Posts by Cold Steel

28

If you're bothered by god murdering innocent children, you must have a "critical heart"

by OneEyedJoe in

this week's book study contains this gem:.

the way in which the bible is written serves to test what is in our heart.

hebrews 4:12 says: the word [or, message] of god is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit .

Cold Steel

What proof do you have that the atrocities in the bible were done by God, or that the Canaanites were evil? The self serving accounts written by the Israelites? Of course they claimed the Canaanites were evil, all warring nations demonize the enemy to make it easier to brutally kill them.

Well...history for one. How do we know there was a Troy, or Mycenae? How do we know that Jerusalem wasn't destroyed in 607 B.C.? We know quite a bit about their religion and we know that it was popular with the young people in Israel's ranks. There were plenty of infants to sacrifice because of the sexually profligate nature of their fertility rites. These religions spread throughout the region and were still popular in ancient Carthage when the Romans declared war on them; and after three major campaigns, the victorious Roman soldiers knocked down the city's walls, killed or sold into slavery its people and sowed the entire region with salt so that nothing would grow. On the other hand, the Greeks and Romans of the times didn't sacrifice people to the gods. And many of their laws, combined with the laws instituted in the Mosaic law, were adopted by the founders of the U.S. Constitution into its laws and practices.

Newsflash! According to archaeology the Israelites actually were Canaanites. The Bible says god abhors human sacrifice and child sacrifice. What about all of Egypt's first born in the ten plagues? What about Jephthah's daughter (show me where it says she served at the the temple). What about Jesus' human sacrifice? You need to free your mind and let your neocortex work to see the Bible is one huge contradiction.

Only if you don't know much about it. Regarding Jephthah's daughter, show me where she was offered as a human sacrifice. Jephthah certainly knew about the law of Moses and the Lord's strict laws against it. Still, here's an apologetic article on it if you truly are interested in it. (Sadly most people who begin their posts with the term "Newsflash" tend to be only interested in flinging out objections.) Regarding Jesus' sacrifice, that's what all the animal sacrifices pointed to down through the years, particularly the lamb without blemish. God is a God of justice and mercy. Justice demanded a blood sacrifice if mercy was to be shown.

As Jesus explained, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." Also, see Isaiah 53.

27

An interesting comment given by an older brother during the prayer yesterday.

by My Name is of No Consequence in

i have been a regular visitor to this site for several years now.

i never really felt the need to set up an account and post...until now.

at the close of yesterdays meeting, an older brother gave the prayer.

Cold Steel

Can members be disciplined for simply visiting sites like this one?

Naturally his comments could be taken either way. He could have meant that through visiting the society's website one could ascertain the truth; or he might have been referring to sites exposing the failures of the religion. I suspect he chose his words carefully.

The 607 B.C. date for the destruction of Jerusalem alone is so problematic for the society that if I were calling the shots, I'd come up with a serious revision. The Adventist dating system is so horrendously flawed that it would be akin to arguing that President Kennedy was actually shot in Dallas in 1970.

12

Astronomers Find Some Other Earthlike Planets Out There

by freemindfade in

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2015-01-06/astronomers-find-some-other-earthlike-planets-out-there.

this is not really anything new, but every time i see one of these articles about earth like planets in habitable zones, i can't help but hear he echo of past indoctrination at wt studies etc saying "oh how unique earth is to be placed where it is blah blah blah impossible odds".

there are many more articles on this subject that have much less conservative ideas of potentially how many "earth like" planets could be out there, staggering numbers actually.

Cold Steel

Yes the earth is special, but not "special" that it could not exist many times over in a universe so vast we can't even begin to grasp its size. Almost makes Genesis seem like its accounting of earths importance was written by bronze-age goat herders.

Or as it was interpreted. We don't know what Moses was shown. Many ancient accounts talk about there being a multiplicity of worlds and heavens. The ancients knew a lot more than we give them credit. Heck, if a Greek could stick a stick in the ground, measure its shadow and tell you the circumference of the earth, my hat's off to 'em.

