Posts by fulltimestudent

71

Living with Islam

by fulltimestudent in

indonesia is a large nation to the north of australia.

more than 250 million people live there, and around 204 million (88%) are muslim.

the indonesian armed forces have nearly a million personnel, either as active servicemen or reservists.. australia, with a population of 23 million, and an armed forces of 80,000 (active and reservist), has no choice but to live in co-operation with indonesia, though the relationship is sometimes strained.

fulltimestudent

cappytan: Islam needs to die. It has no place in modern society.

OK! But if that is accepted as the guiding principle, how do you separate the thought (which needs a mind) from the people?

Contemporary Syria illustrates the problem - some fighting for 'their' way, while more (than those fighting) giving up after many years of fighting and fleeing. It is likely that neither group is giving up on their religion.

And that was my thought in the first few posts. There are Muslim extremists in Indonesia. Australians have died through their actions. Some of these extremists have been executed by the Indonesian government (composed mainly of fellow Muslims). Indonesia is a long way from Arab lands where Muslims consider they are the purest form of Islam.

Let's pose a question, would most Indonesian Muslims be sympathetic to the extreme Muslim thought of Wahhabism? I don't know the answer, but suspect that many are not.

Wahhabism is centred in Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil, so it gets handled with kid gloves (not boxing gloves) by the western Hegemon.

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freemindfade: I do believe all religions are BS

I agree (you may have noticed) but billions do not. But adherents belong to one of two groups (to generalise). They are either active or passive. You can see that divide clearly in most JW congregations. In my 40 year experience, I noted that at least 50% are passive - they hardly understand the JW dogma, and have trouble explaining it, etc. (that can still be noticed on this site) but they have accepted key behaviours as important to their lives, and resist attempts to change their thought pattern. And that's the key to an answer for the problem, but it is very difficult to do.

freemindfade: I don't believe all religions are created equal.

I guess you meant, "have equal rights." And all true believers agree with you. Their own version of "truth" has all the rights, and the others have none. To deal with that problem the modern concept of "nation-states" assumes that no one religion can occupy, all the sacred space (grin). They must make room for all the others that have a presence there. Of course, the majority unit is reluctant to do that, as you may have noted in the history of both Jws and Islam.

freemindfade: I won't stick up for anyone's religion, I wouldn't do it for JWS, I wont for Islam. I will only be honest about the results of each.

The best course. If there is a way through this present impasse, we need to be honest, calm and clear-sighted about it.

The current western hegemon has attempted to use radical Islam to achieve its own political goals. In one assessment, the contemporary rise of activist, extreme, radical Islam was let loose when the hegemon saw an opportunity to 'get at' their cold war enemy in Afghanistan, by promoting Muslim hatred for 'atheism' and arming the Afghani mujahideen, which led eventually to the rise of the Taliban, which led to ..... all the rest of the problem.

2

The power of magical thinking: Why superstitions are hard to shake

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

like me, you probably also believed that miracles were possible.

but even when we became enlightened, it was likely difficult to shake off that belief that logically impossible things have happened.. a report in science daily, based on research at the chicago discusses this irrational tendency.. the power of magical thinking: why superstitions are hard to shakedate:november 9, 2015source:university of chicago booth school of businesswhen sports fans wear their lucky shirts on game day, they know it is irrational to think clothing can influence a team's performance.

but they do it anyway.even smart, educated, emotionally stable adults believe in superstitions that they recognize are unreasonable.. in a paper from the university of chicago booth school of business, to be published in an upcoming issue ofpsychological review, associate professor jane risen finds that even when people recognize that their belief does not make sense, they can still allow that irrational belief to influence how they think, feel and behave.. in "believing what we don't believe: acquiescence to superstitious beliefs and other powerful intuitions," risen contends that detecting an irrational thought and correcting that error are two separate processes, not one as most dual-system cognitive models assume.

fulltimestudent

Like me, you probably also believed that miracles were possible. But even when we became enlightened, it was likely difficult to shake off that belief that logically impossible things have happened.

A report in Science Daily, based on research at the Chicago discusses this irrational tendency.

The power of magical thinking: Why superstitions are hard to shake
Date:
November 9, 2015
Source:
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
When sports fans wear their lucky shirts on game day, they know it is irrational to think clothing can influence a team's performance. But they do it anyway.
Even smart, educated, emotionally stable adults believe in superstitions that they recognize are unreasonable.

In a paper from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, to be published in an upcoming issue ofPsychological Review, Associate Professor Jane Risen finds that even when people recognize that their belief does not make sense, they can still allow that irrational belief to influence how they think, feel and behave.

