Posts by fulltimestudent

29

Gay advice from the Governing Body

by Listener in

according to them you are not gay if you are attracted to the same sex, it's just hormones and you might grow out of it.. i wonder what hormones in particular they are talking about and if they feel that a female who goes through menopause is in danger of turning gay or even if taking hormones will adjust your thinking?.

this is from the wt org website.

https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/family/teenagers/ask/pressure-to-be-gay/.

fulltimestudent

cofty : Genuine question - is it not true that same-sex attraction can be a phase for some young people?

Its difficult to be definitive on this issue. Part of the problem is the clouded definitions.

Is homosexuality based on actions or inclinations? For example, Kinsey's* famous work and his conclusions were seemingly all based on activity, rather than desire.

See: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html

That research led to a question, how do you classify a person who has sex with someone of the same sex once in their life, as against someone that does so every day? Hence the development of that scale. (Further consideration has led to more complex versions of the scale). And more, what classification should be used for a person who often wants to, but never can find the courage to do it?

A bi-sexual classification is another development (I think) of Kinsey's published work.

And, today - after centuries of bitter Christian church (and other religious) condemnation, which has certainly obscured the issues and even though most western countries have legalised same sex activity, discrimination and prejudice continues and obfuscates the answers to Cofty's question.

So its interesting to compare today's attitudes to periods in the past when same sex sexual activities were celebrated.

For example, ancient Greece (particularly, in terms of available information - Athens and Sparta). In both societies male to male romances were part of the social life of those cities, even though the participants were likely married.

See this recognised ancient history site, Livius: http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/greek-homosexuality/ )

But the era that may offer the best answer to Cofty's question is Edo era Japan (and East Asia more generally). Particularly, in the 17th and early 18th century, Japanese men can be seen as sliding easily between sex with women and sex with beautiful young men. I do not think it was purely a matter of effeminancy, as its also on record that young warriors were objects of desire on the part of older men.

Its an era in which I do a lot of research, (particularly for the interest of my gayxjw friend).

If you want to try and understand how a society can be radically different to our own (western) society may I suggest these books.

Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. 1995, Uni of California Press. The author is Professor Gary Leupp, who teaches history at Tufts University.

The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality. 1989, GMP Publishers. The authors are Tsuneo Watanabe and Junichi Iwata.

Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse-1600-1950. 2007, Uni of California Press. Author: Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Associate Professor, Department of History, Columbia University.

Sex and the Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan, 1700 -1820. 2009, Reaktion Books. The author is Timon Screech, Professor of the history of art at the School of Oriental and African Studies(SOAS), University of London.

And in particular, may I suggest this book, if you really want to understand a natural view of sex uncontaminated by the Christian church (The Japanese slaughtered nearly all their Christians in the 17th C.) It is a compilation of senryu, or short 'dirty' (in the western sense, but not the Japanese sense) verse.

The Woman Without a Hole & other Risky Themes from Old Japanese Poems, 2007, Paraverse Press - which is a self publishing title, The translator is Robin Gill, and an independent scholar. In this volume Gill considerably expands our understanding of Japanese sexuality, finding no clear line between hetero and homo - sexuality, so many of these short verses painting an image of a fashionable young crowd as likely having simultaneous desire for a young man and a woman. One may think this is bi-sexuality, but one of my lecturer's prefers the term, omni-sexual. I think its just a sense of, "I feel like sex tonight, whose around that attracts me?"

This doesn't really answer your question Cofty, but I hope it expands your thinking on the topic.

29

Gay advice from the Governing Body

by Listener in

according to them you are not gay if you are attracted to the same sex, it's just hormones and you might grow out of it.. i wonder what hormones in particular they are talking about and if they feel that a female who goes through menopause is in danger of turning gay or even if taking hormones will adjust your thinking?.

this is from the wt org website.

https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/family/teenagers/ask/pressure-to-be-gay/.

fulltimestudent

Bloody fools!

