Whatever the bible says about god is without value. It's just another human's view of the topic.
fulltimestudent
JoinedPosts by fulltimestudent
-
20
Moses, Pharaoh and the Exodus Fairytale
by RULES & REGULATIONS inexodus 7. .
new king james version.
moses before pharaoh.
-
-
-
80
Tennis Controversy in Australia
by smiddy3 inapr 20, 2020. novak djokovic sparks a backlash after publicly opposing the covid-19 vaccine.
he says: “personally, i am opposed to vaccination, and i wouldn’t want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel.”.
asked by sky news australia anchor danica de giorgio why djokovic was granted the visa in the first place, the home affairs minister said: “they’re entirely separate processes”.. “to gain entry to australia you need both – you actually need the visa, which is determined quite separately, and then you have to meet the entry requirements,” she said.. “i know that people are putting the two issues together, but the visa application process and the granting of a visa is very separate to the additional entry requirements that every traveller needs to meet to be able to enter australia.”.
-
-
fulltimestudent
Australia made to look foolish over government's handling of Novak Djokovic visa
This headline (this morning, Sydney time) on the government owned media service says it all. The amateurs who run this country screwed up. Why? I cant offer a reason, except that there are elections due shortly.
If you want to read more, check this link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-11/australia-made-to-look-foolish-over-handling-djokovic-visa/100748724
-
17
Can you get disfellowship for kissing a person of the same sex?
by pistolpete ini found this on exjwreddit.
a pimo elder is in the middle of an event where a former co allegedly kissed a brother from another hall.. the co denied it so the other elders are frustrated because they can't have a judicial meeting.
if true, can he be disfellowshipped?
-
-
fulltimestudent
Quote, Dozy: "In the JCs I was involved in as an elder , I was pretty skeptical with the whole concept. Teenagers doing cigarettes / drugs , adultery , pre-marital sex etc. Nobody really seemed especially sad or guilty - it just seemed to be a process."
Sometimes the JW judicial process filled you with wonder. At one level, the hard-heartedness of some local elders made you wonder if they had any compassion at all. And, then at another level, compassion seemed to be without limits. A former Aussie circuit and District Overseer was kicked out of a Gilead class for some un-named sin.
So what do you have to do to get kicked out of a Gilead class? Could only be apostacy or sex! Anyway, a few years later, he's invited into another class. So whatever his original sin, compassion was extended to him. He had a up and down theocratic career, so it sometimes seemed that the branch went out of its way to extend compassion to him.
in the end, though he went too far. He and his wife were pioneering in Brisbane. The wide comes home on day to find him and a former Bethel brother, kissing each other's personal bits, in the shower.
I leave it to your imagination as to how and why so much compassion was extended in a much more complex story than I have told.
-
33
CO retirement severance?
by road to nowhere ina friend says the wt gives a substantial sum to retiring cos. he says one bought land and built near him, a desirable rural area.
i think it must have been saved green handshake money or inherited.. btw this man also thinks the gb are the smartest men alive..
-
-
fulltimestudent
These comments apply to anybody stupid (lack of critical thinking skills) enough, to believe these stories of a loving god in heaven that provides for all, but who especially cares for those who forsake possessions to serve him.
I started pioneering around 18 y.o. got married (to a pioneer) around 25 -In the 10-12 years I pioneered I once calculated we could have earned a million A$ between us. But being stupid and believing in a god in heaven I had nothing, when my wife became pregnant and I had to think about 2 people who I cared for and beginning to think that bloody old YHWH didn't give a rat's arse about anyone or anything. Still lacking critical thinking skills I put those doubts to one side and kept serving where the need was greater as an elder, working night and day to fit all that bloody bible shit into 24 hour days.
My ever theocratic wife, still wanted to look smart and fashionable (and be able to serve the YHWH/Jesus fake gods). I scrimped and saved in my own life, learnt some design skills, brought work home to do at night, and eventually bought a house. Domestic bliss was not part of my life though, often criticised by my wife for not being theocratic enough - You can se where that was heading cant you?
And, when my wife wanted a divorce, I though of my kids and gave her the house, and she also forged my signature and took the few thousand dollars I had in my bank account.
But I got through it, no thanks to any imaginary god in heaven, In time another partner and another house, but here I am now, still working in my bloody eighties.
I do not think about all that much - it makes my blood pressure rise- I think positive. My life is not so bad, considering that I wasted so much of it being stupid - So stupid is as stupid does (Attested since at least 1862, but popularized (perhaps independently) by the 1994 film Forrest Gump.) which is much more accurate than the Holy Bible
Apologies -caught me on a bad day.
