Posts by cynicus

44

Need a little help on 607 586/587....

by undercover in

i remember reading somewhere a quote from a wts publication that more or less said that the bible was wrong when it came to one of the regnal years or how many years a certain king had ruled.

something like that anyway(i've got to start copying and pasting or bookmarking or something).

somehow if you take the society at it's word about 607 it creates a problem with the rulership length or starting rulership date of somebody and in one of their publications it actually says something about that time period having to be incorrect.

cynicus

Then I told him to listen carefully and said, in a grave and authoritative way.

Mmm... Jedi mind tricks...

These are not the droids you are looking for ... He can go about his business ... Move along.

(c)

21

Try to get your head around this paradox!

by DanTheMan in

jw
friends

i've never heard of this motion paradox.

i've been reading a book titled the whole shebang by timothy ferris.

it must take a certain amount of time for the arrow to get halfway to the target.

cynicus

I've never heard of this motion paradox.

It is very old, and usually called Zeno's paradox of the Arrow. The guy who formulated this one (and some others) was an old Greek, named Zeno from Elea who lived in the 5th century BC. The solution lies in the fact that the assumption:

The distance from the arrow to the target can be halved an infinite amount of times, and the arrow must take some, however small, amount of time to traverse each distance. So technically, it should never reach its target! Motion cannot be fully explained by current physical models.

is false. In mathemathical terms: the sum of an infinite number of halves is not per definition equal to an infinite number. This was Zeno's assumption: if you add infinitely many numbers, then no matter what these numbers are, you must get infinity. Some say that in fact Zeno knew very well that his assumption was false, and he was formulating his paradoxes (there are about 40 of these) to show the absurdity of the ideas of an other old Greek named Pythagoras, who stated that space and time are made up of discrete parts. Btw, yet another well known old greek, Aristoteles, already solved Zeno's paradox so the anecdote about Einstein is sheer folklore.

(c)

44

Need a little help on 607 586/587....

by undercover in

i remember reading somewhere a quote from a wts publication that more or less said that the bible was wrong when it came to one of the regnal years or how many years a certain king had ruled.

something like that anyway(i've got to start copying and pasting or bookmarking or something).

somehow if you take the society at it's word about 607 it creates a problem with the rulership length or starting rulership date of somebody and in one of their publications it actually says something about that time period having to be incorrect.

cynicus

Please be assured that I am well familiar with the publications of Jack Finegan as I have both his latest edition and his earliest edition in my library ot reference works on chronology. Nevertheless, his research is important to any chronologist but the Society's viewpoint is the more accurate as it places a greater priority on the biblical record.

You make a profound mistake here: the biblical record as it stands on its own doesn't prove anything, and it can not do that and you are very well aware of it. The biblical record needs to be aligned to or synchronized with secular history, at what the WBTS has been calling 'absolute dates' in the past, yet now they prefer to call them 'pivotal dates'. Once the WBTS liked to call these dates 'astronomically confirmed', but they have abandoned that terminology since it has backfired upon them.

At the same time you completely fail (and have failed in other threads) to show how "the Society's viewpoint" can be "more accurate". You know as well as I do that their whole old testament chronology now hinges on one single tablet, Strassmeiers Kambyses 400, to prove the validity of -539, even though they still obscure the exact way of how and why it proves the validity of their 'pivotal date'. The comfortably ignore and discredit all other evidence that doesn't fit their "viewpoint" let alone improve its "accuracy".

As to Finegan, you are equally dishonest as the WBTS: you don't dare to challenge his scholarship directly and describe his work as "nonsense", yet you do want to use his works when it fits your viewpoints. You know very well that Finegan's views are in harmony with what you described earlier as "nonsense", but you don't spend a single syllable on the contentual aspect, and instead are quick to boast about the extents of your personal library. You remind me of the many JWs that had to have an encyclopaedia in their house, preferably in full view for any visitor, and yet they used it everytime when they celebrated their birthday.

Since Finegan is in conflict with your, or better "the Society's viewpoint", you all of a sudden also have "greater priorities" for an alleged higher authority, "the biblical record". It is interesting to observe how puffed up ego's can lead to blindness for simple fallacies such as the ad verecundiam that both you and your puppetmasters need to resort to when they have painted themselves into a corner.

(c)

44

Need a little help on 607 586/587....

by undercover in

i remember reading somewhere a quote from a wts publication that more or less said that the bible was wrong when it came to one of the regnal years or how many years a certain king had ruled.

something like that anyway(i've got to start copying and pasting or bookmarking or something).

somehow if you take the society at it's word about 607 it creates a problem with the rulership length or starting rulership date of somebody and in one of their publications it actually says something about that time period having to be incorrect.

cynicus

The date of 607 is also confirmed by an appropriate exegesis of Daniel 1:1 and 2:1 despite the nonsense posted by cynicus. Yes, please read Jonsonn's hypothesis in his Gentile Times but I think this will be nicely rebutted by a forthcoming work by Rolf Furuli who is a competent Semitic scholar.

While you're reading COJ you may want to pick up the Handbook of Biblical Chronology, 2nd edition, 1999, by Jack Finegan. Turn to page 251, and read section 5, in particular paragraph 433.

