Alan,
Great to see you posting again!
Ian
Rex "The Shining One' Responds At Last
by Nate Merit 25 Replies latest watchtower bible
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jgnat
Okay, distracted twice....
((((AlanF)))) Great to see you around, sir!
The tragedy of the HG (historical-grammatical) method and modern thought is that the power and purpose of Myth have been lost.
Yes, yes, yes! I am in orgasm of meaning. This is the trail I have been following, Nate Merit.
True to form, I fully expect Rex/"Shining One" to lob an insult or two my way for supporting likeable people. Here, I'll throw you a stick. Don't come back until you check out it's veracity. I first learned of the power of myth from a recorded conversation between Tolkein and Clive Staples Lewis. At the time, Tolkien the Catholic and Lewis the skeptical Athiest were fast friends. They were on a walk through the hills and dales of the English countryside, an activity these confirmed bachelors regularly enjoyed. Tolkien was talking to Lewis about language and metaphor, and, in the ancient tongues, God was not like the wind, God was the wind. At that moment there was a gust of wind that brushed Lewis's cheek. He was transformed.
C. S. Lewis went on to write the Narnia chronicles, and Tolkien the Lord of the Rings. Both are impressive mataphors to the Meaning of Life, both stories are permanently intertwined in to our culture.
Rex/Shining one, I dare you to find the original reference to this story. Even better, read the whole book.
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Nate Merit
Hi Alan
Thank you for the support, it's much appreciated.
I was a fundamentalist myself many years ago. I did not use the tactics Rex uses.
Thanks again.
Nate -
Nate Merit
Hi jgnat
Thank you for your support. I'm sorry I didn't answer this post till now. I honestly didnt see it. I have made so many posts now that I'm losing track. No slight was intended.
I recall either reading or listening to Tolkien and Lewis chatting when I was twenty. As a result I read all of Lewis's works, as well as those of Tolkien. I especially enjoyed the Narnia books, and I'm looking forward eagerly to the movie version of the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Thank you for calling me likeable. I wasn't very likeable last night. I was ill and worried about my upcoming open heart surgery and should have simply stayed off the computer.
Thanks again for posting.
Nate -
Leolaia
Nate...Ouch. I hope it all goes well as it should.
AlanF....
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Nate Merit
Hello Leolaia
Thank you for caring. You're post is appreciated.
I've been meaning to post to you concerning Jehovah Unmasked. I want to clear up some misunderstandings that easily arise from reading it. I wrote it for literalists, not for anyone with an intelligent view of the Bible. My reasoning in writing from a literalist stance was a hope of reaching literalists on their own terms. I wish for them to be confronted by the ugly monster god of the OT, and see the sharp contrast between Big Joe and the message of Jesus. I also wanted to give them an 'out' from the traditional interpretation of the Eden myth. Through the years I have counseled several dozen people who were burdened by tremendous guilt simply for existing, and after a series of sessions I found that most of their guilt had its roots in the Eden myth.
I also want my readers to see the implications of viewing the universe as a 'fallen' place. I took that ball and ran like the wind with it in Jehovah Unmasked. During my training prior to becoming a Soto priest I was confronted with extreme duality, was immersed in it by my Sensei, Richard Christensen.. When I finally broke through duality it was a wonderful liberation. Perhaps the same will occur for the readers of JU. At any rate, I wrote 'as a literalist to the literalists' in hopes of exposing a literal Bible for the confusing mess that it is. Perhaps that can lead to spiritual release and intellectual liberation for my readers.
I hope your weekend is a good one Leolaia.
Nate -
Shining One
Stick together everyone. It is important that you present a united front regardless of the truth of the matter. I see that the lot of you DO remember what the Watchtower taught you about uniformity.....
Rex -
Shining One
It seems as if our new fair-haired boy, (Nate) here at the politically correct, Jehovah’s Witnesses Apostate Discussion Board, has gained a reputation well-deserved!
Tekton apologetics ministries, October 2005: SCREWBALL OF THE MONTH
From the award pages:
At the rate the need to award these has grown, every person on Earth will win an award in October of 2045. Scary thought, eh? from the mailbag:
Here’s one from someone trying to sell me on their new book:
JEHOVAH UNMASKED!
