Posts by fulltimestudent

5

A Kind of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (stealing Christianity)

by TerryWalstrom in

jehovah's witnesses took mainstream christianity and replaced each part of it, one item, one term, one definition at a time, into its contrary.. holy spirit (capital letters) became a tholy spirit (lower case letters) = from a person into a mere forceful gesture.. cross became torture stake.

(eradication of the essential symbol of historical christianity).

soul went from ethereal spirit to a mere hunk of flesh and bone.. salvation by grace became earning your salvation one door-knock at a time.

fulltimestudent

Grin!!!

OK Terry, sounds convincing, until you start to think a little deeper. I think you'll appreciate that "ALL" religious thought can be based on previous thinking and myths. In that sense, All religion can be based on "stolen ideas.'

But first:

1. Christianity (as distinct from Judaism) is rooted in the Greek language, all the terms you discussed are English terms translating the original Greek terms. To do what you do in your original post, is biased away from possible understandings of the original Greek.

But the original Greek had to translate the Hebrew concepts. In translation, too often there are no words that convey the precise meaning of the word you wish to translate.

But moving on to my main point:

2. It would be quite easy to construct an argument that the gentile converts stole the original Jewish Christianity and replaced it with a new construct based on Plato's thinking. All educated people that converted to the new Christian concept, were educated in Graeco-Roman thought. They attempted to discuss their religious ideas with words and concepts that made sense to them,

3. But we can go back further than that. What was the original Jewish (Israelite) religion like? Again, it would be easy to construct an argument that the original (native) Hebrew concepts were based first on Egyptian thought. Why? Because for some hundreds of years, Egyptian armies occupied the land of Israel. The creation story in Genesis 1 is quite similar to Egyptian creation stories. After the Egyptians, came Semitic influence, also affecting Hebrew thought as evident in the concept of a global flood. To save writing time, I'll post part of a Wikipedia entry on 'Global Flood:'

" Mythologies: The Mesopotamian flood stories concern the epics of Ziusudra, Gilgamesh, and Atrahasis. In the Sumerian King List, it relies on the flood motif to divide its history into preflood (antediluvian) and postflood periods. The preflood kings had enormous lifespans, whereas postflood lifespans were much reduced. The Sumerian flood myth found in the Deluge tablet was the epic of Ziusudra, who heard the Divine Counsel plan to destroy humanity, in response to which he constructed a vessel that delivered him from great waters.[2] In the Atrahasis version, the flood is a river flood.[3]
In the Genesis mythology of the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh (God) decides to flood the earth because of the depth of the sinful state of mankind. Righteous Noah is given instructions to build an ark. When the ark is completed, Noah, his family, and representatives of all the animals of the earth are called upon to enter the ark. When the destructive flood begins, all life outside of the ark perishes. After the waters recede, all those aboard the ark disembark and have God's promise that he will never judge the earth with a flood again. He gives the rainbow as the sign of this promise.[4]
In the 19th century, Assyriologist George Smith translated the Babylonian account of a great flood. Further discoveries produced several versions of the Mesopotamian flood myth, with the account closest to that in Genesis found in a 700 BCE Babylonian copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh.[5]:20 In this work, the hero Gilgamesh meets the immortal man Utnapishtim, and the latter describes how the god Ea instructed him to build a huge vessel in anticipation of a deity-created flood that would destroy the world. The vessel would save Utnapishtim, his family, his friends, and the animals.[6]
In Hindu mythology, texts such as the Satapatha Brahmana and the Puranas contain the story of a great flood,[7] wherein the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu warns the first man, Manu, of the impending flood, and also advises him to build a giant boat.[8][9][10]
In Plato's Timaeus, Timaeus says that because the Bronze race of Humans had been making wars constantly Zeus was angered and decided to punish humanity by a flood. Prometheus the Titan knew of this and told the secret to Deucalion, advising him to build an ark in order to be saved. After 9 nights and days, the water started receding and the ark was landed at Mount Parnassus.[11]"

Its easy to see how the flood story spread into other cultures as organised groups of humans developed their own myths based on the original myth.

When (eventually) the Jewish people were exposed to new religious thinking (during the Babylonian captivity) the most influential religion was Zoroastrianism. The result was the infiltration of 'dualism" into Jewish thought.

