues 3205-3210, 1984, 'I Testimoni di Geova'

I doubt it. Why would he be? Here's the background story on him and his fellow composer, Carol Sovinski: http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/dispatch/99b2f39b9fdbf414f92ad9cf47fda92b

An extract of 'Eternal Flame' was used in the 2013 'Diana' movie trailer.

The music is from 'epic music' producers 'audiomachine' who do tracks for movie trailers. The track the Org used for its 'Paradise video' is called 'Eternal Flame' and it's from audiomachine's 2012 'Epica' album.

Shouldn't we add to that heavy rock music and the electricity for the amp?

I guess all astronomers can do is continue observing, collecting data, and refining. If they can improve their knowledge on how 'dark' matter and energy affect the universe's expansion rate, the predictions based on Cosmic Microwave Background will better harmonize with the results yielded from the 'standard candle' method. Prof. Riess explained, “Ultimately, when Gaia is done, we ought to be able to measure the Hubble Constant to 1% precision. That’s the same precision that is predicted by the Cosmic Microwave Background. That will be really powerful. "And if there is a discrepancy, if there's something interesting going on in the dark sector of the Universe, it should give us much better evidence of what that is”.

Cheeky, yes. 'Plain nasty,' no. Hence the wink smiley. Nevertheless, you were trying to wriggle round the evidence from Watchtower history that showed the "Kingdom Rules" statement to be untruthful. Why don't we add Harold Camping to the list of those validating BSs' and JWs' eschatological expectations too? Unless one is a preterist, Christians generally believe in a future return of Christ, so how is it remarkable that Adventists and fringe Christian-based religions expect it as well? The 'mouth of two or three witnesses' is insufficient to 'establish a matter' for you? How much testimony from the period literature would it take to convince you that the BSs had begun to discern the sign of Jesus' presence nearly 40 years earlier than 1914, according to their beliefs, thereby rendering the "Kingdom Rules" brochure inaccurate on that point? Indeed he does. However, as much as I enjoy and learn from reading JW Insider's posts, we have different styles and time availability. I'm a 'bullet point,' 'tl;dr' kinda gal who prefers cutting to the chase and using 10 words to express a thought rather than 100.

Artwork: Gaia is making the definitive map of our Milky Way Galaxy Europe’s Gaia space telescope has been used to clock the expansion rate of the Universe and - once again - it has produced some head-scratching. The reason? The speed is faster than what one would expect from measurements of the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang. Some other telescopes have found this same problem, too. But Gaia’s contribution is particularly significant because the precision of its observations is unprecedented. “It certainly ups the ante,” says Adam Riess from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and the Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore, Maryland, US. The inability to lock down a value for the expansion rate has far-reaching consequences - not least in how we gauge the cosmic timescale. If the Gaia speedometer is correct, it would mean having to reduce the estimated 13.88-billion-year age of the Universe by perhaps a few hundred million years. Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37438458

That's a pity. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. We can know what Bible Students did or did not discern in 1914 or at other times because their writings from those times are available to read. If you can find a Bible Student publication from 1914 or the years following that specifically connects the year 1914 with the start of Christ's presence, then please post it here. Otherwise, we have to conclude that the 'Kingdom Rules' book has made an erroneous and misleading statement. You cannot wriggle around it, Eoin. The BSs believed Christ's presence began in 1874 and, yes, that it was continuing through 1922 and beyond (duh). But this isn't what the 'Kingdom Rules' book claimed, is it? It claimed: "In 1914, the Bible Students began to discern the sign of Christ's invisible presence" and not "In 1914, the Bible Students continued to discern the sign of Christ's invisible presence that began in 1874." This is like using Armstrong's WWCG beliefs about what would happen in 1975 to validate the old JWs' beliefs about 1975. It's truly amazing that non-JWs also came to the conclusion that 1975 would be the end of the system of things, is it not? Anyway, the Bible Students were not looking forward to the Lord's Second Coming, because they thought he had already done so invisibly 40 years earlier. The Advent Testimony Manifesto also didn't have a year in mind for the close of the Gentile times - only that it would occur once Israel had been restored and converted. As for you being unpersuaded by what's written in Watchtower's period literature about what was taught and believed, well, 'a man convinced against his will ...'

I'm sorry, Eoin, but this is very weaselly worded - whether you intend it to be so or not. The Bible Students simply did not 'begin to discern' or 'distinguish with difficulty by sight or with the other senses' in 1914 or in 1915 or in 1922* etc. that Jesus' presence started in 1914 because, as Holly has already pointed out to you, the Bible Students had already discerned that Jesus' presence had started in 1874. Bible Students 'began to discern' (or rethink the 1874 presence idea) long after 1914 * The 1922 Cedar Point, Ohio convention and the famous call to 'advertise, advertise, advertise the King and his kingdom' re-establishes the Bible Students' firm belief that it was a fact Jesus' presence began in 1874. The 'Advent Testimony Manifesto' was a) in 1917 - not 1914, and b) the reasoning behind their thinking that Christ's return was imminent was down to the Balfour Declaration and the move to re-establish Palestine as the Jewish homeland which was understood as fulfilling prophecy about the restoration of Israel, the rapture of the church, and Jesus' physically taking his kingship in Jerusalem! Is this in any way representative of JWs' version of 1914's significance?

