I remember a friend of mine saying after the bookstudy was over: "Hey, at least now we can be sure that gravity exists. It's in the Bible."
veradico
JoinedPosts by veradico
-
12
most random scripture citation EVER
by veradico indid you ever notice, particularly in unimportant filler articles, that sometimes the writers of the society's publications cited scriptures which had very little to do with the subject at hand?
i'm not talking about the misleading use of scriptures, that is, when they would perpetrate amazing feats of eisegesis.
i'm talking about when they cited scriptures just because they felt like the sentence needed to end with a citation.
-
-
-
12
most random scripture citation EVER
by veradico indid you ever notice, particularly in unimportant filler articles, that sometimes the writers of the society's publications cited scriptures which had very little to do with the subject at hand?
i'm not talking about the misleading use of scriptures, that is, when they would perpetrate amazing feats of eisegesis.
i'm talking about when they cited scriptures just because they felt like the sentence needed to end with a citation.
-
-
veradico
Did you ever notice, particularly in unimportant filler articles, that sometimes the writers of the Society's publications cited scriptures which had very little to do with the subject at hand? I'm not talking about the misleading use of scriptures, that is, when they would perpetrate amazing feats of eisegesis. I'm talking about when they cited scriptures just because they felt like the sentence needed to end with a citation.
I'm visiting my JW family right now, and I noticed, resting on the kitchen table, a copy of the booklet "Study Questions for the Book _Is There a Creator Who Cares About You?_". I immediately remembered a scripture citation in the booklet that represents, for me, one of the funniest things the Society has ever printed. On page 3 of the companion question booklet, it reads: "Why can we say that the electromagnetic force and gravity are each precisely tuned? (2 Ki. 9:33; Matt. 10:29; 13:8)".
Does anyone remember looking those scriptures up? I do. I lol-ed. They read as follows:
"So he said: 'Let her drop!' Then they let her drop, and some of her blood went spattering upon the wall and upon the horses; and he now trampled upon her."
"Do not two sparrows sell for a coin of small value? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground without YOUR Father's [knowledge]."
"Still others fell upon the fine soil and they began to yield fruit, this one a hundredfold, that one sixty, the other thirty."
Thank Jehovah for his Channel! What would we do without the Faithful Slave! -
17
Myspace is bad
by JimmyPage insomeone told my wife that the myspace site is bad.
they said it will be brought out more in the upcoming assemblies.
a lot of dubs have gotten themselves in trouble on the site.
-
-
veradico
Ha! Your post reminds me of a Joey & David clip:
http://www.joeyanddavid.com/channels/shorts/e-harmonys-minor-matchmaker -
24
A question about Crisis of Conscience
by seek2find inthe first time i read this book was an older copy in the mid 1990s.
that copy was burnt by a family member and i no longer have it.
in the newest version which i downloaded in pdf i'm having trouble finding a particular part.
-
-
veradico
Didn't they come from Scotland? It has been a while since I read Crisis of Conscience, but I do recall the passage you're talking about.
-
67
Announcement: They Clapped!
by metatron inweird.
after the letter was read, many clapped.
i don't know how to interpret that.. .
-
-
veradico
My mom mentioned that my grandmother thinks it's great, but my mom added, "Then again, your grandma thinks everything they announce is great."
Obviously, there are too many meetings. (Of course, given the material presented at the meetings, even one is one too many.) However, I think Witnesses will regret the loss of the bookstudy. I'm sure they're wishing it had been some other meeting. -
72
Emotional Reactions to the Loss of the Book Study
by DT ini think the loss of the book study will hit some like a death of a friend.
it will mark the end of an era.
it will forever change the religion of jehovah's witnesses and i believe the change is completely irreversible.. of course, most witnesses will be delighted by this.
-
-
veradico
Whether the bookstudy is going the way of the convention lunches, the hardcover books, the magazines, the epic assemblies, and the longer public talk, or not, I think it's useful to explore the ways in which the bookstudy can be "dangerous" to the JW organization. Almost my entire bookstudy left at the same time. This happened for various reasons, some of them particular to each of the individuals involved. However, without the support of a close-knit community of like-minded (i.e., questioning) friends whose friendships developed, in part, as a result of the bookstudy "arrangement" throwing us together, it would have been much harder for us to leave. It got us in the habit of talking about religious stuff together in our living rooms. The other bookstudies were known to be less fun and less close; in fact, the even other _congregation_ was known to be more "conservative." Now I'm sure the other congregation and the other bookstudies look at what happened (our collective exodus) as a perverse vindication of their cold, ridged, authoritarian ways. Being ridged and authoritarian will not attract many new converts, but those attracted by such an atmosphere are surely the sort of sheep-like, servile people the Society is looking for.
-
27
C.S. Lewis and his "trilemma".
by gaiagirl inauthor c.s.
lewis once wrote that one of three situations exist: .