21

Governing Body Helpers ----- Who are they? Are they future GB in the making?

by adjusted knowledge in

jw
friends

so after nearly 15 to 19 years of not attending a convention, i can't recall exactly, i went to one last year.

the brother giving the talk was from bethel and was introduced as a helper of the governing body.

it was a title i never heard of before.

Cold Steel

He even named the splinter groups that were formed and then caught his mistake and warned those not to google the names he just mentioned.

Oh, I'd love to hear that quote!

I've always had a problem with the term 'Governing Body Helper'! It's a bit too adolescent!

You mean like "Romper Stompers"? Geesh, I've giving away my age!

16

Jewish Exegesis of the OT Scriptures in the days of Jesus

by fulltimestudent in

the sub-structure of the nt, as understood by new testament scholar, charles harold dodd, is based on,.

... passages of ot scripture with their application to the gospel facts ... it provided the starting point of the theological constructions of paul, (and) the author of to the hebrews, and the fourth evangelist.

it is the substructure of all christian theology and contains already its chief regulative ideas.

Cold Steel

This is not the perspective adopted by many contemporary Christians who, in practise, often seem ready to discard the OT.

Quite right. Mostly because of a misunderstanding of what the Jews thought and how they thought.

Keep in mind that when Gabriel appeared to Zachariah in the temple, the Jews had not had a heavenly manifestation, or rather, revelation, for some 400 years. Also, one of the reasons for the targumim was the fact that the Jews were undergoing an incredible transformation in both language and culture. The Romans were winning many of their hearts and minds; building roads, aqueducts, new sea roots to India and the Far East -- a move that all but killed the caravan frankincense trade. And just a few decades later, in fulfillment of prophecy, things suddenly became far worse as Jerusalem was sacked.

The Essenes hid up their Jewish records in the Dead Sea and only was discovered just a few years before the source you cite. Then, no one knew much about the Jews or early Christians. About the same time the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the Coptic Christian library was found in Nag Hammadi and now it was time for the Christian scholars to panic. Now that we know so much more about Jewish views and expectations, and about Christian views, we realize we are still lost in the paperwork. The WTBTS teaches many things we now know are just plain wrong. Teachings like man having a spirit was an old Hebrew doctrine, not a Greek intervention. Anyway, I look forward to hearing your views.

28

If you're bothered by god murdering innocent children, you must have a "critical heart"

by OneEyedJoe in

this week's book study contains this gem:.

the way in which the bible is written serves to test what is in our heart.

hebrews 4:12 says: the word [or, message] of god is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit .

Cold Steel

No, it does mean you're wrong. Either way. You just have to think it through.

The Bible's infallibility is a false doctrine created by man.

The cultures that inhabited Canaan, and which were destroyed by the Israelites, were rife for destruction. They were profligate, murderous people who actively tried to subvert the religion God was attempting to establish. They passed infants through the fire, meaning they were burning them alive. To drown out the screams such cultures would beat loud drums, which also enhanced the cult's hold on the people. Also, one reason they had many children to sacrifice was because of their fertility rites, which were drunken orgies. That aspect of the religion was attractive to certain elements of the male Israelites. And when seduced by the surrounding peoples, the Lord knew he had to remove the cesspool to keep these elements out of it.

The infants who were taken were innocents, but murder is not something God can commit. His acts are judgments; we are subject to Him, and He certainly doesn't have to answer to Buddhists, atheists, theists or anyone else. In Enoch's case, He showed him the secret acts of the people to perish in the great flood, and Enoch went from misunderstanding to understanding in just that amount of time for him to see it. In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about and yet you feel educated enough...knowledgeable enough...to judge someone who knows everything, and who sees the hearts and acts of all men. Do you really feel qualified to do that?

28

If you're bothered by god murdering innocent children, you must have a "critical heart"

by OneEyedJoe in

this week's book study contains this gem:.

the way in which the bible is written serves to test what is in our heart.

hebrews 4:12 says: the word [or, message] of god is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit .

Cold Steel

"So if you're bothered by genocide, or the murder of innocent infants, it's simply because you have a critical heart and aren't deserving of salvation."

