Posts by veradico

in chapter 2 of daniel, nebuchadnezzar dreamt of a metallic image with a head of gold, and the remainder of the image was made of less valuable metals.

in his interpretation of the dream, daniel told the king that the gold represented the rule by babylon.

the other metals indicated that babylonian rule would be followed by subsequent empires.. in chapter 3 of daniel, nebuchadnezzar built an image that was gold from head to toe, thereby indicating his belief that babylon would continue to reign supreme, and would not be followed by any other empire.. in chapter 4 of daniel, following nebuchadnezzar's debasement and the restoration of his sanity and the return of his honor and splendor, he declared:.

veradico

It's a neat interpretation, but Nebuchadnezzar does not seem to be opposed to Daniel's prophecy at the end of chapter 2. In fact, if the author wanted that (i.e. a proud rejection of Babylon's eventual doom) to be the significance of the golden image, he could have made Neb's madness be the consequence of having the image built, instead of a few proud words about his present greatness. I think the standard interpretation has to do with making clear God's support of those who reject idols--esp. the idol of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

30

Hypothetical Question

by purplesofa in

jw
friends

i don't pretend to know why the bible has the law about homosexuality being immoral.....the only reason logically is for having babies.. so my question is.. there are two gay couples left on the planet.

will those couples go against their sexual preference to keep humankind from going extinct?.

just askin???.

veradico

It seems to me that even though a large number of gay men in ancient Greece and Rome record their being attracted to other men, they nonetheless had wives by whom they begot children. Marriage and procreation was an adult duty; pleasure and friendship might be a nice side benefit for some. I tend to agree with whoever said that with the right fantasy ejaculation is possible, whatever the source of the friction. This does not mean the sexual encounter would be satisfying, nor would it involve the emotional openness and sensitivity usually associated with a romantic relationship. Many gay people are married to people of the opposite sex even nowadays. I can only imagine how inauthentic they must feel--as if they are writing all the time with the wrong hand, or something similarly out of harmony with their nature. And, of course, it's profoundly unfair to the their spouse.

16

I'm so confused!

by Snoozy in

i'm so confused..my daughter has two teenage children, they are a girl just turned 16 and a boy 17... when i was at her house watching tv with them..they made the kids cover their eyes when sex scenes came on.

now she just told me they both seperately went with friends to see the last "saw" movie.... since when is sawing someone up ok to watch but not sex?.

snoozy..a confused grandma...who isn't aloud to voice her opinion....

veradico

A professor of mine mentioned the other day that he saw two parents bring their small child to a horror movie he was attending. To his mind (and I tend to agree), this was a mild form of psychological abuse, and it caused him to speculate about whether or not it would be just for our society to require the passing of a test for a license to have a child. I just saw Hostel 2 recently and was sickened. There was something egregious and perverse about some of the scenes in that movie. I like the new show named Dexter on Showtime, and I'm quite fond of vampire stories and movies. For whatever reason, the predatory aspect of human nature is fascinating to me, so perhaps it's hypocritical of me to judge. Still, I think there are limits to what people can watch as entertainment before their souls become as callous to human misery as those of any sociopaths who have ever walked this earth.

4

Need a new haircut! Preferrably worldly

by tsunami_rid3r in

jw
friends

i'm getting bored of my hair.

right now it is at medium length, and i want to do something with it.

so i want it short but i don't want to look like a jehovah's witness.

veradico

Go with the fauxhawk! If you want "worldly" and all the fun connotations associated therewith, you can't always avoid trendy. Some people with taste and style sometimes influence the common sense of what is fashionable. There are just as many disasters as successes, but fashion, being a minor art form that we all dabble in on a daily basis, is a dynamic process. It should be playful, and people should be willing to take risks. If you like a style that happens to be trendy at the moment, there's nothing wrong with that. Furthermore, frosted tips are quite common nowadays, and a fauxhawk, being faux, does not involve an atypical haircut so much as an atypical way of styling the hair.

129

587/607 Question...

by deaconbluez in

if the exile wasn't to be 70 years, how is jeremiah 29:10 explained by pro-587 folks?.

