euripides

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Posts by euripides

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  13

  Abandonment of 7,000 year "creative day" concept

  by euripides in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have read on some posts here (but have not found a thread) that wts has abandoned the 7,000 year "creative day" concept in favor of the "we haven't a clue" position.

  does anyone know when this happened or if this shift has been documented already?.

  euripides

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  euripides

  Thanks everyone for their input and thanks FE203... for the link. I suspected it had come up already.

  Euripides
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  38

  Is it legal for the WT to Disassociate someone?

  by confusedjw in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  since it is well defined that when the wt kicks you out you are disfellowshipped - there action.

  and that when you want to leave you disassociate - your action.

  how is it that the wt can da you?

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  euripides

  I too have wondered about the legalities of this too, I believe sometime in the future this may become a court case, Is there any other organization that uses this "dissasociation by action theory"? The WT is the only one I know of. It looks to me there is only 2 ways to leave any organization--be forcibly removed or ask to leave. How in the world is this a legal recognized concept? Any Lawyers reading this thread and can give some insight? This may eventually be a major case for the WT.

  I am a lawyer and perhaps I can give you some insight.

  What you are describing in this disassociation by default thread is what is commonly understood in the law as a "constructive_________," as in a "constructive eviction," for example. A constructive eviction would be where you, the landlord, did not formally evict the tenant, but by allowing the property to become utterly uninhabitable, you have "constructively" evicted the tenant by your inaction. This permits the tenant to get out of his lease obligation and the law commonly recognizes that where an action/failure to act or series of actions are taken, though no formal process was observed, the person or entity has constructively acted/failed to act resulting in something consistent with as if they had gone the formal route.

  Thus, when WTS says, We have a clear policy on military involvement for our members, and a person violates that, then no formal adjudication would be required in order to establish that the person had "constructively" disassociated themselves. At bottom I suspect this is what's behind the Society's directive, to streamline the process for the body of elders. However, I imagine this would be restricted to public actions of which an affirmative participation would be required, such as joining the military, or, formerly, voting. Another example of this constructive behavior woould be as follows: I am no longer a member in good stading of the Bar of the State of Missouri if I fail to pay my Bar Dues. I didn't tell them I no longer wanted to be a member. They didn't ask me to leave. By my inaction I will no longer be considered in good standing. By failing to pay, I have constructively quit the group.

  Distinguish public acts, such as joining the military or accepting a blood transfusion from so-called private acts involving a supposed moral lapse followed by unrepentance (which as someone has already pointed out is really the only offense for which people are disfellowshiped). I agree this is a difficult line to find in many cases.

  As to the legality of this business, religious groups get a wide berth when it comes to the conduct of their membership. There is no third party liability when it comes to shunning, because 1) it's not criminal conduct and 2) all those doing it would say it was of their own volition anyway. What about a civil action, a tort? The closest action I can think of would be "intentional infliction of emotional distress," or even, unfortunately, wrongful death in a suicide case perhaps, but that would have to be committed by a person, not an entity. Additionally, there would have to be something shocking to the conscience about the conduct. The textbook example of this tort is a case where a man played a practical joke on a woman at a party and told her her husband had suffered a violent horrible death and she should rush home at once (this was 70 years or more ago). The poor woman suffered extreme emotional breakdown as she rushed home and became quite ill even after realizing it was a very sick practical joke. Another example is where a person maliciously killed all of a woman's beloved pets in front of her to deliberately distress her. Perhaps our sensibilities have dulled over time. At any rate, shunning is not considered to be shocking conduct by today's standards, I don't believe.

  No one joins the WT without their eyes wide open, in one sense. No one is coerced (under the legal definition of coercion). And, as I said, we would probably prefer to preserve the latitude afforded a religious body for their members to make choices for themselves when it comes to particular conduct. Obviously, the issue is a lot less clear (and more likely to run afoul of disastrous consequences) when it comes to something like refusing blood transfusions, and then dying, for God's sake. What you get for that is your picture on the Awake with a commendation from the Society (maybe). These human "sacrifices" to Twisted Reasoning are akin to the Christian Scientists who refuse ALL medical treatment. Yet, would we rather force these things on people, making martyrs left and right?

  The law will become involved when criminal conduct is involved, such as child molestation, failure to disclose to authorities, etc. Yet, as I say, there is nothing criminal about being a complete jerk and ignoring your fellow man or woman. Which, I have to say, is one of the saddest misuses of our limited time on this planet.

