Posts by fulltimestudent

Life is more than ritual ...

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

jw's are lost in the meaningless ritual of meeting formats (varied occasionally when even the f&ds finally recognises that it has become meaningless) and field service.

the ritual of the field service component has become even more meaningless with the advent of the trolleydollies, just like the old-time practise of carrying an old-fashioned gramophone and some of judge joey's records from house-to-house became meaningless.. can anything shake the witnesses out of their apathetic meaningless rituals?

i'm not sure that can ever happen.. but perhaps there is a lesson for some thinking jws in this story of an old monk lost in his ritual, until something woke him from his self-absorbed view of his world.. https://vimeo.com/61481633.

fulltimestudent

JW's are lost in the meaningless ritual of meeting formats (varied occasionally when even the F&DS finally recognises that it has become meaningless) and field service. The ritual of the field service component has become even more meaningless with the advent of the trolleydollies, just like the old-time practise of carrying an old-fashioned gramophone and some of Judge Joey's records from house-to-house became meaningless.

Can anything shake the witnesses out of their apathetic meaningless rituals? I'm not sure that can ever happen.

But perhaps there is a lesson for some thinking JWs in this story of an old monk lost in his ritual, until something woke him from his self-absorbed view of his world.

https://vimeo.com/61481633

18

Genital Warts Because our Ancestors were Banging Neanderthals

by cofty in

researchers have found evidence that modern genital warts – otherwise known as the human papillomavirus (hpv) – were sexually transmitted to homo sapiens after our ancestors slept with neanderthals and denisovans roughly around 100,000 years ago.....

fulltimestudent

Village Idiot: ... in the ever changing border between our two populations.

Two separate populations interfacing at a border, is a very modern concept. More likely people whom we tag with different nation/state descriptions, can have the same ethnic origins.

In the case of the Neanderthals and our ancestors, perhaps the two populations lived adjacent to each other. For example, in a long river valley, there may have been a village of Neanderthals, and not too far away, there may have been a village of a more modern type of human.

Difficult to say, isn't it?

6

The Earliest Printed Book Still in Existence - the Buddhist Diamond Sutra

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

the british library has a copy of this important historical work (dated to may 868 ce), and has been working to conserve its copy.

this film made by the international dunhuang project (formed to conserve relics from the silk road (the east-west trading network) backgrounds the sutra's story:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgn5hqxtlmc.

fulltimestudent

Nathan's comment sidetracked me earlier today, so this post is what I intended to post earlier.

It's an audio recording of Dr Susan Whitfield, Director of the Dunhuang Project, speaking at the University of Minnesota. Her topic is the Diamond Sutra.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/podsusanwhitfield.html

One point she makes is that,

Quote: "The Diamond Sutra is a fantastic artefact. It's a Chinese Buddhist document dating from 868 AD; it was when China was the centre of the world."

Buddhism, like early Christianity, was adapted by believers (who came from various other cultures) to conform to some of their local ideas.

So in reading that particular document, we can remember two things, 1. The document could be printed, because the Chinese had already developed a technology to print documents, and 2. Some of the thoughts expressed may be different to the original "Indian" (as in the ancient world) thoughts of the philosophy's founder.

18

Genital Warts Because our Ancestors were Banging Neanderthals

by cofty in

researchers have found evidence that modern genital warts – otherwise known as the human papillomavirus (hpv) – were sexually transmitted to homo sapiens after our ancestors slept with neanderthals and denisovans roughly around 100,000 years ago.....

fulltimestudent

That's only half the story, Cofty. As many versions of this story explain, the DNA of most humans on the earth have small traces of Neanderthal DNA. (And some East Asians have traces of Denisovan DNA).

Which must raise some worrying questions for true believers. How did Adam's DNA get to contain traces of Neanderthal DNA?