Sometimes, (it can be speculated) original Jewish writings were redacted to fit their new understandings. And, that is how we got to the point where what you call 'mainstream Christianity" could call orthodoxy. Even so, we can still find differences, between the main streams of Christian thought.

Actually, in my JW experience, most of the distinctions that the witnesses have made, already had some prior group who also differentiated themselves from the mainstream,

Footnote:

Maybe I should post some thoughts on Platonism, from key Christian thinkers after the first century.

1. Augustine:

“The utterance of Plato, the most pure and bright in all philosophy, scattering the clouds of error . . .”
“I found that whatever truth I had read [in the Platonists] was [in the writings of Paul] combined with the exaltation of thy grace.”

2. Eusebius of Caesarea:

“[Plato is] the only Greek who has attained the porch of (Christian) truth.”

3. Clement of Alexandria, (not the Clement who was the first Pope of late first century):

“. . . before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes conducive to piety; being a kind of preparatory training to those who attain to faith . . . . For God is the cause of all good things, but of some primarily, as of the Old and New Testaments; and of others by consequence, as philosophy. Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily . . . . For [philosophy] was a schoolmaster to bring ‘the Hellenic mind . . . to Christ.’ Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ.”

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

Sorry for being so serious in what was likely a 'tongue in cheek' post

62

Would You EVER Go Back To Being A Jehovah's Witness?

by minimus in

jw
friends

i could never understand why some people who know the truth about the "truth" ever go back.

once you understand all the hypocrisy and negatives, i would think it's almost impossible to go back!.

fulltimestudent

No!

It would be like a dog turning back and eating its own vomit, to use a colourful biblical term

30

Soon will be no choice but to invade North Korea.

by Witness 007 in

there is no way in hell that these brainwashed fools will cease making nukes.

their doctrines are based on "death to america"..."never surrender" they are much more messed up then iran!

war will be the final solution..

fulltimestudent

Anony mous: but in reality, you have to look at the first part of the sentence - "I'm sure China can take care of the problem",

Yup, and yesterday China 'fixed' the problem by declaring:

"China will not allow chaos and war to break out on the Korean peninsula ..."

to a group of Asian foreign ministers.

Reference: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-northkorea-xi-idUSKCN0XP05P

There is no other answer to the problem.

Besides that (and maybe something that Trump had not even considered when he started talking nonsense), in a few days the ROK (South Korea) will elect a new President, to replace Park who was impeached for corruption, and removed from office.

The likely winner of the election is thought to be Moon Jae-in, who is expected to have a much more friendlier attitude to the DPRK than the impeached Park. Moon has criticised the recent deployment of the THAAD system by the USA, as this article in USA Today indicates:

Moon argued that the U.S. should have waited for a new president to make the final decision to install the $1 billion system, which the Pentagon apparently rushed to make operational for fear Moon might block it if elected.
"We express strong regret over the THAAD (installation) taking place in disregard of the people's will and procedures," Park Kwang-on, public relations chief of Moon's election campaign, said at a news briefing on April 26.Reference: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/05/05/us-relationship-risk-south-koreas-presidential-election/101330018/

2

The number of extremely poor people in the world, reduced by more than half between 1981 and 2013, mainly in China

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

a review of global poverty in the economist makes the claim:.

quote: "the world bank, which tracks poverty, estimates that 1.9bn people were extremely poor in 1981. in that year, the poor accounted for 42% of the world’s population.

in 2013, by contrast, only 767m people were poor.

fulltimestudent

So, even though we once taught people that the world was getting worse (and worser, grin), the reality is that humans struggle on and eventually make the world better.

The YHWH/JESUS mob can piss-off - they are not required, because they've actually done nothing to make the world a better place.

2

The number of extremely poor people in the world, reduced by more than half between 1981 and 2013, mainly in China

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

a review of global poverty in the economist makes the claim:.

quote: "the world bank, which tracks poverty, estimates that 1.9bn people were extremely poor in 1981. in that year, the poor accounted for 42% of the world’s population.

in 2013, by contrast, only 767m people were poor.

fulltimestudent

A review of global poverty in The Economist makes the claim:

Quote: "The World Bank, which tracks poverty, estimates that 1.9bn people were extremely poor in 1981. In that year, the poor accounted for 42% of the world’s population. In 2013, by contrast, only 767m people were poor. Because the world’s population has grown so much in the interim, the share of poor people in the population has fallen even faster, to just below 11%. The single biggest reason for this delightful trend is China. In 1981, almost unbelievably, 88% of Chinese (and 96% of rural Chinese) seem to have lived below the poverty line. In 2013 only 2% of Chinese were extremely poor."