Hmmm...I'm bothered by genocide, the murder of infants and other atrocities, but I'm not bothered by the acts of God. Militant atheists view death as a finality. If there is a God, death is not final but a change of environment, or surrounding. It is a change from mortality to immortality. If there is no God, then it was the act of men who claimed innocent lives. But of course, if there is no God, there is no innocence or guilt, good or bad, right or wrong. These things are the light of Christ in all of us.

This doesn't mean that the Watchtower crowd is right. It just means you're wrong.

56

2014 increase in Memorial Partakers to 14,121

by jwfacts in

i have updated the article at memorial partakers with the figures released for 2014. no surprises here, it has risen yet again, this time by 6% over last year, and is now 14,121.. .

.

Cold Steel

What would happen if the Governing Body decided to eliminate the emblems over the next few years?

One reason I think the number are increasing is that most people don't want to spend an eternity on Earth. Why not want to be heaven bound? Don't people now have just as much of a chance in this lottery as those who lived two thousand years ago? Perhaps most people see it as a competition. Many have the heavenly hope, but few will actually be called to be a part of it. If so, that means that everyone has an equal shot at it. And just because millions of Christians have lived over the years, the 144,000 could be drawn out from every age of man.

The leadership is not being rational. Why should earlier-day saints be chosen over the latter-day saints®? Doesn't everyone deserve the same chance?

21

DEMONS: the torment I suffered

by Terry in

jw
friends

when i was in my teens i wanted a room of my own, but i lived with my grandparents whose house was very small.. my uncle had been living in a little one room bed-sitter way out in the backyard.

he married and moved away and i moved in.. it was quite isolated and the ceiling was six feet from the floor.

unfortunately, the top of my head was four inches higher than that!

Cold Steel

I have 'restless limb syndrome' which is describable as wagging your foot at the ankle the same way a dog wags its tail! I WAS CAUSING THE BEDSHAKE--not LUCIFER, SATAN, DEMONS....

Uh-huh. That's what they want you to believe. One night you'll go out and, well, no one will hear from you again.

A guy who used to summon demons who, after he started studying, had the demons clawing at his window trying to get at him.

Any demon who can't get through a window ought to lose their union membership.

As for me, I've never been troubled by demons at night. The aliens chase them away!

In all seriousness, though, I've been plagued by something at night over the past several months. I feel like something (and my wife has had the same experience) is moving around in my bedroom. I sometimes wake up and feel something is looking at me...staring at me. It's an unsettling experience. If I ignore it, I'll jolt awake several moments later and very distinctly feel as though something is touching my face. It's not an ethereal experience like some people get when they think someone is touching them. This definitely feels like flesh touching flesh. And all the time there's this feeling of being watched that I can't shake. Sometimes it will happen again and I'll cover my hand with my arms, but no matter how I hold them, there's the real experience of being touched. Sometimes shoved. I keep a flashlight handy, and when this happens I always turn it on. The disconcerting thing is that the first time this happened, the flashlight wouldn't turn on, even though it had fresh batteries. I fiddled with it a bit and tried it again and a red light shot out of it onto a face not more than two feet away. That's when I grab the cat and put him on my chest. As he begins to purr, I reach down and get his plate of food (he can get it himself, but what fun would eating alone be?) and put it in front of him. If I don't wake up from the jabs, a loud "meow" follows. If completely ignored, he tries to wake the wife and, failing that, he jumps down, finds the food and eats alone. Then he vanishes as quickly as he came.

Which is amazing because my cat died five years ago!!!!

Okay...just kidding. He's fine. Just thought I'd BS you.

But I'm not kidding about the aliens.

13

Did you ever hear yourself as a JW say something and think, did that just come out of my mouth?

by Wasanelder Once in

i was driving with a long time non-witness friend when a song by supertramp came on the radio and i changed it.

she asked "why did you do that?

i like that song.

Cold Steel

You got a spanking? Even though you were never informed (previously) that it was inappropriate??

At what point do they stone you? By the way, did that "brother" ever get baptized?