But the Bible Students and other people didn't begin to discern the sign of Christ's invisible presence in 1914. The idea that Christ had been invisibly present didn't begin to be discerned by Bible Students until about 1930 (g1930, April 30, p. 503-4 - the earliest published comment "that Jesus has been present since the year 1914"). The rest of the world continued not to discern it.

It became the Organization's date too until about 1930.

Hahahaha, Allen. Anyone can colorize a black-and-white photo with a purplish tint or any tint you like, really. A genuine color version of that particular photo does not exist. Smh. And nobody here (Arauna) is denying the Holocaust, or that JWs/Bible Students were thrown into concentration camps, had to wear a purple triangle and were treated appallingly. What I am pointing out is that the image purporting to be JW detainees at Auschwitz is actually an image from Sachsenhausen and it is unknown who the prisoners were. Note the caption to the photo on this webpage: http://ww2today.com/13-december-1944-sachsenhausen-concentration-camp-new-arrivals. They could be anybody - with an added observation that, as JW Insider mentioned, one of them was wearing a double triangle of different colors, one of them shaded considerably darker than the triangles the others are wearing. In fact, if we put a color picture of an original uniform with purple JW badge into b&w, we get this: See how dark the purple appears in monochrome. The prisoners' triangles in the OP image were a much lighter shade. Uniform photo source: http://www.alst.org/pages-us/primary-documents/purple-triangles.html

I remember seeing Dateline and Panorama when they first came out in 2002 and feeling ashamed at how the organization didn't 'treat its flock with tenderness,' sweeping these appalling crimes under the rug. The Org's priorities were all skewed. The two shows hit home all the more because members of my own family had been molested by a JW who inveigled himself into the hearts of vulnerable single/divorced JW mothers who had young daughters. The perp was eventually disfellowshipped but was reinstated a short time later after having feigned repentance. Back in business. Another area; another hapless, single JW mother in his sights. Has the Org's attitude to child sexual abuse within its congregations really changed since then? Sadly, only negligibly until 2012 after the Candace Conti case. From that time, secular courts and public inquiries have still had to drag the Org, with its resistant heels ploughing up the ground, into making any small, tangible changes in its policies and procedures ... and it has a long way to go yet to raise its standards to meet those of 'worldly' institutions.

Huh?

I did. Did you? If you did so with any basic comprehension, you would realize that Russell was saying 'the world' as in 'Planet Earth' would "abideth forever" but that he was promoting the idea that 'the world' as people knew it would end. I.e. the world system of things, the institutions, the 'Gentile' governments would be crushed out of existence (in fulfillment of Dan. 2:44); there would be a period of world-wide anarchy; the ungodly would be done away with; and then a millennium of peaceful messianic rule would be ushered in. Look: The only one looking foolish is you, Allen.

Sachsenhausen. Hard to tell if the triangles are purple in a black-and-white photo. The shading may also suggest blue, red, green, pink or brown.

If you mean the two articles from the October and November 2011 Watchtowers, not only have I read the entire articles, but I've checked the original sources in the endnotes too. This is why I feel so appalled that the Writing Department could mangle the subject and misrepresent the academic sources in that way.

Again, you a disputing the historical facts. As you well know, Russell predicted, among other things, the end of earth's rulers in 1914 and the end of the 'world' as people knew it. A few years after 1914, and despite none of Russell's predictions coming to pass, Rutherford proclaimed in true 'Emperor's New Clothes' fashion: "The World Has Ended! The Golden Age Is Here! Millions Now Living Will Never Die: This Means What It Says - It Is A Fact" Um, what? Lolol! Dear oh dear. You're using ex-JW Gordon Ritchie's "Lord's Witnesses" site for your information! He sees codes everywhere in the Bible and uses them to prophesy end times events, which invariably fail and have to be revised. Incorrect (apart from the circle having 360 degrees part). Instead of relying on Ritchie's webpage or Keith Hunter's Illuminati Numerology ideas or a reputedly error-ridden book (Parise), try being more judicious about your sources, hey? E.g. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/Calendar.html

Arauna, in the whole of this thread, I have linked to Wikipedia only once and it was for Allen's edification. I also haven't cited an old Watchtower publication in ages - the last ones were part of an exchange with Allen who was disputing some history about the organization's early teachings. As to the most recent posts here, I've been too busy to really catch up. So I have no idea what you mean about 'teenagers' and 'infant organizations' and 'moving on' and my 'same behavior,' etc.