In the foreign language congregation I attended as a teen, one guy spent some months in the penitentiary for sexually molesting a teenager. It was one of his duaghter's school friends and he argued it was consentual flirting. That eventually led to his family's break up.
Midget-Sasquatch
JoinedPosts by Midget-Sasquatch
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16
The Gnostic Gospel of Bartholomew
by VM44 inhttp://www.amazon.com/gnostic-gospel-bartholomew-robert-hitchcock/dp/1430302992.
the gnostic gospel of bartholomew (paperback).
by rev.
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Midget-Sasquatch
How nouns are appropriated over time would be intriguing if one could find patterns or reasons to them. Its these sorts of things that keep me interested in comparative religion and mythology.
P.S. I'll keep your caution in mind Narkissos. I'll be careful about cults. The one common to all here, I wasn't entirely responsible for, but the other (the Amiga computer), I got entirely sucked into on my own. Pcs back then really did suck though in comparison so I wasn't completely delusional.
Just that I was as bad as the JWs, in waiting for the Amiga's supposed Second Coming.
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16
The Gnostic Gospel of Bartholomew
by VM44 inhttp://www.amazon.com/gnostic-gospel-bartholomew-robert-hitchcock/dp/1430302992.
the gnostic gospel of bartholomew (paperback).
by rev.
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Midget-Sasquatch
Thanks for those great finds. How the Name variants were used in the examples you gave, like Iao- covering first to last, does make more sense to me. Nice to see the kind of richness of allusion in these genuinely ancient works, whereas I don't think I'll be reading this book anytime soon. I like to follow other modern forms of mythology, although the gnostic paradigm itself is something I favour vs the orthodox view.
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16
The Gnostic Gospel of Bartholomew
by VM44 inhttp://www.amazon.com/gnostic-gospel-bartholomew-robert-hitchcock/dp/1430302992.
the gnostic gospel of bartholomew (paperback).
by rev.
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Midget-Sasquatch
I don't doubt that the gnostics used variants of the name for the highest aeon, (its it in hard copy), just a little surprised by it. I would have imagined that they'd be disinclined to use it especially since that revealed name is associated with a questionably moral god as he's depicted in the OT. Interesting why they chose to use it then.
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16
The Gnostic Gospel of Bartholomew
by VM44 inhttp://www.amazon.com/gnostic-gospel-bartholomew-robert-hitchcock/dp/1430302992.
the gnostic gospel of bartholomew (paperback).
by rev.
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Midget-Sasquatch
If I wasn't a glutton for embarrasment, I would refrain from admitting that I know a little about Billy Meir's fictions. I couldn't read through that book of his though. his faked photos and videos were more fun.
More to the topic: I didn't know about Barbelo being an Aramaic reference to the Tetragrammaton. Was that Valentinian? Early on Marcion, understood Yahweh as the cosmocrator and the Demiurge so I could understand negative connotations to that name. But I am a bit confused as to why the later gnostics would want to use forms of it for the True Father of the All. There wasn't any variant that I'm unaware of is there, where the Demiurge was trying to copy the name? Always learning on this site.
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Robert Wright:"A Grand Bargain Over Evolution"
by BurnTheShips inrobert wright is the author of "the evolution of god".
here is his thought provoking article on science and faith.. august 23, 2009op-ed contributora grand bargain over evolution .
by robert wright .
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Midget-Sasquatch
While I enjoyed Wright's older material, The Moral Animal, this particular article wasn't very convincing. Sure there's a growing body of evidence that hints at plausible ways human morality came about naturally. We don't need to be given it from a god. But the other side of his argument came up short. There's no solid evidence that evolution has a teleological bent to it, so there's very little reason to accept the idea of nature having a "higher purpose".
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Apostle Paul as Roman Soldier
by hamsterbait init was brought up in another thread that paul got his roman citizenship by serving as a soldier for at least 20 years.
this was the only way a non-italian non-roman born could do it.. i remember an illustration - in one of the big books, like "things in which it is impossible for god to lie" or "life everlasting" where saul of tarsus is pictured holding the robes of those who are stoning christians to death.. he is dressed as a roman soldier with a metal breast plate.
anybody have a scan of this?.
