Posts by Half banana

Answer: Early Christianity was a superstition in a very long tradition of mystery cults. The outline myth being that the saviour (a demi-human Sun God) died and was sacrificed at Easter on behalf of humanity and went his way to his Sun-God father and they both shone radiantly and triumphantly their heavenly realm having conquered the darkness of winter...as the sun conspicuously does after the spring equinox.

All the ancient god-man mystery cults followed this myth. To become a communicant in the cult would originally have required you to go through an initiation process into the “sacred secrets”, to learn the “deep things of God.” It was usually performed in a long and complex ritual which involved passing through unlit subterranean chambers, stair wells and trap doors. The idea was to create intense fear in the novice and dependency on the spiritual leader. Over time and after enough rituals you too might make the grade of high priest. Incidentally in the Dionysian christ-cult one of the names the initiate took on was "Iasus". There were various levels of initiation, as retained (or imitated) in Free Masonry today, there were also levels of heaven to which the Bible writer Paul referred in his brand of mystery cult. (Funny how nobody picks up on this undiluted paganism?)

So the deep things of God were a reference to the exclusive things which only the cult hierarchy were privy to. It was for for the initiated only...(like those who believe in the sacred but unbiblical Watchtower mystery of 1919!)

Then why was it written down? To bamboozle the ignorant and poor so they reverence the “holy” mysteries and thereby become slaves under the control of the religious hierarchy.

Punky does this help at all?

10

Does Jesus have wings?

by Bratbaby in

years ago when i was attacked i had giant wings wrap around me in the midst of the chaos and i knew i everything was gonna be ok.all these years i assume d they were angel wings.then last night psalm 91:4 flashed across my tv and it made me wonder if it was jesus himself so i researched on my phone and came across this site.this is my 1st post feedback welcome and ty.post.

Half banana

Even big houses have wings, anything can have wings if you want it, that's why people write story books from the human imagination.

67

Is proselytizing less condescending when evolutionists do it?

by paul from cleveland in

is it just me?

Half banana

Theism may be about the "why" of things but is bears no factual evidence for its holy speculations.

If you wear a defender of the faith hat, evolution looks like an attack upon your person because it undermines your pride and joy in irrational belief.

If information comes to you having a receptive student mind, as an assessor of factual evidence; evolution is a tried and tested scientific theorum upon which we can build further insights into human health, medicine and longevity.

Medical science has already done so to the benefit of us all.

Since when did creationist belief help mankind in any way?

7

Evolution is a Fact #4 - Smelly Genes

by cofty in

part 1 - protein functional redundancy...part 2 - dna functional redundancy...part 3 - ervs.

the rule in gene survival is "use it or lose it".. when a gene ceases to be useful, mutations are likely to accumulate as they are passed on down the generations.

these broken genes are called pseudogenes and they provide powerful clues to our evolutionary past.. compared with other animals our ability to detect odours is poor, but if evolution is correct there was a time in our distant past when we relied on our sense of smell much more than we do today.. our olfactory receptors are coded for by or genes.

Half banana

Good evidence Cofty. I wonder how Jacobson's organ fits into this?

66

New Here

by Grey Goose in

jw
friends

hi one and all.. i've lurked for 3 years, about time i signed up.. i'm a still in ms due to family.. fully awake.. i look forward to getting to know all of you..

Half banana

Welcome Grey Goose, well done for getting fully awake...it's a hard life for an awake JW to still attend the meetings.

I remember cringing at the stupid nonsense coming from the platform and shaking my head, eventually I had to just get up and walk out during a meeting and never return. It was very satisfying! I was the master of my own destiny.

But the GB make it difficult for you...the only validation for their existence is the number of people believing ...nothing else can give credence to a doomsday cult.

When the attendees do not believe they still count the numbers as if to validate their authority. That's why shunning is a political tool to keep the numbers up. I'm wondering if you can tell us how many you know are in your situation?

I know of a some JWs who attend, like you for family reasons. They don't believe but neither do they communicate together as they don't want to rock the congregation boat. Can you see a possibility of the awake ones rising up and influencing the others?

73

Witnesses killed my friend today.

by WasOnceBlind in

today has been a horrible day.

what began as a day of joy finding out that one of my lifelong friends had her baby, turned into a nightmare when her brother called me to let me know she had passed away after birth.

i was in shock and didn't ask how.

