Posts by Pole

28

Philosophy - is it worth the bother?

by Abaddon in

jw
friends

i fully admit to only having dabbled in the waters of philosophy up to now.

i kept on being put off by the smell... .

having said that, is there anyone more clued up than me about the subject who can tell me anything that might make me change my mind?.

Pole

I'm with Narkissos on this one.

What my philosophy classes have taught me is that you can't escape philosophy. Ideologies which claim to reject "philosophy" do so to divert attention from the quality of their own petty patchwork "philosophies" which don't even begin to compare with the ones that get trashed.

Pole

114

What words and phrases do Brits and others see as 'American'?

by sonnyboy in

jw
friends

as an american, i see words such as cheerio, blimey, bloody (when referring to something negative), loo, bugger, fag (cigarette), etc.

as chiefly british (i suppose they are).. what words and/or phrases do you consider to be chiefly american?

i'm honestly unaware of which words i use that may not be used in other english-speaking countries.

Pole

One funny thing about the different accents of English is the rhoticity feature. In other words whether or not the speakers of the accent pronounce final 'r's.
So do you say 'car' or 'cah' for the word car?
General American - rhotic
American South - non-rhotic
Irish - rhotic
English - non rhotic (except certan parts of England, like in the North)
Australian - non-rhotic
Scottish - rhotic
Canadian rhotic.
South african - not sure :-)
Go figure
Pole

763

Daniel's Prophecy, 605 BCE or 624 BCE?

by Little Bo Peep in

hello all, i've been reading your site for a couple of years now, and have found, for the most part, it to be very helpful.

i must say, at first i was very "scared" at what i might find, but contrary to what i grew up learning, there is a "wealth" of information outside of the watchtower organization.

i haven't attended meetings for about two years now, and like many i've read about, have spent many hours researching, telling myself "i'm not wrong for searching", and doing more research.

Pole

While the root meaning of parousia is "presence" (literally, "a being alongside"), it can also mean "coming," "arrival," "advent," and "appearing," and is often used in those ways in Greek literature.

I'm not an expert on Greek, but it's not so relevant here, since I'd like to make a general lingusitic remark.

The WTS writers seem to be very choosy about etymology. They way they typically use etymological arguments shows they either lack a basic understanding of general linguistics and/or are simply dihonest.

In the case of parousia, they keep emphasizing the fact that the literal meaning of the individual morphemes making up the word "parousia" is "being alongside". This by itself proves absolutely nothing. Historical morpheme-level meanings tend to evolve very quickly. The only criterion which allows us to decipher the current meaning of words made up of lexical morphemes which have their independent meanings is the criterion of actual usage. Usus magister optimus.

Let me use a modern example from my own language which illustrates how careful one needs to be with historical meanings of individual morphemes:

The Polish word for "arrive" is 'przybyc'. If we have a closer look at the word, it proves that the word is made up of two morphemes which may function as free morphemes (independent words):

1) 'przy' - the basic meaning of which is 'at' or 'alongside'

2) 'byc' - the basic meaning of which us 'to be'

Ok, so let's put these morphemes together and translate the word literally into English:

'przy' + 'byc' = 'alongside' + 'to be' = 'to be alongside'

Makes sense? Not really. We've just committed an etymological fallacy. 'Przybyc' means 'to arrive'. It has other meanings as well but none of them ever gets close to 'being alongside'. But perhaps in two thousand years some WTS-like scholar will find an 'ancient' Polish text and come up with such a silly interpretation ignoring the actual use of the word in Polish speech and writing.

This is an example from a modern language, but it is a general lingusitic truth that you have to be careful with replacing the meaning of the whole with the meaning of the individual morphemes. Same goes for English phrasal verbs like 'make out', 'take off', etc. Their meanings are idiomatic and have little if anything to do with the meanings of the constituent morphemes.

Now if we look at the WTS translation, their consistency in using 'presence' for parousia looks very fishy. It breaks the number one translation rule which I always try to follow: "The best dictionary definition available is the context of the word/phrase/utterance/text unit you are translating." External lexicons are of secondary importance. Etymological dictionaries are almost always misleading.

Just look at this Mathew 25 passage of the NWT:

3 “Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your presence and of the conclusion of the system of things?”
27 For just as the lightning comes out of eastern parts and shines over to western parts, so the presence of the Son of man will be.
37 For just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be

Same thing from NIV:

3 "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
36"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[f] but only the Father. 37As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Verse 3 could be argued either way although you would need a very strong contextual justification to use 'presence', as it's not so clear how Jesus' disciples knew exactly what to ask about even before J proceeded to explain that. As the NWT has it, instead of asking "Jesus, buddy, when will you come?", they phrased this specialized question which scmacks of WTS theology "How will we know you are invisibly present?". This NWT translation sounds ridiculous and it only becomes clear when you realize what their agenda is - in this case it's an attempt to justify the nearly 100 years of Jesus coming and being "invisibly present". Verse 27. The lightning metaphor is quite clear for me: the coming of Christ was meant to be "instantaneous". Would Jesus have used the metaphor of a lightning crossing the sky if he had meant 100 years (and God know how many more) of a largely unnoticeable reign, as the WTS has it?