11

Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls-Do the Scrolls Help us Understand Early Christianity?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

i think most scholarship would agree with a positive answer to that question.

but let's take a look for oursselves.

geza vermes, in his excellent translation ( the complete dead sea scrolls in english-penguin.

fulltimestudent

TTWSYF : Do get the real feel of the early Christian Church you could [should] consult the church fathers and their writings. That is the real deal on what the early church was all about. It's important to remember that the bible followed the church [like 350 years later], the church didn't follow the bible [like it does for so many later Christian orgs]. Below is a copied/pasted article on a few early church fathers from Wikipedia. Notice that their writings are still preserved and available.
Sorry, no comment on the dead sea scrolls

I could not agree more, that to build an understanding of the early church we also need to consult the writings of the so-called 'fathers' of the church.

And, on that issue, may I recommend the Oxford University Press publication, "After the New Testament - A Reader in Early Christianity," edited by Bart D. Ehrman. It contains sample of the writings on 14 major topics of importance in understanding the development of the early church.

BTW, have you considered that use of the word 'development' implies that the church did not spring fully formed from the mind of Jesus.

Study of the Qumran scrolls, permits us to see (for the first time) a kind of parallel development of a Jewish sect that had many similarities to the Jesus sect. The scrolls allow some insight as to what topics were on the minds of fervent Jewish worshippers of YHWH.

For example, "The Didache," (literally, the teaching) understood to be the teachings of the 12 Apostles. It is if you like, the first "Church manual," or in a JW context, the first set of instructions to elders (or, whatever they now call it). Its background is that in the beginning (it seems) the recognised Apostles set the rules and made decisions on new issues. (quite a standard procedure in the development of most organisations- a central authority making up rules as they go along).

Here you will find much, that backgrounds both the conventional church and the JW variant. As an example, consider the instruction in Section 15, verse 3:

" Furthermore, do not reprove each other angrily, but quietly, as you find it in the gospel. Moreover, if anyone has wronged his neighbour, nobody must speak to him, and he must not hear a word from you, until he repents."

You'll appreciate that point as a hot-button issue for most ex-JWs. But we can see that it was likely a rule in the early church.

Was there anything similar in the form of Judaism in the first centuries BCE and CE?

Checking the Qumran scrolls we find:

"Whoever has murmered against the authority of the Community shall be expelled and shall not return." ( 1QS vii, 17).

It becomes clear as you read these scrolls that there was a complex network of rules governing offenses "against" the community (organisation).

5

Why Syrian Refugees are Fleeing Syria, The UK Independent looks at the city of Homs

by fulltimestudent in

homs was once syria's third largest city with a population of around one million-now its mostly deserted and this is what it looks like.

(a video taken by an enterprising russian photographer and posted on the uk independent's web page click to start).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/drone-footage-reveals-devastation-of-homs-in-syria-as-europes-stance-towards-refugees-hardens-a6849311.html.

fulltimestudent

If (for some reason) the video is inaccessible in your area, imagine a whole city looking like this image from the BBC:

Can't help wondering whether the city will be re-built.

5

Why Syrian Refugees are Fleeing Syria, The UK Independent looks at the city of Homs

by fulltimestudent in

homs was once syria's third largest city with a population of around one million-now its mostly deserted and this is what it looks like.

(a video taken by an enterprising russian photographer and posted on the uk independent's web page click to start).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/drone-footage-reveals-devastation-of-homs-in-syria-as-europes-stance-towards-refugees-hardens-a6849311.html.

fulltimestudent

Homs was once Syria's third largest city with a population of around one million-now its mostly deserted and this is what it looks like

(A video taken by an enterprising Russian photographer and posted on the UK Independent's web page click to start)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/drone-footage-reveals-devastation-of-homs-in-syria-as-europes-stance-towards-refugees-hardens-a6849311.html

21

Finding the value of God; Isn't it better to believe in a deity?

by Caupon in

jw
friends

the question as to what believing in this entity called god entails is a fairly important question that needs to be answered first.

to me, the key difference between a universe in which god exists versus one where god doesn't lies in the idea of teleology.

in my view, a universe with god entails some sort of process towards an end, an end which can be characterized with words such as bliss and unity and others.

fulltimestudent

caupon: I can't deny the sense of calm I've felt after praying, for example. The sense of calm in the idea of having someone guiding you towards a state of blissfulness.

