fulltimestudent
JoinedPosts by fulltimestudent
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What are the new songs that people are talking about?
by dogon ini have heard that there are some or at least one new song that is way out there.
what number is it or a link to it on youtube.
thanks.
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The Truth about Charles Taze Russell - Raymond Franz
by Brokeback Watchtower inhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zo_cyho90y
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fulltimestudent
Finkelstein: Ray tells it well when he describes Russell as someone who grew more engaged and endeared to his own public notoriety as a preaching Pastor, which of course grew even larger as he gave public talks and sold and distributed his own publications
True enough, but isn't that the process by which most religions were started.
In early Israel, a charismatic prophet preached his mix of doom/reward motivations in his message, and engaged with the like minded in his audience. Someone wrote down what he said and did, and distributed it (albeit in a limited way), and bingo! centuries later some fools think that it tells you something important about life.
And specifically, the charismatic Jesus, convinced (possibly by his mother) that he was the promised messiah did something similar. Charlie (Russel) along with others who formulated the American style of Christianity just followed in that well-worn path.
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fulltimestudent
"Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. - Jesus as quoted at Matthew 12:25
One doesn't need to be inspired by heavenly wisdom to understand the common-sense behind the above statement, although it is an idea that has limitations as understood in the reality that modern (western) notions of government depend on recognising the implicit division that may exist between conservative and the so-called progressive positions on many issues.
But as we examine the fundamental division that exists between the Shi-ite and Sunni sects of Islam that complicates modern Islam we note that its is almost impossible to visualise a political and religious settlement between the two groups
They have (generally) a vicious hate for each other and are prepared to kill in much the same way that Catholics and Protestants could kill each other in Christian countries only a few hundred years ago.
Unfortunately, today's hegemon has been prepared to utilise that hatred for short term political gains, that has made the situation even more complicated and led to the spread of terrorism as the jihadi mindset cannot separate all the issues.
Hopefully, the majority may become sick of the slaughter (though it took hundreds of years for Catholic/Protestant Christians to wake up, to themselves) and decide that having a reasonably comfortable life is a better option.
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One of the last Steam trains in China - from the UK Guardian
by fulltimestudent inas hi-speed railways criss-cross* the country, its strange to find this vestige of an earlier, much poorer china.
built during the so-called 'great leap forward' in 1958, to facilitate the extraction of much needed coal from a remote coal mine, the railway gradually became a lifeline for this remote village in the wild mountain country of sichuan.
the village population (in those days) numbered thousands, but has now declined to about 1000. .
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One of the last Steam trains in China - from the UK Guardian
by fulltimestudent inas hi-speed railways criss-cross* the country, its strange to find this vestige of an earlier, much poorer china.
built during the so-called 'great leap forward' in 1958, to facilitate the extraction of much needed coal from a remote coal mine, the railway gradually became a lifeline for this remote village in the wild mountain country of sichuan.
the village population (in those days) numbered thousands, but has now declined to about 1000. .
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fulltimestudent
As hi-speed railways criss-cross* the country, its strange to find this vestige of an earlier, much poorer China. Built during the so-called 'Great Leap Forward' in 1958, to facilitate the extraction of much needed coal from a remote coal mine, the railway gradually became a lifeline for this remote village in the wild mountain country of Sichuan. The village population (in those days) numbered thousands, but has now declined to about 1000.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/10/china-steam-train-sichuan
* Starting 2007/8, the Chinese government has built 19,000 km of high speed railway linking and cross linking the major city areas of China. Lines are now snaking out from China and will shortly permit high speed rail travel to S.E.Asia and Europe.
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What made you turn atheist or agnostic?
by LevelThePlayingField inif you were a jw and are now an atheist or agnostic, what was the tipping point that made you turn to it?.
the reason i ask is i have noticed that many who leave the jw's seem to turn to atheism, versus still having some form of a faith.
have many of you given up on god first or have you had atheistic views first and then found atheism to be true.
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fulltimestudent
cofty : I just kept scrutinising my beliefs and the reasons why I held them. I chose an evidence-based worldview instead of one based on faith.
Pretty much the same as Cofty, except I thought of myself as an atheist at about age 14, I think I would've had quite simplistic views on the topic, But I got quite hard in my opinion, mainly because the son of the local Methodist minister, who was much bigger than me and tougher, kept bashing me up and trying to make me say I believed in God.
And then ... well, you can guess the rest ...!!!
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Proof that the lingiusts are lying about words used in the bible IE: Shaddai, Angels, Elohim, Yhwh?
by Crazyguy inin 1967 an archeologist found at tell el-deir alla an inscription that they called the book of balaam son of beor.
this looks to be about the same balaam that's talked about in the bible book of numbers.
remember the guy where his donkey is talking to him.
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fulltimestudent
Diogenesister :
Crazyguy may I ask what you study please? And you also full-time student?Sure! I've been taking a B.Arts (major in Ancient History) at Sydney's Macquarie Uni. I (mainly) wanted to learn more about China, as I thought the major events of the 19th and 20th centuries were the 19th C. collapse of the Qing (Manchu) Empire and the 20th C. re-organisation of China, but I soon saw that one could not study China in isolation, but that you had to see China in its Asian context..
