clyde has a great answer.
he says, "no, i take my faith too seriously.
" he says that ends the conversation.
I just quote this bit from Poe
Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'
many of us have drifted.
we know it isn't the truth but we might not have officially resigned as jws.
many catholics are nominal catholics and they are not shunned or avoided because of their not going to church or confession.. would you remain a jw if the organization didn't punish you for your inactivity?.
Let me get this straight: if YOU were not affected by any sort of sanctions, you would care??
yep I would care . The relegion is based on control even if they did not sanction you, they still would want you to do what they say without questioning.
been there did that
many of us have drifted.
we know it isn't the truth but we might not have officially resigned as jws.
many catholics are nominal catholics and they are not shunned or avoided because of their not going to church or confession.. would you remain a jw if the organization didn't punish you for your inactivity?.
no way, they do not allow for reform or disent; they are responsible for many deaths (blood doctrine); they are judgemental; they are really a publishing corporation not a religion; last but not least they lie.
"i am the mother, and i am the daughter.
i am the wife and i am the whore.
".
I am a bit confused myself to be honest lalliv, and I can see how you came to your conclusion. I had to look it up myself. The feminine side of "god" is the "I am" that the Gnostic writers attribute to the narrator of the poem.
I think this is way to deep for me, a poor agnostic to grasp lol
Here is what the commentator says with regards this poem
Thunder, Perfect Mind (NHC VI,2) presents the revelation discourse of a female divinity who speaks alternately in first-person statements of identity ("I AM") and second-person address. The text's parallelism of structure, together with its extensive use of antithesis, paradox, and other literary devices, point clearly to its poetic or hymnic character. B. Layton has argued persuasively that the paradoxical and often outrageous pairing of antithetical terms in the "I AM" statements of Thunder can be read as a complex identity riddle to be solved by the knowing or "gnostic" reader. At the same time, attention to various features of the text as a whole suggests that it is not only the mystery of the speaker's identity, but the relationship between the divine speaker and her human hearers that forms the exegetical crux of the text.
Thunder focuses attention on the hearers' relationship to the divine speaker not only through its alternating structure of first-person proclamation and second-person address, but also through its metaphorical imagery of kinship and gender, its references to the audience's responses to the divine, and its claims about the speaker's role in the operations of language and intellect. Its persistent, uncompromising use of paradox pushes its hearers to relinquish the apparent sense of its words and to seek the hidden meaning of individual utterances and of the discourse as a whole. Finally, by locating the divine in the "voice" and "hearing" of the text, it leads its hearers or readers to find the divine within the text and within themselves, and so to discover themselves within the divine. In such an interpretive movement of letting go and finding, of becoming sober and being found, the text's final words suggest, the reader "goes up" to the salvific "place of rest," "finds" the divine persona revealed in the text, and "enters into" a state of living and not dying again.
also, do you think gas prices affects the jw field service any?.
here it is approximately $2.69 per gallon.
i heard in michigan it is $2.99 right now.. outaservice.
3.20 om rt 95 in nyc
"i am the mother, and i am the daughter.
i am the wife and i am the whore.
".
No lalliv the poem is refering to that the speaker is the begining middle and end, it also refers to being the wisdom of all things great and small
"i am the mother, and i am the daughter.
i am the wife and i am the whore.
".
hmm the wtbs would have a fit with this lol. is that the reason they changed " i am that i am" to " i shall prove to be what i shall prove to be" , in Exodus 3:14 of the NWT of the bible ?
"i am the mother, and i am the daughter.
i am the wife and i am the whore.
".
wisdom, or known in the eastern Christian Church as the bride of Christ, The mother sophia suposedly ransomes the daughter sophia with her brother/ husband christ.
"i am the mother, and i am the daughter.
i am the wife and i am the whore.
".
I can quote the info, however I really do not understand the theology behind the belief Terry. Please enlighten me.
Sophia is the Feminine Aspect of God, according to Gnostics. In the hierarchy, as listed... Ein Sof (the over-God) who created all things; Sophia, the female aspect of Ein Sof, who became aware and created Eve as a sacrifice of herself for Adam; Yahweh, the accidental creator of the flawed world and Adam (by bringing an Angel down and enclosing him in flesh as an act of cruelty)
