Sorry to go on like this, but the flood is one of my personal pet peeves.
TallaulahB . . . yeah I kinda picked up on that . . . . understandable my friend, totally understandable.
First post . . . new here? . . . if so, a warm welcome to you!
GLOBAL FLOOD . . . Did it Really Happen?
by sizemik 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sizemik
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the prisoner No 6
Hey Talla, great post and you others, that last commentry, brought a huge GRIN to my face, ha ha ha I was wrong, and a bit pigheaded, as an earlier poster pointed out my Faith, got in the way,boy was that an eye opener, years of indoctranation, and I realise I must be carrying a huge residual amount of it around with me, thanks for perseveering, I just need to test everything, just dont want to get duped again.
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sizemik
I just need to test everything, just dont want to get duped again.
Indeed we do the prisoner . . . and that's an admirable attitude you have . . . ironically, one that would get you DF'd in WT world. Indoctrination is a powerful influence and not quickly gotten over.
If you too are a new arrival . . . may I extend a welcome also.
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Broken Promises
years of indoctranation, and I realise I must be carrying a huge residual amount of it around with me
Don't worry, everyone here is on their own separate spiritual journey. Some have been out of the Borg for decades (like Farkel (don't mind him and Moshe, they're just grumpy old men)), while others like yourself have only just left.
No matter how long we've been out, it's always good to question what we have learnt, and what is presented to us daily. It certainly makes life interesting!
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dozy
I used to give the JW talk - "The flood of Noah's Day - it's meaning for us." I did research to try to support some of the reasoning in the outline and found that gradually bits just didn't make sense. Eventually I remember giving it at a neighbouring congregation & half way through just realising that I was talking a load of "tosh" (and I had already edited it heavily.) The outline was added to my growing "I don't give that talk any longer" list.
One line of evidence for me was the numerous isolated creatures in different lands. Did a pair of kangaroos just hop off all the way to Australia without leaving any descendants? Taking with them all the other members of the marsupial family in a kind of "Ice Age" movie style herd? And what about the lemurs in Madagascar? What about the huge increase in humans required to create cities just a few decades later? Even rabbits don't breed that quickly.
I remember talking to a high-up UK Bethelite who admitted that he didn't believe in a global flood & said that he wished that the WTBTS had interpreted the flood as a localised flood , a bit like they interpret the creative "days" as not really days or "the sun standing still" as not really the case. The scriptures can easily be used to support such an interpretation. He reckoned that the GB had discussed the matter but the concept was so ingrained in JW theology that they felt that it couldn't be reinterpreted.
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sizemik
He reckoned that the GB had discussed the matter but the concept was so ingrained in JW theology that they felt that it couldn't be reinterpreted.
No doubt the holy spirit told them that?
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thetrueone
Another thing worth considering is that centralized tribes/civilizations of that era did not travel to distant lands, let alone continents.
Not only did they not know of other established civilizations, they could not of known of the vast variety of animal species in those distant lands.
As with all devastating natural disasters such as earthquakes, lightening, great floods etc., civilizations of that era didn't have the knowledge
as we have today so these events were said to be created by gods and the direct anger of these gods.
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ProdigalSon
So now that we've established that the flood story cannot be taken literally, what do we do with all these myths? Why did so many different cultures find it necessary or intectually valuable to write this stuff down? Why are all the stories so similar?
Origen said that the Bible "...contains three levels of meaning, corresponding to the threefold Pauline (and Platonic) division of a person into body, soul and spirit. The bodily level of Scripture, the bare letter, is normally helpful as it stands to meet the needs of the more simple. The psychic level, corresponding to the soul, is for making progress in perfection.… [The] spiritual interpretation deals with 'unspeakable mysteries' so as to make humanity a "partaker of all the doctrines of the Spirit's counsel". ~Trigg, Origen, 120-121, 126
http://www.earlychurch.org.uk/origen.php
I suspect that, no matter how much the Bible has been tampered with, it still contains these mysteries for the initiates and they are intact, because only the dead-letter word is being affected by the tampering. The underlying GNOSIS is still very much there.
Decoding the Bible: Noah's Ark
http://www.suite101.com/content/decoding-the-bible-noahs-ark-a358139
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PSacramento
The flood was a global as the global empires of the Romans and the Macedonians before them.
In other words, it was global enough for the people writing about them.
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unshackled
prisoner no.6: It was only 6 weeks ago that i discovered WTS was a sham, and to Justinfrombethel,beeig educated is why I am here, if not Id be at KH beeing spoonfed shit
The Force is strong with this one. This is refreshing prisoner. Don't be afraid to scrutinize long-held beliefs. May be scary at first but it soon becomes exciting and invigorating. Welcome!