Went to see it this afternoon. Parts were unrealistic to my mind, but it probably gave a good sense of what life must have been like in the trenches. A very human story.
Earnest
JoinedPosts by Earnest
-
14
Movie Review 1917
by Terry inmovie review"1917".
i so seldom seek to sit inside an actual movie theater anymore.however ...some films are absolutely tailored for it.life of pigravityavatar3 examples of movies which do not translate to your home viewing...at all.good, bad, or indifferent - some films are visual and immersive.. here is a sacred pronouncement:movies are a visual medium.in the hands of an orson welles (i.e.
citizen kane) they are a radio play+visual storytelling medium._____.
-
-
-
29
Greta
by road to nowhere inthe daily wire.
facebook glitch reveals father, activist behind greta thunberg's facebook .... i'm not good at getting links right.
but this is interesting in light of greta supposedly doing things on her own according to dear old dad.
-
-
Earnest
The Daily Wire report is here.
Greta Thunberg says, regarding this :
Since I have chosen not to be on Facebook personally ( I tried early on but decided it wasn’t for me) I use my father Svantes account to repost content [which I write on my Instagram and Twitter accounts], because you need an account to moderate a Facebook page,
Link +1 / -0 -
28
Current JW growth in the United States in historical perspective and in comparison with other groups
by slimboyfat incurrent jw growth is slower than during most of their history.
the only probable exceptions are following 1975 when there was a brief worldwide decrease, the late 1920s when around half of the members left the movement, perhaps around the 1917 schism, and various schisms during russell’s time.
there were also periods of sluggish growth during the 1950/60s and around 2000. .
-
-
Earnest
slimboyfat : Mormons count every baptised person as a member regardless of attendance or tithes.
However, it does matter whether they are alive or dead.
On their website the Mormons specify that when they perform baptisms for the dead, the names of deceased persons are not added to the membership records.
-
4
1st Cent.Crucifixions to Order and for Sport
by BluesBrother ini found this video interesting, from the smithsonian channel.
it explains how commonplace crucifixions were with specific mention of the patebelum crosspiece.
https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/videos/crucifixion-became-a-very-popular-roman-spectator-sport/69754?an=history.
-
-
Earnest
The lex Puteoli concerns a municipality which decided to contract out the services of an undertaker who doubled as executioner. The text directly relevant to crucifixion is as follows:
Whoever will want to exact punishment on a male slave or female slave at private expense, as he [the owner] who wants the [punishment] to be inflicted, he [the contractor] exacts the punishment in this manner: if he wants [him] to bring the patibulum to the cross, the contractor will have to provide wooden posts, chains, and cords for the floggers and the floggers themselves. And anyone who will want to exact punishment will have to give four sesterces for each of the workers who bring the patibulum and for the floggers and also for the executioner.
Whenever a magistrate exacts punishment at public expense, so shall he decree; and whenever it will have been ordered to be ready to carry out the punishment, the contractor will have gratis to set up stakes (cruces), and will have gratis to provide nails, pitch, wax, candles, and those things which are essential for such matters. Also if he will be commanded to drag [the cadaver] out with a hook, he must drag the cadaver itself out, his workers dressed in red, with a bell ringing, to a place where many cadavers will be.
Patibulum can have the general sense of crux.
-
48
2019 service report is out
by slimboyfat inthe 2019 report is out:.
https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_publication/29/syr19_e.pdf.
the “average publisher” figure for individual countries has made a comeback!
-
-
Earnest
I would suggest there are a number of reasons for the progress in Africa.
First of all Watchtower publications have been available in most African countries for many years. In South Africa since 1903, in Malawi since 1910, in Zambia since 1911, in Zimbabwe since 1916, in Namibia since 1928, in the DR Congo since 1930, in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania since 1931, in Ethiopia since 1935 and so on. In many of these countries the Watchtower publications were the first publications written (or translated) in their languages.
Secondly, this translation into African languages is ongoing. In 2019 alone there have been translations of the NWT in ten African languages - Kongo (Angola, DR Congo, Congo), Bassa (Cameroon), Nzema (Ghana, Ivory Coast), Luo (Kenya, Tanzania), Tiv (Nigeria), Shona (Zimbabwe), Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Kwanyama (South Africa). Needless to say, the Watchtower and other publications are also available in all these languages.
