Posts by Half banana

233

What is BELIEF ?

by EdenOne in

stemming from the 'absentheism' thread, an old question came to my mind.

what exactly is "belief"?.

is it the same to ask: "do you believe in god?

Half banana

Belief is a necessary mental component of being human. It directs our personal responses to situations and directs our actions.

There are useful beliefs and there are harmful beliefs. The key to useful belief is that it is based on evidence.

Many people hold on to ideas they proudly claim are their religious beliefs. They invest their emotional attachment to these beliefs for existential comfort even though they are based on unprovable fictions such as claiming that the source of the beliefs are invisible spirits.

“Jesus loves me” is an unprovable belief, it is also an un-disprovable one and therefore one which cannot logically be built upon, philosophically it is therefore irrelevant.

Gravity, although invisible, has measurable properties which extend beyond the Earth, this is both provable and potentially disprovable which makes the belief a useful proposition from which further constructs can be made.

If something is believed to be beyond the five senses...why waste time on it? If you give your life to something which is not recognised by the five senses or cannot be measured; then you have wasted your life.

12

I'm confused about the Memorial? Great crowd?

by thedepressedsoul in

this was my first memorial thinking outside of the box.

last year i was starting to have questions but this is the first year i noticed a lot of bs.

can anyone clarify a few things for me?.

Half banana

It must be worthwhile understanding how these things relating to the rituals of the spring equinox are all of pagan origin. By pagan is meant that of the villagers, from the peasant culture as opposed to those who saw themselves educated and above the common herd.

Jewish paganism was apparent in the sacrifice of the lamb. It was the spring celebration for the sheep and goat pastoralists for the purpose of warding off evil by ritually killing and eating the young animal. The matzo element (pronounced motza by Jews who I have heard) comes from the spring celebration of the arable farmers of early Israel who gratefully celebrated the early barley harvest with the unleavened flat-bread.

The whole idea of these rituals taking place at the equinox was because the time was considered to be the moment when the Sun God annually sacrificed his life and returned to his solar father which rustic myth explained in the greatly increased sunlight at this time in the northern hemisphere.

The symbols of bread and wine had been in common use in the popular Mithraic cult which had been favoured by the Romans although coming from Persia and with Indian influences. The Mithraic symbols were almost exactly the same as Jesus Christianity adopted, bread (or cakes) and wine, symbolic of the saviour Mithras’ body and blood, partaken once a year in remembrance. These origins ultimately are drawn from cannibalistic ritual. Catholic Christianity borrowed wholesale from Mithraism and to such an extent that they rendered the latter religion deflated and in terminal decline.

I suggest that to quote what Jesus is supposed to have said as ‘gospel’ is a mistaken authority. His words were never recorded; they are the writings of the cult protagonists whose words were sanctified by the inclusion into the first Bible made by the Roman Catholic selection of texts in the fourth century. As exemplified by the Catholic Church back then, triumphant in crystallising and syncretising the Christ-cult on their own terms and in favour of Roman imperialism; the truth of any religious matter is a distant second to political control over the worshippers. A lesson well understood by the GB.

The rituals are now so irrelevant to the point of being obsolete except for those who take this hocus-pocus literally.

33

This Year's Memorial

by TD in

jw
friends

perhaps i'm just getting older and crankier, but it really seems to me that the jw faith is deteriorating at an accelerated rate.. case in point: this year's memorial talk.

it was one of the most incoherent messes i've ever heard.

(and i've heard a lot of memorial talks over the last 50 years....).

Half banana

I agree fukitol.

TD, I find your post quite uplifting. The memorial for JWs has always been a hollow and meaningless experience. Eating people and drinking their blood does not press buttons for most people these days.

Especially now when the concept of heavenly life seems remote for most in the Borg and those who wish to take the Bible literally are confused by the apparent command to partake of the symbols. I think it’s evidence of what we might call an identity crisis going on both within the WTBTS administration and for the literalists within the org.

Let’s hope the GB spend more and more time looking at the moon whilst the membership quietly slip out the back door.

23

A Subtle Factor That Keeps Witnesses Silenced

by freemindfade in

had an interesting thought this morning.

when a witness is 'in' they think everyone else is following and trying there best all in unity.

i believe the reality is there are a lot of us 'in' who know different.

Half banana

FMF, I have to be controversial, it is of course true there are a great crowd (to borrow a phrase) of JWs who are non believers. But what evidence is there that HQ are aware? They have always droned on about the spiritually weak, is there a significant change now?

I feel the GB members are earnest in their delusions, I think they would be horrified to know the reality. The response to finding this out would be a big witch hunt to denounce and chastise the “dead wood” within their ranks. If we see such in the WT then we’ll know they have learned.

One of my closest friends is outwardly a JW, but hates the religion, it sickens him, and he feels he has wasted his life in the cult but remains for the sake of family peace.

So I have asked him about others in his situation and he knows others in the same boat but here’s the problem: to speak to others is to cross a line and open the can of worms which leads to disfellowshipping, which would be worse than the status quo.

I would be very interested if there are other non-believing JWs who can openly speak to fellow non-believers or doubters in their own or other congregations. If they can do so, it would be possible to develop an underground network leading to a rebellion and mass exodus that could be the beginning of the end of the organisation.