In "Believing What We Don't Believe: Acquiescence to Superstitious Beliefs and Other Powerful Intuitions," Risen contends that detecting an irrational thought and correcting that error are two separate processes, not one as most dual-system cognitive models assume. This insight explains how people can detect irrational thought and choose not to correct it, a process she describes as "acquiescence."
"Even when the conditions are all perfect for detecting an error -- when people have the ability and motivation to be rational and when the context draws attention to the error -- the magical intuition may still prevail," said Risen.
Although the suggestion to decouple detection and correction was inspired by the findings from research on superstition and magical thinking, Risen suggests there are broader applications. Understanding how acquiescence unfolds in magical thinking can help provide insight into how it is that people knowingly behave irrationally in many other areas of life.
Certain variables create situations in which intuition is likely to override rational thought. For example, people may acquiesce if they can rationalize their intuition by thinking that a particular situation is special. Acquiescence may also be more likely if the costs of ignoring rationality are low relative to the costs of ignoring intuition -- as with people who receive a chain letter; they acknowledge it is irrational to believe that breaking the chain brings bad luck, but still forward the letter.
The research has implications for how people make decisions at home, at work and in public life. It also suggests how to help people fix their errors. Interventions to effectively change behavior need to target the appropriate cognitive process, which Risen suggests starts by acknowledging that detection and correction are separate processes.

Reference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151109160450.htm

71

Living with Islam

by fulltimestudent in

indonesia is a large nation to the north of australia.

more than 250 million people live there, and around 204 million (88%) are muslim.

the indonesian armed forces have nearly a million personnel, either as active servicemen or reservists.. australia, with a population of 23 million, and an armed forces of 80,000 (active and reservist), has no choice but to live in co-operation with indonesia, though the relationship is sometimes strained.

fulltimestudent

Simon: Where have you read those? Or are you taking people's valid criticism of bad practices by some Muslims as applying to all?
Like claiming that all Chinese are bad if some children are abused working in factories.
Can we criticize mistreatment of Chinese children? Why not Muslim girls and women?

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

I started thinking about this problem late last week. This was the incident that made me think.

A family group of Indonesians tourists were walking in the city. An apparently Australian woman walks past the group and spits (very deliberately) on the ground in front of them. The Indonesians exchange a few words with each other and walk calmly on. Quite a few people noticed, but only a Chinese guy spoke up. He said to the woman, 'What did you do that for? They didn't harm you, did they?' The woman didn't have the guts to own up to her attitude, and claimed she just happened to spit at that particular moment. I caught up to the Chinese guy and asked why he bothered to speak up. He explained he came from Singapore, that there were a lot of Muslims there (16% actually) and that there were very strict laws about abusing anybody, and he felt that what the woman did was wrong.

It so happened that a few days before that, the new Australian PM had been in Indonesia. The President took him to visit a local market (and, I acknowledge it could've been carefully planned), and here's a pik of them both being greeted by Indonesians in the market :

Market day: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (right) and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull greet people at Tanah Abang Market in Central Jakarta on Thursday. Jokowi took Turnbull to the market to show him the largest textile center in Southeast Asia and demonstrate the close ties between the two countries. (Antara/Muhammad Adimaja)

Here's the caption from the Jakarta Post: Market day: President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (right) and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull greet people at Tanah Abang Market in Central Jakarta on Thursday. Jokowi took Turnbull to the market to show him the largest textile center in Southeast Asia and demonstrate the close ties between the two countries. (Antara/Muhammad Adimaja) -

( See more at: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/12/jokowi-takes-australian-pm-tanah-abang-display-affection.html#sthash.DdNXL9rO.dpuf )

The Australian woman (mentioned above) is certainly not typical of Australians, Indonesia is a favourite holiday destination of Australians (although, I will agree many Aussies behave badly and that some Indonesians are also badly behaved - not talking about religious behaviour) and albeit that Bali, the most popular holiday resort, is far more Hindu than Muslim.

Also, there are some extremist Indonesians that have committed atrocities. Here's a list complied by someone on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_Indonesia

The worst attack, on a nightclub in Bali killed 88 Australians and over 100 Indonesians. Three of the convicted terrorists responsible were sentenced to death.

No-one wants to die (unless your basic instincts are perverted by religious dogma).**

As humans we have to find a way through this difficult time. I'm not pretending that I know a way to do that. I don't! But I also think that (and this answers part of Simon's question to me) talking and some respect is likely to achieve more toward the changes that are needed. Nor am I suggesting that the west is without fault. Does anyone recall the war that France waged against Algerians seeking Independence from France in the period roughly 1954-1962? Lots of Algerians were terrorised. Did that matter?

