Posts by Midget-Sasquatch

21

Kingdum Hall Libraries is suddenly missing books

by Iwonder17 in

so i am at the kh the other night and decide to go to the library to waste some time to wait for the meeting to be over with.

the hall that i go to has 3 congs.

i notices that there don't seem to be as many books as usual.

Midget-Sasquatch

I suspect only very few were stolen from the library. I can personally vouch that the CO a couple of years back told the elders which books to remove from the library. They had to remove all copies of Russell's "Studies in the Scriptures" Volume 1 to 7. A shame because that library also had a couple of volumes where dating and measurements of the Great pyramid were changed.

The Golden Age mags (not too many of them in there though) were also removed, including Awake bound volumes before 1970 and WT bound volumes before 1950 (But they could keep the WT bound volumes from the late 1800s to early 1915 or so). The purple interlinear was also removed.Only decent thing left in that library then was the New Jerusalem Bible.

A couple of the elders were dividing up the material among themselves and only left out the $#!+ for publishers to take. My sister picked up the "Two Babylons".

421

jesus denies being God! scriptural discussion.

by reniaa in

i thought after recently reading the bible i would put up for disussion some recent scriptures up which for me show that jesus never viewed himself as god and anyone listening would also see it this way too.. first mark 10 :17-20.

17as jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him.

"good teacher," he asked, "what must i do to inherit eternal life?

Midget-Sasquatch

Reniaa,

What I find instructive is to let each of the gospels and epistles, give their individual and independent portaits of Jesus and see how this may have changed over time.

In Mark we have a Jesus that is not proclaiming himself to be God, and no pre-story of a miraculous divine birth. It fits very well with an adoptionist view. Not too surprising that the other 2 gospels of Matthew and Luke which are heavily based on Mark has a more human portrayal of Jesus. Their whole aim was to historicize this figure and to combat other beliefs, stress the humanity of this figure.

Material that most likely was really from Paul, can go both ways. His earliest material can support an angelification of Jesus but we also see ideas of Jesus being pretty much divine in nature.

John, the latest of the material I've mentioned, is definitely portaying Jesus as more than human. If you read it without the other gospels or Paul's ideas in mind, then Jesus comes off as a kind of incarnate emanation from God. When the Roman troops and the mob come to arrest Jesus and when asking if it was he, he says"I Am", which causes all of them to fall to the ground. Doing obeisance to him isn't it? Who would be able to garner that kind of response? Looks like Johnny was saying we had the divinity in flesh there. I'm not the gospel is Trinitarian. Rather proto-gnostic, so that its talking about believers also being in union with Jesus and God can be made to fit well with other later epistles that talk of christians gaining divine nature for themselves.

15

Update: I got a new job!

by Nosferatu in

jw
friends

in my last post, i mentioned how i basically had a foot in the door for an hvac job with pretty good benefits although it was for $2 less per hour.

today, i got a call back from a job i interviewed for about two months ago.

the job is for $2 more per hour than what i'm making, company vehicle, 3 weeks vacation on start, a blackberry, and it's somewhat related to the electronics field... i'll be fixing electric wheelchairs :) .

Midget-Sasquatch

Congratulations!

75

Coptic John 1:1 makes it into the Watchtower.

by slimboyfat in

wt november 1st has a two page article on how the early sahidic coptic version of the new testament translated god with an indefinite article in john 1:1 and argues this supports the new world translation's rendering "and the word was a god".

online witness apologists have been using this piece of evidence in support of the nwt for a few years now.

in particular solomon landers promoted the coptic version of john 1:1 in discussions with evangelicals and other who oppose witness theology.

Midget-Sasquatch

Hi Jehovahsheep,

The child of a human parent is itself human in nature (barring any weird transgenic experiments).

With the indefinite form in the Coptic, one possible reading is that the Word, being a direct child of God is itself divine in nature.

Thats a huge sore point for at least one other Abrahamic faith. They argue that God is unique in his nature, and to say God has a son is to lower him to creatures which reproduce.

148

Since you on the right won't answer this question. Abortion

by dawg in

jw
friends

i posed this question on another thread... namely burns and hooberus...wouldn't answer, so i thought i'd ask it again in an open thread..., .

you on the right disagree with roe v wade... so that means that you want to redefine when a zygote, embryo, or a fetus has what anyone would rule for lack of better words "the right to life"... .

exactly when is life, human as per your definition?

Midget-Sasquatch

Two things I've learned, most of you tie abortion into your religious beliefs...

and you guys know better than zygotes being human... your religions are blinding your judgments in my mind.

As Bugs Bunny would say: "He don't know me very well, do he?"

Read enough of my posting history and most people would say I'm agnostic, even atheistic in day to day practice. Its not religious ideas that shape my opinion but understanding of the continuity of the developmental process. You've seen slides of zygotes. So have I. Now if you rationally want to say its not a person right then and now, I can see that. You won't call it "murder" because if I understand you, "murder" only applies to people. Fine.

I though agree with JWDaughter that the zygote is still indisputably a human life. And while you set the line at personhood (I can see that) I personally, think that a bit more time is all thats needed to have a person. I don't take the killing of human life lightly..ergo my positions on fetuses, enbryos and yes even zygotes.

Midget-If you feel that way then you condone murder don't you? Its obvious you don't see zygotes as human if you're willing to kill them just because you know they're going to die... you don't go into a room with terminal patients and machine gun them just to stop their suffering do you?

I would say I condone killing depending on the circumstances. I'm not going to play games with words but try to convey how I make distinctions between acceptable killing and unacceptable: Murder lets say. I think I've been upfront and honest about all of this. I wouldn't think twice about killing some psychopath to save other lives. I'm definitely not a social darwinist, but it a terminally ill person wanted to die, pleaded for my help and I were the only person about I think it mercy rather than "murder" to help them out. So long story short: its not a black and white world for me dawg...situational ethics isn't easy for me and I have to rethink my position with all kinds of different scenarios.