The True Identity of the Bible-God Revealed
The author, Nathaniel J. Merritt, has been hitchhiking his way to Enlightenment since he was a teen. Becoming a Jehovah's Witness at age 15, he was later shunned by them at 19 for smoking pot and having sex. Later in 1973, he was born again as a Jesus Freak. This spiritual renewal led him to become a Baptist minister in 1980, where he remained for 15 years. Then he dove into the deep waters of Zen Buddhism, and even became a Buddhist priest. After 10 years, he returned to Christianity, but some say he returned as a heretic and blasphemer... This book is the culmination of all his seeking and study. In this book, Merritt draws back the curtain on an ancient mysterious, spiritual path that the Catholic church has suppressed since Christianity began. Keeping it light and easy to read, the author takes the reader down the rabbit hole of the real Matrix, and turns the world upside down and inside out. Discover for yourself the lies of God in the Garden of Eden, and the Truth told by the Serpent.
Nathan, did you write that self-aggrandizing speel to promote yourself? Nate, the word they use is SCREWBALL. Now, far be it for me to judge you harshly. I am not calling you a SCREWBALL, Nate!!!!
Now, let’s deal with some of the assertions in Nate’s book. This is from Nate:
In other words, an all-good God would not make a universe brimming with evil, pain, violence, suffering, misery and death. An all-powerful God might do so, but such a God would not be all-good. Mainstream Christians have danced around this issue for two thousand years but none of them have given a satisfactory answer to the Problem of Evil.
Hey Nate, what about Augustine or C.S. Lewis, to name just two actual scholars who have answered this issue? Do you want to see it by today’s authors? Perhaps you could read Charles Stanley or Hank Hannegraf to name two more? Nate continues below:
Their “answers” have taken the form of mental gymnastics, verbal contortions, special pleading, misdirection, “smoke and mirrors.” (That sounds like your own style of argumentation, Nate.)
However, there is a very ancient and wise solution to this dilemma. The earliest Christians held this Key, this solution, and immediately realized and adopted it because of their unshakable Knowing (Greek: Gnosis, pronounced KNOW-sis) of an all-good Heavenly Father. Gnostic is the name whereby the early Christians who held this Key were known. The reason? Gnosis means to Know God as opposed to those who merely believe in God. The Catholic church later rejected this Key of Gnosis.
Well Nate, the Gnostics were around when the apostles battled and battered them. The Book of John was written partially to debunk the weird Gnostic notions. Pastoral letters exposed them as the frauds they were. You keep company with a fine tradition of malevolent malcontents that wanted to mislead people into following them because of their ‘fine and eloquent speaking but senseless words’ as Paul and Peter put it. But then you are an ally to the clique here: your argument doesn’t have to have any validity as they support you because you oppose valid analysis of scripture. Valid analysis exposes the schemes of the apostates and heretics.
Let’s see what the encyclopedia says about Gnostics:
Many Gnostic sects were made up of Christians who embraced mystical theories concerning the nature of Jesus or the Christ which was increasingly at variance with the teachings of orthodox Christian faith as it developed. For example, Gnostics generally taught docetism, the belief that Jesus did not have a physical body, but rather his apparent physical body was an illusion, and hence his crucifixion was not bodily. (Hey, the WBTS teaches that Jesus was not bodily resurrected!) It seems clear that Gnosticism, at least in some of its theologically more developed formulations, was influenced by Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, old Semitic religions, Buddhism, Christianity .
It is accepted by some historians that there is a significant amount of Buddhist/Hindu influence in Gnostic interpretations of the Bible. The standard tactic of Gnostic texts is to radically reinterpret a well-known text (usually Genesis and its related Biblical books) through the addition of an original prologue. However, this is not to say that gnosticism necessarily post-dates orthodox Christianity or Judaism; rather, the two developed side by side, and ideas often inter-penetrated from one strand to another.
>>So Nate, you do have ‘an axe to grind’ as you support the heretical views of the ancient Gnostics as they tried to undermine the apostles doctrine, making themselves heretics! Of course, that is the main goal amongst the elite and neo-elite of the JWADB in residence. You have found an appreciative audience of backslappers here, my friend. Back to the encyclopedia:
There follows a summary of the 'Classic' Gnostic myth, as delineated by The Apocryphon of John, one of the principal texts found in the Nag Hammadi Library. Following this is a summary of the Valentinian Gnostic myth, which focuses on the deviations from the Classic myth, from which it is generally held to have derived.
Another excerpt from Nate’s book:
When the Catholic church finally had the power of the Roman Empire behind it
through the Emperor Constantine, those who held the Key of Gnosis were ruthlessly hunted down. Persecution and pressure to conform to the Catholic church or die resulted in their scriptures being seized and burned. Thereafter, only writings bearing the approval of the Catholic church would officially become “scripture” through councils held by the Catholic church.