Try and imagine that very little or nothing is printed in your native tongue. Now there is something. No wonder there is an increase.
Link +1 / -0 -
4
March 2020 Watchtower Study...Love for Jehovah lead Ethiopian eunuch to get baptized. Really? Not Jesus?
by RULES & REGULATIONS inthe watchtower—study edition | march 2020. love and appreciation for jehovah lead to baptism.
( this picture is not from the article!
i found it online to add a little color to the paragraph).
-
-
Earnest
[The Ethiopian eunuch] had apparently left the religion of his birth and had joined the only nation that was dedicated to the true God.
Just as an aside Ethiopian sources such as the Kebra Nagast describe Aksum (ancient Ethiopia 80 BCE - 825 CE) as a Jewish Kingdom. It is probably more correct to say that Aksum culture was significantly influenced by Judaism. At any rate, the Jews in Ethiopia (Beta Israel) have a long history. It is not a surprise, then, that the Ethiopia eunuch was reading the scriptures. Or that Ethiopia was the second country (after Armenia) to accept christianity (in 324).
Link +1 / -0 -
95
Greta Thunberg...what’s your view of her?
by minimus inshe certainly is passionate about climate change.
🤔.
-
-
Earnest
cofty, I hear what you say about fearing for her future, and you may be right as it seldom bodes well when a person so young is given such acclaim. However, my impression is that she has her feet on the ground.
Consider, part of the discussion that she has with Mishal Husain at 5 min 26 sec on the link I gave in my previous post:
MH : How do you see your own future? You're still only 16. Are you going to carry on sitting outside the Swedish parliament? Are you going to go back to school?
GT : I hope I won't have to sit outside the Swedish parliament for long. I hope that something happens and we won't have to do this. I hope I don't have to be a climate activist anymore. I've taken a gap year from school. So my school doesn't start until August. So until August I am trying to do what I can in ways that I can contribute, but I'm really looking forward to going back to school and I just want to be just as everyone else. I want to have a normal life, not having to organise marches and so on, because that's not what I want to do. I want to educate myself and to just be like a normal teenager. But of course this isn't normal situation and we need to step out of our comfort zones. -
95
Greta Thunberg...what’s your view of her?
by minimus inshe certainly is passionate about climate change.
🤔.
-
-
Earnest
Simon: Only her parents stole her childhood - she should be angry at them.
Yesterday, 30th December, Greta Thunberg was invited as a guest editor on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Today". It is well worth listening to here. One of the presenters of the programme, Mishal Husain, interviewed Greta's father, Svante Thunberg. The interview can be listened starting at 20 min 20 sec for nine minutes. I produce it verbatim below and to me it has the ring of truth and makes a nonsense of Simon's assertion.
In the conversation I represent Greta Thunberg, with the initials GT, Mishal Husain with the initials MH, and Svante Thunberg with the initials ST.
GT : Mishal spoke to my father, Svante, about the last year and what it's like for a parent taking up the challenge of a child activist.
ST : Its been very surreal, unbelievable, I think not least for Greta herself, and me and my wife obviously. When she decided we said quite clearly that we would not support it, that if you've got to do this you've got to do it by yourself.
MH : Why did you say that?
ST: Well, obviously we thought it was a bad idea. You know, just the idea of your own daughter sort of putting herself at the very front line of such a huge question like climate change, you wouldn't want that as a parent.
MH : So, it's not that you have pushed her to do this because that often gets asked of young people in the public eye. It was asked of Malala whether her father was pushing her to do this. You haven't pushed her to do this?
ST: No, on the contrary. I mean, I think that's basically why we never do any interviews or anything like this. We are not climate activists. We never were. The things we've done for the climate was to help our children or just to ... because it made them happy, basically, when they were in a bad spot. So I think that's why. We had this conversation many, many times before she decided to do it, and we said "ok, if you are going to do it then you are going to have to do it by yourself, you are going to have to be incredibly well-prepared, you have to have all the answers to all the questions." And she says "ok". At first she made a leaflet of, like, lots and lots, like 35 facts and with all the sources to all the facts, all the reports and stuff, and she had those leaflets on the ground and whenever the journalists came along she would answer all their questions. And that was the surprising thing because she didn't speak to anyone at the time. She only spoke to me, my wife, her sister and one of her teachers.
