GinnyTosken

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Posts by GinnyTosken

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  37

  Things I Would Like To See Before I Die.....

  by hillary_step in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  jan haugland and you know in a two man bob-sleigh team.. prisca and kent deeply in love.. alanf in a clerical collar.. stephanus breast-feeding fred hall.. farkel emptying his swear box.. joelbear in a turkish prison.

  the oldhippie a happy hippy.. josephus having afternoon tea and crumpets with ian paisley.. englishman with hepatitis.. theo jaracz in a see-through pink negligee with matching slippers.. uuhh...skip the last one..... .

  lets see - who have i missed....... hs

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  GinnyTosken

  Joelbear,

  I imagine there would be a lot of "needy," hairy men in a Turkish prison.

  Ginny
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  21

  You have to check this out! Special Watchtowers!!

  by kpax in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  you have to check this out!

  special watchtowers!!

  <a href=" http://www.angelfire.com/dc/watchtower0.

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  GinnyTosken

  LOL! "How to Wipe Your Ass"--I wonder if that will be a study article?

  Ginny
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  3

  Evolution and the Good conquering the Bad.

  by D wiltshire in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the more popular teachings of evolution is the good in the long run conquers the bad.. what i mean is this:.

  there are both good and bad mutations and as life evolved to more and more complex forms the the process of selecting the good mutations and supresion of bad, by what ever means had to take place to make for instance:.

  the eye from just a light sensitive spot.. the human brain.. legs from fins and back fins again.. an apposable thumb.. the heart.. moral coscience.. walking upright.. i often wounder how evolution could make these things:.

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  GinnyTosken

  D wiltshire,

  Evolution and history are also affected by contingency. Michael Shermer has a chapter about this in How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science.

  Shermer says:

  So powerful are the effects of contingency that a small change in the early stages of a sequence can produce large effects in the later stages. Edward Lorenz calls this the butterfly effect and by now the metaphor is well known: A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, producing a storm in Texas. The uncertainty of our past and unpredictability of our future created by contingency is what makes this such a challenging idea to historians and scientists, whose models and laws call for a search for unifying generalities, not capricious happenstances.

  He also cites the example of the QWERTY keyboard, which has "conquered" not because it is the best or fastest, but because it became familiar and widely used early in the history of typing.

  As for altruism, I find the idea of group selection as it is presented in Howard Bloom's Global Brain intriguing. Is our drive for survival as individuals or for survival as a human race?

  Ginny
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  17

  Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods"

  by Seeker4 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have been reading terry pratchett's "small gods" and finding myself either laughing outloud or reading protions outloud to anyone within earshot.

  what a great, funny, truthful indictment of religion and the messes it gets us all into.

  go out and buy a copy, you won't regret it.. i keep thinking i should post some passages on this board.

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  GinnyTosken

  Thanks for the recommendation, Seeker4!

  I see that Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has a nonDilbert book out now called God's Debris. The sample chapter offered online sounds interesting, as does the table of contents:

  http://icommerce.digitalowl.com/preview/0_1986/default.html

  Has anyone read it?

  Ginny
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  6

  Submission to authority

  by joelbear in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  one of the core beliefs that i hold is that the only hope for humanity is the willingness to submit to some guiding force.. witnesses would point to jehovah as being that guiding force.. as of now, i would point to love for others being that guiding force.

  one of the main differences i have with the witnesses is that they see god as a person with a personality and a planned agenda.

  i see god as a mindset that we either choose to be part of or not based on our willingness to submit to this idea of loving others.. are you willing to submit to any authority, whether an actual identity or an ideology?

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  GinnyTosken

  My belief is close to yours, Joelbear. I believe that love and compassion, for ourselves and for others, should be the guiding force in one's life.

  Love isn't always nice or likeable, as any parent knows.

  Love isn't about pansies and daffodils. Love is hard core. It doesn't float around and make your life all pretty, it puts you to the test. --Beth Orton

  For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. --Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

  Ginny
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  24

  Any thoughts on this quote from the Bible?

  by siegswife in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in luke 13:20,21 it says: "and again he said: 'with what shall i compare the kingdom of god?

  it is like leaven, which a woman took and his in three large measures of flour until the whole mass was fermented.".

  i've been thinking about this.

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  GinnyTosken

  Pomegranate,

  Hmm. A non-believer in the Bible showing believers in the Bible what to believe about the Bible.

  Not at all. My intent was simply to offer a reference I had at hand, one I thought might be of interest to you in deciding for yourself how the passages should be interpreted.

  Just as you are under no obligation to accept the opinions of posters in this thread, neither are you under any obligation to accept the commentary from The Five Gospels.