Reference: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/05/economist-explains-1?cid1=cust%2Fddnew%2Fn%2Fn%2Fn%2F2017053n%2Fowned%2Fn%2Fn%2Fnwl%2Fn%2Fn%2Fap%2FDaily_Dispatch%2Femail

However, The Economist predicts that it will be more difficult to make further reductions in the number of people living in extreme poverty.

Quote: "That leaves a rump of poverty in South Asia and, especially, sub-Saharan Africa. In 2013, for the first time, more than half of the paupers in the world were African. Poverty will be much harder to root out in those places. South Asian countries like Bangladesh and India have decent economic growth but feeble welfare systems. Africa doesn’t even have the former, especially considering how quickly its population is increasing. Besides, poor Africans often live on much less than $1.90 a day. It is hard to pull exceptionally poor people (sometimes called the “ultra-poor”) over the line. Even African countries that are growing fairly well, like Ethiopia and Rwanda, will have huge poor populations for many years even if incomes rise across the board."

Poverty reduction in India:

We could think that India would be able to quickly make quick progress in poverty reduction. But a closer examination makes this doubtful, the illustration below shows a scene that is all too common in India.

As this attempt at mapping Indian poverty seems to indicate:

and its in some of the areas mapped as suffering from extreme poverty that the long-running naxalite rebellion continues.

Why is it that India has this persistent problem? The answer seems to be rooted in the political and social problems which the Indian ruling elite have not been interested in solving.

30

Soon will be no choice but to invade North Korea.

by Witness 007 in

there is no way in hell that these brainwashed fools will cease making nukes.

their doctrines are based on "death to america"..."never surrender" they are much more messed up then iran!

war will be the final solution..

fulltimestudent

There is another aspect to the so-called crisis on the Korean peninsula. Let me start by saying that any thought of some similarity in national sentiment between the North and the South is likely wrong. Why? To understand this we have to go back in history, to the time when Korea became divided, a division that reflected not just political differences, but an ideological difference, also. That ideological difference developed during the 35 year Japanese occupation of Korea. Japan made a determined effort to turn the Koreans into Japanese. Anyone wanting to get on in life, accepted that and became, at least, Japanese sympathisers. During WW2 many Koreans fought in the Japanese army. But other Koreans went the other way, and became underground fighters against the Japanese occupation. The first President of the northern Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Il Sung claimed to be one of those guerilla's. IF so he lived on the edge for years, continually hunted by the Japanese Army both in northern Korea and in Manchuria, which the Japanese had seized from China and re-named it as Manchukuo. When finally things got too hot for him, he fled into Russia, where the Russian army inducted him into the Russian army. It was there, as he watched the massive USSR build up in 1945, that he likely became enamoured with the power of a centralised state and became a communist. This division between those who fought the Japanese occupation and those who helped the Japanese created enormous bitterness. There were other factors also, the western powers had given little thought to the Koreans and were very ignorant of what was happening. If the Americans and English had been better informed, the division between the Communist north and the so-called free south may not have occurred.

But when the division did come, anyone in the North that had been a Japanese sympathiser, or served in the Japanese Army fled to the south. While others for the opposite reasons, fled to the North. In the north the USSR selected Kim Il Sung as leader, and in the south the Americans selected an exiled Korean Syngman Rhee as their choice and 'parachuted' him into the Republic of Korea as President. Rhee was fervently anti-communist and both the north and south, convinced that their way was the only war, commenced a military re-armament in order to unite Korea under one government by force.

In those years the north made greater progress in industrialisation and re-building than the south, some, at least of that progress was from Soviet assistance. In later years the south has done better, due to an extent to American assistance.

So how, if it became possible, would these two ethically identical, but ideologically separated peoples, ever be united into one national group again. It is thought by many scholars of the Koreans, that would be a far greater problem than faced divided Germany.

Some think it could cost something like 3 trillion dollars and to take years to achieve.

