Posts by Doug Mason

32

The Story of Adam and Eve, Sexist, Egotistical and Guilt-Inducing

by sabastious in

put yourself in the mind of an ignorant early human.

he can speak, he can understand his surroundings and can even chart the stars in the night sky.. .

one other thing this man can understand is injustice: when bad things happen to people who didnt do anything to deserve them.. .

Doug Mason

mindmelda,

Here are a couple of books that I know you would enjoy:

"Who Wrote the Bible?", Richard Elliott Friedman. He provides the name of the person most likely to have cobbled together the various parts of the first five books. I should comment that the last of those books, Deuteronomy, was more than likely writen by just one person, Jeremiah's scribe, Baruch.

"Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible through Jewish Eyes", John Shelby Spong.

As everyone knows, Spong is controversial and confronting in the extreme, and is therefore essential reading, if only to provide a challenge to one's belief system and as a check on what one holds dear. Another most interesting and arresting book of his is, "Jesus for the Non-Religious".

Doug

32

The Story of Adam and Eve, Sexist, Egotistical and Guilt-Inducing

by sabastious in

put yourself in the mind of an ignorant early human.

he can speak, he can understand his surroundings and can even chart the stars in the night sky.. .

one other thing this man can understand is injustice: when bad things happen to people who didnt do anything to deserve them.. .

Doug Mason

There are two Creation stories. The first, which was written by priests who called God by the name EL, was written with the intent of formalising the institution of the Sabbath. The parallel days (1-3 vs 2-6) shows that the climax is the Sabbath. That is all that the story was about. It was never meant to be taken literally.

The second story was written by priests who called their God by name of YHWH. It is they who introduced the name ADAM, meaning ruddy, or of the earth. Their focus was the institution of marriage.

The are conflicts between the two accounts but this did not bother the person who combined the stories at a later stage, probably after the Babylonian Captivity. The main thing was the purpose of each account; fables and myths are not expected to crawl on all fours, with details being irrelevant, simply there to enable the story to flow. (Same with parables).

Doug

4

FDS, Holy Spirit, the Mole and Tinkerbell

by cameo-d in

as an outsider, it appears to me that this fds is kind of like a tinkerbell fairie.

and i wonder if according to wt, the holy spirit is portrayed in a similar light.. a jw once told me that the fds "reports" to the "(gb) authorities" concerning the acts and behavior of the congregation.

so at first i wondered if this was some kind of "mole" in the group.

Doug Mason

At one level, the GB represents the FDS and is reponsible for teaching the FDS left on earth, and no one else.

On the other level, there are about 135,000 spirit beings just "up there" who are inventing all the rules. They vote on each matter, which might be on blood, holy spirit, how to protect pedophiles, beards, ties, sex, etc.

When they have taken the vote, the result is decided by simple majority; they are simple spirits, so anything else confuses them. When they decide on another change, this is communicated to one of the old men in USA through hypnotism, visitation by a spirit being, or iPad. It's quite easy for a member of the Heavenly Government to slip down from the sky - according the Hebrew cosmology, the Kingdom Goverment is located just a little bit beyond the International Space Station, in a parallel universe. of which there are millions, perhaps more.

When a vote fails to get through, the dissidents in the Heavenly Government are disfellowshiped and are completely shunned until the next vote is due. It is possible for teachings to keep changing, so this keeps them on their spirit toes.

Doug

1

Earthquake data - maybe they should have picked a different year

by Doug Mason in

some interesting factual data on earthquakes at these two sites.. http://www.thehorizonproject.com/earthquakes.cfm.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/historical.php .

unfortunately, 1914 does not mark a turning point.. maybe 2014?.

Doug Mason

Some interesting factual data on earthquakes at these two sites.

http://www.thehorizonproject.com/earthquakes.cfm

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/historical.php

Unfortunately, 1914 does not mark a turning point.

Maybe 2014?

Doug

3

Who might possibly mislead the Chosen Ones?

by wannabe in

this preaching work would have to be done by the one that might possibly mislead the chosen ones; due to the fact that, they would be doing a similar work to what all of the first century christian's did.

luke foretold, to the letter, exactly the work this false prophet would be doing, and leaves us with no doubt, as to who this false prophet would be; note now, his words on this:.

8 he said: "look out that you are not misled; for many will come on the basis of my name, saying, i am he, and, the due time has approached.

Doug Mason

Jesus told them to watch out for deceivers. These false preachers would point to events such as wars as being portents, but they were not to be believed. In fact such deceivers were doing this even at the time he was speaking - and have continued to do so ever since. It's nothing new today; a success rate of zero.

Wars have always existed. Earthquakes have always existed. Famines are not new. These things are pointed to by deceivers, but they are not indicators. Jesus never spoke of size, extent, length, number of casualties, just that these things do occur and would be used by deceivers.