Macquarie does not have a very strong Asian Studies program (it was not my first choice of a uni, but my first choice did not offer me a place) MU turned out to be good though, as its has a really good Ancient History Department that has some good study Units on west Asia and the Silk Road trade complex, as well as Chinese Ancient History. There's also a good Society for the study of Early Christianity (and a nascent society for the study of Asian Historical Research, the web page for which, I've become editor.
So in the end, (with a little twisting - I found a way to be able to take study units at Sydney Uni, which is in the process of building a world class China Studies Centre - it already has 200 academics associated) I've been able to cover some wonderful areas of human history. I was going to graduate at the end of last year ( I needed 68 credit points to graduate and have near 80) but the Uni management informed me that I've not covered 2 general units that they consider essential - so I have to cover them this year.
For anyone living in Australia, I recommend attending a Uni. Under the deferred cost scheme it does not cost you much except time, and you only start to pay off the cost when your income reaches around $50,000.
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Diogenesister : I also read somewhere that yahweh maybe Baal, the son of el, and the host of heaven referring to the many gods of heaven...not as in god and his angels. Does anyone have anymore info..I will definitely look into the book full-time student mentions.
Its the contention of a lot of scholars that in early Hebrew theology, Baal transformed into YHWH. Boyarin, whose commentary on Dan 7 (See his 'The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Gospels,' pp 43-52 for a brief review ) I've mentioned before believes it to have influenced the acceptance by some Jews, of the divinity of Jesus.
The thought that the ancient secondary Gods were transformed into angels in later theology is quite commonly accepted. The idea is often referred to as angelology.
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fulltimestudent
It's astrotheological: Mithra welcomes in the New Age displacing Taurus (wiki).
Which the site claims is a sort of pre-Christian Xmas, which doesn't sound quite right to me, but what the hell, is xmas, so let's be forgiving.
From a page on a site called- ( http://wisdomquarterly.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/pre-christian-xmas-in-aryan-iran-audio.html )
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Proof that the lingiusts are lying about words used in the bible IE: Shaddai, Angels, Elohim, Yhwh?
by Crazyguy inin 1967 an archeologist found at tell el-deir alla an inscription that they called the book of balaam son of beor.
this looks to be about the same balaam that's talked about in the bible book of numbers.
remember the guy where his donkey is talking to him.
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fulltimestudent
Crazyguy : Another word that the meaning may have been changed and i should have added to my original post is the word Amen. The word is also a name for an Egyptian god , sometimes spelled that way sometimes spelled Amun.
That notion has also been around a while. But its dangerous to associate ideas because of some similarity in the word. There's only a certain amount of sounds that humans can produce, so sounds (and, combinations of sounds) will have different meanings in different languages
I've got a lot to get through today, so I'll just use Wikipedia as a reference (as its easily accessible, in spite of some associated problems).
On the topic of Amun, the author of that topic notes: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amun )
The name Amun (written imn, pronounced Amana in ancient Egyptian [5]) meant something like "the hidden one" or "invisible".[6] It was thought that Amun created himself and then his surroundings.[7]
Wikipedia in the entry for the word 'Amen,' says:
Etymology
Grammarians frequently list ʾāmán under its three consonants (aleph-mem-nun), which are identical to those of ʾāmēn (note that the Hebrew letter א aleph represents a glottal stop sound, which functions as a consonant in the morphology of hebrew).[9] This triliteralroot means to be firm, confirmed, reliable, faithful, have faith, believe.
The usage of Amen, meaning "so be it", as found in the early scriptures of the Bible is said to be of Hebrew origin;[6][7] however, the basic triconsonantal root from which the word was derived is common to a number of languages, such as Aramaic, in the Semitic branch of the Afrasian languages. The word was imported into the Greek of the early Church from Judaism.[1][8] From Greek, amen entered the other Western languages. ...
In Arabic, the word is derived from its triliteral common root word ʾĀmana (Arabic: آمن), which has the same meanings as the Hebrew root word.
Popular among some theosophists,[11] proponents of Afrocentric theories of history,[12] and adherents of esoteric Christianity [13][14] is the conjecture that amen is a derivative of the name of the Egyptian god Amun (which is sometimes also spelled Amen). Some adherents of Eastern religions believe thatamen shares roots with the Hindu Sanskrit word, Aum.[15][16][17][18] Such external etymologies are not included in standard etymological reference works. The Hebrew word, as noted above, starts with aleph, while the Egyptian name begins with a yodh.[19]
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Crazyguy :
This understanding goes hand in hand with what was found at Ugarit, that El was the most high god, created offspring other gods some of which resided on the mountains. These gods were referred to as Elohim and when we see the word angels in the old testament this is also incorrect these are in fact also the gods, not lowly flying messengers with wings. Then last but not least YHWH the sign we have always been told was a symbol for the name of the one true god could be in fact stand for a, family of Gods.I think its easiest to say that there are different interpretations as to how YHWH came to occuppy the chief place in the thinking of the early Hebrews.
What is clear however, is that those early Hebrews (whoever they may have been ethnically) did not see the unseen (and imagined ) heavens, the way modern Jews do.
The evidence points to many gods in their belief system. You may enjoy (if you can access a library that has a copy) Page DuBois' book, "A Million and One Gods: The Persistence of Polytheism" (published by Harvard University Press in 2014.) Its not a long book and covers more than just the biblical area.
And thanks for publishing the Book of Balaam.
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