6

The Earliest Printed Book Still in Existence - the Buddhist Diamond Sutra

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

the british library has a copy of this important historical work (dated to may 868 ce), and has been working to conserve its copy.

this film made by the international dunhuang project (formed to conserve relics from the silk road (the east-west trading network) backgrounds the sutra's story:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgn5hqxtlmc.

fulltimestudent

Nathan Natas: More TRUTH here than The Watchtower ever dreamed of.

Smile, Nathan. Umm! Not sure if any religion has 'truth.' And, for us English speakers, prevented by our ignorance of the original language (in which some text may have been written) and its nuances, from fully understanding what the original writer was trying to say, we should always acknowledge the possibility that we've got it wrong.

For anyone interested - here's a modern translation of this Sutra.

http://diamond-sutra.com/read-the-diamond-sutra-here/diamond-sutra-chapter-4/

The fifth chapter reads:

Diamond Sutra: Chapter 05“Subhuti, what do you think? Can the Buddha be recognized by means of his bodily form?”
“No, Most Honored One, the Buddha cannot be recognized by means of his bodily form. Why? Because when the Buddha speaks of bodily form, it is not a real form, but only an illusion.”
The Buddha then spoke to Subhuti: “All that has a form is illusive and unreal. When you see that all forms are illusive and unreal, then you will begin to perceive your true Buddha nature.”

If you google this question: 'In Buddhism why are forms illusionary and unreal?' you will get over 700,000 pages in response. But, for us, in our world, only things that we can discern, test, measure etc. are real.

Conceptual thought may discern something that can be described as true. For example. in the Axial age (8th to 3rd centuries BCE) , thinkers like Leucippis and Democritus of Abdera first thought up the idea that everything we can see and know consists of atoms and void. They, and their successors, could not 'prove' their theory as they lacked any technology that would enable them to see 'atoms.' But they managed to get it right. However, these early 'Atomists' got the concept of 'soul' wrong, simply because they accepted the idea that humans had a soul.

I'll stop there, my mind is starting to get knotted again (grin).

6

The Earliest Printed Book Still in Existence - the Buddhist Diamond Sutra

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

the british library has a copy of this important historical work (dated to may 868 ce), and has been working to conserve its copy.

this film made by the international dunhuang project (formed to conserve relics from the silk road (the east-west trading network) backgrounds the sutra's story:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgn5hqxtlmc.

fulltimestudent

The cover illustration of this ancient printed book has many allusions to Buddhist thought, In this next video, Conrad Walters discusses the symbolism:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXMtjM6NSuk

6

The Earliest Printed Book Still in Existence - the Buddhist Diamond Sutra

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

the british library has a copy of this important historical work (dated to may 868 ce), and has been working to conserve its copy.

this film made by the international dunhuang project (formed to conserve relics from the silk road (the east-west trading network) backgrounds the sutra's story:.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgn5hqxtlmc.

fulltimestudent

The British Library has a copy of this important historical work (dated to May 868 CE), and has been working to conserve its copy. This film made by the International Dunhuang Project (formed to conserve relics from the Silk Road (The East-West Trading Network) backgrounds the Sutra's story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgN5HQXTlMc

21

Attending a same-sex wedding

by Samantharockeby33 in

my cousin, whom is not jw, but we have grown up together our whole lives has just gotten engaged to her same sex partner, i am very conflicted on wether i can/should attend the wedding or not.

i am very close with my cousin and her partner and they are very understanding to our beliefs and differences as she grew up with our whole family being jw.

some family members have already said they will definitely be attending and some definitely not attending so i just want some extra advice and guidance!

fulltimestudent

This is controversial to those whose minds are straitjacketed by misinformation. But same-sex relationships were common in the Mediterranean culture of the Graeco-Roman empires that encompassed and included Palestine.

And, interestingly, Jesus came into contact with one of these relationships. I'll let a writer in the Huffington Post explain.