Ideollogically, the north fits better into modern China, (and, remember the border provinces of the Dongbei (the former Manchukuo) have a large population of ethnic Koreans) but it is difficult to see whatever form a replacement government for the Kim regime may take, its difficult to see it agreeing to unite with China. And considering the even greater bitterness between the north and the south, it is unlikely that they would agree to unite with the south. It may be then, that there can be no unified Korea.

If any military action decimates sections of the north, who will pay for it to be re-built? It is thought by many, that the southern population will not want to pay for the north, another reason to think that there will be two Koreas in the foreseeable future.

When the west considers any military strikes, they should be considering the possible result if the north collapses. It comes back to the solution I mentioned in a previous post advocated by a former Australian PM - No sanctions, No unnecessary military action- and Yes! do everything possible to build a strong middle class.

30

Soon will be no choice but to invade North Korea.

by Witness 007 in

there is no way in hell that these brainwashed fools will cease making nukes.

their doctrines are based on "death to america"..."never surrender" they are much more messed up then iran!

war will be the final solution..

fulltimestudent

Would the US react if the north Koreans shot down an American plane?

They did not when two NK fighters shot down one of these...

That was back at the start of Nixon's presidency. Todd Crowell, personally involved, tells his story:

" I was a young air force lieutenant stationed with the 347th Fighter Wing at Yokota air base as an intelligence officer for a squadron of F-4 Phantoms."

The rest of his story can be found at:

http://www.atimes.com/article/story-another-time-us-came-close-attacking-north-korea/

Why didn't Nixon order a retaliatory strike? Crowell believes that the US had its hands full in its war on Vietnam and another war may have been too much for the American war machine.

30

Soon will be no choice but to invade North Korea.

by Witness 007 in

there is no way in hell that these brainwashed fools will cease making nukes.

their doctrines are based on "death to america"..."never surrender" they are much more messed up then iran!

war will be the final solution..

fulltimestudent

zeb : perhaps the missile 'failures' were deliberate. Keep the sabre rattling then you can back off and get concessions from the rest of the world.... perhaps.

I think you're correct Zeb. If the NK military deliberately used a defective rocker, Kim Jong-un would not lose face by appearing to give in to western demands, but also allow Donald Trump to save face.

Is this the reason why Trump called Kim Jong-un, "a pretty smart cookie."

It is not very bright to under estimate the opposition.

30

Soon will be no choice but to invade North Korea.

by Witness 007 in

there is no way in hell that these brainwashed fools will cease making nukes.

their doctrines are based on "death to america"..."never surrender" they are much more messed up then iran!

war will be the final solution..

fulltimestudent

Some animals have developed a defensive tactic, like this fish:

The puffer fish puffs itself up purely for defence. And, that is likely to be the logic behind all the tomfoolery that the DPRK goes on with.

They know from bitter experience, that they will NOT win any war. In the closing phase of the previous Korean war, American saturation bombing almost obliterated any above ground structures, Then came the truce, and the north Koreans attempting to win the best deal, delayed any finality. Since then the ROK (south Korea) and the USA have consistently refused to finalise a Peace Treaty. So what could the DPRK do? Exactly what they have done. They are saying in effect, we know we will lose any future war, but we'll take a lot of people with us. Your victory will come at a very high cost.

I spent a year, at Sydney University studying Korea. The course co-ordinator was Leonid Petrov, who likely knows as much about North Korea as anyone (and, certainly is not an admirer of the regime). If you want to know more about him, he has a FB page and also this reference: https://leonidpetrov.wordpress.com/about-me/

Since then I regularly post about NK on a Macquarie University FB page, so I think by this time I may have also learnt something about NK. I often wonder why, when the Anglosphere has a supposedly free press, why most media commentary on the Korean situation lacks any balance in content, So what is wrong? Why do the N Koreans and their Korean Workers Party feel impelled to act like the pufferfish at the start of this post. Many commentators feel that its because the 'state of war' interrupted in 1953 still exists. The NK elite likely want some sort of assurance that there will be no attempts at regime change.

My opinion is that its worth a try. A former Australian Prime Minister (Bob Hawke), commented during some crisis with the military dictatorship in Myanmar, that the best way to help the people of these rogue states was not via sanctions, because sanctions hurt the ordinary people long before the sanctions hurt the top people. Hawke advocated doing anything possible to build a strong middle class. In the example of Myanmar, Hawke seems to have been right, and I suggest that this is a better course in dealing with North Korea,

China no longer has much influence on the NK government, and if NK uses nuclear weapons on the ROK, a cloud of radiation will drift over the border of China. A wave of refugees will also swamp the dongbei region of China. The river that forms the border is easily crossed in many places. In China, along the border, many Chinese citizens are ethnic Koreans. Many have relatives in NK. They certainly do not want to see a war. And, much of the smaller items of merchandise that are now sold in the small private markets that are transforming the NK economy are smuggled into NK from that part of China.

