OK thanks, I'll check that out!

I do wonder, is there any amount of ridiculous nonsense you can put into a religious myth that would make people finally stop and say, "Whoah, come on!" It almost seems the more ridiculous the better.

I think I did a lot of stuff like that in a Zelda game. I hope I didn't end the world.

That's a very good point. How far down the rabbit hole do they need to go before they decide it's all too silly to be worth defending anymore?

(And yes, autocorrect - "rabbit holiday" is exactly what I was going to type. Well done!)

I think if you'd have told me all the Mormon stuff for the first time, and then asked me if anyone (sane) would ever believe it, my answer would be no. So clearly the bar is in a very different place to where I would have expected.

It's probably the reason why scientologists keep denying all that Xenu stuff until you've invested so much, cash and personal secrets, that there's no going back.

(June 11, 2015 at 4:18 am)Nestor Wrote: Does it trouble you that your founder Charles Russell predicted "Christ's second advent," using some bizarre method known as "pyramidology," to occur in 1874, and yet nothing remotely of the sort took place?

There was a fairly brilliant con that Russell or Barbour pulled with that date. When it came and went without incident, they claimed that Christ had indeed returned... invisibly. He had taken his place on the throne of heaven and begun to judge mankind using the Elmer Fudd technique ("be vewwy vewwy quiet!"). It kept the flock on a string and avoided the headaches that Miller experienced after 1843 or 1844 when his own predictions of a second coming fell flat and the movement splintered.

Rutherford later discarded 1874 as a meaningful date and claimed that Russell had instead pegged 1914 as the date in which Jesus secretly ascended to the throne. That date worked a lot better for them (after they changed the initial prediction, which was that the war of Armageddon would be over by 1914) because they could now present it as a "significant year" due to the start of WW1. The story as told to the membership is that Russell predicted Jesus's "presence" (parousia) and the Last Days as beginning in 1914 and lo and behold! WW1 started and provided a sign that the metaphysical shit had hit the supernatural fan. It gave the organization a credibility as having the gift of prophecy and therefore having god's blessing.

Additional whitewashing of the years 1918 and 1919 give the impression of a tiny group of devout worshipers who were under vicious attack by Satan's minions and somehow --miraculously!-- survived to carry on the important preaching work commanded by Jesus. Since members are strongly warned against seeking outside information into the organization's past, this story has a strong effect on them.

Wow. These guys make Daily Mail horoscopes look like works of genius.

Haha wow, Tonus. When I was browsing that publication about 1914 I almost felt slightly impressed lol.

(June 11, 2015 at 6:49 am)Stimbo Wrote: That's a very good point. How far down the rabbit hole do they need to go before they decide it's all too silly to be worth defending anymore?

(And yes, autocorrect - "rabbit holiday" is exactly what I was going to type. Well done!)

Golden plates only one specific person and look at and read. Is that good enough  

(June 11, 2015 at 4:18 am)Nestor Wrote: Does it trouble you that your founder Charles Russell predicted "Christ's second advent," using some bizarre method known as "pyramidology," to occur in 1874, and yet nothing remotely of the sort took place?

yes, but I would say that Witnesses would more or less not call him a founder but rather a guy who spearheaded the modern movement

(June 11, 2015 at 2:22 am)Stimbo Wrote: But I'm talking of same-sex couples in a relationship, just like opposite sex relationships. Let's say I and my partner - call him Stan - wish to be baptised in a JW sense. We've been together ten years and committed, via legal ceremony, for the last three. In the eyes of the law, we are married. Would we (a) be allowed to join and (b) be expected to be celibate where a 'traditional' wedded couple would not? If the answer is no to either or both of these, what do you feel about it?

So for context, if someone wants to be baptized they have to first accept what JW's teach from the bible. If they don't accept them then they can't even be publishers (kind of like a pre-baptized person) They would study the bible for months or years and then get questioned from 3 different brothers about the basic beliefs of JW's. One of those is acts that displease god. And you have to accept all of this and desire to live by "bible principles" to be one of JW's in good standing. So if you and Stan studied the bible, went through the questions and got baptized, you would know clearly that there would be consequences to a homosexual relationship. And you could only get baptized if you adopted the belief that your attraction to men was your thorn in the flesh as it were, that is the phrase Paul used, and believed that God had not a intended those feelings as part of his original purpose. I honestly don't know what the direction would be for the legal commitment though. I am sure that if you two wanted to avoid homosexuality then it would be advised to not allow the temptation to sprout. Like maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to live together. But it wouldn't be a requirement. But if one or both of you rejected the teaching that homosexual acts are wrong then you wouldn't qualify to get baptized.