Posts by binadub

12

QUESTION: How have Franz books helped you?

by binadub in

jw
friends

Looks Like The WT Are Out Of Willing Men To Make MS&Elders !

by Hairyhegoat in

jw
friends

this info is again from the study edition nov 2011 and it's just as looney as the other .

catch more men.

it is our desire that many more men will.

Although it is true that many Jews in the upper Galilee did regard Jesus as a Rabbi, it is a false teaching that Jesus "confined his ministry to the Jews." The most outstanding scriptural evidence of that is when Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee to the "land of the Garasenes"( Mark 5:1-20). The land across the Sea of Galilee was Greek pagan. Here is where he cast the demons out of a man into a herd of swine who plunged into the sea. (Jews did not keep herds of swine. Greek pagans did for food and sacrificial purposes.) The region is also known as the Decropolis.

The herdsmen and others who saw the demonized man healed were so afraid they sent Jesus and his apostles away. However they came back again, AFTER he had healed a woman's daughter in the land of Tyre. The scripture is explicit that the woman was a Gentile (7:26). After this he returned to Decapolis and performed another healing of a deaf man, and the sequence of scripture indicates that he fed a crowd of 4000 there this time (Mark 7:31-8:10). Some scholars suggest that Jesus prepared the way for Saul/Paul in this region.

Then there is the Samatitan woman at the well. Jesus said he could give her "living water."

When Jesus was with his followers at Caesarea Philippi (now known as Banias), where he asked them who they said he was and Peter said he was the Messiah, this place was on sacred Roman territory. It had been named by Herod after the Roman Caesar, Philippi, and it was a seat of pagan worship to the Roman god, Pan. In this way, Jesus was telling them he would establish His church in the midst of Satan's world, and the gates of death would not prevail.

This was in the last part of his ministry, just before they began the last journey to Jerusalem where Jesus would be arrested and crucified. This was when he began to tell them that he must die. They did not comprehend. And Jesus told them not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah--even at this last stage of his ministry on earth.

What people don't realize is how much time Jesus spent eluding Herod, who was looking for him because Herod thought he might be a resurrected John the Baptist. Others had thought he might be Elijah. It was not an uncommon belief in their time. (Matt. 16:13-20)

How the Watchtower could get away with teaching something so absolutely explicit in scripture boggles the mind, but is also shows how little JWs actually read their Bible.

~Binadub

72

New Statesman: famous atheists explain why they don't believe in God...what is Hawking saying?

by unshackled in

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/07/god-evidence-believe-world.

found this new statesman article linked in a sam harris tweet.

it is a collection of comments on reasons for non-belief from such ones as richard dawkins, daniel dennett, sam harris, jerry coyne and stephen hawking...to name a few.. what caught my eye about the tweet was this comment by harris, his actual tweet:.

binadub

Hi again unshackled:

Yeh, I go back to the migration here from the old H2O forum where I posted as "Ros". I don't participate often anymore and don't know most of the names anymore. I happen to be interested in atheist/agnostic/faith discussions. Hope it doesn't seem argumentive--just interesting. :-)

I may not have a clear view of agnosticism, but I have always viewed it as "I don't know" which gives it a much broader range for interpretation than labels of atheist, theist, or deist. Generally, the agnostics I've talked with are more between atheism or deism and theism; they don't totally reject theism, though they have doubts about religion. Pantheism and atheism are similar.

I agree that deist tends belief in a creator of all that we see, but not the god personality of religion.

Most atheist persuasions I have heard argue with religion as the reason they are atheists. (i.e., Why would a loving God permit evil?). They're just so fed up with religion that they reject the whole concept of a God in any form, even as an impersonal creator.

I can see Einstein identifying with agnosticism, but that clearly did not for him include atheism.
Here are a few more quotes that you might find of interest (if you haven't seen them before):

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

"I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangements of the books, but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

When interviewed by the Saturday Evening Post in 1929, Einstein was asked what he thought of Christianity.

"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew,
but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."

"Have you read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus?"
"Emil Ludwig’s Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers,
however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot!"

"You accept the historical existence of Jesus?"
"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus.
His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

===========================

I think the confusion about Einstein's belief stems from the fact that he did not believe the body has a soul or an after life for humans.
Many Christians would consider this to be atheism.

As an aside, isn't it rather remarkable that Einstein, being a pacifist, his scientific discoveries and work with the Manhattan Project led to development of the atomic bomb.

Thanks for a good discussion.
~Binadub

72

New Statesman: famous atheists explain why they don't believe in God...what is Hawking saying?

by unshackled in

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/07/god-evidence-believe-world.

found this new statesman article linked in a sam harris tweet.

it is a collection of comments on reasons for non-belief from such ones as richard dawkins, daniel dennett, sam harris, jerry coyne and stephen hawking...to name a few.. what caught my eye about the tweet was this comment by harris, his actual tweet:.

binadub

To unshackled:

Stephen Hawkings seems to believe in a supreme intelligence, due primarily to the scientific theory of the universe having a begiinning ("big bang").
This was true for Einstein as well when his own broad formula for relativity proved the universe was not "steady state," but in fact had a beginning at a center point from which it was expanding. They, and other scientists are classed as "deists," who believe in a God but not a personal god as the religious folks believe in.
http://www.examiner.com/creationism-in-atlanta/does-stephen-hawking-believe-god

With reference to the link you provided naming famous scientists who ARE believers, two VERY notables they failed to mention:

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, one of the foremost scientists of our time in human DNA (Genome) and biohealth research is a faith believer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-04-03/us/collins.commentary_1_god-dna-revelation?_s=PM:US

