"Saving...killing...resurrecting...is this really a PLAN?
Why the Rube Goldberg nonsense?"
jude 9
The "Flood" in Noah's day--why wasn't that Armageddon enough?
by Terry 63 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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ablebodiedman
Your personal VALUATION is what triggers the emotion.
aka ---------- "free will"
abe
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Cold Steel
...The "nephilim" is a fanciful story and did not refer to angels at all.
I always find it interesting when an apologist argues for God and the Bible...then dismisses some portion of it they don't agree with.
If this person can dismiss the story of the Nephilim as "fanciful", then why can I not reject the entire account as absurd?
It’s not dismissal, it’s exegesis. The story isn’t about monsters, and it isn’t about angels. It’s about the people of God, the “sons of light,” and the children of men, the children of darkness. In short, members of God’s ancient people intermarried with outside cultures whose dedication to Jehovah was greatly in question. The resultant children were men of great renown, and were honorable people of the earth in ancient standards.
One can believe what one will, but angels are not capable of generating bodies and having sexual intercourse with the children of men. As it was in the days of Balaam, the sons of God were usually the recalcitrant ones, mixing their seed with the promiscuous daughters of the heathen.
The angels and giants stories that have popped up over the years come mostly from corrupted extrabiblical works as the purported Book of Enoch, and are laid in the foundation of sensationalism. The best way to approach this topic is to do Internet searches and see what’s out there. My own view is that this was forbidden intermarriage, but between consenting humans.
Where are you getting this stuff from -- the Book of Mormon?
Nope. Although it appears that Lehi had a copy of a Book of Enoch, he never covers the nephilim one way or the other. He did name one of his sons Nephi, who tells us that he was “large in stature” — however, this seems only to be a coincidence.
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ablebodiedman
What inventor would include within his design the provision that the thing invented could CHOOSE to function or not according to whim??
Without that, Love could NEVER exist.
We can learn to love things or people by changing our ideas about them.
Reason why I answered your post.
Free will is a red herring.
Your choice
What inventor would include within his design the provision that the thing invented could CHOOSE to function or not according to whim??
Whim is "free will". Without it Love could never exist. God wants love to exist. Yep, it takes a long time. It is not "meaningless".
Who would design a car that could simply "decide" not to start or which could "choose" to go right when steered left?
Yep, if it were possible to eventually end up with one that just went where I wanted, as fast or slow as I wanted, without very little effort on my part, even while I was sleeping, simply just because it loved me
Would the Designer beg the car to see things his way? Would the Designer threaten to junk his invention if it didn't VOLUNTEER to accept the driver's intentions?
It's the only way where the end result is love. There is no alternative.
I guess I see thing very differently to you.
My choice!
abe
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AndDontCallMeShirley
"My own view is that this was forbidden intermarriage, but between consenting humans."
"One can believe what one will, but angels are not capable of generating bodies and having sexual intercourse with the children of men."
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and there you have it.....
You're entitled to your personal views/fantasies/delusions, but that doesn't make them true.
I'm not arguing for the Bible, I'm just repeating what the Bible Flood account says. Speculate all you want- it doesn't change what's written. You don't like what's there so you create something that suits your personal wishes. Such is the nature of the religiously deluded.
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Terry
Your personal VALUATION is what triggers the emotion.
aka ---------- "free will"
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Let's take this slooooowly.
You are asserting that LOVE is impossible without "free" will.
Okay. May I be allowed to demonstrate that LOVE is not at all contingent on "free" will?
1. When we are infants in our mother's arms until we reach a certain age of autonomy we are--for want of a better word--programmed or indoctrinated
into the VALUE system of our parents and caretakers. Whenever, as a child, we violate that value system we are punished or disciplined.
That particular system of VALUES is not chosen. It is enforced upon us. Hency: not free.
2. A child prodigy such as Mozart, or Bobby Fischer comes pre-wired with an AFFINITY for music or chess. It is not "chosen" in the usual sense of the word.
3.Just as different species of animals and insects perform according to pre-wired (or, instinctive) behaviors genetically affixed--humans have tendencies, preferences and inclinations born into them which are not CHOSEN freely.