MH : She has Aspergers.
ST : Yes, she has Aspergers.
MH : But in this period she had also become quite ill with depression.
ST : Ja, much earlier, like three or four years before she went on the school strike she fell ill and she stopped talking, she stopped eating, and all these things. She stopped going to school, she was basically home for a year and she didn't eat for three months which, of course, was the ultimate nightmare as a parent. You have food, and you need food to survive, and your child can't eat it. It's just a nightmare, ja.
MH : How did that start to change? How did she get better?
ST : We took time off. My wife cancelled all her work. She is an opera singer so she was working all over Europe. So she cancelled all her contracts and she stayed at home, and I stayed at home. So we both took time out. We sat down and we got help from doctors. We just took a very, very long time to spend a lot of time together and just work it out together.
MH : But she started to talk once it was to talk about climate to journalists. Was that part of her recovery?
ST : That was much, much, much later. I mean, first of all we just as a family spent like three or four years talking back home, and we obviously didn't have a clue about the climate crisis. And she basically thought that we were huge hypocrites. We were very active, both my wife and me, advocates for human rights and refugees, and we had refugees staying in our house, and my wife comes from a family that has been hosting refugees all her life. So Greta said "Whose human rights are you standing up for since we were not taking this climate issue seriously now". She thought we were huge hypocrites.
MH : You still don't see yourself as a climate activist?
ST : No, definitely not.
MH : But she's the one who made you aware?
ST : Oh, definitely. I mean 100%.
MH : And what changes did you then make in your life?
ST : We just listened to her. And then we saw, and then we realised, you know. I often refer to it as I ran out of arguments because I was saying everything was going to be fine. And I said, you know, we have all these techniques, and people are so clever, and we'll have wave power, tidal power, all these things will work and everything will be fine. Don't worry. We have it under control. As we sort of spent years, basically, talking about it and reading about it together I ran out of arguments and in the end I just acknowledged we're in a very bad place and then we started to make changes. My wife stopped flying, for instance, and that made her...she had to change her whole career, which is a huge thing. But to be honest she didn't do it to save the climate, she did it to save her child, because she saw how much it meant to her. And then when she did that she saw how much she grew from that, how much energy she got from it. So then we thought "Wow". Then I became vegan and she got more and more energy from these things. So I did all these things, I knew they were the right things to do because I understood the facts at that time. But I didn't do it to save the climate , I did it to save my child.
MH : But this year when you yourself, you spent months on the road with her, indeed on the sea with her because you've been with her on those two crossings across the Atlantic, is there ever a moment where you think I would just like us to go back to being an ordinary family before all of this began, or do you have the same sense of purpose that she does.
ST : I don't know. I have two daughters, and to be honest they're all that matter to me. I just want them to be happy. And I can see Greta's very happy from doing this, and I saw where she went before. I mean she didn't speak to a single person. She could only eat in her own home. When she went on the school strike, and I think day 3, someone came along and gave her like pad thai vegan and she ate it, and that was like...I cannot explain how much that, what a change that meant to her and to us, and it was just like...she changed, and she could do things that she could never have done before, and now she's just like any other. You think she's not ordinary now because she's special, and she's very famous and all these things, but to me she's now an ordinary child. She can do all the things like other people can and she's happy. She dances around, she laughs a lot, we have a lot of fun and she's in a very good place.
MH : How does she deal with all the attention that comes her way? Some of it positive, some of it unpleasant. Can she handle all of that?
ST : Ja, I think she deals with it incredibly well. Sometimes, it can be like 100 people come up, they want to take selfies, they want to hug her, and she says yes, fine, every time. And hate, quite frankly I don't know how she does it but she laughs most of the time. I mean, she finds it hilarious.
MH : Do you worry about it?
ST : I do, yes, sure. Who wouldn't. I worry about the fake news, all the things people try to fabricate about her, the hate that that generates, and the fact that there are so many people who are just...they don't want to change. They want this world to be exactly the same as it was. And I understand that. I mean I was completely the same. I think that's the bravest thing. You know, before she started she said quite clearly I know that people don't understand the climate crisis so I'm going to get so much hate, but I'm going to do it anyway. That's what she said before. So she knew exactly what she was doing. And I think, quite frankly, she's very, very surprised she has been so well received.
