Terry

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Posts by Terry

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  98

  OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for me, the dead giveaway is this.

  jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

  jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

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  Terry

  I agree entirely with your conclusions, but a trifle heavy on "would's"

  
  

  Like Hansel and Gretel, sometimes I too get lost in the "would's" :)
• 
  98

  OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for me, the dead giveaway is this.

  jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

  jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

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  Terry

  if Jesus wrote the book of Jesus people would complain of circular logic as if it was important only because it said so itself. Instead, there were three separate accounts.

  
  

  _____________

  As Bart Ehrman once remarked, if we look at the 3 separate accounts of Jesus as witnesses testifying in a trial, and then compare (side by side) each and every detail, we don't find corroboration so much as we find irreconcilable variation. This is explicable as wear and tear on oral transmission, but it makes discovery of any "true" account painfully troubling and problematic unnecessarily.

  However, is the object to pass a bucket of water from generation to generation with a drop or two remaining? Should we flash a grin full of "gosh" and be happy we have anything at all? Or have we a right to demand the King of Heaven be a little bit more scrupulous in planning and carrying out of a task so easily accomplished by having the Son of God Himself do the writing?
• 
  98

  OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for me, the dead giveaway is this.

  jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

  jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

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  Terry

  The barrier to objectivity in looking at all-thing-Bible is the fact that we have been steeping in total acceptance by family and peers and society all of our lives.

  The Bible, at least in the West, is a "given." It isn't up for grabs. Only deplorable, lost people would dream of being skeptical.

  So, where is the incentive to pull the rug out from under ourselves?

  There isn't one.
  And then one day. . .

  you suddenly find yourself standing in just the right spot to where the sun hits the dark side of the moon. . .
  Once you gain an objective vantage point you CAN QUESTION the validity of Bible lore and it all quickly falls apart.
• 
  98

  OKAY, GAME OVER! The number one reason the New Testament amounts to bunk

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  for me, the dead giveaway is this.

  jesus wrote nothing.. stop and think about that.. if jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.. his instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels).".

  jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact owner's manual necessary to rescue mankind.. never happened!.

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• 

  Terry

  For me, the dead giveaway is this. Jesus wrote nothing.

  Stop and think about that.

  If Jesus were the authentic messiah, his ministry would not simply be local.

  His instructions, his mission, the details of his teachings would be too precious to risk leaving it in the hands of "men unlettered (illiterate) and ordinary (blue-collar yokels)."

  Jesus, were he the one and only hope of mankind, would be absolutely certain to write down with great simplicity and specificity the exact Owner's Manual necessary to rescue mankind.

  NEVER HAPPENED!

  Jesus was not the Great Physician who confided the lifesaving prescription to knuckleheads and sailed off heavenward while the rest of us end up swallowing placebo pills and slow poison.

  For me, this drives a stake in the heart of the New Testament.

  Salvation is so mishandled, inept and loosey-goosey, it can't be taken for fact.

  Sorry folks. Game Over.

  Almighty God would be an idiot to jeopardize the rescue of humanity.

  ______________

  "But Terry," I can hear somebody shouting from the back of the room, "God was testing our faith."

  Oh Ple-e-e-ease!

  Stop and think. Why does anybody TEST anything?

  Isn't it because there is ignorance of outcome which must be satisfied by running tests for the purposes of discovery? YES, of course it is.

  Is God ignorant?

  Let us not make excuses.

  Jesus did not write anything. His method was entrusted to the LEAST RELIABLE of all methods of data transmission: oral tradition.

  Like I said before: Game Over.

  
  
• 
  12

  A very short short story

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i wanted to see how short i could make a story and it still would be effective.

  you be the judge.

  did i succeed?.

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  Terry

  Vidiot--that is THE classic example of an effective short story without doubt.
  
  This May 16, 1910 article from The Spokane Press recounts an earlier advertisement which struck the author as particularly tragic.
  

  
  
• 
  2

  2-LEGGED GOD and 1-LEGGED MAN: A look at Divine Justice

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  1. god is perfect and righteous and just.. 2. god demands perfection, righteousness and justice.. 3. god creates man inferior to himself yet demands performance at his superior level.. .

  what is wrong with this picture?.

  isn't this like creating a man with one leg and demanding he doesn't hop?.

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  Terry

  __________________________________

  1. God is perfect and righteous and just.

  2. God demands perfection, righteousness and justice.

  3. God creates man inferior to himself yet demands performance at His superior level.

  
  

  What is wrong with this picture?

  Isn't this like creating a man with one leg and demanding he doesn't hop?
  
  

  For thousands of years, humans try not to hop but can't help but do so. They all die.
  
  4. God makes a Legal provision: each time you hop on one leg you pay a fine. You still die, but because you paid the fine, God forgives you.

  5. God appoints Priests to accept the fines paid by the Nation of Israel's hoppers.

  6. Everybody still hops with or without the law and the fines.

  
  

  What's wrong with this picture?

  All that hopping is due to having been created one-legged in a world which requires a minimum of 2 legs!
  
  Paying or not paying a fine for hopping doesn't address the core problem of one-leggedness.

  
  

  7. God decides he's had enough! He sends his 2 legged son into the world to show everybody how it's done, but this annoys the hell out of the one-legged Priests.