-
19
So I was at a jw wedding and guess what!
by nowwhat? inthe major topic of conversation was that almost all do not want to go back to the meetings and field service!
and we are talking very zealous and active witnesses!
.
-
-
fulltimestudent
A realisation of what all of us here have learned - It's all a bloody waste of time and energy, And, that's not even going near all the missed opportunities to do something really useful in our lived
-
17
If the Almighty, Powerful, benevolent God had a book written for humans, what would it contain?
by pistolpete ini know for a fact it would not start off with a talking snake, magical fruit, invisible beings that desire beautiful women to have sex with.. and it wouldn’t end with a flying dragon, a two horned lamb, locusts that resembled horses with men’s faces, but with women’s hair and teeth of lions.
and the book wouldn’t allow for hundreds of millions of religions to spurt from it.
i think the first thing a book written by god would have, is that it would be written in a way that all languages could understand without being translated.. regardless of what language you would speak, we could read it and understand what it said.
-
-
fulltimestudent
Has anyone else wondered about the book of Ruth? Why would the holy spirit (triune version or jw version) bother to inspire whatever bible writer wrote it to write down this sto
The biggest lesson it has, is that if you want to get f**ked by a guy - go to sleep at his feet.
-
17
If the Almighty, Powerful, benevolent God had a book written for humans, what would it contain?
by pistolpete ini know for a fact it would not start off with a talking snake, magical fruit, invisible beings that desire beautiful women to have sex with.. and it wouldn’t end with a flying dragon, a two horned lamb, locusts that resembled horses with men’s faces, but with women’s hair and teeth of lions.
and the book wouldn’t allow for hundreds of millions of religions to spurt from it.
i think the first thing a book written by god would have, is that it would be written in a way that all languages could understand without being translated.. regardless of what language you would speak, we could read it and understand what it said.
-
-
fulltimestudent
The god of the bible is more than a little bit dumb!
-
18
So let's discuss the framework of gods plan for a paradise earth
by nowwhat? inso after jehovah kills 8 billion people "for not knowing him'" he is going to resurrect 100 billion humans because " they didn't know him" .
the 8 million jw's will be tasked with educating these ones.
that's 1 jw for every 12k resurrected ones.
-
-
-
24
The Deity of Jesus Christ
by Reciprocity infair warning, i am not a jehovah's witness believer, but i am curious about what it is you believe and why you believe it.
so i am interested in talking to you instead of reading about you from my own christian perspective.
after all, who understands what jehovah's witness believes better than a jehovah's witness?
-
-
fulltimestudent
More comments on the Hellenisation of Palestine.
These comments are from Geza Vermes’* “The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English” – ( the Penguin 2004 revised edition, for anyone that wants to check page references).
Commencing Page 52, of that book Vermes describes the increasing Hellenisation of Palestine. Hellenistic (i.e.Greek) cities were built along the coast-Gaza, Joppa, Dor and Acco. To the south of Lake Tiberias, Beth Shean-an old existing village was re-built as the Greek city of Scythopolis and others, with the result that Greek culture, thinking and civilization spread throughout the land.
As far back as 200 BCE there was evidence of Jewish culture succumbing to Greek culture but the strongest evidence of change came, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes set in motion a Hellenising program in Judea, that the Jewish elite eagerly accepted and embraced. Their leader was Jesus, the brother of the high priest Onias III, who changed his name to Jason. This Jason began to Hellenise Jerusalem, built a Greek style gymnasium there and persuaded young Jews to participate in athletic exercises there. Even young priests in the temple exercised there naked. Evidence? Yes! Read 2 Maccabees: (iv, 13-15, New Revised Standard Version)
Quote: “There was such an extreme of Hellenization and increase in the adoption of foreign ways because of the surpassing wickedness of Jason, who was ungodly and no true[e] high priest, 14 that the priests were no longer intent upon their service at the altar. Despising the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to take part in the unlawful proceedings in the wrestling arena after the signal for the discus-throwing, 15 disdaining the honors prized by their ancestors and putting the highest value upon Greek forms of prestige. 16 For this reason heavy disaster overtook them, and those whose ways of living they admired and wished to imitate completely became their enemies and punished them. 17 It is no light thing to show irreverence to the divine laws—a fact that later events will make clear.”