MH : What do you think she'll do in the future?
ST : I have no idea. I think she really wants to go back to school.
MH : Are you surprised, or even shocked, when you realise that your daughter, your 16-year-old daughter, is a household name around the world.
ST : I don't think of it that way. I know she doesn't. I think if you start thinking about that like a fact, it wouldn't be good for your vision of the world. That's too surreal to take in so I think we just leave it.
MH : How proud are you of her?
ST : Not at all. I don't care about pride. I think pride is just...no.
MH : But her achievements in galvanising people around the world to this cause.
ST : She's happy, and I'm proud that I've maybe contributed just a tiny bit because I listen. My wife and I decided to listen to her. I'm pleased about the fact that we chose to listen to her, because it made her happy. That I can say.
MH : Svante Thunberg, thank you.
ST : Thank you.Link +1 / -0 -
10
Quote Misquote Misleading
by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara inthe latest watchtowel (march 2020) study edition has a question from readers ‘what evidence exists outside the bible that the israelites were slaves in egypt?’ from what i read in the bible unearthed there being nothing to base any claims on.
the article gives a quote by ‘dr.
bimson : “the biblical traditions of the bondage in egypt and of the exodus have a firm historical basis.” no links or sources given.
-
-
Earnest
In a review of Dr Bimson's Redating the Exodus and Conquest, Alberto Soggin writes in Vetus Testamentum XXXI, 1 (1981):
Too often the author presupposes the basic historicity of the biblical sources (pp.16, 68, 199, 202, etc.), although sometimes not without some benefit of doubt (e.g. p. 209: "... if these traditions are historically reliable ..."). Now such a thing cannot be presupposed (or believed, as the author has it sometimes), but must be proved. The ancient Near East is rich in historiographical texts such as chronicles, annals, royal inscriptions, introductions to international treaties and the like, and it is quite obvious that almost none of the texts in the Pentateuch and in the first two books of the "Former Prophets" belongs to one of these categories. But even if some did, it would be necessary to examine them critically. The historicity of a legendary text cannot of course be denied a priori, but it must be confirmed in every single case, a task that is sometimes difficult if not impossible....
He concludes:
If [the author's proposal for redating the Exodus and Conquest is not convincing] this is due first of all to objective factors ... for which he cannot be blamed; but secondly to the fact that the author seems not to have sufficiently appreciated the historical quality of the literary materials involved. With this limitation, the work remains valuable: the student and the scholar alike will find in it a thorough treatment of the archaeological and topographical problems connected with the Exodus and the Conquest. In other words, no scholar dealing with the problem can avoid a critical examination of the literary sources, as A. Alt and M. Noth taught us many years ago.
Link +1 / -0 -
10
Quote Misquote Misleading
by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara inthe latest watchtowel (march 2020) study edition has a question from readers ‘what evidence exists outside the bible that the israelites were slaves in egypt?’ from what i read in the bible unearthed there being nothing to base any claims on.
the article gives a quote by ‘dr.
bimson : “the biblical traditions of the bondage in egypt and of the exodus have a firm historical basis.” no links or sources given.
-
-
Earnest
Zing, the quotation comes from Dr Bimson's book Redating the Exodus and Conquest which was first published in 1978 and a second edition in 1981.
In his book Dr Bimson writes (p.10, 2nd edition)
It is a fundamental assumption of this work that the biblical traditions of the bondage in Egypt and of the Exodus have a firm historical basis.
He then goes on to say:
The present writer would express this historical essence of the tradition as follows: A considerable body of people, who were in some way ancestral to the later tribes of Israel, were pressed into a state of servitude in Egypt. They eventually found their situation intolerable, but escape from it only became possible when Egypt's control over them was broken by events which the Bible depicts as miraculous. Then this body of people left Egypt and moved into the area south of Canaan under the leadership of Moses. Subsequently the group entered Canaan itself and took possession of considerable areas of land.
It seems legitimate to assume that this basic sequence of events is historical.
It is clear Dr Bimson is himself satisfied from his doctoral research that the biblical traditions have an historical basis. I think you are splitting hairs.
Link +0 / -2