And another past experience. It occurred after WW1 when Britain and France took over Mesopotamia (now called Iraq) and Syria respectively. The Brits were after cheap oil, the locals wanted to be an Independent state.

The 1920s British air bombing campaign in Iraq
By Marek PruszewiczBBC News - 7 October 2014"An uprising in Iraq in May 1920 united Sunni and Shia briefly against the British. It was put down, but required the deployment of more than 100,000 British and Indian troops. Thousands of Arabs were killed. Hundreds of British and Indian soldiers died. The military campaign cost Britain tens of millions of pounds - money it could not afford after the Great War. ... A new way of controlling Iraq was needed, and the man who needed it most was Winston Churchill. As war secretary in Lloyd George's coalition government, Churchill had to square huge military budget cuts with British determination to maintain a grip on its mandate in Iraq.The result became known as "aerial policing". It was a policy Churchill had first mused on in the House of Commons in March 1920, before the Iraqi uprising had even begun. ...
... More than 90 years after the RAF's first bombing campaign in Iraq, and 70 years since it flattened German cities in World War Two, does the legacy of "aerial policing" still persist? For some modern historians the answer is an unequivocal yes. They see the US strategy in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan as the direct descendant of that original British campaign."
reference: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29441383

So if you need to ask who started this? Its not hard to find an answer. How pertinent is the past to the present? Whatever conclusion people come to may affect how long this problem persists.

** I never had to face the blood issue personally or for my family. But I would've found it hard to accept death when there was a cure. I mention that as a reminder that we have all belonged to a fanatical religious group, at least in principle).

71

Living with Islam

by fulltimestudent in

indonesia is a large nation to the north of australia.

more than 250 million people live there, and around 204 million (88%) are muslim.

the indonesian armed forces have nearly a million personnel, either as active servicemen or reservists.. australia, with a population of 23 million, and an armed forces of 80,000 (active and reservist), has no choice but to live in co-operation with indonesia, though the relationship is sometimes strained.

fulltimestudent

Indonesia is 11th in importance in terms of Australia's International trade and presents many opportunities to Australian companies who wish to take advantage of favourable agreements that have been made between the two countries. At present, the terms of trade are in Indonesia's favouras this video explains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjO287J76zg

But to take advantage of the trade opportunities there has to be some sort of rapport between the two nations, so that's an area that is impacted by any negative attitudes to Islam. So when I read comments that all Muslim's are bad, I wonder what suggestions that type of person may have for handling an international relationship like that of Australia-Indonesia?

15

Just read "Zealot - The Life And Times Of Jesus Of Nazareth"

by EdenOne in

so, keeping in mind that mrs. eden isn't so comfortable with english, i have been searching for books on the subject of the historical jesus and who wrote the bible, and i got very frustrated because there's not a lot of those in my native language.

most of what i read in english simply hasn't been translated, which is a shame.

in any case, i managed to get two: bart ehrman's "misquoting jesus" and reza aslan's "zealot".

fulltimestudent

EdenOne: Finally, one of my favorites. It's a scholarly article (Book? Thesis?) about how the first Christian gatherings.I have found it a fascinating reading. I found it very useful when I had to research for an article I wrote about shunning.
THE EARLIEST HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN GATHERING - ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT AND CONTENT OF THE CHRISTIAN GATHERING IN THE FIRST TO THIRD CENTURIES
by Valeriy Alexandrovich Alikin

Thnx for posting this item. Looks interesting, and I'm pleased to have it, although other scholars have published studies examining the many similarities between Graeco-Roman social fellowships and Christian gatherings.

The paper appears to be Alikin's dissertation for his Ph.d.

The book may be an expanded version of the dissertation, havn't had time to check that. A partial version of Alikin's book can be found on google books: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=dBuzG2enXxMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

71

Living with Islam

by fulltimestudent in

indonesia is a large nation to the north of australia.

more than 250 million people live there, and around 204 million (88%) are muslim.

the indonesian armed forces have nearly a million personnel, either as active servicemen or reservists.. australia, with a population of 23 million, and an armed forces of 80,000 (active and reservist), has no choice but to live in co-operation with indonesia, though the relationship is sometimes strained.

fulltimestudent

Indonesia is a large nation to the North of Australia. More than 250 million people live there, and around 204 million (88%) are Muslim. The Indonesian armed forces have nearly a million personnel, either as active servicemen or reservists.