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Midget-Sasquatch
If we're going to speculate then, another possibility I read about was Paul being a kin of Herod. The Herodians and their children were given Roman citizen. Its stretching it, but in a Pauline epistle or two, there are greetings to people who could have been in the Roman and Herodian circles. Couple that with Paul's trying to maintain the status quo regarding slavery and the superior authorities, and you can see why some people fancy the idea.
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What do you know "without googling" about the reputed mechanisms for evolution?
by gubberningbody ini see people take positions all day long and i rather suspect both sides are woefully ignorant.. i read and hear people speak of the volumes of data pro or con and when i ask for specific examples of what each may be referring to, i am often met with silence.. .
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Midget-Sasquatch
6. Midget - Responded as if it had received some response from someone (a straw man?) and then instead of discussing the other half of the mechanism random "mutations"...
I won't take offense at your referring to me as "it" because you're obviously taking this as a game. (you mentioned repeatedly "playing"). The response wasn't to a straw man, as you well know, but to your belittling attitude (the "it" possibly another stab?) to all the previous posters with terms like "really pathetic".
You conveniently ignored how a few posters already mentioned the role of random mutation. The oh so elusive major component that no-one supposely "got". Like you disregarded in my post:
Yes the mutations themselves are to the best of our knowledge undirected
But this less than honest tactic was to what end? To somehow stress how little reflection we put on the randomness? That we minimize this and so cannot arrive to the same conclusion that you came to upon giving so much more thought to it? i.e. That novel information couldn't arise from those processes, so ergo, some outside direction was needed? Another poster already mentioned the emergence of bacteria that can metabolize nylon. So is God still creating?
Also, your basic mechanism of evolution ignores the powerful repercussions of yet another element: symbiosis. It may not be the most prevalent factor but an important one for our particular history of life. Or did you, just out of chance, overlook the endosymbiotic theory in all that time you spent researching this topic?
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Roll call - How many here fake being a "good Jehovah's Witness"....like me!
by Witness 007 inthere is no truth...i know that.
to please my mum while she's alive and wife i go to meetings and the 3 day convention coming up.
i would rather go to the dentist.
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Midget-Sasquatch
Faking it by sporadically going to different meetings at different congregations in my city. Making quick pop ins, partial showings, and early outs, to backup my general excuse of having odd hours at work.
But more often than not, faking at the same congregation attended by my family. People hate working at a call centre but this particular gig has been very beneficial to me in this respect despite the rotten hours and pay.
P.S. I handle inbound warranty and support issues so please please please don't have a hate on for me. I'm not the one trying to sell you stuff.
Hopefully, none of you are people who've I've ticked off by denying support.
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Ephesians
by PSacramento inephesians is a letter in the nt, typically supposed to have ben authour by paul to the ephesians but not only the authorship is debated but so is the target audience, the ephesians part not being noted in the earliest available scriptures.. dated at around 8-100 ad and supposedly during paul's captivity, it does gives us some insight into (perhaps) 2nd generation chrisianity and paul's effect on them.. chapter 1 has some passages of note:.
grace is given freely (we are blessed with it) by jesus ( called beloved or the one he, god, loved) -1:6. in jesus we have redemption, forgiveness of sins according to god's grace - 1:7. god's plan is to bring everything ( heaven and earth) together under jesus, god has an (unknown to us) timeline for that.
- 1:10. we have been chosen ( are heirs), predestined according to god - 1:11 and, being the first to have hope in christ, might be for the praise of hid glory - 1:12.. 1:13 -"and you were also included when you heard the word of truth, the gospel and having believed, were marked by the holy spirit with a seal".
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Midget-Sasquatch
Well, partly why the authorship of Ephesians is in question is how it seems to copy alot of material from Colossians and expand on it. I mean just check out the layout of the different points and also the wording used and you can't deny that one must have served as a template for the other. People who copy from other works tend to add material, rather than making the thoughts more succint.
Sure you could say Paul just wrote this second letter and fleshed out the ideas he had in the first letter butPaul was expecting an imminent return of Christ. But this letter seems to focus less on that and talks about a more future time for salvation in "the age to come". Couple that with language differences. I'm no expert on this but I recall it being said that the language of Ephesians is not a close match to those of the undisputed Pauline letters. Even Colossians may not be a sure thing.