Or PROF. ANTHONY FLEW (rip), the Oxford professor who was one of the renouned outspoken atheist phylosophers of our time until he made a sudden conversion to deism and wrote about it before his death. It was a shocker to the atheist community. Again, he was a deist, not a believer in a personal god they way Christians believe.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6688917/ns/world_news/t/there-god-leading-atheist-concludes/

~Binadub

35

Thanks to Those That Went Before Us

by OnTheWayOut in

jw
friends

i want to say thanks to those that have blazed the trail for others to become former jehovah's witnesses.. many were disfellowshipped or disassociated, some stopped going to meetings before "faders" existed.

many had no internet or any way of gathering with others who left the jw's.

later, the likes of randy watters and ray franz gave many a sense of a group conscience with their efforts and writings.

binadub

My first experience with exJWs, after I met Ray Franz, Peter Gregerson and others in the Atlanta area, was the BRCI organization (Biblical Research and Commentary International). That group formed shortly after Ray was DF'd and was joined by numerous former Bethelites and other well-known names at the time (early 80s). A thread of that organization, which sponsors the 800-WHY-1914 Helpline (Marilyn Zweifel) still meets in Chicago to this day. (Check out BRCI.org).

Upon discovering the Internet in the mid 90s, the first forum I found was an e-mail list sponsored by exJW Joey Staggnito. Names like Jim Penton, Alan Feuerbacher (AlanF), Norwegians Kent Steinhaug and Jon Haugland who both had elaborate websites (Watchtower Observer and All Along the Watchtower) that were among the first to expose the Watchtower to the whole world, uniquely because JWs could read the information without fear of being discovered as if they bought a book. I began posting on that list as Ros. It was on that forum that an active JW elder posted as Praotes, and the little known Internet world of exJWs watched as he was drawn away from the organization. At that time, less than 2% Americans were on the Internet and the US was the biggest user of the WWW.

But the grand daddy of all forums in my experience was the Hourglass2Outpost forum (H2O) that was sponsored by a professed JW called "Rick" and his Australian friends who wanted Watchtower Reform. Like none before it nor after, that forum posed such a threat to the Watchtower Organization that even some of their leaders sneaked in occasionally. It was so monitored by the Watchtower organization that once, I posted to it that I heard the Bethel in Spain was being investigated by the organization. That post resulted in several people being disfellowshipped at Spain Bethel and I was chastized by my friends here and there for having been so indiscreet on that forum. That forum had JWs and exJWs the world over posting feverishly on a daily basis. Then, the forum promoter for technical reasons had to shut down H2O, and it attempted to migrate to this forum, which has come down to what it is today. Several other forums tried also to replace the original H2O without success.

Names are too numerous to remember now, but AlanF, Doug (Farkel), Kent and JanH, Jan Grenvold (Aussie), Randy, Liberal Elder (AJWRB site) and Rational Witness (two JW elders who came out), and many, many others. I also posted on that site as Ros. Carl Olof sometimes posted there. It was a truly international forum and nothing, imo, has ever equaled that forum for bringing worldwide attention to exposing the Watchtower and publicising the books by the well-known authors. When the UN controversy was discovered, they were on it immediately. When the WTS made a blood deal with the European civil liberties union (something like that), they were exposed immediately. When the Elders manual was made available for reading and download on the Internet, it was publicized for the world to see (for which the WTS tried to sue).

The names that were prominent then have all but faded into the exJW past, but they were quite enormous at the time.

~Binadub (aka Ros)

11

Need your help

by Dogpatch in

jw
friends

i have a favor to ask and it's a problem that's been driving me crazy for weeks.. my site freeminds.org is on a virtual server system (site5.com) where it can not go down more than a few minutes, or a copy server kicks in.

but despite numerous chats with the techs with little results, here is my dilemma:.

currently the site has been displaying this picture, from yesterday am to the rest of today:.

binadub

Hi Randy:

I see the picture you posted above and I'm on an older version of IE. My cache is set to clear whenever I exit the Internet.

Here's a tribute to Ray on the Beacon website (xjw.com):

http://www.xjw.com/RememberingRayFranz.html

Blessings,
~Binadub (aka Ros)

12

Does Anyone know what congregation RBC is?

by binadub in

jw
friends

there seems to be some kind of a trend, i think of jw congregations separating from the authority of the watchtower if the elders vote for it.. i'm trying to get more information about what this is and whether or not the wt hq sanctions is, ever.. thanks for any info,.

~binadub.

binadub

Thanks everyone:

I think poster Marvin Shilmer answer much of what I was inquiring about in this newer thread:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/211330/2/Elder-body-removed-e28093-Watchtower-letter

Thanks, Marvin and Mad Sweeney!

Blessings,
~Binadub

75

Elder body removed Watchtower letter

by Marvin Shilmer in

jw
friends

elder body removed watchtower letter.

an elder body was removed last year in california.

most folks have never seen a watchtower letter breaking this news.

binadub

I think the is the information I was looking for.

Many thanks,

Blessings,
~binadub

12

Does Anyone know what congregation RBC is?

by binadub in

jw
friends

there seems to be some kind of a trend, i think of jw congregations separating from the authority of the watchtower if the elders vote for it.. i'm trying to get more information about what this is and whether or not the wt hq sanctions is, ever.. thanks for any info,.

~binadub.

binadub

I think this older post on your forum explains a lot of what I was looking for:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/142064/1/New-RBC-arrangements-directives

What I was vaguely alluding to about WT sanctions was from a vague memory I have about some congregations that evidently do not legally belong to the WTS after the congregation pays for them, but my memory about it is vague.

Incidently, although I rarely post on this board, the name "scully" often appears in my threads as though s/he is someone who evidently knows me.
I have absolutely not the vaguest idea who s/he is. I only remember it because the name makes me think of a skull. Do I know you?

~Binadub