What did that writer mean when he wrote. “putting the highest value upon Greek forms of prestige?” He was referring to their acceptance of Greeks cultural standards, including the already mentioned matter of wrestling naked. And, that brought a big problem for young Jews, in ancient Greek culture, men could be naked, but it was shameful for them to expose the head of their penises. This led to these young men, circumcised when young, to try to reverse their circumcised state by lengthening the remains of their foreskins. (You can do your own research on that matter).
In169 BCE, Antiochus IV prohibited Judaism, mandating the death penalty for those who tried to practice it. For many Jews that was too much, and a rebellion commenced (the Maccabean rebellion). In 171 BCE High Priest Onias was murdered and the Zadokite family lost their centuries old hereditary right to the High Priest position. So the process of Hellenization was slowed for a while, but not stopped, and by the time of Jesus, Palestine under mainly Roman control, was again strongly influenced by foreign culture.
Which brings us to the matter of ‘God’ and ‘Gods’ – in my next post.
*Vermes was a British academic and Biblical scholar, born into a Hungarian family of Jewish descent that was forced to convert to Christianity. As a young man he became a Catholic priest and later became a scholar focusing on ancient Judaism and early Christianity.
-
24
The Deity of Jesus Christ
by Reciprocity infair warning, i am not a jehovah's witness believer, but i am curious about what it is you believe and why you believe it.
so i am interested in talking to you instead of reading about you from my own christian perspective.
after all, who understands what jehovah's witness believes better than a jehovah's witness?
-
-
fulltimestudent
To introduce another perspective, from which to view this eternal debate and hopefully some will realise how this perspective allows this argument to be better understood,
What is this 'superior' perspective? - simply the social and intellectual thought in the Palestine of that era.
Something to Palestine around the 330's BCE. Quote: "Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in the late 330s BCE, beginning a long period of Hellenization. In the late 2nd century BCE, the semi-independent Hasmonean kingdom conquered most of Palestine but the kingdom gradually became a vassal of Rome, which annexed Palestine in 63 BCE." - Wikipedia, History of Palestine
That same reference also shows that the infiltration of Greek thinking was occurring long before the 339s BCE.
Quote: "Despite the devastating wars between Greece and Persia, Greek cultural influences rose steadily.[78] Greek coins began to circulate in the late 6th and early 5th centuries.[79] Greek traders established trading posts along the coast in the 6th century from which Greek ceramics, artworks, and other luxury items were imported.[80] These items were popular and no well-to-do Palestinian household would have lacked Greek pottery.[81] Local potters imitated the Greek merchandise, though the quality of their goods were inferior to the Greeks'.[82]"
And another extract notes: "In contrast to the Persians, who stayed out of the internal affairs of the conquered peoples,[118] the Greeks introduced Greek language, culture, customs, religion and architecture to the regions that they controlled - a process called hellenization ("greekification").[119] Hellenization was pervasive in Palestine; speaking Greek and adopting Greek customs conferred many benefits for the upper classes.[120] Hellenistic pottery absorbing Philistine traditions flourished.[121] Hellenization took root first in the densely settled coastal and lowland areas, and only really began to impinge on more backward areas such as Judea in the early 2nd century.[citation needed]
The Greeks also founded many Greek cities, known as poleis, whose residents were granted tax exemptions and other privileges. The poleis had Greek style governments, Greek institutions and temples for the worship of Greek gods.[122]"
The result of that process of Hellenisation was that the Jewish thought patterns of the Palestinians. gradually took on a Hellenistic overlay.
Have you made allowance for that process of Hellenisation in your thinking about Jesus?
Finally, here's a comment by Harold W. Attridge (The Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament-Yale Divinity School). Attridge is a leading scholar of Jewish and Greek literature in relation to the New Testament and early Christianity.
Quote: "How Hellenized was the Jewish religious culture of the time? Jewish culture and civilization during the Hellenistic period was in intense dialogue with Hellenistic culture and civilization, beginning with the translation of Hebrew scriptures into Greek, a translation which survives and which we know as the Septuagint. That's certainly an example of the way in which Greek literary forms and Greek language impacted Jewish civilization and literary traditions. That impact extends far beyond scripture, and we see during the Hellenistic period Jews adopting literary forms of the Greek tradition, and writing plays, epic poems, lyric poems, all in the Greek language. Much of this activity would have centered in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, but there was similar activity going on in Palestine, and some of these literary products that survive in some cases only in fragments, were probably written in Palestine, by Jews who were adopting these Hellenistic literary modes." - from an article for the American PBS web-site - https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/hellenisticculture.html
So, have you made allowance for that process of Hellenisation in your thinking about Jesus?