Scully - I think you owe SisoNoSiso an apology. She has a grand total of only eight postings on this board, which rather pales with your thirty thousand plus. Like the previous poster suggested, you should cut her some slack;and don't be such a bully.
Rapunzel
JoinedPosts by Rapunzel
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23
New Terminology
by SisoNoSiso ini've heard that "return visit" has been replaced with another term.
is this true?
if so, what is it?.
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12
Help deconstructing argument :)
by leo999 inhi , this is a part of an email sent by my bro to a 'friend ' the ' friend ' needs some help in pulling his arguments apart .
any takers ?
:)) btw , the 'friend' is a pretend bible study , ex catholic :)).
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Rapunzel
"I think we can agree that Jesus was the first to go to heaven because the Old Testament does not speak of a heavenly life."
Not quite right. In the Hebrew scriptres we read about both Elijah and Elisha being caught up in winds, and being transported to heaven.
This fact is also useful when someone asks who was the oldest person named in the Bible. Most people will with thinking answer Methusalah. However, this response can be countered by answering Elijah who - being ushered up bodily to heaven - never died at all. So, it can be claimed that he is thousands of years old and still going strong like the Energizer bunny.
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Let's kick things off
by Simon inas you can see from my profile, i'm from the uk and was brought up in the truth.. how about some introductions from people ?
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Rapunzel
How many of those who are currently memebers of this board were there at the very beginning when this "show" got started- 10 years ago? If you were not part of the board 10 years ago, what were you doing? Were you witnesses? Or had you never heard of them?
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I HAVE JUST BEEN APPOINTED AS A MINISTERIAL SERVANT.
by african GB Member inafter being reinstated in 2008, i was finally appointed ms last night.. i am so excited now that i have a certain measure of 'power'.. ex-ms's/elders, what types of challenges come with this priviledge?.
what will be expected from me?.
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Rapunzel
AGBM- You wouldn't happen to have any connection to a certain tranvestite with messianic paranoid delusions, would you?
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Best Guitar Riff Ever?
by cantleave inlegendary guitarist jimi hendrix's 'voodoo child (slight return)' has been voted as the best guitar riff ever by the users of musicians' website musicradar.com.. what do you guys and gals think?.
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Rapunzel
G-3 did a cover of Hendrix's "Red House." Awesome stuff.
I also recommend listening to the "Comfortably Numb" track on the "Pulse" CD
In my view, Led Zep's "When The Levee Breaks" beats out their "Stairway to Heaven" by far.
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When the meetings seem endless....
by XPeterX inwhat do you do/used to do?i go to the bathroom for more than 10 mins,then read something irrelevant or think of something irrelevant or go out for a while and so the meeting comes to an end..
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Rapunzel
While reading a posting on this board years ago, I saw a poster who suggested a few matches of "Bullshit Bingo" to make the time pass much more quickly. This game can be played with a parter, or by yourself.
Of course, it's patterened office the traditional game of bingo.
What you do is write a list of the typical bullshit terms that are bound to appear in the talks, for example - the faithful and discrete slave; theocratic outlook/perspective; worldly pursuits orwordly people; Jehovah's loving provision, etc. I suppose that you can get my meaning. Each time one of these terms is spoken from the podium, you cross out.
More elaborate forms of the game miight include constructing grids and assigning a certain number of point for each words.
Those who feel especially daring might consider mumbling "bullshit" under their breath and into the palm of their hand.
I believe that if someone does a search for "bullshit bingo" they may get a few hits.
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Have any of you studdied the similaries between Zoraster and Christianity?
by dawg ini've always found it interesting that satan isn't mentioned by name in the bible until job.
i found the similarity's between the emergence of jesus' teachings, and the similarities of the zoroaster faith interesting.
i hope you guys will take the time to copy, paste, and read this article.
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Rapunzel
In my mind, there is no doubt whatsoever that Zoroastrianism had an extremely profound influence upon Judaism, and as a result, upon Christianity and Islam. It's a pity that the relgion is rather unknown and obscure nowadays. Only a very few people even know its name or that it was once a very influential religion. I have read that, presently, Zoroastrianism is practiced by only a very few people living in sections of the world that are known as Iran, India, and Pakistan. But, as that Pakastani woman said, Zoroastrianism could definitely be called the "mother" of many other world religions - especially Judaism, Christanity, and Islam. It is certainly a very ancient religion, pre-dating Judaism by many hundreds of years.
I believe that one of the most profound influences of Zoroastrianism was its radically dualistic conception of the world and the cosmos. It proclaimed a sort of essential Manicheism that viewed the cosmos as a perpetual "battleground" between Good and Evil.
I'm depending upon my very faulty memory here, but as I remember, the names of these forces were something like "Ahura Mazda" and "Angra Mainu" - something like that. In the
Zoroastrian view, these two cosmic forces were more or less equal in strength. I believe that it is fessentially from Zoroastrian thought that the idea of "Satan" [as Satan is coceived in Christianity and Islam especially] is derived.
It is my belief that Jewish thought, specfically in regard to the devil, or Satan, underwent a fundamental evolution subsequent to their liberation from Babylonian captivity by Cyrus the Mede. It was at that point in history that the Jews would have felt the "full blunt" of Zoroastrian thought and philosophy.
It's interesting to trace how the Jewish conception of Satan evolved throughout history. For example, in the book of Job, Satan is "allowed" to enter heaven and make a little "gentlemen's bet" in regard to poor Job. In fact, in reading the book of Job, one gets the impression that God and Satan are more like a pair of rivals than mortal enemies.