Then reconsider the terms:

appropriate ... nonsense ... scholar

If you have the 2001 WT Library CD you will also be able to quickly find out that the WBTS has acknowledged the scholarship of mr. Finegan more than 25 times.

(c)

44

Need a little help on 607 586/587....

by undercover in

i remember reading somewhere a quote from a wts publication that more or less said that the bible was wrong when it came to one of the regnal years or how many years a certain king had ruled.

something like that anyway(i've got to start copying and pasting or bookmarking or something).

somehow if you take the society at it's word about 607 it creates a problem with the rulership length or starting rulership date of somebody and in one of their publications it actually says something about that time period having to be incorrect.

cynicus

From an essay by AlanF:

In order to avoid contradictions with its chronology the Society is forced to interpret certain scriptures as meaning something other than what they clearly say. This is illustrated by the Society's handling of Dan. 1:1 and Dan. 2:1. It says that Dan. 1:1 actually refers to Jehoiakim's 3rd year of vassalage to Nebuchadnezzar, not to his 3rd regnal year. Likewise, it says that the reference in Dan. 2:1 to Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year actually means his 2nd year of reigning in a special capacity as the first ruler in the line of Gentile kings. This would have been his 20th regnal year. This is done because the Society's other interpretations require Daniel to have been deported to Babylon in Nebuchadnezzar's 7th year, but Dan. 2:1 refers to Daniel being in Babylon in Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year. So the Society does not take the Bible at its word, but reinterprets clear statements so that its other interpretations are not contradicted. This is, in fact, the only reason that Dan. 1:1 and Dan. 2:1 are reinterpreted, as there is no evidence elsewhere in Daniel that this is justified, nor does the Society present such.
There is excellent reason for rejecting the Society's reinterpretation of the reference to Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year in Dan. 2:1. This reinterpretation is based on the further interpretation that Nebuchadnezzar's dream recorded in Dan. 4, of the tree that was cut down, is a prophecy referring to the Gentile Times. But this dream occurred well after the events of Dan. 2 (at least, as implied in Dan. 2), so how could Daniel have meant Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year as king in a special capacity when the prophecy announcing that special capacity had not yet been uttered? Also, Dan. 12:8, 9 recorded Daniel's lack of understanding: "Now as for me, I heard, but I could not understand.... And he went on to say: 'Go, Daniel, because the words are made secret and sealed up until the time of [the] end.' " The prophetic words were not understandable to Daniel, so how could he have called Nebuchadnezzar's 20th year his 2nd year if he did not understand the prophecy? It is clear that Daniel, in chapter 2, was recording the events in connection with Nebuchadnezzar's prophetic dream, events that contemporary readers would understand and could date for themselves, because they knew contemporary history. Daniel's reference to Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year, if it was really his 20th year, would have been unintelligible to contemporary readers.
The Society's argument that the statement in Dan. 1:1 refers to Jehoiakim's 3rd year of his vassalage, rather than of his reign, and that his vassalage ended with his death in his 11th year (Insight, Vol. 1, p. 1269), which would have been Nebuchadnezzar's 7th regnal year, are further weakened by the following argument:
The Society's chronology requires that Jehoiakim's vassalage would have begun in his 8th regnal year, since 2 Kings 24:1 says he was a vassal for three years, and the Society says that his vassalage ended in his 11th year. But 2 Kings 23:34-37 indicates that Jehoiakim became a vassal to Egypt's Pharoah Necho, with no indication that he came out of that vassalage until Necho's defeat by Nebuchadnezzar at the battle of Carchemish. Therefore Jehoiakim would have been Pharoah Necho's vassal until his 8th year. However, Jer. 46:2 says that Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharoah Necho at the battle of Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim, after which Jehoiakim must no longer have been a vassal of Egypt. Therefore the Society's interpretation of Dan. 1:1 must be in error.

(c)

29

New Date for Armageddon?

by NeonMadman in

i had an interesting chat with a jw on yahoo messenger yesterday.

of course, he was using "theocratic war strategy," at least at first, and pretended not to be a jw, but someone who was asking a lot of questions about them.

he opened the conversation by asking if i wanted to discuss 'the meaning of life'.

cynicus

One of the arguments I like a lot:

Another point is that if 6000 years, as an exact number, has any meaning, and if Jesus was actually the one through whom God created everything else, and if angels were witnesses to all that creative activity, as Job 38:7 seems to indicate, then Jesus and the angels would have been able to figure out when the final end of the world would come. But Jesus said explicitly: "Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father." Therefore the 6000 year round number assumption must be incorrect.

http://www.geocities.com/osarsif/pro3.htm

27

YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

by COMF in

jw
friends

sock it to 'em, bill!

praise the lord, the truth's coming out!

cynicus

.

11

More advice: Stock options

by bboyneko in

jw
friends

my new job is setting aside 15% of their shares for employee stock options, to be distributed equally per employee (excluding ceo's) i am the first employee.

they plan on selling this company in 2 years for $100,000,000.00 so 15% of that is 15 million.

there will be 30 employees at most at that time.