Australia, with a population of 23 million, and an armed forces of 80,000 (active and reservist), has no choice but to live in co-operation with Indonesia, though the relationship is sometimes strained. Most recently, because Indonesia insisted on executing two Australian citizens convicted (without doubt) of drug smuggling. The transit of refugees through Indonesia has also been an issue. On the other hand, many Indonesians recall Australia's (sort of) support during their struggle against a tyrannical Dutch military effort to regain control of their empire after the Japanese occupation in WW2. The Dutch launched a major offensive against Indonesian freedom fighters in July, 1947 and in support militant Australian wharfies banned Dutch vessels and vessels taking munitions and equipment to Indonesia.

15

Just read "Zealot - The Life And Times Of Jesus Of Nazareth"

by EdenOne in

so, keeping in mind that mrs. eden isn't so comfortable with english, i have been searching for books on the subject of the historical jesus and who wrote the bible, and i got very frustrated because there's not a lot of those in my native language.

most of what i read in english simply hasn't been translated, which is a shame.

in any case, i managed to get two: bart ehrman's "misquoting jesus" and reza aslan's "zealot".

fulltimestudent

EdenOne: I recommend it, but as I said, it keeps things on a relatively accessible level, but for more in-depth research, there are better works. Have you read it?

I have not read it, although I understand the general position that Ehrman takes. Of course, there may be better books, but I think that Ehrman may have written for a wider audience. A really scholarly analysis of any topic will likely lose most readers who are not part of the academic community. (And some books-papers may even lose the academic community - grin).

There's a really intriguing book named, The Imperial Cult and the Development of Church Order: Concepts and Images of Authority in Paganism and Early Christianity before the Age of Cyprian, by an Allen Brent, in which Brent argues that the way that early Christianity was organised, was as a response to the Imperial Cult, (Emperor worship). But having tried to read it, I suggest that most people wont go past a few pages.

Brent btw is an excellent scholar. His wikipedia entry reads:

The Rev. Prof. Allen Brent is a scholar of early Christian history and literature. He is a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, formerly Dean (2012-2013), was an Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge in 1998-2010. At present he is Professor in Early Christian History and Iconography at King's College London where he is joint researcher (with Professor Markus Vinzent), on a two year BARDA project: Early Christian Epigraphy and Iconography after Dölger. He is also Professore Invitato at the Augustinianum (Lateran University), Rome. He was formerly Principal Lecturer in Philosophy at University of Huddersfield, and has previously been Professor of History at James Cook University. He was ordained a deacon for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on 28 April 2011 and a priest on 15 June 2011. His webpage ishttp://www.allenbrent.co.uk.

All of which doesn't make him correct, but does demonstrate that he may know a little more about Christian history than the average elder, and, I think there's a possibility that he's correct in some of his ideas.

Certainly, the organised church that Constantine accepted as an alternative to the Imperial Cult, fitted easily into the slot previously occupied by the Imperial cult.

A more readable book, in which Brent presents some of his arguments, and that may interest readers on this site, is: "A Political History of Early Christianity."

An editorial review quoted by Amazon describes the book:

'Allen Brent is one of the boldest and most seminal historians currently writing about Christianity in the ancient world. In his works on Hippolytus and Ignatius, he has already displayed his magisterial learning and his ability to shed new light on the history of ideas by the investigation of social and cultural backgrounds. If he is not one to be carried away on a bandwagon, he is also not one to neglect a theory merely because it is difficult or because it has become dangerously fashionable in other disciplines. His aim in the present book is to examine the relation between metaphysical theories and their political contexts, with a broad remit in the interpretation of the terms "metaphysical" and "political". The introduction promises an astute engagement with such figures as sociologist Peter Berger, intellectual historian Quentin Skinner and the virtuoso of the social sciences, Max Weber. In his opening chapter he plunges dauntlessly into the thickets of New Testament scholarship, doing ample justice to the arguments of those who deny an eschatological character to the original preaching of Jesus, but showing at the same time that their attempts to cast Jesus as an ascetic teacher for the present world exaggerates the significance of non-canonical texts and is patently motivated by contemporary interests. The writing is characteristically lucid, the scholarship impeccable, the argument brisk but incisive; if this chapter is an augury of the rest, we can expect another distinguished addition to a corpus of scholarship that is already impressive.' — Mark Edwards, Christ Church, Oxford, UK.

52

1914—The Turning Point in History - Really?

by berrygerry in

1914the turning point in history.

