The truth hurts.

[Rivendale]

At least they accomplished something. If it were for reborns, they'd be sitting round talking in circles about Jesus and he's their best friend and in the room even though nothing's happening. Might get a little heated as each one thinks he's their own guy more than the others'. They might smoke some pot; or just say Jesus is their drug. Might pretend to wig out and say it's tongues.

Yeah, Jesus freaks can be a bit weird to watch. They know how to put on a good show. Jesus freaks are very patient as they live out their lives hoping their dear Lord (imaginary friend teddy bear) will come again someday but he never does, cuzz he's dead. Thousands of years go by but they still wait for him. It's f-ing crazy.

So stupid too.

Everytime I drive by a cemetery in Utah I always think about how Mormons envision what will happen there someday. Graves opening up followed by all these people climbing out dressed in their appropriate era wardrobe. Absolutely mind boggling that they really believe this is the nature of reality. And this is just the start. Jesus gets to rain down some apocalyptic ass kicking and they have front row seats.

[Shulem]

Everytime I drive by a cemetery in Utah I always think about how Mormons envision what will happen there someday. Graves opening up followed by all these people climbing out dressed in their appropriate era wardrobe. Absolutely mind boggling that they really believe this is the nature of reality. And this is just the start. Jesus gets to rain down some apocalyptic ass kicking and they have front row seats.

Yeah, Christian & Mormon retards. Peas in a pod.

[Physics Guy]

My experience meeting Jehovah’s Witnesses is limited and mixed. A lonely-seeming but nice old lady ranted to me about the bad other churches once, and once I discussed my way through a series of higher-ranking visitors until I hit an older guy who seemed to be so senior that he was allowed to come alone. We weren’t on the same wavelength. They wanted to be Biblical literalists, as long as they were allowed to say what counted as literal, and even back then I didn’t see the Bible as an authority at all.

Among the Witnesses I’ve met, many have seemed to be recent immigrants, in both Canada and Germany. The only Bible study of theirs I attended seemed like a very basic Sunday School class for young kids, except attended by adults, with people applauded for giving the simple right answers.

On the other hand I am currently working with an experienced post-doc who was raised JW (and now firmly rejects it all), while I have a relative by marriage who has returned to their JW roots in later life, to some consternation in the rest of the family. I reckon it’s like a lot of religion, that whatever was there when you were vulnerable and needed support, for example as a child or an immigrant, has a lot of pull in your brain.

[huckelberry]

Gad. That post the Bible thread had some worthwhile discussion with Dan McClellan unfortunately utterly buried in the giant pile of pages of Bible copy.

[Limnor]

in fact, I had a dedicated Bible with a tab system ready to go for the occasion.

I’m curious about this approach. I’m aware of some of the proof texts and follow the logic, but there are also times when I read arguments like, “Well, the Bible says Jael killed Sisera, and David beheaded Goliath, therefore it was okay for Nephi to behead Laban,” and I wonder about that line of reasoning. It sometimes seems specifically designed to undermine confidence in the Bible and faith in God rather than lead to belief in Mormon claims. Is that part of missionary training?

[Shulem]

...David beheaded Goliath, therefore it was okay for Nephi to behead Laban...

I've not heard that line of reasoning from LDS apologists. Two entirely different sets of circumstances insomuch as Israel was at war with the Philistines and Goliath challenged any Israelite to come against him in battle. King Saul allowed David to meet that challenge and the story goes from there. There simply is no comparison between Nephi murdering Laban and David fighting in a war.

Heavens, there appears to be someone here besides how do you say, Mr. Shulem.

Nippy-baby,

We know how the Bible in Matthew and Mark tells us that nobody knows when Jesus will return to earth for judgment. The day and hour remains a complete mystery even to the angels. Only Heavenly-Daddy-Man know when he's gonna send his boy-Jezzus back to earth to burn the fags for refusing to bow their knees to a man's family jewels hidden between his legs under his robe.

So, can you tell us at the least, which millennium will the dear Boy return? A thousand years from now? Twenty thousand? More?