10 "for this is what jehovah has said, in accord with the fulfilling of seventy years at babylon i shall turn my attention to you people, and i will establish toward you my good word in bringing you back to this place.. .

also, if it truly was a 70-year period of servitude, and not exile, when was this 70 years served by other nations?.

veradico

When someone has written and published a book, its errors do not have to be discussed privately. In fact, since the book has an influence on the public, the discussion of its errors should be made public. It is not as if Furuli has done some private injury to or "sin" against these women. They are simply claiming he has made some blunders in his attempt to provide academic support for the Watchtower's chronology.

7

Willing to part with the Kingdom Interlinear (1985)?

by Mebaqqer2 in

i was just wondering if anyone had a copy of the kingdom interlinear of the christian greek scriptures (1985) that they would be willing to part with (either don't need it or have an extra copy).

i think the price on amazon is excessive ($49.99 used.

older, 1969 edition is cheaper at $28.00 used!!!).

veradico

You can download the PDF for free.

50

Gentile Times reconsidered

by confused and lost in

i am half way through this book by carl o. jonsson and the more i read the more certain i become that the 607bce date for the destruction of jerusalem by babylon is nothing more than a fabrication designed to uphold 1914 and hence the "authority" of the watchtower leadership.it makes me sick to think of how they have duped millions of people with their phoney chronology.it makes sitting through studies that mention these dates irritating to say the least.especially when all the heads nod in unison at the mention of the "magic 607"

veradico

You seem to be interpreting the Greek adjective talaiporos to refer to poverty in a pecuniary sense, but the word refers to suffering or wretchedness. I fail to see why you think Josephus can't be understood to be referencing the period from around 605 to 537 in the _Antiquities of the Jews_, 11, and the fifty(ish) year period from 586 to 539 in the _Against Apion_ (cf. Zechariah 7:5). Then the "Bible chronology" to which you seem to be committed does not have to conflict with the "secular chronology."

22

Songs most likely on OBVES Ipod

by kerj2leev in

jw
friends

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ikcml_a9a.

this has to be on it!.

veradico

I can't think of any apocalyptic or numerical songs, but I thought of some poems:

After reading St. John the Divine

Moon's glow be seven fold multiplied, turned red,
Burned fierce by the coronal limbs at last
Out-leaping insulating space, a-blast
The searing heat sheeting round earth ahead
Of the scorched geoid's course; and I a-bed
Watching that increased flame and holding fast
To pulse and pillow. Worse! No shadow cast
By chair or cat. All people waking dead...

Earth lurches spacial waste; my room is hot ;
That moon waxes her monstrous, brimstone disk ;
Thick fear stretches before the febrile light ;
Green fires pierce at my clenching eye's blind spot...
My buried soul, rising to face the risk,
With one pure deed restores the natural night.

Gene Derwood

WB Yeats - The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

The End of the World

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb
Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing -- nothing at all.

-- Archibald MacLeish

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Robert Frost

Eliot, T. S.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us--if at all--not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer--

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
and avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

The Conqueror Worm

Edgar Allan Poe

LO! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man,’
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

This last poem, like one I quoted once before by Daniel Hall, borrows the prophetic, apocalyptic register.

Lewis, C. Day

Consider these, for we have condemned them;
Leaders to no sure land, guides their bearings lost
Or in league with robbers have reversed the signposts,
Disrespectful to ancestors, irresponsible to heirs,
Born barren , a freak growth, root in rubble,
Fruitlessly blossoming, whose foliage suffocates,
Their sap is sluggish, they reject the sun.

The man with his tongue in his cheek, the woman
With her heart in the wrong place, unhandsome, unwholesome;
Have exposed the new-born to worse than weather,
Exiled the honest and sacked the seer.
These drowned the farms to form a pleasure-lake,
In time of drought they drain the reservoir
Through private pipes for baths and sprinklers.

Getters not begetters; gainers not beginners;
Whiners, no winners; no triers, betrayers;
Who steer by no star, whose moon means nothing.
Daily denying, unable to dig:
At bay in villas from blood relations,
Counters of spoons and content with cushions
They pray for peace, they hand down disaster.

They that take the bribe shall perish by the bribe,
Dying of dry rot, ending in asylums,
A curse to children, a charge on the state.
But still their fears and frenzies infect us;
Drug nor isolation will cure this cancer;
It is now or never, the hour of the knife,
The break with the past, the major operation.