  8. Jesus teaches everybody to be as nice as a 2-legged Jesus, but he's executed for having more legs than the Emperor.

  9. God, his dad, brings him back to life. Jesus tells his best buddies he'll come back and get them real soon and they'll all live 2-legged in heaven, but in the meantime, they should tell others about how great it is to live like 2-legged people. If they just say aloud the magic words: "2-LEGGED JESUS," God will love them and ignore from now on all that 1-leggedness.

  
  

  What's wrong with this picture?

  Jesus did NOT return and take his buddies with him to heaven. 2,000+ years pass and 1-legged folks who say the magic words, "2-legged Jesus" consider themselves as forgiven for their 1-leggedness for the simple reason: God sees them as though they are 2-legged.
  God loves them!
  How does this make any sense?
  
  All the above problems would have been solved before they began if God had simply not created inferior humans with 1-leg and demanded they act as though they had 2-legs.

  
  

  ________

  Epilogue

  God's nature is above man's only because God created man inferior.

  That's the REAL problem!

  
  
• 
  9

  The embarrassing history of the misnomer called JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the scriptures portray a person named stephen who is termed the first "martyr.

  " the greek word means "witness.".

  ( greek : , martys , "witness"; stem -, martyr- ).

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  Terry

  CITATION:

  "The year 1914, therefore, marks the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of glory." Watchtower 1933 Dec 1 p.362
  
• 
  1

  EIGHT COMMON SENSE PRINCIPLES EX-J-DUB's can use for benefit

  by Terry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  1. intellectual honesty:.

  willingness to be wrong when confronted with error.. courage to take the blow of our errors and move forward.. 2. skeptical optimism:.

  embracing an idea new to your mind; trying it to see if it works.

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• 

  Terry

  1. Intellectual Honesty:

  Willingness to be wrong when confronted with error.

  Courage to take the blow of our errors and move forward.

  2. Skeptical optimism:

  Embracing an idea new to your mind; trying it to see if it works. There is more failure in those who never try.

  3. Refusal to deny reality:

  Never hide anything from yourself you feel you aren't emotionally ready to accept.

  Look facts right in the eye. Stand silent in the chamber of liars and shout loudest when your ears hear a lie.

  4. Refuse to divide others into camps:

  Every group thinks it is right. Those who would conquer us with evil must first divide us with fear.

  5. What we Hate, we Become:

  Do we see enemies or do we see people just like us who have lost their way? Will we wound them as they have wounded us, or will we seek healing and reconciliation? Can we take their blow and rise above it or will we become the thing we have learned to hate?

  Will we wound them as they have wounded us, or will we seek healing and reconciliation? Can we take their blow and rise above it or will we become the thing we have learned to hate?

  6. Defeat bad ideas with BETTER ones:

  Saying someone is wrong means nothing. Insults mean nothing. Pointing to the better path, the higher ideal, the workable plan makes us a beacon and not a whimper. Living a better life than those who accuse us repudiates them one and all.

  Pointing to the better path, the higher ideal, the workable plan makes us a beacon and not a whimper. Living a better life than those who accuse us repudiates them one and all.

  7. A Better Life means World Repair:

  Grasp the smallest opportunities for praise, encouragement; help and commonality. In Judaism, the purpose of life is to "repair the world."

  Stoop to help someone smaller than yourself. Find the kind word and speak it; you might lift a heart when that lift means everything. You and I leave this world a better place than we found it while the empty-headed ones abandon ship only to drown in their own fears.

  8. Ask yourself each day, "Am I the poison or the antidote?":

  Commitments beat complaints like Aces beat a deuce. Have you ever heard the expression, If you aren't a part of the solution you are a part of the problem? Try thinking about that sometime.

  Be the hand that builds and not the fist that bruises. The smile that encourages and not the scream that deafens. Hope is a rough sketch, but a life well-lived is a thing of great beauty.
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  18

  A frothy question ABOUT DEMONS

  by Terry in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  have you ever been to a circus and seen a "clown car"?.

  the little "bug" volkswagon drives out and clowns get out.

  lots and lots and lots and lots of clowns!.

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  Terry

  I think you've hit the nail on it's head, eyeuse2badub!

  A WORD THAT CAN MEAN ANYTHING means nothing.
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  87

  What is your "INTUITION" about THE SECRET "law of attraction"?

  by Terry in

  1. social
  2. family

  ever hear somebody say, "trust your gut..."?.

  or, like obe wan kenobe: "trust your feelings...."?.

  have you ever followed that "little voice" that whispers to you that you should or should not do something?.

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  Terry

  I like to take a look at the etymology of words. The birth of concepts often springs from sources which clue us into what kinds of minds created the original idea.
  

  Sure enough, INTUITION has a dead giveaway in its sourcing.
  It has Theology written all over it.

  intuition (n.)

  mid-15c., intuicioun, "insight, direct or immediate cognition, spiritual perception," originally theological, from Late Latin intuitionem (nominative intuitio) "a looking at, consideration," noun of action from past participle stem of Latin intueri "look at, consider," from in- "at, on" (see in- (2)) + tueri "to look at, watch over" (see tutor (n.)).

  
  You see, I could go along with the word "insight" because it isn't coated with the slime of religious mysticism--but--intuition reeks of it.