Posts by Half banana

18

Can someone help me figure out something, dealing with paganism?

by Tameria2001 in

the watchtower and quite a few other religious groups don't do certain things because of pagan origins.

they go on about the different holidays, certain traditions, and say they don't do those things because of pagan origins.

yet they turn right around and do other stuff, which does have pagan origins.

Half banana

The Jews of course were only the people of their own declared god YHWH, who in turn was borrowed from the Phoenecian pantheon of gods, YHWH being a son of the God El. So the Jews chose their own god to represent them and then claimed themselves to be "his people", or "God's chosen people", just like JWs do today.

There is of course no evidence for YHWH choosing anyone or ever having spoken or done anything at all-- but this is the very nature of religious belief.

So what is "pagan"? The word pagan originally referred to things from the countryside, and simply meant of the village, the word in Latin for village was pagus. Likewise the word heathen meant a dweller on the heath. In other words; relating to rustic life as opposed to educated civilisation found in cities. Fourth century Roman Christianity (when the Bible was compiled) saw itself as a civilised, sophisticated and urban (hence urbane) religion and wanted no demeaning connection with the peasantry.

The irony though is that the underpinning of Bible stories are indeed folk tales i.e. pagan, often based on almost universal mythologies drawn from very ancient fables about the sun, stars and constellations.

9

Congratulations to the W. T.

by joey jojo in

i think congratulations are long overdue to the wt for the excellent job they do of keeping members dumbed-down and feeling safe inside the cocoon of a hive mind.

they tell us that the best education program in the world is reading the wt publications but here is a conversation i had with my uber elder buddy yesterday that may prove otherwise.

we were talking about the october broadcast and the question of whether gods name should be included or not, when i made an offhand comment about the compiling of the new testament and the canonisation of its books.

Half banana

I agree with you Stuck, I have encountered this pride in JWs several times recently. Proud to be a believer whatever evidence there is to the contrary-- proud to be a JW--proud to be ignorant!

If your self worth depends on a validation by JWs then that's where you will likely remain, sealed in a bubble and interpreting everything you hear and read in the light of your cherished delusion.

42

Serious Issue ....... that MUST be Addressed !!!!!

by Simon in

this is such an important issue, more and more people are succumbing to what must be some viral outbreak wreaking havoc in the world.. i'm talking about unnecessary punctuation.. it's easy to become infected.

you want to write something and add some emphasis so you add an exclamation mark to make it "important!

" but dang, it's not important enough is it??

Half banana

Girl next door, since you mentioned one of my favourite poets Emily Dickinson; Wendy Cope an English poet and academic gives a response to her unconventional punctuation:

Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
Liked to use dashes
Instead of full stops.
Nowadays, faced with such
Idiosyncrasy,
Critics and editors
Send for the cops.

~Emily Dickinson by Wendy Cope

42

Serious Issue ....... that MUST be Addressed !!!!!

by Simon in

this is such an important issue, more and more people are succumbing to what must be some viral outbreak wreaking havoc in the world.. i'm talking about unnecessary punctuation.. it's easy to become infected.

you want to write something and add some emphasis so you add an exclamation mark to make it "important!

" but dang, it's not important enough is it??

Half banana

oxford comma fail The above three sentences show that sometimes you just have to have an Oxford comma.

20

Russian gunman raised in JW family

by Alex Bogdanov in

jw
friends

the link bellow is sort of ok. i could not find a decent article in english language about this, but russian media is exploding.

2 days ago a teenager killed 19 people and injured dozens and committed suicide.

he was raised in a jw family.

Half banana

Often people join the JW religion because they come from a dysfunctional family.

It is the dream of paradise sold them courtesy of the Watchtower which gives the false hope for a better life. The youthful gunman may have decided to kill whether he had been exposed to JW ideas or not. Nevertheless, surely it is better to be nurtured in a caring family without experiencing JW style conditional love?

I knew a hard line bro, son of the cong overseer who said back in the seventies that if Armageddon didn't arrive by 2000 he was going to leave the org. I wonder if he (or others like him) did?

Isn't this the way JWs want to talk among themselves speculating on a date for Armageddon with thoughts such as "well at the very outside it must come by 2014"? Seeing a disaster coming down the pipeline the GB introduced their totally unconvincing overlapping theory preemptively in 2005. However the flock will still have been harbouring the popular consensus thought of "2014".

3

Nothing unusual to see here, I think

by Doug Mason in

in my slow but relentless foray into the “second temple period” i have marked up a few pages from one more source.

it does not contain anything that is extraordinary, i think.. http://www.jwstudies.com/reading_romans_in_context__intro__marked_up.pdf .

doug.