  BTW, I think that Jesus meant that while his teachings were viewed as a corrupting and evil influence by the established Jewish order, his simple laws were light compared to the Mosaic law code and would eventually permeate Jewish culture.

  Ginny, shaking the dust from her feet

  [Edited to add "BTW . . ."]
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  24

  Any thoughts on this quote from the Bible?

  by siegswife in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in luke 13:20,21 it says: "and again he said: 'with what shall i compare the kingdom of god?

  it is like leaven, which a woman took and his in three large measures of flour until the whole mass was fermented.".

  i've been thinking about this.

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  GinnyTosken

  Pomegranate,

  I am not a Bible believer, so I frankly don't care what it means. I thought the commentary might be helpful to y'all in trying to determine what Jesus may have meant by it.

  Ginny
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  44

  Why can some question and others not

  by joelbear in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we are not jehovah's witnesses because of a variety of circumstances, but one thing we all share is that we question.. what factors come together to make us questioners?.

  intelligence?

  but i know a lot of very smart non-questioning jehovah's witnesses.. bravery?

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  GinnyTosken

  I think it's mental courage.

  It requires a great deal of mental courage to face our own feelings and doubts. Mental courage is required to examine evidence and face the logical conclusions, even if it would be more comforting and comfortable to believe something else. When I began reading about the Society's history, I often wanted to turn my head away and close my eyes. To face the truth meant watching my worldview crumble before me. It was liberating but terrifying.

  Mental courage is also required to weather the mental and emotional adolescence of growing into independence from a parental organization and mindset. Freedom brings great responsibility.

  Even more mental courage is demanded to grow into the maturity of interdependence.

  Ginny
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  24

  Any thoughts on this quote from the Bible?

  by siegswife in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in luke 13:20,21 it says: "and again he said: 'with what shall i compare the kingdom of god?

  it is like leaven, which a woman took and his in three large measures of flour until the whole mass was fermented.".

  i've been thinking about this.

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  GinnyTosken

  The Five Gospels compares Luke 13:20-21 with Matthew 13:33 and Thomas 96:1-2. Here is the commentary that follows the passages in Matthew and Luke.

  Ginny

  Matthew 13:33

  He told them another parable: Heaven's imperial rule is like leaven which a woman took and concealed in fifty pounds of flour until it was all leavened.

  Leaven. This parable transmits the voice of Jesus as clearly as any ancient record can, in the judgment of most Fellows of the Jesus Seminar.

  In this one-sentence parable, Jesus employs three images in ways that would have been striking to his audience. The woman takes leaven and "conceals" it in flour. "Hiding" leaven in flour is an unusual way to express the idea of mixing yeast and flour. The surprise increases when Jesus notes that there were "fifty pounds" of flour. Three men appear to Abraham in Genesis 18 as representatives of God. They promise him and his wife, Sarah, that she will bear a son the following spring, although she was beyond the age of childbearing. For the occasion, Sarah is instructed to make cakes of fifty pounds of flour to give to the heavenly visitors. Fifty pounds of flour, it seems, is a suitable quantity to celebrate an epiphany--a visible, though indirect, manifestation of God. The third surprising figure in the one-line parable is the use of leaven.

  Jesus employs the image of the leaven in a highly provocative way. In Passover observance, Judeans regarded leaven as a symbol of corruption, while the lack of leaven stood for what was holy. In a surprising reversal of the customary associations, the leaven here represents not what is corrupt and unholy, but God's imperial rule--a strategy the Fellows believe to be typical of Jesus.

  Luke 13:20-21

  He continued: What does God's imperial rule remind me of? It is like leaven which a woman took and concealed in fifty pounds of flour until it was all leavened.

  Leaven. Like the mustard seed, the parable of the leaven makes light of an established symbol. Leaven was customarily regarded as a symbol for corruption and evil. Jesus here employs it in a positive sense. That makes his use of the image striking and provocative.

  The mustard seed and the leaven are picture parables: they paint a simple but arresting picture that depends, for its cogency, on the juxtaposition of contrary images. To compare God's imperial rule to leaven is to compare it to something corrupt and unholy, just the opposite of what God's rule is supposed to be. This reversal appears to be characteristic of several of Jesus' sayings, such as "the last will be first and the first last." The Fellows included the parable of the leaven in that small group of sayings and parables that almost certainly originate with Jesus.
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  23

  What Can I Learn From You?

  by ItsJustMe in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the recent post about what everyone wants to learn about has led me to this post..... we can learn something from everyone we meet.

  what can i learn from you?.

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  GinnyTosken

  If . . . you can't be a good example, then you'll just have
  to be a horrible warning. --Catherine Aird

  I'm not a very good example, so . . .

  Ginny