There is much more to know about the situation. And, the rest of the world also shares some blame. Perhaps Korea would've transformed differently if the rest of the world had intervened to prevent Japan taking over Korea in 1910. But in those days the world was controlled by Imperialists, so Imperial Japan got away with its attempt to make Korea part of Japan. Even the USA acquiesced and made an informal deal with Japan that supported their takeover of Korea and Japan supported the USA's invasion and nasty little war in taking over the Philippines,

So in the closing days of WW2, as Stalin honoured his agreement with Churchill and Roosevelt, a huge Russian invasion force swept across the Japanese state of Manchukuo (that had taken off China) and into Korea and the Northern islands of Japan (the Kuriles and Sakhalin). That's the background to a divided Korea. The Russian army could've easily taken all of Korea, but for some reason Stalin agreed to permitting the US Army to occupy the southern half.

This image purports to show Soviet troops somewhere in Korea

the Captions states:

Soviet soldiers on the march in northern Korea in October of 1945. Japan had ruled the Korean peninsula for 35 years, until the end of World War II. At that time, Allied leaders decided to temporarily occupy the country until elections could be held and a government established. Soviet forces occupied the north, while U.S. forces occupied the south. The planned elections did not take place, as the Soviet Union established a communist state in North Korea, and the U.S. set up a pro-western state in South Korea - each state claiming to be sovereign over the entire peninsula This standoff led to the Korean War in 1950, which ended in 1953 with the signing of an armistice -- but, to this day, the two countries are still technically at war with each other. (Waralbum.ru) #

Reference: http://vfwpost2461.com/1945Photos/Rare%20Photos.htm

9

A Scientific American discussion of current thinking on a biological basis for same sex preferences

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

the scientific american web-site has the above article, dated april 25, 2017. its entitled, "cross-cultural evidence for the genetics of homosexuality - mexico's third gender sheds light on the biological correlates of sexual orientation.".

here's the link to the article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cross-cultural-evidence-for-the-genetics-of-homosexuality/?wt.mc=sa_facebook-share.

and the first few paragraphs .... the reasons behind why people are gay, straight, or bisexual have long been a source of public fascination.

fulltimestudent

My gay friend (also and ex-jw) sent me this reference to a commentary on Matthew 18:10-12 by Clement of Alexandria ( a second/third century CE. christian), which is interesting for his perspective that some males have a 'repulsion' to (presumably regarding sex with women) to women and therefore do well not to marry. So it seems that this Clement (different to the Clement who was a Bishop in Rome) had observed that some 'naturally' had a no attraction to women, but fails to carry his thought further and conclude that an attraction to the same sex could be natural to them,

Here's the quote:

Clement of Alexandria: The Stromata, or Miscellanies
Translation from: Henry Chadwick, ed, The Library of Christian Classics: Volume II, Alexandrian Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), pp. 40-92. (Transcription by Jay Raskin, 2002; corrected by Lance Owens, 2011.)
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I
I. The Valentinians, who hold that the union of man and woman is derived from the divine emanation in heaven above, approve of marriage. The followers of Basilides, on the other hand, say that when the apostles asked whether it was not better not to marry, the Lord replied: "Not all can receive this saying; there are some eunuchs who are so from their birth, others are so of necessity." And their explanation of this saying is roughly as follows: Some men, from their birth, have a natural sense of repulsion from a woman; and those who are naturally so constituted do well not to marry. Those who are eunuchs of necessity are those theatrical ascetics who only control themselves because they have a passion for the limelight. [And those who have suffered accidental castration have become eunuchs of necessity.] Those, then, who are eunuchs of necessity have no sound reason for their abstinence from marriage. But those who for the sake of the eternal kingdom have made themselves eunuchs derive this idea, they say, from a wish to avoid the distractions involved in marriage, because they are afraid of having to waste time in providing for the necessities of life.

Reference: http://www.gnosis.org/library/strom3.htm