10

The art of being "Self referential" JW style....

by stuckinarut2 in

have you noticed how everything from the gb or witnesses in general is "self referential"?.

by this i mean that they adopt the method of using their own quotes, facts, statistics, teachings, events etc....to "prove" the new points made!.

so for example, a teaching point or doctrinal reference is brought out, and in order to "prove" it, the gb will use their own self referential past points to back it up!.

Half banana

@oubliette, yes “evidently” is the signature Watchtower weasel word used by Russell, Rutherford and Fred Franz. When put in conjunction with the “overlapping generation” doctrine as you have recorded, it is truly stretched beyond all reason. Categorically and specifically it is absolutely NOT evident that the text meant "overlapping".

10

The art of being "Self referential" JW style....

by stuckinarut2 in

have you noticed how everything from the gb or witnesses in general is "self referential"?.

by this i mean that they adopt the method of using their own quotes, facts, statistics, teachings, events etc....to "prove" the new points made!.

so for example, a teaching point or doctrinal reference is brought out, and in order to "prove" it, the gb will use their own self referential past points to back it up!.

Half banana

Ah but you gotta remember they are demi-gods now, self appointed no less... so demi-gods can quote themselves...

19

Bible Group in Boston

by Agape.Love in

jw
friends

happy easter!

my husband and i who are former jws are starting a new bible discussion group on sundays @1pm, south of boston.

we will begin the group on sunday may 3rd.

Half banana

Agape.love, although you rightly say some people don’t believe in Jesus. (I don’t feel in need of being saved from anything) I have good evidence that I am going to die and as yet nobody has found a practical working cure for death. Therefore Jesus has no significant meaning for me.

On the other matter, one can hardly ignore the Bible since it is the most influential and widely printed books in the world. It is fascinating as a testament to human aspiration, a paradigm of religious propaganda, a mine of pointed psychological situations and also a literary masterpiece; polished and refined to the point where its origins are completely lost by surface reading of the contents.

So I genuinely wish your study group well but suggest the caveat of “surface” reading.

19

Bible Group in Boston

by Agape.Love in

jw
friends

happy easter!

my husband and i who are former jws are starting a new bible discussion group on sundays @1pm, south of boston.

we will begin the group on sunday may 3rd.

Half banana

oops dubblepost

19

Bible Group in Boston

by Agape.Love in

jw
friends

happy easter!

my husband and i who are former jws are starting a new bible discussion group on sundays @1pm, south of boston.

we will begin the group on sunday may 3rd.

Half banana

Agape, if you want to study the Bible texts, unlike the Watchtower you must think about why the particular piece was written, who wrote it, where, when and for what purpose? Just one example:

Why was the early Christ sect discussing the problems of feeding the followers from which later readers interpret a faithful and discreet slave as being a ”class” by divine appointment? By looking at what religions did at that time it is found that they supplied meals for the members, who would contribute money for the common pool if they could, to fund such activities. The presbyteroi (elders) who might have collected the money and given it to the episcopoi (bishops) would have been troubled by those who just came for a free lunch... and the church then was predominantly for the poor. The poor, being canny, would go to any and every cult providing meals so the episcopoi would have asked the rhetorical question “Who is the faithful and discreet slave which his master gave over all his belongings” to get the attendees to imagine that the poser of the question belonged to the ones chosen by God. Cult loyalty was everything.

The Greek scriptures are about the struggles of the Pauline-Jesus religion jockeying for market dominance. They have no prophetic meaning at all but the language and talk is “cultic” and apocalyptic which is why the WTBTS still use that old discussion to further their own influence and membership numbers today.

Most of the Bible is borrowed from paganism... around eighty three per cent is neither original text nor original story. Jesus is not original. The story of a fictional character exactly fulfilling the role ascribed to Jesus began many centuries if not millennia before the start of our calendar.

One of the best ways to determine historical truth is to see what people were doing, saying and believing at the time period in question, the science of this aspect of history is sociology.

Someone who took this (sociological) viewpoint and the end of the nineteenth century was JM Robertson and one of his books which should be read by all Bible students is A Short History of Christianity. Another relevant book, of which there are many titles on the same theme is Christianity Before Christ by John G Jackson (ISBN: 9870910309202) AAPress.

I wish you well with your Bible studies.

13

The "great crowd" before 1935 and since

by Doug Mason in

jw
friends

what was the seismic shift in thinking that rutherford required when he created the great multitude in 1935?

when did the great multitude, or the great crowd as it is now known, become jehovahs witnesses?.

http://www.jwstudies.com/the_great_crowd_before_1935_and_since.pdf.

Half banana

Thank you Doug for trawling through the archives for our benefit.

Doesn’t the record of Watchtower doctrine expose the ad hoc decisions they have constantly made to assert whatever is most convenient at the time. Each change of belief is based on what GB members had wrongly assumed to be plausible perhaps only a year or two previously. They are not dealing with divine truth...far from it; they are dealing with the flimsy whims of the imagination but claiming it to be from God.

A good example of this is the notion that “the great multitude” were not Jehovah’s Witnesses, only the “anointed” were...until 1948! The Watchtower only speaks garbage, none of their pontifications are true and testable.

How can any edifice (and especially a tower) be built on shifting sands...?