Guided or not, many quite distinctly different 'spiritual ways' achieve that kind of feeling, including Buddhists who do not see "God" in any way similar to the way you may see "God."

11

Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls-Do the Scrolls Help us Understand Early Christianity?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

i think most scholarship would agree with a positive answer to that question.

but let's take a look for oursselves.

geza vermes, in his excellent translation ( the complete dead sea scrolls in english-penguin.

fulltimestudent

Mephis: Just a minor point really, but one thing which really stood out for me the first time I sat down to go through the work done on them was just how difficult the idea of 'a bible' is to pin down.

Mephis, I suggest that you point there is actually important. The concept of a sacred Bible has now been around for hundreds of years, and its hard not to view the past as not having a "Bible." But as you read about the Qumran community and the documents that gave their members their "rules' to live by, we don't really see a focus on a set of scriptures making up the Bible (OT) as we know it, we see as you posted:

" we see in the Dead Sea Scrolls is a group of texts which are passed down with few changes, often none."

And as you continued:

"But then everything else seems up for debate. It's not fixed. It's altered and amended and revised. They add new texts and new stories and new prophetic visions."

Its not an eternal truth, but its more like the WTS's "new light' - a continual revision as someone had a better idea than the last one.

Vermes' describes the scribes as having "creative freedom."

Quote: "redactor-copyists felt free to improve the composition which they were reproducing."

and

Quote: " The Dead Sea Scrolls have afforded for the first time direct insight into the creative literary-religious process at work within that variegated Judaism that flourished during the last two centuries of quasi-national independence before the catastrophe of 70CE."

What does it mean for us?

Simply that the above makes it very difficult to accept the NT writings as "inspired scripture." The DDS show us how Jewish worshippers tossed spiritual ideas around.

And we find similar thought processes at work in early Christianity as in the DDS. The age of the hoped for Jewish kingdom that Jesus thought he would lead is characterised by expectations based on texts such as Psalm 147, and Isaiah 61, with their predictions of divine intervention to first re-gather the dispersed Jews to their national homeland, to heal the broken hearted, relieving the meek (from the iron yoke of foreigners), to liberate the captives, heal the blinded and the wounded and to raise the dead.

The ancient prayer of Nabonidus, telling of Nabonidus' cure by a Jewish exorcist parallels the Capernaum healing of a paralysed man by Jesus, who did so by forgiving his sins.

Another DDS scroll, no, 4Q521, that some call "A Messianic Apocalypse," (and others have called, "the Resurrection fragment," lists healings and miracles as part of the messianic kingdom conditions. The script style dates this scroll to the beginning of the first century BCE and therefore it predates Matthew 11:4-5, (where Jesus tells John's disciples to tell John of his miracles). Here's a few extracts from this DDS document:

" ... the heavens and the earth will listen to his messiah and none will stray from the commandments of the holy ones..."
"... Over the poor His spirit will hover and renew the faithful with His power."
"... He who liberates the captives, restores sight to the blind, straightens the bent."
"... And the Lord will accomplish glorious things.... For He will heal the wounded, and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor."
"... the life-giver will raise the dead of His people."

The Jewish hopes of a national revival was the common foundation for the hopes of the Qumran community, the Essenes, Jesus and the early Christians.

Jesus, of course did not return (as promised in Luke 21 verses 27, 32) The Jewish hopes for a national revival and freedom from gentile domination failed when in 70 CE the temple, the traditional focus for Jewish worship was destroyed by the Romans, never to be re-built.

In contemporary times, the hopes of the American revivalists or the nineteen century, including both William Miller and Charlie Russell likewise failed.