Half banana

So sorry for your loss WasOnceBlind. As Divergent said this tragedy is made even worse by the fact that your friend was disfellowshipped but not 'awake'. People brought up with a JW mentality are victims of the twisted thinking until they make a serious attempt to eradicate it.

Who is responsible for this unnecessary loss of a life? It is the promoters of the ignorant teachings of the Watchtower, the JW governing body.

Perhaps you could contact a serious newspaper or media person who is interested in exposing cult behaviour.

9

Biblical clues to what God the Jews worshipped

by Crazyguy in

recently there is a royal bulla that was found in jerusalem, that of the judean king hezekiah on it was two egyptian ankhs and a wings sun disk.

there have been other artifacts found with that of the egyptian scarab beatle which relates to sun worship.

so does the bible give any clues to the god of the jews?.

Half banana

To get the Hebrew scriptures in perspective many considerations must be made. The first is to know at what time any Bible text was first made so as to understand what political motivation was involved. Most of the Bible is actually second hand in substance i.e. its concepts and gods and 'holy' texts are borrowed from other nearby cultures.

Israel was very small potato as a national entity mainly because the population was confined to the desert hills of Canaan and few in number up until the 7th century BCE. Perhaps only 50,000 for much of the time (forget the nationalistic hyperbole of the Bible) which is about the population of one medium size town in the UK today. Because they were hill people, they had few natural resources except sheep and goat carcasses which they traded down in Egypt and later they produced and traded the more valuable olive oil as well and thereby sustained a larger population.

Such a small nation would have been utterly dependent on their mighty neighbours and most especially as you have said Crazy Guy the Egyptians, but also the influences of Babylonian and Persian cultures were significant.On their western border they lived cheek by jowl with the Phoenicians who travelled the Mediterranean and beyond, trading all types of commodities and who probably introduced them to their ox-headed idol Jehovah the son of El, as well as the practice of child sacrifice.

A final but not least consideration is the fact that 'sacred' texts, like any other hand written communication could be destroyed, contrived, have inconvenient facts erased and false evidence inserted...and most certainly this was the case. When politics demanded the worship of a particular deity or just one god above all other gods, the writings would tell the illiterate masses that this information is from the hand of God . After all if you couldn't read, writing itself would have looked like a divinely coded message.

40

How do you feel about the expression "The Truth"?

by stuckinarut2 in

jw
friends

it's amazing how the expression "the truth" has become such an ingrained term used by witnesses.. "we have 'the truth'".

"is he 'in the truth'?".

most here have found out so many facts about the organisation, and felt the effects of being "gut-punched" as we realised these facts.. so how do you feel about the expression "the truth" now?.

Half banana

It really is an easy mistake to make when leaving the org, to refer to it as "the Truth". If it was true, wouldn't we still be there?

Ordinary people don’t talk about Truth and Brotherly Love and Holiness and God and Jesus, at least not in my post JW experience. The irony is that JWs embody the very opposite of the terms they promote! Where is there any truth in what the Watchtower has ever promised? What has the Bible or Jesus ever said which is “Truth” i.e. some incontrovertible fact which you could not have worked out for yourself.

Indeed what the cults and religious religious communities do is use words with a special meaning attached to them. By doing this they are attempting to stitch together an invisible 'verbal' fabric which binds them into an exclusive community. Language both unites and excludes.

Cultists need to endlessly repeat the magic words for fellow believers to believe in these things. It becomes the cultural habit which is easily copied within the group, in fact to talk the talk by deploying the special words; is a badge of membership.

I think people who have their feet on the ground, for the sake of their mental well-being, should enjoy their fiction in the arts, not in religion.

46

The real reason Chelmsford hasn't been stopped

by Saltheart Foamfollower in

i haven't seen this mentioned yet.

last year in the uk, shortly after the money grab that everyone had, we had a video and letter (both probably still available from atlantis) appealing for money for the new bethel and slips were handed out etc.

this means that most uk congregations are sending a regular donation specifically for the chelmsford build.

Half banana

Perhaps they have realized that the JW paradise was just a fairy tale dream so they set about creating a new earthly utopia in Chelmsford...but sadly... the funds have dried up.