Verse 36 - Here you see how the NWT has to bend the text a little harder to justify 'presence'. Instead of saying "As it was in the days of Noah" they go for "For just as the days of Noah were". Again - this was one of the many comparisons he used to illustrate what kind of coming his followers were supposed to expect. If we shake off the WTS's fables about Noah's "preaching work", it becomes clear that what is meant here is the sudden coming of the end - just as it was in the days of Noah. This would be consistent with the other metaphors and comparisons made in this same chapter.

Pole

14

Anything worth seeing in Boston?

by Pole in

jw
friends

i'm going to boston, ma for 5 days (6-11th of july) to a conference held at the mit.

so i'll be staying in cambridge actually, but it seems to be adjacent to boston.

on one of the days i'm supposed to give a presentation, but i should also have a day or two off for sightseeing.

Pole

Thanks everyone. I'm taking bits and pieces of your advice to plan my stay.

Chrissy,

Thanks for all the info. I was actually planning to rent a car - but now you given me another reason to move my lazy a** around a little.

Pole

13

UN Creates Combined Strike Force

by EvilForce in

there is a lot of talk about the united nations creating a combined strike force with troops from several nations included in it.

could it work?

let's take a look at one operation.

Pole

Damn, EF. I've just refreshed the cache of my browser and - voila. Have you just changed your avatar? Stop parroting my hands-on-the-neck gesture. LOL.

Pole

13

UN Creates Combined Strike Force

by EvilForce in

there is a lot of talk about the united nations creating a combined strike force with troops from several nations included in it.

could it work?

let's take a look at one operation.

Pole

EF,

I mean what I say - just let me know in advance. I may have to leave for a few days in October, but most probably I'll be here when you come. I live in a city which is much uglier than Krakow - at least on the face of it. But Lodz has other - not so obvious attractions to offer. For instance we have the longest single pub street in (this part??) of Europe. A few miles of pubs, discos, and restaurants in a row - almost next to each other. Well, I may be exaggerating, but it's worth visiting. And all that just three hours (by train) away from Krakow. I could pick you up right from the station.

Quick trips to the Polish countryside in my car are not out of the question either.

Just PM me so we can exchange email addresses.

Brotherly love can be found all over the world. Give praise to Jehovah, hehehe.

Pole

9

UBER-STRATEGY - New Convention Tactic

by ezekiel3 in

you may completely familiar with many of the convention tactics presented on this board.

for more information go to these links:.

more district convention apostakits.

Pole

That's true Rod P, especially for those who need to be careful about their identity in the borg. I have nothing to lose now, so it might be just pure fun for me.

Pole

13

UN Creates Combined Strike Force

by EvilForce in

there is a lot of talk about the united nations creating a combined strike force with troops from several nations included in it.

could it work?

let's take a look at one operation.

Pole

Bad Luck EF.

Thanks - I'm hopelessly straight. And resistant to the "evil forces" of the gayest gays :-) I had to learn to live with a (now ex-) dub flatmate who was gay. My best friend to this day. Great, great guy, but he moved to Luxembourg two months ago.

But... If you ever need accommodation in Luxembourg or in Poland for that matter - just let me know.

Pole

9

UBER-STRATEGY - New Convention Tactic

by ezekiel3 in

you may completely familiar with many of the convention tactics presented on this board.

for more information go to these links:.

more district convention apostakits.

Pole

Oh yeah - reporting an apostate leaflet that you;ve just secretly distributed to an elder could be fun.
How about making a lot of fuss about it? Like standing up and yelling at the top of your voice: "Watch out everyone, some apostates have planted their leaflets all over the place! I've just read some lies about the Watchtower associating with the United Nations. Don't read it! Tell everyone! Hey brother, just look at what they've written here:...". I guess you could only do it at a convention where noone knows you personally. LOL
Pole

14

Anything worth seeing in Boston?

by Pole in

jw
friends

i'm going to boston, ma for 5 days (6-11th of july) to a conference held at the mit.

so i'll be staying in cambridge actually, but it seems to be adjacent to boston.

on one of the days i'm supposed to give a presentation, but i should also have a day or two off for sightseeing.

Pole

A very beautiful place with a nude beach down at Gay Head

Got it - just a proper name. I guess Boston is to high up in the North to get any real vineyards. A nude beach? Wow. I wanna try it. Not if it's nude Gay, though - that might be boring for me.

LOL. ;-)

Pole