1

Is this the Oldest (extant) Represention of the Virgin Mary? - Asks the NY Times.

by fulltimestudent in

michael peppard is an associate professor of theology at fordham university and the author, most recently, of “the world’s oldest church: bible, art, and ritual at dura-europos, syria.” in this ny times article he reviews what we understand about this image in a church in the roman outpost of dura-europos, .

peppard compares the image with others and concludes that the artist intended to portray mary.

the image was preserved by being buried in sand in the third century ce, in an attempt to strengthen the walls of the outpost against attack by the sasanians.. .

fulltimestudent

The detective work performed during Peppard's investigation gives an idea of the complexity in early Christian scholarship.

If YHWH or יֵשׁוּעַ intended to provide a guide to salvation, it has to be said that they were unable to inspire a clear guide. What we are left with is some documents that only tell part of the story and leave huge gaps as to what happened back there, and what precisely the 'truth' is that sets us free. The place that Mary occupies in the lives of so many Christians and the implacable oppostion to the idea by millions of other Christians demonstrates the confusion that YHWH left us with.

Likely more than 50% of modern day Christians venerate Mary in some way or the other and the historical and archaeological evidence indicates that the veneration was part of Christian began early in the church's history, so that by 431 at the Council of Ephesus the belief that Mary was the Mother of God was declared to be dogma.

The oldest known statement about Mary's honored position appears in a hymn dated to the third or fourth centuries (the 200s and 300s).

Beneath Thy Protection (Greek: Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν; Latin: Sub tuum præsidium) is the oldest preserved extant hymn to the Blessed Virgin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_tuum_praesidium

leading to the well-known belief of Catholic and Orthodox Christians that Mary can protect you. As in this portrayal

So while there does not seem to be any evidence that the Christian community at Dura-Europos venerated Mary in that way, the evidence points to a belief,by some (at least) at that time that Mary occupied a special place in their concept of salvation.

1

Is this the Oldest (extant) Represention of the Virgin Mary? - Asks the NY Times.

by fulltimestudent in

michael peppard is an associate professor of theology at fordham university and the author, most recently, of “the world’s oldest church: bible, art, and ritual at dura-europos, syria.” in this ny times article he reviews what we understand about this image in a church in the roman outpost of dura-europos, .

peppard compares the image with others and concludes that the artist intended to portray mary.

the image was preserved by being buried in sand in the third century ce, in an attempt to strengthen the walls of the outpost against attack by the sasanians.. .

fulltimestudent

Michael Peppard is an associate professor of theology at Fordham University and the author, most recently, of “The World’s Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria.” In this NY times article he reviews what we understand about this image in a Church in the Roman outpost of Dura-Europos,

Peppard compares the image with others and concludes that the artist intended to portray Mary. The image was preserved by being buried in sand in the third century CE, in an attempt to strengthen the walls of the outpost against attack by the Sasanians.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/31/opinion/sunday/is-this-the-oldest-image-of-the-virgin-mary.html?smid=fb-share

25

Has a 'Christian' ever murdered somebody?

by goddidit in

a jw made the claim "no christian [jw] has ever murdered anyone".. when i showed examples of such, the goalposts moved a bit with "was he a baptized, dedicated witness?".

can anyone provide examples of murders committed by "baptized, dedicated" jws?.

thanks.

fulltimestudent

The 'thought' behind the question is likely founded on the idea that once a 'Christian' commits a crime, he/she is no longer a Christian. (A JW branded Christian or any other brand of Christian), but the question becomes more complicated when we consider that a "Christian" theoretically is a transformed personality.

So if the person with the transformed personality commits a murder (an illegal, premeditated killing), what's happened to the transformed personality

Another thought on the question. Is there a difference between 'murder' and 'killing'?

I think everyone gets that difference. So since (in theological concepts) YHWH is the giver of life, he therefore has the right to take life. Many of us would not buy that idea, but its implicit in the stoning scenario of Deuteronomy 17 (and. I've heard elders explaining that a disfellowshipping is like that ), and also in the genocidal invasion of other people's homelands committed in the mythical Jewish invasion of the promised land. But since, YHWH has the right to take life, the stone throwers and the Jewish soldiers with swords killing babies are not murderers or killers, but executioners.

Semantics of course, but part of the reason I was disfellowshipped.