Hmmm. Even if this is true (and I do not accept this at face value) that is kind of irrelevant, isn’t it Nate? The apostles were themselves battling Gnostic false teachers who had no claim to authority, as apostles or revelators! They were never a part of Christianity, they were the dupes of the Evil One himself, they were anathema, they were damned to hell, Nate! I do see now why the likes of Jgnat and AlanF are so ecstatic over you. What a darling boy you are, Nate! Let’s go on though:
The fact that the Catholic church leaders in both its Roman and Byzantine halves selected by vote which books would become the New Testament, will come as a shock to many Protestant, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist Christians. (For the purposes of this book, “Fundamentalist” means someone who believes the Bible is inerrant and infallible in the original autograph manuscripts. That it is wholly the work and word of God, the Truth in all it affirms)
>>Nate, I am not surprised that the books were selected but you know full well there was much more than this to it. You leave out the Holy Spirit’s influence. You leave out the Muratorian Parchment (from the 2nd century) that had the essential books of the Protestant canon within it. You conveniently leave out the fact that the Roman Catholic church formed hundreds of years later. You leave out the fact that the books inspired were routinely used by the early church before the canon. You leave out the fact that the canon books had to reference each other and/or have been cited by the earliest churchmen. Your flimsy speculation may ‘play', here amongst the unbelievers but it does not stand up to HIGHER CRITISISM! LOL
Most give no thought as to who said the New Testament books are the right books. Nor do they even ask if perhaps some of the right books were left out of the canon. (Really? I have heard this asked routinely in Sunday School!) All mainstream Christians of the western world, whether Protestant, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Pentecostal or Charismatic, share the same canon of New Testament books selected and approved by the Catholic church.
>>BIG LIE, Nate, as demonstrated above! I think this is enough to make my point about your lack of valid research and to someone who is unbiased it is a total debunk of this section of your book. Some people use the word, 'Hack' as a name for unlettered writers but I know that you are way to educated to be called a 'Hack'. REAL apostacy and heresy is a serious thing, Nate.
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Narkissos
Rex,
I dislike your ad hominem attacks.
the Gnostics were around when the apostles battled and battered them. The Book of John was written partially to debunk the weird Gnostic notions. Pastoral letters exposed them as the frauds they were.
You are just repeating what you have learnt in your fundamentalist school and ignore what your fundamentalist teachers have taught you to ignore. The core of the Gospel of John only makes sense from a Gnostic standpoint, in spite of its orthodox additions. The Pastorals are clearly anti-Gnostic but they appeared in the post-apostolic (or early Catholic) "great Church". Your upbuilding picture of the "good," "united" apostles fighting the Gnostic villains reflects the official "history of the Church" which was gradually built from the Acts of the Apostles to Eusebius, not actual history as the overall textual evidence shows. "Early Christianity" was anything but "united". Judeo-Christians, Pauline and Johannine trends did fight a lot with each other.
I suggest you re-read what your (unnamed) "encyclopedia" says about Gnostics:
Many Gnostic sects were made up of Christians who embraced mystical theories concerning the nature of Jesus or the Christ which was increasingly at variance with the teachings of orthodox Christian faith as it developed (i.e Gnosticism is not a heresy from orthodoxy but the two brands of "Christianity" developed against each other -- and this is only a part of the picture). For example, Gnostics generally taught docetism, the belief that Jesus did not have a physical body, but rather his apparent physical body was an illusion, and hence his crucifixion was not bodily. It seems clear that Gnosticism, at least in some of its theologically more developed formulations, was influenced by Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, old Semitic religions, Buddhism, Christianity .
It is accepted by some historians that there is a significant amount of Buddhist/Hindu influence in Gnostic interpretations of the Bible. The standard tactic of Gnostic texts is to radically reinterpret a well-known text (usually Genesis and its related Biblical books) through the addition of an original prologue. However, this is not to say that gnosticism necessarily post-dates orthodox Christianity or Judaism; rather, the two developed side by side, and ideas often inter-penetrated from one strand to another.Iow, the platform of "original-orthodox-apostolic Christianity" from which you judge others as "heretics" is a foundational myth. Btw, if you discard the Gnostic-like texts from the NT there will be little left of the Trinity (for instance)...
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luna2
Rex, not only are you illogical, but you are rude. If it is your desire to alienate people and have them groan out loud when they see your name, you may count yourself successful.