When I speak about VALUES I'm identifying something deep inside of us that can OVER-RIDE our own free choice!
I have fallen in love at first sight only once in my life and it just about knocked me down! Never experienced anything like it before or since.
I had always thought I preferred tall blondes. But, when I met this short brunette I was helpless! It wasn't any kind of CHOICE on my part.
I was prewired.
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return of parakeet
Blondie: " The WTS hopes that people who lived through 1966 and 1975 die soon and they are then they can bury this further. (sort of like the 1925 doctrine). "
But even after the dubs and exdubs who remember those infamous predictions die off, how on earth is the gb going to manipulate the scriptures to make the "math" come out right?
There aren't enough scriptures in the Bible to make any WTS's Armageddon due date make any sense.
But perhaps I'm underestimating their ability to formulate lies and their followers' willingness to believe them.
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Terry
But perhaps I'm underestimating their ability to formulate lies and their followers' willingness to believe them.
The leaders in the WT Society want to believe and they do believe their own arithmetic. They believe it over and over and over.
They are excited and thrilled by it. Even when it fails they retain enthusiasm.
Why?
Because, it is like dancing for rain. Sooner or later it rains. Give credit to the dance why don't you? :)
As long as JW's view outright FAILURE as a lower step on the step ladder upward they'll focus on the "progress" that comes with the adjustment. New Light doesn't represent the failure of previous teachings and beliefs for them--New Light represents IMPROVEMENT and one step closer to bullseye!
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Cold Steel
You're entitled to your personal views/fantasies/delusions, but that doesn't make them true. I'm not arguing for the Bible, I'm just repeating what the Bible Flood account says. Speculate all you want- it doesn't change what's written. You don't like what's there so you create something that suits your personal wishes. Such is the nature of the religiously deluded.
Nothing any of us believe makes it true, but one should interpret any text in the context of either revelation or scholarly study. The text in Genesis does not say that "angels" saw the "daughters of men" and materialized bodies to have sexual intercourse with them. It says, instead, "the sons of God" saw and married the "daughters of men," and that their offspring were men of great renown. Jesus himself said that "a spirit hath not flesh and bone as thou see I have." If spirits could just pop up a physical body when they wanted to, Jesus' statement would have meant nothing.
JWs believe that Jesus was a spirit who had materialized a physical, resurrected body to fool the apostles. But no other Christian church buys this. Jesus was telling his followers that he wasn't a spirit -- and he let them examine the wounds in his hands and feet, and side. If spirits could generate bodies, then Jesus was purposely deceiving them, and that just doesn't make sense.
It was the fallen prophet Balaam who introduced seduction of the sons of Israel as a way to undermine the faith. It worked, too, and when they dragged Balaam out of an enemy tent he was killed on the spot by the army of Moses.
There's an old medical saying that goes: "When you hear galloping, think horses, not Zebras!"
It also can be applied to scriptural exegesis.
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myelaine
dear Cold Steel...
who were the sons of God in this scripture, job 38:4-7?
regarding the "sons of God" spoken of in the flood narrative...and in jude 6 these same ones are called angels:
The spiritual bodies of the fallen angels are "material" they needed to be confined under great weight where they do not R.I.P. "...bind them for seventy generations underneath the earth: (1 enoch 10:15)..."judgement has been passed upon you: your request will not be granted you. From this time forward, never shall you ascend into heaven; He[the Lord, the Mighty One] has said, that on earth He will bind you, as long as the world endures. 1 enoch 14:3-4
the spiritual beings (fallen angels) in the OT were able to co-habitate with women and have children by them...a spirit/ghost can't do that. They are portrayed as going against Gods will not their "abilities"...Wherefore have you forsaken the lofty and holy heaven, which endures for ever,, and have lain with women; have defiled yourselves with the daughters of men; have taken to yourselves wives; have acted like the sons of the earth, and have begotten an impious offspring? "You being spiritual, holy, and possessing a life which is eternal, have polluted youselves with women, have begotten in carnal blood; have lusted in the blood of men; and have done as those who are flesh and blood do. These however die and perish. 1 enoch 15:2-4.
love michelle