"But, some people argue, what about the fact that the only sanctioned relationship in the Bible is between a man and a woman? Well, in fact, that’s not quite the case. The story of the faithful centurion, told in Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10, is about a Roman centurion who comes to Jesus and begs that Jesus heal his pais, a word sometimes translated as “servant.” Jesus agrees and says he will come to the centurion’s home, but the centurion says that he does not deserve to have Jesus under his roof, and he has faith that if Jesus even utters a word of healing, the healing will be accomplished. Jesus praises the faith of the centurion, and the paisis healed. This tale illustrates the power and importance of faith, and how anyone can possess it. The centurion is not a Jew, yet he has faith in Jesus (according to the Gospel story-FTS) and is rewarded."

So what was the relationship between this centurion and his pais? The writer of the above goes on to explain.

"But pais does not mean “servant.” It means “lover.” In Thucydides, in Plutarch, in countless Greek sources, and according to leading Greek scholar Kenneth Dover,pais refers to the junior partner in a same-sex relationship. Now, this is not exactly a marriage of equals. An erastes-pais relationship generally consisted of a somewhat older man, usually a soldier between the ages of 18 and 30, and a younger adolescent, usually between the ages of 13 and 18. Sometimes that adolescent was a slave, as seems to be the case here. It would be inappropriate, in my view, to use the word “gay” to describe such a relationship; that word, and its many connotations, comes from our time, not that of Ancient Greece and Rome. This is not a relationship that any LGBT activist would want to promote today. However, it is a same-sex relationship nonetheless."

Some Bible teachers promote the erroneous view that ancient Israel and Judah were culturally isolated from the surrounding cultures. That is an unsupportable view from all the other written and archaeological evidence that we have available.

So does the above information help your decision. Well, your witness family will likely opt NOT to believe that Jesus could assist such a relationship, and of course we cannot prove definitively that the centurion and his servant had what we may call a 'same-sex relationship,' but a large body of scholars who study the era, would agree that it's a likely interpretation.

There is one other (also controversial) Biblical incident that is worth thinking about. But I'll have to post that later.

28

Chinese Communist Party to commence nationwide crackdown on Christianity including Jehovah's Witnesses

by jwleaks in

jw
friends

8 october 2016. china's governing communist party is set to launch a nationwide crackdown on the christian church.. by matthew carney - abc.

the communist party has just enacted much tougher laws that criminalise christians if they do not pledge loyalty to the state.. chinese president xi jinping has warned that all religions now have to become "chinese" and the new laws will attempt to bring churchgoers and their leaders under party control.. the new laws will put the state firmly in charge, giving the communist party the ability to hire and fire church leaders and change religious doctrine to make it more chinese.... that means churchgoers will have to pledge loyalty to the communist party first.. there is good reason to be afraid.

chinese authorities have already started the crackdown in the christian heartland in the southern province of zhejiang.. it's been extensive and brutal.

fulltimestudent

sir82 : As far as I know, the WTS owns no real estate in China.

That's probably true. In Chinese cities, rights to land use are usually held on leasehold (except in villages, where land is owned by the village). In cities, a corporation would have to have a legal existence to lease land or even lease an existing building, and I doubt very much that the witnesses have a registered entity.

It's different in Hongkong as the legal forms existing at the time that sovereignty of HK was returned to China, were to continue for another 50 years.

JW.org gives the branch address as:

Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society
22/F, 1 Hung To Road,
Kwun Tong,
KOWLOON, HONG KONG

Its in quite a substantial building, but if 22/F signifies a floor, it would appear that they are leasing the space, although it could be owned on some sort of strata title. I suspect that they do not look after their activities in China from that office. In fact may only look after HK activity*. I imagine that it would be relatively easy for the Chinese authorities to monitor the space.

Probably, the work in China is supervised from NY, all of the nearby branches (Taiwan, Japan, S.Korea) have all sorts of political/patriotic complexities.

-------------------

an interesting note about the activity in HK, from what seems to be a page from JW-org.