Half banana

Continuing your thought of Biblical "adoration", I think this is the biggest hurdle to scale in attempting to get an accurate picture of historical times and events of the period it covers. The sacralising of texts in the fourth century by the Catholic Church has formed an overwhelming tradition for an unthinking high regard for the Bible.

Darwin's biological evidence in Origin of the Species (1859) shocked the Christian world for its blow to Bible literalism. Yet nearly one hundred and sixty years later people still parrot "the Bible is God's word" and because people take things on trust, few find out for themselves how unreliable and misleading it really is.

The Holy book is nothing like divine wisdom, like Brighton rock the Bible has human frailty written though its length; savage retribution, nationalism, power along with fawning servility, conceit and hopeless dreams are its core material.

I agree with you DM, once we understand the Bible as human in origin we can then see how certain peoples thought in the past and note that in the 21st century we have at least made some progress towards democratic civilisation.

3

Nothing unusual to see here, I think

by Doug Mason in

in my slow but relentless foray into the “second temple period” i have marked up a few pages from one more source.

it does not contain anything that is extraordinary, i think.. http://www.jwstudies.com/reading_romans_in_context__intro__marked_up.pdf .

doug.

Half banana

One problem here is the reference to Biblical accounts as if they are historical, such as things to do with the first temple, which mainly was a glorious but imaginary structure from the 10th century from a time period where archaeology shows no evidence for such building and that the inhabitants of the land would have been incapable of constructing it due to lack of resources.

The two Jonathons, Linebaugh and J D Worthington seem to be teachers of religion rather than secular academics. Without a dispassionate and critical appraisal, no progress can ever be made. Naturally they concur with the historical date for the destruction of Jerusalem but invoke divine prophecy at the same time.

Have you had a look at the books on biblical text and history by Thomas L Thompson?

Nevertheless well done for your determination to get to the root of things.

6

The Murderous Rule of the Hasmonean King (and High Priest) Alexander Jannaeus

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

alexander janneaus ruled (and also served as high priest) in jerusalem between 103 and 76 bce.

the books of maccabees provide information for the start of this historical period, brought to an end by herod the great now archaeological evidence has emerged in jerusalem of his murderous reign.

this times of israel article diuscusses the evidence and how the story was put together.

Half banana

Thanks for info FTS, how tragic that human leaders even in this more enlightened world still resort to killing people if they disagree with authority. When will humanity finally stop this savage mind-set?

9

Epiphany #2

by Solzhenitsyn in

so after much emotional struggle out into the open comes why my dear wife continues to want to stay with the wt organization.. i simply couldn't understand why someone so intelligent would suffer from such confusion wether to stay active or fade away when she has faced and accepted the anti-jw facts.

simply put: she was raised with such sick instability that jw life was the only thing that provided stability, the only thing she felt she could count on.

to this day this remains the primary reason she stays "in".

Half banana

JWs are brought up to be totally dependent on the cult leadership for everything except money.

Being a JW involves sharing a particular identity as it has developed over the years within the org. This involves acting, speaking and thinking like a JW and avoiding breaking the club rules. The trade off for believing the JW nonsense is that you get the false hope of everlasting life and a bunch of like minded friends.

However paranoid and unreasonable the organisation is, this completely human need for identity and belonging is largely fulfilled by being a JW and that's why so many are bamboozled.

So Solzhenitsyn, I suggest you might look at helping your wife discover her real self and get her to know her own potential.

Of course creativity and independence has previously been stamped on by the cult and in most witnesses the 'real person' is suppressed, often living the life of a Watchtower drudge or human doormat. Not suggesting for a moment that your wife is such but this would be the ideal personality from the point of view of the cult leadership.

So how about thinking of ways to help her realise her own dreams? Of course you will probably have to tease them out of her in the first place! There are courses in the UK called Outward Bound for example which help the timid become adventurous and most importantly self-reliant-- which is the very thing the Watchtower doesn't want its followers to be. (You could do something like this together). Perhaps encourage her to take up something she has always wanted to do for which she will receive praise because of her initiative or so that she can enjoy the results of seeing something created by her own efforts.

She needs weaning off the cult fixations and learn to fulfil her own dreams and express her own personality, and as Onager says this will have to be done with love and patience as well on your part.

19

The Sufficiency of Christ - Salvation

by JW Answers in

can we rely solely on christ and his sacrifice for our sins to be forgiven, or do we have to attribute our own works upon his finished work?

this video gives an explanation of the sacrifices made for israel under the law and what it meant at that time, and the sacrifice which christ made for ourselves under the age of grace today.

Half banana

Adam never sinned since he is just a character in an ancient myth that has received too much publicity. Therefore we are not born with sin and we do not need a saviour.