Then of course, there is the Genesis account. Mine may well be the minority view, however I feel that whoever wrote the Genesis account [actually, it's a question of "accounts," in the plural], they did think of the snake character in the same way that later people thought of Satan. In other words, I feel that the snake should not be identified with the personage now known as "Satan." Instead, I view the snake as representing some Promethean-like principle. Prometheus was the "hero" who stole fire from the gods, and gave it as a "gift" to humans.
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Ju
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19
Christianity..... do you have to believe...
by yknot indo you have to believe in trinity, arianism, or other christ based concept etc to be saved?.
is believing jesus to be the messiah and following the model set forth in scripture enough?
or does one have to understand accurately the 'nature,essence, etc" of things..... if so why?
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Rapunzel
What's in store for Moslems [Sunnis, Shia, and Sufi]; Sihks; Jains; Hindus; Buddhists; Jews; and animists - the vast majority of non-Christian humanity who have absolutely no inkling - not the merest conception - of Christianity or its myriad and fragmented doctrinal variations? Most of humanity has no better knowledge of Christianity than we "Westerners" have of their religions and philosophical systems. To take Islam as merely one example, how many Christians possess even the vaguest/slightest knowledge of it? How many Chritians can truthfully say that they have read even one single sutra or verse of the Qu'ran? How many Christians have held a Qu'ran in their hands? Not many, I can assure you. Conversely, the vast majority of people adhering to faiths other than Christianity have never read or owned a Bible.
What's to become of the vast majority of humanity who have never even heard the name "Jesus"?
The very notion of "salvational exclusivity," propagated by a good number of Christians - the idea that a person must "accept" Jesus in order to be saved, seems ludicrous to me. The notion that, some 2000 years ago, "God" chose, of all places, a primative cultural backwater - on the periphery of the Roman empire - to send the Redeemer, and this at a time when most people in the world were totally illiterate. The fact that, at this time, most people were unable to read is crucially important because it involves the transmission of scripture. In other words, why would God, if endowed with infinite wisdom, choose such a time period in which the reliable transmission of scrpture was virtually impossible?
Any honest person who has researched the bible has to admit that, basically, we have no idea of what this character, named "Jesus" really said and what he taught. There exists not one single original manuscript dating from the era in which Jesus supposedly lived. We only have copies of copies of copies of copies of copies at best. Most of these consist of mere fragments. And when one compares and contrasts these manuscripts with each other, one can determine that, in regard to the "New Testament," there are more differences than words. There are more differences among the surviving New Testament manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament; the differences among manuscripts outnumber the words that make up the New Testament.
Moreover, it is common knowledge that there are many, many sciptures that did not "make it into" the established cannon. Many of these flatly contradict those scriptures that were accepted as cannon.
The question is: By whose authority were some scriptures accepted while others were rejected? By whose authority, and on what grounds? Honest research reveals that it was the "political," and ultimately arbitrary, decisions of a few "church fathers."
In its essence, Christianity is very much a "textual" [as oppsed to primarily ritualistic] religion. Of course, Christianity has its rites and rituals. But, ultimately this religion claims its legitamacy based almost solely on its texts, on its scriptures. In my opinion, the problem with Christianity is that the texts or scriptures, upon which it is based are extremely problematic. To use a rather trite metaphor, it is all merely a "house of cards." The scriptural basis of Christianity is an illusion, a chimera. It is a bricolage, a patchwork, of disjointed and inherently contradictory texts. The very notion of which scriptures are "canon" [and are thus to be considered legitimate or authorized] is itself extremely problematic. That decision was made many hundreds of years ago by a very small group of men who exerted great socio-political and cultural power.
To me, it is absurd that an infinitely wise and omniscient "God" would choose such a dubious and tenuous method to transmit a text upon which the very salvation [or contrasting eternal damnation] of people depends. How presumptuous and risible the contention that certain people entertain, that they somehow know the mind of "God." In my opinion, this is the position of a madman.
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No further education - is the policy backfiring?
by eyeslice init seems to me that there was a softening of the no further education edict for a little while.
but just lately the 'dangers' of pursuing further education and worldly careers has been made a real issue again.
it seems to me though that this has as much danger of driving the very ones they would like to keep, the talented, the bright, the high achievers, out of the organization.
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Rapunzel
Yeah, Still_74, I HEAR [that's h-e-a-r] that. I hear you loud and clear, here on this board!!!!!
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Jehovah's Witnesses ?
by Rooster inwhen did jesus say he was going to return?.
did he say he was going to return in 1914?.
did he return in 1914?.
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Rapunzel
Dear Rooster, it seems that the earliest Christians, the disciples of Jesus, were expecting his imminent and immediate return in glory. This idea is very clear when you read the Christian ["New Testament"] scriptures.
Unfortunately, throughout history, people living in every historical era, have considered the New Testament as a sort of prophetic "message" written to them and for their benefit. This is simply not the case. Whoever wrote the scriptures were not crystal-ball gazers peering into the future. They were writers who were addressing local ["local" in both its temporal and geographic senses] needs and concerns. Their message was a specific one, addressed to a specific group of people.
I suppose that it only normal that each successive generation has "peered into" the scriptures as if they were some sort of mirror reflecting on the times. But this is an erroneous conception. The Bible contains absolutely not one iota of "prophecy" that we people living in the twenty-first century can use or benefit.
As for the so-called "1914 doctrine" preached by the Witnesses, it is total tripe and utter bilge. The 1914 doctrine is based on their "year 607 B.C.E." theory which is, itself, erroneous.