  Euripides
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  13

  Abandonment of 7,000 year "creative day" concept

  by euripides in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i have read on some posts here (but have not found a thread) that wts has abandoned the 7,000 year "creative day" concept in favor of the "we haven't a clue" position.

  does anyone know when this happened or if this shift has been documented already?.

  euripides

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  euripides

  I have read on some posts here (but have not found a thread) that WTS has abandoned the 7,000 year "creative day" concept in favor of the "we haven't a clue" position. Does anyone know when this happened or if this shift has been documented already?

  Euripides
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  87

  Does Jehovah accept human sacrafice or not?

  by gumby in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here's good bedtime story for the little ones!.

  remember jeptha and his beautiful daughter that was his only child?.

  just to set the theme: the ammonites took over israels land while they were in bondage in egypt.

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  euripides

  but what about the ransom doctrine?

  This is precisely the issue behind Mark 10:45 (and Matthew 20:28 as a parallel). The Greek term used here is lutron, which is commonly translated as 'ransom.' There is a complex nexus of ideas which culminate in that verse, involving the Son of Man, service, the giving of one's life, and a ransom, yet these ideas theologically hang together by drawing upon a pre-existent foundation (intellectually speaking). Although the term in 4 Maccabees 17:21 is different (antipsuchon), the gist meaning behind both terms in substitutional payment or ransom.

  For those interested in the gruesome details of the use of the word lutron in the Septuagint, here you go:

  lutron in the Septuagint translates four distinct Hebrew roots: g-al (redeem, act as kinsman), b-p-r (atone, redeem), m-h-r (acquire by paying purchase price, dowry), and p-d-h (ransom, redeem, particularly land) (I apologize for my weak transliterations). Only the second of these (bpr) is recognized as having a suitable noun form, namely b-p-r-h, or ransom/expiation.

  I'm not sure if this is sufficient to answer the question succinctly, but yes, the ransom doctrine is clearly bound up in the idea of sacrifice being discussed.

  ps. I am thrilled to be listed among Leolaia and Narkissos as a reputable opinion. That certainly is some good company.

  Euripides
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  33

  THE TOTEM ANIMAL

  by hamsterbait in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  no guesses for guessing what my totem aminal is.

  i just want to be loved and cute and furry.

  what would your totem be, and why?

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  euripides

  <----------Not an earthly creature....

  Euripides
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  87

  Does Jehovah accept human sacrafice or not?

  by gumby in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here's good bedtime story for the little ones!.

  remember jeptha and his beautiful daughter that was his only child?.

  just to set the theme: the ammonites took over israels land while they were in bondage in egypt.

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  euripides

  do the jesus stories/pauline theology directly mirror any of these human sacrifice accounts?

  That's a sensitive issue and will depend somewhat on your view of intellectual history, i.e. the history of ideology as it can be incorporated into religious values. While Narkissos is correct that child/human sacrifice in practice was a settled issue in Judaism by the first century, the same is clearly not the case for Vicarious Expiatory Sacrifice. Consider the case of the Maccabean martyrs of the accounts of both 2 Maccabees chapters 6 and 7 and 4 Maccabees chapters 5 through 12. In 4 Maccabees 6:7, the elderly priest Eleazar says ragarding his imminent death, "You know, O God, that though I might have saved myself, I am dying in burning torments for the sake of the law. Be merciful to your people, and let our punishment suffice for them. Make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs."

  Keep in mind that this text (4 Maccabees), though contemporary with the Gospels, is drawn from a Jewish text (2 Maccabees) dating from before the Gospels, and it is this text of the account in 4 Maccabees which formed the subject of an entire Master's Thesis of mine on this very subject about 5 years ago. My argument in that work was that the paradigm of Jesus as a vicarious expiatory sacrifice was able to be understood by the community of believers in the first century (specifically the community of Mark and the meaning of Mark 10:45) because there was already the concept available to them through the model of the Maccabean martyrs.

  To the extent that Jesus' sacrifice has saving value on behalf of other people, you may or may not choose to see in that a parallel to human sacrifice as it existed in both Israel and their neighbors. I think there is a strong argument, from a mythological perspective, to see that human sacrifice has always been one of the most potent expressions of religious significance.