I would say its manslaughter if they end pregnancies at that stage, border lining on murder and would have no problem ruling from any bench and enforcing that view. Except in cases where the mother's life in in danger, or when a embryo is known to carry genetic traits they are sure to die from; hard choices must be made in these events and the state has no right to but their heads into these cases.

I think our positions are closer than what we may have originally thought.

I find it inconceivable that anyone thinks the killing if you will of a group of cells no bigger than a pin head "murder" as some have described here on this site. I know that its their religions that make them take this stand, as no rational human would consider the slides I've seen of zygotes in any way "human"...

Thats where we'll disagree. Again you're going by personhood which I think is a practical and reasonable dividing line in one way. Especially if you're going to enforce laws on it. I think it would be fairer to the developing human lifeform to give it at least a chance. Peace.

148

Since you on the right won't answer this question. Abortion

by dawg in

jw
friends

i posed this question on another thread... namely burns and hooberus...wouldn't answer, so i thought i'd ask it again in an open thread..., .

you on the right disagree with roe v wade... so that means that you want to redefine when a zygote, embryo, or a fetus has what anyone would rule for lack of better words "the right to life"... .

exactly when is life, human as per your definition?

Midget-Sasquatch

StAnn

You make a very valid point about the downside of killing. It removes all hope for something positive to come about. Thats why I too am saddened with the flippant attitude people adopt about zygotes saying its a scientific fact that they aren't a person yet. True enough. I can see the point in arguing that there's no end to talking about what may or may not be. Instead all we can really talk about is the current reality. However, realistically, barring any lethal genetic mutations, its scientifically sound to expect zygotes to continue on developing into persons in a few months time. So to me, whether you kill off the fetus or the zygote you've snuffed out a human life.

But, I also believe though, that ethically there are times where its more humane time to end a life than to keep it going. I'm not talking about fetuses with Down's Syndrome though, but more severe cases. .

So I don't think governments should ban abortions. I just think people should be objectively educated on the matter.

148

Since you on the right won't answer this question. Abortion

by dawg in

jw
friends

i posed this question on another thread... namely burns and hooberus...wouldn't answer, so i thought i'd ask it again in an open thread..., .

you on the right disagree with roe v wade... so that means that you want to redefine when a zygote, embryo, or a fetus has what anyone would rule for lack of better words "the right to life"... .

exactly when is life, human as per your definition?

Midget-Sasquatch

God, I'm so tired of hearing the same old line that Pro-lifers are hypocritical in only caring about saving clumps of cells, then pushing for capital punishment. As if pointing out some game ending inconsistency.

Now I realize capital punishment simply doesn't work and alot of innocent people have been wrongly executed. So I'm not gung-ho about it. But I certainly have no qualms with having some extremely dangerous persons killed off. The've shown what they are and they've have caused significant damage to other members of society. Its not the same thing killing off what in all likelihood is a healthy human organism before even seeing what type of person it will be.

44

How to Debate an Evolutionist (if you must)

by hooberus in

this thread is primarily directed to biblical creationists and other non-evolutionists here (as such no or limited responses will be given to evolutionist posts here).

please if you are a non-evolutionist attempt to refrain from debating evolutionists here on this thread, as they will likely try to derail any learning, or exposure of their tactics.

i will try to avoid debating here but instead posting information in a series of posts.. i consider myself to be an informed biblical creationist and probably one of more experienced creation/evolution issue debaters to have been on this forum.

Midget-Sasquatch

Has anything changed since then that invalidates his specific point that I quoted?

Not really, I'd say most people would consider a creature like the last common ancestor to be an ape. This is only going to play in your favour though with people who are completely ignorant of the tempo and drivers of evolution, as well as inter and intraspecies competition with overlapping niches.

When debating evolutionists its important to understand that evolution isn'tuniform in the selective pressures exerted on different parts of the biosphere. So don't bother with the argument that there are apes and men but no apemen left....oh my why not?

Its simple. Apes are very successful in their niche and did not move from it nor change much. The ape-men moved away from that environment into different ones, and experienced changes. Apemen and successively more human-like creatures likely had overlapping niches. So they were bound to be competitors for the same resources. The old apes in Africa weren't really impinging on their space. But the final form (us) is a fairly nasty competitor and may take out the apes too now.

43

What was your first Computer?

by The Lone Ranger in

jw
friends

the last topic got me thinking about this.. my first computer was back in 1981, a sinclair zx81, it has 1k of memory.

then in 1982 i progressed to a clone of an apple 2 with 16k of memory which i incresed to 48k, a floopy drive for that apple cost me $600 !!!

.. in approx 1987 i got an ibm xt 640megs with a 20meg hard drive..it was like a dream .

Midget-Sasquatch

Commodore 64. My sister and I saved up quite a bit just to buy the floppy disk drive....then an adapter so as to use a Star NX-1000 dotmatrix ( 9 Pin) printer with it instead of the one from Commodore.

But my most loved computer platform is the Amiga. Bought a used A1000 on my own and went from there. I'm currently stuck on a celeron based PC.

Wondering if Apple will ever update the specs on the Mini.

8

Hey, are there any real Italians here or otherwise into Italian cuisine?

by zagor in

jw
friends

how would you prepare a perfect italian dinner?

ive got some guests tomorrow night and i thought italian dish would be perfect, but what would you do?.

got some original red italian wine already as well as olive oil, pasta and whole mozzarella but of course thats not enough, so we're just making a list of what else to get later in the evening.

Midget-Sasquatch

Something I enjoy are tortellini (either meat or cheese). You can even mix things up a little by getting the kind that has spinach included in the pasta.