"My congregation is fairly typical of the situation here in Hong Kong. We have 230 publishers, 220 of whom are SISTERS! Out of the 9 brothers in the congregation we have 2 elders and 1 ministerial servant: myself."

link: http://www.needgreaters.com/HongKong.htm

-------------------------------------------

My gay xjw friend here in Sydney knows an interesting story about Cambodia, when it was under the care of the HK branch.

Two Gilead graduates (male) were sent to Cambodia, the WTS rented a small apartment for them, paid for apparently through the HK office. Some time later, one of them became ill and died. In Cambodia (a hot country) bodies must be disposed of quickly and are cremated. The surviving brother (an Australian btw, from Adelaide) did not have enough money to pay someone, and not enough money to buy the full amount of firewood needed to do it himself (i.e.to fully burn the body). So he carted the body of his partner and the firewood to the cremation site and someone showed him how to stack the wood and put the body on top. But as told, once alight the body kept falling out of the fire because of not enough wood, and the survivor had to keep pushing it back into the coals.

Bad enough, you think? The surviving missionary had a breakdown and returned to Australia. The HK branch sent someone out to terminate the lease etc. and this guy found evidence that these two missionaries had become lovers, and that the emotional impact of the incident was not just from having to cremate a body, but the much deeper emotions coming from the body being someone you loved deeply.

28

Chinese Communist Party to commence nationwide crackdown on Christianity including Jehovah's Witnesses

by jwleaks in

jw
friends

8 october 2016. china's governing communist party is set to launch a nationwide crackdown on the christian church.. by matthew carney - abc.

the communist party has just enacted much tougher laws that criminalise christians if they do not pledge loyalty to the state.. chinese president xi jinping has warned that all religions now have to become "chinese" and the new laws will attempt to bring churchgoers and their leaders under party control.. the new laws will put the state firmly in charge, giving the communist party the ability to hire and fire church leaders and change religious doctrine to make it more chinese.... that means churchgoers will have to pledge loyalty to the communist party first.. there is good reason to be afraid.

chinese authorities have already started the crackdown in the christian heartland in the southern province of zhejiang.. it's been extensive and brutal.

fulltimestudent

A number of JW missionaries were jailed in China in the past. Most were caught in the first rush of enthusiastic nationalism when the Communist armies finally swept into power in 1949 and started to sweep away the unequal treaties behind which Christian churches had sheltered. Some may recall the shelling of HMS Amethyst, a British vessel that the Brits used to patrol the Yangzi River far inland, a source of humiliation to Chinese people. That was another symbol of the same feelings.

Among those jailed was Harold King.

His wife tells a strange story of their marriage at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2004085#h=13

(An Aside: The Bill and Linda Schneider she mentions were a well-known couple in the Sydney area. I rather liked Bill, when the WTS in Australia began to become commercialisedduring WW2, Bill was instructed to take charge of some building project and point blank refused to stop pioneering.)

Another was Stanley Jones. (See - https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19600815&id=cYRAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qZsMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3321,6260441&hl=en )

Nancy Yuen, a Chinese JW was also jailed. ( See - http://bringonthegoodnews.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/imprisoned-20-years-in-communist-china.html )

During the disorder of the Cultural Revolution there may have been worse things happen to local Christians. Its hard to know what was happening in many places. That's not to defend that time, which did have a good ending, in that it led directly to the CPC selecting Deng Xiao Ping as a sort of leader. Deng had opposed some of Mao's more radical ideas and had been jailed by Mao. Mao called Deng a 'capitalist roader' for his advocating more personal (private) initiative and of course that's what we now see in China. But all that is another story.

Now to NK. I do not think any outside advocates of Christianity have been executed in NK, and strange as it may seem there is (or was) a small Protestant church in Pyongyang with all local (NK) membership.

MY personal belief is that most churches are so tied up with their own nationalism that the both the first generation of Communist rulers and the NK administration sees them as potential spies. Any deluded Christian who thinks he's bringing light to the blind should be aware that he may be sentenced to years of hard labour.