Posts by Half banana

9

The Borg and the bible, don't eat blood! Jesus, eat my blood! WTF?

by Crazyguy in

your thoughts , and is in it interesting how much jesus teachings seem to contradict the jewish god jehovah.

.

Half banana

Jesus Christianity to get off the ground, apart from Judaism it had to please lots of people holding diverse beliefs. To gain ascendency it had to encompass among other cults, the Roman favourite Mithras.

In Mithraism the blood of the Savior, the Great Shepherd, was commemorated by an annual ritual of partaking of symbolic bread (or cakes) and wine well before christianity adopted it. The symbolism of blood to the Romans was cleansing and strength and at the initiation ceremony the novice was placed under a grill in the dark Mithraeum (subterranean windowless church) and the hot blood from a dying sacrificial bull rained down on him some of which he was obliged to drink as it fell.

Inscribed in the Mithraic temple which occupies the catacombs under the Vatican today is the pre-Christian text, "Whosoever does not drink of my body and eat of my flesh, the same will not be with me in paradise".

So I agree with you Crazyguy that for the sake of harmonisation of the Jewish religion with its monotheism and blood prohibition, and the other competing cults, the early Jesus movement had to make many compromises. It is most interesting to see how the two divergent views on blood were accommodated. The Jew would still be offended by drinking blood but the Roman would accept the idea from familiarity.

Paul did a sterling job in the letter to the Hebrews to rationalise the different strands of dogma.

Without the Jesus myth and Constantine's mother Helena having adopted the cult, the dominant Roman religion would probably have ended up in a Dionysian mould...but this cult too had to be absorbed for Jesus Christianity to become the catholic or universal faith, Dionysus contributing the expression "The true vine", he turned water into wine at a wedding feast, was born a virgin son of God and was crucified for the sake of sinful mankind. Makes you think!

8

Lurking JWs, if you're to love Jesus more than family, does it make sense to withhold family to coerce persons to return to Jesus?

by Island Man in

jesus said that his true disciples would love him more than family.

(matthew 10:37) therefore, ex-jws worthy of reinstatement should be returning because they love jesus more than family - not because of wanting to restore family association.

if they truly love jesus more than family they would still return despite their family continuing to communicate with them, because they will value their relationship with jesus as a prize to be attained above and beyond their relationship with their family.

Half banana

Darth F, in the real world as opposed to a hospital for the severely troubled, what person is it who demands that his audience should place him; the speaker, as being of more importance than members of their own family?

Jesus and his sayings are a scam. I appreciate this is incendiary but it is time people made a proper examination of why early Christian propaganda was written down in the first place and made sacred. I'm saying this so as not to be beguiled by the positive and attractive teachings found in the Bible.

Step further back and see the powerplay at work.

18

sorry to bother just saying hello

by Lostsoul123 in

hi.

Half banana

Hello Lostsoul, good of you to drop in...hope to hear your story soon!

8

Lurking JWs, if you're to love Jesus more than family, does it make sense to withhold family to coerce persons to return to Jesus?

by Island Man in

jesus said that his true disciples would love him more than family.

(matthew 10:37) therefore, ex-jws worthy of reinstatement should be returning because they love jesus more than family - not because of wanting to restore family association.

if they truly love jesus more than family they would still return despite their family continuing to communicate with them, because they will value their relationship with jesus as a prize to be attained above and beyond their relationship with their family.

Half banana

Ok, I always take a step backwards to look at a situation but really who has the right to demand the hideous words Jesus is supposed to have said at Mat.10;37?

Islandman, you have put your finger on a matter which demonstrates the irrational demands and cultic nature of the Christian religion which expose the original methods of control and conformity which are further exploited by JWs today.

Who, tell me, in good faith demand that you devote your life to an individual other than from your family and place their interests above your needs and those of your family?

What man could demand this?

Only a cult leader talks about "true disciples". Only cults use shunning as an instrument for punishing the not so zealous for the sake of avoiding religious contamination.

The words put into Jesus’ mouth in the scriptures are nothing less than the desperate ravings of a religious fanatic seeking total control.