1) jesus was the son of god .
-
-
veradico
If there were a diversity of Christian groups (as we in fact know there were), would the folks who actually knew Jesus bother to try to correct every erroneous offshoot? Even if such were their desire, would these (mostly Jewish) followers be able to influence the numerous pagan churches? Even if Jesus called himself "Son of God" and did magic in his name, we can't simply impose a contemporary interpretation on his words and deeds. The question of what he meant remains. And the notion that Jesus' followers would "correct" a narrative about his life if it were not a sufficiently accurate representation of the "historical" reality does not take into account the ancient notion of modifying the material to fit the genre and the "ideal", the possibility of Jesus' followers reinterpreting their experiences with him, and all sorts of other possibilities. The situation is far more complex than Lewis' trilemma suggests.
-
5
Parents pick prayer over docs; girl dies
by veradico inby robert imrie, associated press writer thu mar 27, 7:57 pm et .
weston, wis. - police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.
advertisement .
-
-
veradico
I think it's interesting that these people claim they don't belong to an organized religion. I guess I always assumed people don't act this way unless they have some kind of organization to exert social pressure on them. How did they come up with the idea that God would cure their girl if they prayed hard enough? These sorts of ideas don't just spring into people's heads.
-
5
Parents pick prayer over docs; girl dies
by veradico inby robert imrie, associated press writer thu mar 27, 7:57 pm et .
weston, wis. - police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.
advertisement .
-
-
veradico
By ROBERT IMRIE, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 27, 7:57 PM ET
WESTON, Wis. - Police are investigating an 11-year-old girl's death from an undiagnosed, treatable form of diabetes after her parents chose to pray for her rather than take her to a doctor.
ADVERTISEMENT
An autopsy showed Madeline Neumann died Sunday of diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that left too little insulin in her body, Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said.
She had probably been ill for about a month, suffering symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness, the chief said Wednesday, noting that he expects to complete the investigation by Friday and forward the results to the district attorney.
The girl's mother, Leilani Neumann, said that she and her family believe in the Bible and that healing comes from God, but that they do not belong to an organized religion or faith, are not fanatics and have nothing against doctors.
She insisted her youngest child, a wiry girl known to wear her straight brown hair in a ponytail, was in good health until recently.
"We just noticed a tiredness within the past two weeks," she said Wednesday. "And then just the day before and that day (she died), it suddenly just went to a more serious situation. We stayed fast in prayer then. We believed that she would recover. We saw signs that to us, it looked like she was recovering."
Her daughter — who hadn't seen a doctor since she got some shots as a 3-year-old, according to Vergin — had no fever and there was warmth in her body, she said.
The girl's father, Dale Neumann, a former police officer, said he started CPR "as soon as the breath of life left" his daughter's body.
Family members elsewhere called authorities to seek help for the girl.
"My sister-in-law, she's very religious, she believes in faith instead of doctors ...," the girl's aunt told a sheriff's dispatcher Sunday afternoon in a call from California. "And she called my mother-in-law today ... and she explained to us that she believes her daughter's in a coma now and she's relying on faith."
The dispatcher got more information from the caller and asked whether an ambulance should be sent.
"Please," the woman replied. "I mean, she's refusing. She's going to fight it. ... We've been trying to get her to take her to the hospital for a week, a few days now."
The aunt called back with more information on the family's location, emergency logs show. Family friends also made a 911 call from the home. Police and paramedics arrived within minutes and immediately called for an ambulance that took her to a hospital.
But less than an hour after authorities reached the home, Madeline — a bright student who left public school for home schooling this semester — was declared dead.
She is survived by her parents and three older siblings.
"We are remaining strong for our children," Leilani Neumann said. "Only our faith in God is giving us strength at this time."
The Neumanns said they moved from California to a modern, middle-class home in woodsy Weston, just outside Wassau in central Wisconsin, about two years ago to open a coffee shop and be closer to other relatives. A basketball hoop is set up in the driveway.
Leilani Neumann said she and her husband are not worried about the investigation because "our lives are in God's hands. We know we did not do anything criminal. We know we did the best for our daughter we knew how to do." -
38
The Science of Religion-recent Economist Article
by BurnTheShips ini found this one on the gene expression blog.
does religion confer evolutionary advantage?.
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875666.
-
-
veradico
I am surprised they didn't investigate a link between language and religion. Gods often seem to me to be metaphors, or, rather, that particular class of metaphor called the personification, that have gotten out of hand. We look at the sea or the sun, a mountain or a river, and it produces in us a sense of awe. We drink a cup of wine, and it produces in us a sense of well-being. From experiences like that it's easy to make a leap from "that whatnot influenced me like a person" to "that whatnot is a personality, an independent agency." Metaphors and personifications are little stories, and little stories cannot help but become more complex over time.