The thief does not announce that he will be paying a visit, and that's how it is with the divine intervention.

Jesus plainly and explicitly says that an evil generation looks for signs, and also that only the Father, and he alone, knows the timing.

Doug

4

The great crowd! Gathered from where? By Whom?

by wannabe in

at last count, there are some eight billion people living on our earth at this present moment in time.

which brings me to the point i. wish to make about a great unnumbered crowd surviving the great tribulation, after armageddon is fought.. .

but it would take another 4000 years to do that.

Doug Mason

wannabe,

I don't think you need concern yourself with the numbers of people who lived in the distant past.

It would appear that by the time the Neanderthals died out - likely due to climate change - that we are speaking of small numbers. Homo Sapiens were clearly more adventurous, but I still doubt that we are speaking of significant numbers, even if the period being covered were say 1 million years.

Most likely, even though there might have been a reasonable number of humans 40,000 years ago, it is not likely they would number in the high millions, let alone billions.

Doug

4

The great crowd! Gathered from where? By Whom?

by wannabe in

at last count, there are some eight billion people living on our earth at this present moment in time.

which brings me to the point i. wish to make about a great unnumbered crowd surviving the great tribulation, after armageddon is fought.. .

but it would take another 4000 years to do that.

Doug Mason

Could someone please clear up a confusion for me.

I thought JW soteriology says that the death of Jesus Christ is only for the 144,000, the Born Again Christian Brothers.

I have thus have understood that the WTS says the rest of humanity could only be saved through recognition of and obedience to the WTS's "Kingdom arrangement".

Now you people are pointing to Revelation 7 which says that the Great Crowd people have their sins washed by the blood of the Lamb. Does this mean that Jesus Christ died for these people too, or is eternal life available through taking in information provided through the Governing Body?

Doug

3

JWs follow "who" not "what"

by Doug Mason in

my first very serious encounter with jws took place just before they issued the first part (a-e) of aid to bible understanding, so we are talking about the late 1960s.. in previous years, i had read papers exposing the wtss errors with the neo-babylonian chronology.

so when i checked on the claimed sources on the subject in the aid book, i found that the author was lying.

consistently.

Doug Mason

The WTS could never accept the Trinity as this would erode its power base.

They cannot have Jesus as anything but a human, because his sacrifice was for only a small, select group, his Brothers, also known as Christians, Elect, and so on -- the 144,000.

This means that everyone else, the Great Crowd, the Unrighteous, can only be saved through the intellectual knowledge that comes through the Governing Body.

Which in turn means that holy spirit cannot be a person who speaks outside of the WTS directly to any individual. Holy spirit must remain under control of the Governing Body. (None of the 144,000 still on earth has any input into the organisation's teachings.)

So the Trinity must continue to be denied as part of its mind-control regime.

Doug

3

JWs follow "who" not "what"

by Doug Mason in

my first very serious encounter with jws took place just before they issued the first part (a-e) of aid to bible understanding, so we are talking about the late 1960s.. in previous years, i had read papers exposing the wtss errors with the neo-babylonian chronology.

so when i checked on the claimed sources on the subject in the aid book, i found that the author was lying.

consistently.

Doug Mason

If CTR were alive today, he would be absolutely shocked at the organisation's current teachings and they would promptly disfellowship and shun him.

For example: 1914, Signs, governing body, faithful and discreet slave, 1874, the Millennium, 1910, the Pyramids, the change from democracy to theocracy, flip-flops on Ransom, Zionism, being succeeded by Rutherford; these come immediately to mind. I am sure this list could be added to.

15

Introduction to Daniel - For Fun and Prophet

by Farkel in

introduction to daniel - for fun and prophet.

when i was a dubbie, i considered reading the bible books to be a major and boring chore, mainly because i was required to believe all that stuff i was reading.

trying to make sense out of nonsense is always a frustrating chore.

Doug Mason

Objective research into Daniel provides the clues for its factual and exegetical errors. Such errors include:

Reference to the incorrect year that Daniel was taken captive.
The wrong name of the king following Babylon's Fall.
The confusion of Nebuchadnezzar's supposed madness with Nabonidus' absence from Babylon.
The incorrect reading of Jeremiah's "70 years".

A clue to the reasons for such errors lies in the reapplication by the writer(s) of the "70 years" to "70 heptads". This extended the original period to "490 years", which were timed to end when the book of Daniel was written - 164 BCE (some 400 years after the events being described).

Confirmation is given with the symbolic, mythical parables of the miraculous rescue of Daniel in a den of lions and in the miraculous survival from fire – even without the smell of smoke on them. The promised survival of the nation of Israel was being pictured, despite their persecutions at the time the book (scroll) was being written during the 2nd century BCE. That’s why they wrote that the “70 weeks” would terminate in their time.

Doug