Posts by Mephis

17

God & universe #1 - God's position and authority

by Anders Andersen in

while thinking about the nature of god, i suddenly thought of something else: how jw speak about god in relation to the universe.. they say that.

jehovah created the universe.

destroying satan and answering the questions that were raised in eden will restore peace and unity in the whole universe.. .

Mephis

David,

thank you for explaining how you believe modern Judaism interprets their ancient texts. It's a curious tension between the interpretation built up and the origins in Caananite religion, isn't it?

I of course was not talking of modern Judaism when setting out texts with their origins 2600 years ago. The two things are very different. One really shouldn't think disagreement with one's own beliefs means something comes from the WT. There is an extensive corpus of literature investigating the origins of YHWH (and indeed Satan) which isn't by either Jews or JWs. If you want to play along - what is the difference between Ba'al and YHWH in the Old Testament as the text is written?

17

God & universe #1 - God's position and authority

by Anders Andersen in

while thinking about the nature of god, i suddenly thought of something else: how jw speak about god in relation to the universe.. they say that.

jehovah created the universe.

destroying satan and answering the questions that were raised in eden will restore peace and unity in the whole universe.. .

Mephis

Their belief system is absolutely in line with Jewish cosmology c.600 BCE. One has to selectively quote to get those ideas to fit into a heliocentric solar system, so forming an explanation for the potential of other universes is really well beyond the pay grade of WBTS theology.

The focus of Judaism back then was on their God doing things on Earth. Busy God smiting foes, rewarding worshippers, listening to prayers, interacting with other Gods etc etc. His whole attention is centred on Earth. Even when not doing anything, he's chilling out in heaven with his angels, waiting for Satan to pop by and make a bet about an Earthling. It's God as Heavenly King, doing most of the things which Earthly Kings do. The Jewish God isn't so different to any others from that time. One Jewish group even have him popping down to earth to get a woman pregnant. Just the one is quite restrained by God standards to be fair. Zeus couldn't keep his pants on. But there's no conception of there being anything other than Earth and an invisible place God (and other spirity critters) lives in. The JWs have taken that idea and ran with it, which creates the obvious problems 2600 years later.

9

" Truth is the Most Beautiful Thing " ..... debate.

by Phizzy in

"truth is the most beautiful thing" is a quote from andrea camilleri, author of the montalbano novels among many other writings.. what do you think about that statement ?.

is there anything more beautiful ?

or do other things top it, or come further down the list of beautiful things ?.

Mephis

It reminds me of the ending to Keats' Ode to a Grecian Urn. Not sure I agree. Beauty is subjective, highly subjective. Truth can be (the old joke "there's my side, there's your side, and then there's the truth"), but there is also objective truth. 2 + 2 = 4. Like sparrowdown says, whether I like it or not, it's always going to add up to 4. And some truths really aren't all that pleasant to have to accept and face.

14

Evolution is a Fact #17 - Belyaev's Silver Foxes

by cofty in

in stalin's ussr the science of genetics was deemed "reactionary and decadent".

scientists were sent to the gulags or simply disappeared.

dmitri konstantinovich belyaev lost his job at the at the central research laboratory of fur breeding in moscow because of his commitment to classical genetics.

Mephis

Imagining the crazy world of resurrecting that species somehow , I think a certain amount of natural selection tends to weed out the human gene pool when it comes to trying to domesticate animals which view humans as dinner...

54

Things JW's and Atheists have in common

by juandefiero in

i was just thinking about something someone said on another thread.

to paraphrase, 'jw beliefs like there being no hellfire, immortal soul, the condition at death...have the ring of truth.'.

i realized, atheists believe these things too!.

Mephis

@prologos - I'm agnostic on such things (as in I know I don't know), but if you're positing a God existing outside of spacetime, then that God is also unable to influence spacetime. To intervene in this universe requires a process and a duration (time). So a God therefore exists outside of his creation. The absent parent of all eternity. But I'd certainly agree such a God could exist.

8

Will the GB ever do this?

by why144000 in

jw
friends

hi, not sure if this has been covered.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-13/peter-hollingworth-says-sorry-to-victims-child-abuse-brisbane/6939804.

i don't have much time for peter hollingworth.

he has always acted like a pompous prick when i have met him or seen him on tv however he humbled himself and made an apology for his actions and the actions of the church.. any bets on if the gb would ever do this?.

Mephis

Do they even recognise there's a problem which needs to be addressed by the WBTS as an organisation? Will they ever recognise that they have a moral responsibility from the position in which they've placed themselves?

It may be late, but other religions are starting to face up to the problem and the failures of their own leadership to address the issue sooner and better, as well as how much they failed the kids who should have been protected and the survivors who should have been cared for.

I will be genuinely surprised if the WBTS ever manages more than grudging restitution to survivors. And then only when there is no other alternative. They don't have the moral courage to face things like this. They are cowards of the worst kind because they love telling people what to do, but they want nothing to do with the consequences.

6

Illustrated Stephen Hawking lectures on Black Holes

by Mephis in

i loved these.

not only the drawings, but the lectures themselves are on something right at the limits of our ability to test, and in parts well beyond.. do black holes have no hair?.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03gl17j.

Mephis

Bless. He's actually quite nice about God in those you know? He says we can safely ignore him. Just as he ignores us. I think that's sweet.

8

do we have issues with the site or is it my mac or firefox?

by sowhatnow in

im on a mac-book, and when im at the site, often my mac runs real slow, im typing and the letters are not there, and pop up a few seconds later.

weird stuff.

it sometimes freezes up on me.

Mephis

If you haven't already, I'd run a scan for viruses and malware on your mac-book as it sounds like something funky is going on there.

If you've not got a program to do that, I did a quick look and Avast seem to have a free version for Macs which should work. (Avast is a resource hog of an anti-virus, so uninstalling after is a good option.)

Been a while since I touched Mac for a work though, so can't help much beyond that I'm afraid.

6

Illustrated Stephen Hawking lectures on Black Holes

by Mephis in

i loved these.

not only the drawings, but the lectures themselves are on something right at the limits of our ability to test, and in parts well beyond.. do black holes have no hair?.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03gl17j.

Mephis

I loved these. Not only the drawings, but the lectures themselves are on something right at the limits of our ability to test, and in parts well beyond.

Do black holes have no hair?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03gl17j

Black holes ain't as black as they are painted

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03h9y3b

25

Is a piano inevitable?

by slimboyfat in

i was at a concert last night and the presence and stature of the piano struck me.

and i thought: if the piano wasn't invented when it was, would it have been invented by someone else instead?

or if there was a world the same as our, except with a different history, would it have pianos now too or would it be modern world, similar in many respects, only without pianos?

Mephis

Ullysses by James Joyce on the other hand... If Joyce hadn't been born and lived the life he did this book would never have existed.

I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Beckett's Molloy trilogy (and a few other things). No Joyce means no Beckett, or at least not as he became.That curious butterfly effect of alternate histories. But it's arguable that there would have been equivalent movements with other expressions or even the same forms even if not in the same words. You have to tear out the influences by the roots to stop that. The beginning is Homer I suppose.