So in answer to your question are JWs using family association to lure back the erring individual? Indeed they are using the warmth and strength of family above the love of Jesus... the very thing he said not to do.

24

Dunkin Donut style KH

by GreenhornChristian in

has anyone seen one of the new design kh's and taken pics?

i'm curious to see.

Half banana

I agree with your post Pete Zahut.

When your religion goes stale and does not deliver the goods and the members start leaving in droves... what happens to the real estate and stocks and shares? Who benefits I wonder?

If you reckon that there are around 107,000 congregations of JWs worldwide, (it used to be 114,000 two or three years ago) one half of the congs have a KH (through sharing) that makes it about 50,000 KHs and say half of these worldwide must be worth on average about $100,000 each. Therefore (25k x 100k) about $2.5 billion.

It was in 1986 when the WT took over the ownership of all the KHs worldwide. In doing so they became, to use their own disparaging word an "organized" religion. The sale value of the property takeover by my rough calculation above... is a pretty investment coup don’t you think? Or was it theft?

So do the new industrial style units built on saleable land make for a fail-safe investment for the WTBTS?

Or is it a Freudian impulse to convert the remaining wealth into capital resources for when humankind stop believing in nasty religions or Watchtower paranoia?

Is it a drive to secure the old age retirement fund for the “heavenly princes” when the true believers have stopped believing truly?

18

The Divine Son of God, God Incarnate, Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour of the World

by Doug Mason in

before jesus was born or even if he had never existed—another human being was already proclaimed son of god and, indeed, god incarnate within the same first common-era century and within the same mediterranean world.

in fact, almost all the sacred terms and solemn titles that we might think of as christian creations or even pauline inventions were already associated with caesar augustus, the first undisputed ruler of the roman empire, from 31 bce to 14 ce.. augustus was divine, son of god, god, and god from god.

he was lord, liberator, redeemer, and savior of the world—not just of italy or the mediterranean, mind you, but of the entire inhabited earth.

Half banana

I agree Helena, Constantine’s mother, played an important role in the establishment of the Roman church and hence modern beliefs, especially in setting the RC trend for relic worship.

The key to the establishment of Christianity was not Constantine’s interest in faith, religion or morality, for an emperor perforce had neither faith nor much in the way of moral scruples to start with, nor was it the doctrinal correctness of Helena’s brand of the Jesus cult which appealed to him but instead it was his banal superstition in trusting that her religion would bring him luck... in the form of military success.

It is essential to recognise that religion for the Romans and Greeks had been one of obligation to the gods, piety was something demonstrated by public and domestic observance of the rituals, it was not a matter of faith or morality. Superstition played an important routine part of the lives of the ancients whatever status they had.

Constantine had the morality of a hungry tiger; he may have had a soft spot for mum but had his son murdered and his wife forced into a bath of boiling water. As far as religion went, he despaired at the bishops who obdurately wrangled over 'true' doctrine, a concept apparently alien to the emperor. Constantine saw them only as an impediment to his political ambitions for an unchallenged faction-free universal state religion and wanted to bang their heads together. Only then would it become an instrument for unity and consequently for the strengthening of his imperial hand. (qv DG Kousoulas, The Life and Times of Constantine the Great 2007)

This ideal of pure worship in the mother church had been achieved through a deliberate syncretism or fusing of all pagan belief into the catholic or universal faith and subsequent enforcement made it a Roman’s obligation to worship in the state prescribed manner and simultaneously it denied any rights to the former religious groups which included the destruction of all available texts relating to them. Catholic orthodoxy ruled!

The origins of modern Christianity might therefore be (rather too briefly) summarised as: the syncretizing of all beliefs, pagan and mystical, by imperial power, promoting it as the state religious cult and then proscribing all others... and all of this done for the sake of political power, superstition and family sentiment.

18

The Divine Son of God, God Incarnate, Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour of the World

by Doug Mason in

before jesus was born or even if he had never existed—another human being was already proclaimed son of god and, indeed, god incarnate within the same first common-era century and within the same mediterranean world.

in fact, almost all the sacred terms and solemn titles that we might think of as christian creations or even pauline inventions were already associated with caesar augustus, the first undisputed ruler of the roman empire, from 31 bce to 14 ce.. augustus was divine, son of god, god, and god from god.

he was lord, liberator, redeemer, and savior of the world—not just of italy or the mediterranean, mind you, but of the entire inhabited earth.