[Gadianton]

I’m curious about this approach. I’m aware of some of the proof texts and follow the logic, but there are also times when I read arguments like, “Well, the Bible says Jael killed Sisera, and David beheaded Goliath, therefore it was okay for Nephi to behead Laban

Missionary training is bare minimum with no emphasis on ever answering a real question but rather, steering the "investigator" to "reading and praying." JWs have a systematic approach to the Bible, it may be simple or misguided, but there is no such framework for LDS.

If you mean "the Bible is wrong also" as a defense, no training along those lines. And nothing like that in my side project, though I'm sure I made one of those arguments at some point. I rarely had that Bible with me (heavy) and its limited use turned out to be as a prop. One time, this lay-minister guy was overly nice when we knocked on his door and he invited us back to join his "Bible study". We knew we were being set up so I brought it along. The guy had like 20 people there and had stacks of anti-Mormon lit ready to go and immediately went attack dog on us, but I'd read that stuff before my mission so he didn't really have anything I couldn't deflect, but not in a way that required that Bible. But, after that guy finally shut up, I had the perfect setup. One of his guys asked, sarcastically, if I'd ever seen a real Bible (something like that, assuming I only knew about the Mormon book), and so I said something like, "you mean one of these?" And pulled that guy out of my bag and held it up so they could see all the tabs and silenced the room. One lady said "and it looks like a very well used Bible." And that was that.

Something like an ethics discussion surrounding Laban's beheading is so far out there in terms of specialization -- a person would need to be conversant in or even care about ethics, which might be 1% of the population, and then be aware of Laban's beheading in the Book of Mormon, which might be .01% of the population, and since I don't recall that as part of any standard anti-lit, that would be such an advanced discussion that it would just never happen. About as far as it might get is; so I have it with me and this lady who is somewhat confrontational begins to inform us that the Bible says that you can't add to it. Where? Doesn't know. Pull the tab at Rev. 22:18 and there it is. So getting ahead of it like that in such a visual way was effective at ending the conversation. They just assume you're oblivious, and then you have a tab right there anticipating their obliviousness, they see they've been anticipated and so they aren't going to continue. But any of those tabs and cross-referencing was for "fools mate" scenarios that never materialized and all very superficial. I had discussions with smart people also, one lady, a nutty born-again, taught Hebrew and Greek at the local university; no chance in hell I would have ever pulled that Bible in a conversation. If I suspected I was outclassed no way I'd go there.

[Limnor]

One of his guys asked, sarcastically, if I'd ever seen a real Bible (something like that, assuming I only knew about the Mormon book), and so I said something like, "you mean one of these?" And pulled that guy out of my bag and held it up so they could see all the tabs and silenced the room. One lady said "and it looks like a very well used Bible." And that was that.

Ha! Touché!

I figured the training must include responses to stock questions like “Jesus and Satan are brothers?” or “the Bible says not to add anything.” Thank you for the response. Makes sense.

[LittleNipper]

Heavens, there appears to be someone here besides how do you say, Mr. Shulem.

Nippy-baby,

We know how the Bible in Matthew and Mark tells us that nobody knows when Jesus will return to earth for judgment. The day and hour remains a complete mystery even to the angels. Only Heavenly-Daddy-Man know when he's gonna send his boy-Jezzus back to earth to burn the fags for refusing to bow their knees to a man's family jewels hidden between his legs under his robe.

So, can you tell us at the least, which millennium will the dear Boy return? A thousand years from now? Twenty thousand? More?

1000 years is like a day with the LORD. GOD created the entire universe and everything in it over the course of 6 days and on the 7th day GOD rested, The 7th day represents the Millennial Kingdom.

[Shulem]

So, can you tell us at the least, which millennium will the dear Boy return? A thousand years from now? Twenty thousand? More?

1000 years is like a day with the LORD. GOD created the entire universe and everything in it over the course of 6 days and on the 7th day GOD rested, The 7th day represents the Millennial Kingdom.

You did not answer the question and we already had this discussion up in the celestial thread, beginning here. The comparison between God's reconning and man's reconning based on how the planet moves in its solar system and how God oversees the entire universe is a metaphorical difference of expressing time. The Bible does not mark the Second Coming to have anything to do with the timeline counting down to Christ's return. You Christians make that crap up to apologize for your Lord being AWOL.