30 from the human standpoint, the world troubles and global wars foretold in the bible were far from the thinking of the pre-1914 world.

german statesman konrad adenauer said: thoughts and pictures come to my mind, .

fulltimestudent

Lieu: As for WWI, it may have been a terrible war in modern times, but it isn't the worst war or even the first worldwide war. It was nothing but another war between Europeans.

True, The Jws continually try to paint WW1 as the worst in history, and certainly a terrible time. But as Lieu says, it was essentially a European war, and was only extended to the rest of the world through the imperial colonies held by the protagonists. Even WW2 is misnamed, though it is more deserving of the tag, world wide war, than WW1.

The wikipedia gives a total for deaths as

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was over 38 million: over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.

Though some give a higher number.

For sheer bloody butchery though, its hard to go past the mid-nineteenth century civil war that raged for something like a decade within China, as the Christian Taiping attempted to defeat the ruling Qing dynasty. A recent Chinese study places the death toll as fifty seven million.

A Muslim revolt occurred at the same time, and I'm unsure whether the above figure includes the death toll from that war in the southern (Yunnan) and western (Xinjiang and Gansu) provinces. If they are NOT included the death toll must be around 65 million.

4

Galillee, heartland of paganism in Palestine

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

my thread title is somewhat tongue in cheek, because we all know that galilee is where jesus family lived and where he started his ministry.. but, the little village of nazareth, where father joseph started his carpentery business and his sons continued the business, was only about 6km from sepphoris.

its conjectured by some that the family business was not very prosperous, being dependent on rural work when, joseph started it.

nazareth was a typical rural village, houses constructed from mud and brick, with maybe a few constructed from stone.

fulltimestudent

Precious posting: Was this the source of family wealth that allowed Jesus time to read, to wander the country side preaching, and for James to become President of the later Jerusalem Christian congregation and family members to continue in that position after his death? We can only make some assumptions.

Let's have a closer look at the family Jesus belonged to. I'm sure everyone's read Mark 6:3, but just in case anyone has already forgotten the verse, it reads:

Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. (NIV).

The New Living Translation translates it somewhat differently (not sure about the scholarly basis for their selection of words):

Then they scoffed, "He's just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us." They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.

But we get the drift, after Jesus got up and preached in the Nazareth Synagogue, everyone was surprised (to say the least). They had known him as a carpenter, and they knew his brothers. And, it's possible that the family accept some of the husbands of the daughters into the business. Likely with all working together in the family business, and with their proximity to Sepphoris, they did well, and they all became prosperous.

We can also wonder about the role that Jesus had in the business? It seems he had a charismatic personality, so maybe he was something like the sales manager in a contemporary business, handy with words and carpentery tools, we see from his parables that he knew, and was on familiar terms with farm owners and managers, the middle class people employed by the wealthy to manage their investments.

In the beginning, outside of Mary, it seems that no-one else in the family believed he had a divine mission and it certainly is not clear when any of his brothers began to believe. But it is also clear that James and Jude did, and according to the church historians Eusebius and Epiphanius, that James and also Simon (Simeon) were the first two 'bishops' of the Jerusalem congregation. There's other evidence that Jude's grandsons played a role in the church during the end of the first century CE, that was back in Galilee, after all Jews were driven out of Jerusalem by the Romans. So in some ways, it seems, the early church was dominated by the family of Jesus.

We ought to be asking what their influence was? To what extent did they influence doctrine? And to what extent were they influenced by Jewish-Hellenistic culture? Some scholarship argues that more than 20% (conservatively) of the population spoke Greek in public. There were even schools in Jerusalem that trained Jewish teachers in Greco-Roman rhetoric. Its also estimated that between 125,000 and 500,000 pilgrims from outside Palestine would visit Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals. (Refer Acts 2:5-11) Greek was the common language used by nearly all.

3

Holiday time (at least in the southern hemisphere)- Here's a suggestion. Northern Sri Lanka

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

not many years ago, this visit may have been dangerous.

but now that the civil war is over, even if the tamils lost their fight for independence, its safe to visit:.

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/asia/sri-lanka-by-train-the-formerly-war-torn-north-is-rebuilding-a6736001.html.

fulltimestudent

Simon: Why are so many of the interesting places in the world in the middle of war zones?

Easy question. Because, so many of these 'nations' are artificial, in the sense that they were likely comprised of different political entities that were conquered by Imperial military forces and administered by colonial powers who used ethnic suspicions to control two or more different ethnic groups.

But you could think of Europe in the 19th and the first half of the 20th C in a similar way. Almost continual wars.

In the case of Sri Lanka, I suggest its quite safe. And, it is beautiful>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZI2oGPsio