Half banana

As of course do the GB members at Watchtower HQ...albeit a seven headed monarch!

(would that make it a septarchy?)

18

The Divine Son of God, God Incarnate, Lord, Redeemer, and Saviour of the World

by Doug Mason in

before jesus was born or even if he had never existed—another human being was already proclaimed son of god and, indeed, god incarnate within the same first common-era century and within the same mediterranean world.

in fact, almost all the sacred terms and solemn titles that we might think of as christian creations or even pauline inventions were already associated with caesar augustus, the first undisputed ruler of the roman empire, from 31 bce to 14 ce.. augustus was divine, son of god, god, and god from god.

he was lord, liberator, redeemer, and savior of the world—not just of italy or the mediterranean, mind you, but of the entire inhabited earth.

Half banana

Augustus was larded with these messianic accolades and it makes me think how the Bible often represents a crystallization of what must have amounted to popular 'gossip' or what we might today call urban myths.

There had been a long standing conventional view found in all peoples of the classical world including marginal people like the Jews; that a ruler blessed by the gods would rule in glory and bring peace. It was everyone's dream. The Roman Emperor Augustus whilst not entirely benign did achieve something along these lines for the people under his rule between 27 BCE and CE 14.

Augustus was actually a modest man who also had a good sense of humour, a characteristic which was and is distinctly lacking in all earnest saviours! For example he was fond of the homely phrase, "quicker than you can cook asparagus". (As mentioned in the book I have just bought: Chronicle of the Roman Emperors by Chris Scarle.)

Considering the enormous disparity in power between the patricians and the plebs, any information coming from the rulers would have been god-like to the illiterate. This notion of Augustus with the glorifying of his birth, his divinity and his rule would become a template for all "god given" leaders. This idea served the interests of Mithraism and later in the fourth century in the deliberate fusion of catholic pagan belief, it was applied to Jesus with the establishment of Imperial Christianity under Constantine.

Doug, have you read A Short History of Christianity by JM Robertson? For me it was revelatory. JM Robertson was a journalist, writer and Liberal Member of Parliament who had become a freethinker at an early age after hearing a lecture by Charles Bradlaugh. Later he worked for Bradlaugh who was also an MP and pioneer humanist. No doubt it was this association which enabled his access to the firebrand literature which is source material in his "Short history". I cannot recommend Roberson's approach to the subject more highly, it has the historian's sensibility of what actually happened and when and also the sociologist's instinct for what people actually believed and why they did what they did.

Everyone who wants to know the truth about the origins of Christianity should read it as a primer.

...And I agree, the early Church Fathers do not represent fact, instead they push the partisan Roman Catholic orthodoxy.

9

WTBTS / GBoJW elevating status of their literature

by Nicholaus Kopernicus in

the following is a brief examination of one disturbing paragraph in the august 2016 study watchtower - "do you see the need to make spiritual progress?"11.

what spiritual qualities can we work to develop, and why are they important?

11 develop spiritual qualities.

Half banana

It should become better known that Jehovah's Witnesses are not students of the Bible. They are simply students of the Watchtower's interpretations of the Bible.

Having said that, what serious student of anything would only look at the surface of things? Would a geologist only consider the surface geology? Would a doctor only look at the patient's skin? Would a structural engineer just look at the nuts and bolts of his structure?

By deliberately avoiding academic investigation of the origins of the Bible texts, the WTBTS has followed the path of the Roman Catholic Church and decided that the Biblical canon is sacred and along with Watchtower literature that; these are all we ever need to read.

This thinking is so shallow and logically flawed.

48

Jehovah protects his people. Did he ever protect you?

by TimeBandit in

jw
friends

hello forum.

i started this topic because i had been thinking recently about a story that i had heard many times in different congregations over the years.

kind of a jw urban legend if you will.

Half banana

Total fantasy... like everything to do with JWs and their org-------------------- Big J can do nothing, he never does anything, never has done anything, least of all protect people from harm.

Jehovah is a completely childish superstition.