  Euripides
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  9

  The Hebrew OT

  by onacruse in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  .

  i was watching a history channel show tonight, and one of the assertions made by a rabbi was that 25% of the words in the ot are of disputed meaning.. in my own meager understanding of hebrew, and critical text analysis, this seemed a bit overboard, but possibly within linguistic parameters.. if so, then what the heck was god doing when it provided these sacred texts...sayings and directions and dictums that are supposed to be for our ultimate benefit, and to give us the ability to make life-and-death decisions?.

  please speak my language, plain and simple.. god can do that, right?.

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  euripides

  I think its important to recognize that 20% of the total lexicon/vocabulary is uncertain in meaning, not 20% of the text. This is probably at least the case in English also, where the average person's vocabulary uses only approximately 10% of the English lexicon. A great number of those words which are uncertain form specialized vocabulary such as found in poetry--I recall that much of the poetry of Job is fairly specialized and difficult to ascertain. Yet the frequency of these words are reduced to single occurrences, thus they form only a very small part of the overall text. Euripides
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  4

  What the HELL

  by homme perdu in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  responses to christ line

  re: "proud to be a hindu, "letters, religion, jan.29.

  the notion that you had to believe in jesus or you were going to hell never appeared in the bible until between a.d. 780 to 800. it appeared when the papacy was being passed around amoung the last of the roman nobles and the western branch of christianity was close to extinction.

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  euripides

  The concept of future punishments or rewards (as in the afterlife) is traceable in Judaism to even before the first century, probably to the post-exilic period from the 4th century BCE when Jews returning from Babylon had incorporated teachings influenced by the dualism of Zoroastrianism and these concepts of punishments and rewards, conveniently brought into service during the Maccabean crisis of 167-164 CE. The idea was that only deferment to some kind of eschatological come-uppance could justify (or explain) the destruction of the faithful at the hands of the wicked. Perhaps it is an outgrowth of the age old theodicy question, as in, Why does God allow the wicked to go unpunished? Hell is meant to provide the answer that God doesn't, because an eternity of punishment is waiting. This concept was foreign to earlier forms of Judaism, however, yet by the first century the concept seems to have been firmly in place, especially in the Pharisaic and Messianic branches of Judaism.

  C.T. Russell was himself scared to death of the idea, (among several of his pet peeves) and as a former Congregationalist, made sure that he subverted (i.e. completely reinterpreted) those scriptures which alluded to such a teaching. But, as Leolaia points out, there's no getting around the concept as it existed in the first century, and scholars agree that this was part of the teaching of some sects of Judaism at the time.
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  87

  Does Jehovah accept human sacrafice or not?

  by gumby in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  here's good bedtime story for the little ones!.

  remember jeptha and his beautiful daughter that was his only child?.

  just to set the theme: the ammonites took over israels land while they were in bondage in egypt.

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  euripides

  Critical objection to reading this story as it plainly states, namely the 'olah whole burnt offering sacrifice, can be traced to Rabbi Kimchi c. 1200 CE. He felt that it was simply morally indefensible for a reader to understand the text for what it says, "he did to her as he said he would" etc. though, as Leolaia points out, efforts to hint at a substitution through temple duties may have happened early on. In any case, the Israelites are completely familiar with this practice, cf. 2 Kings 3:26 and 27, where the King of Moab, Mesha, sacrifices his son on the wall with strategic results for his campaign. Compare also Jer. 32:35, where the prophet clarifies that Yahweh never commanded children to be "passed through the fire," implying that there were some who felt that he had.

  Besides this, what do you think Abraham was thinking when God commanded him to sacrifice his son as a whole burnt offering? That it was such a mad suggestion as to be unheard of? Apparently this went on a lot more than many scholars are willing to concede to.

  Euripides
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  56

  DO YOU KNOW THE KINGDOM SONG WORDS?????????????

  by vitty in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  after being in the org for 20 years, being regular at every meeting.

  i must have sung the songs hundreds of times, but i cant sing the first line of any song off by heart..

  i asked my husband, kids if they could, they also cant.. can you?.

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  euripides

  Kiss the son lest god be angry and you perish in the way. Ours is the god of true prophecy....

  Oh wait, I don't think those two go together...

  Loyal Love, God is love. These truth cheers us from above (???) Loyally let's send his son. For whom us the ransom won. bla blabla bla bla bla bla bla, bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, Hey there all you thirsty ones. Come and drink life's water free, yes come drink you thirsty ones, ours is the god of true prophecy.

  D'oh!!

  Nosferatu yer killin' me! [Screaming with laughter]

  Does every song end in "ours is the god of true prophecy"? Gawd I can barely type I'm still ROFLMAO....

  Euripides