Atlantis, I think Wonderment is speaking of the lack of Christianity of the WTS toward ex-JWs.
Posts by Sulla
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96The New World Translation Quote from an Elder
by howdidtihappen inyou've probably heard this before, but at a meeting last night the elder called the nwt the "rolls royce" of bibles.
i'm new to the jw bs (and as soon as i can break away, will do so.
) but do they also believe they have a superior bible to anyone elses outside the religion?
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13
Will mankind ever be united?
by jam inthis morning reading the paper, latinos target.
of more hate crimes.
while hate crimes against.
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Sulla
But, Steve, civilization itself is built on the violent resolution of rivalry. There is a reason the earliest Egyptian kings (~3,000 BC) are depicted as lions, bulls, or scorpions surrounded by their dead enemies. There is a reason the counding documents of Western civilization are drenched in humann sacrifice (Agamemnon tricks and slaughters Iphigenia to facilitate his war with Troy). There is a reason we keep finding strangled children in bogs, put there to solve the internal crises of the European tribes.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that we have somehow progressed over these early civilizations. Recall that the French Revolution was, itself, the perpetrator of mass murder and genocide.
Either all this is deeply distrubing or else it is not. We do not, after all, suppose there is any moral lack associated with a lion slaughtering its enemies. But we might suppose that the Revolution slaughtering their enemies in the Vendee is symptomatic of some deeper failing in our nature. Such a conclusion does not have anything to do with the childish JW teaching on the matter.
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Will mankind ever be united?
by jam inthis morning reading the paper, latinos target.
of more hate crimes.
while hate crimes against.
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Sulla
Steve suggests you embrace the suck: the only authentic human is a violent human. Interesting. Still, some have felt that we really are somehow "meant" to be more than this and suggest that something is wrong with the way we are. On the other hand, some cultures' creation myths insist that we are made from dragon's blood, all of us. If so, steve would seem to be right, wouldn't he?
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63
Walkill Bethel Recreational Facility
by dontplaceliterature inmy wife and i just visited some friends over the weekend from another congregation.
these two are both full time pioneers, and also participate in various construction projects around the country.
the husband just got back from a 3 week trip to walkill, new york to help with construction on a new residence building at 'the farm' (does anyone call it that anymore?)..
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Sulla
I wonder how they will manage the use of the pool by the married sisters. As I recall, back in the day, women couldn't use the weight room in Brooklyn without their husband being present. The pool would seem to provide a significant opportunity for a young man to make an impression on a sexually awakened young woman. Oh, yes, my friends, a significant impression!
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96
The New World Translation Quote from an Elder
by howdidtihappen inyou've probably heard this before, but at a meeting last night the elder called the nwt the "rolls royce" of bibles.
i'm new to the jw bs (and as soon as i can break away, will do so.
) but do they also believe they have a superior bible to anyone elses outside the religion?
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Sulla
Sulla: Jason BeDuhn compared 9 bible versions where theology plays a role in bias. He found the NWT to be a sound bible translation, showing less bias in some cases to mainstream versions. He has made it clear he is not a JW, and he took the NWT to task in many cases, pointing out places where the NWT showed bias. One such area he disagrees with the NWT Committee is in the realm of using the divine name in the NT. I got the impression Dr. BeDuhn was fair in his assesments of the various bible versions discussed.
I know he is not a JW and I know he was critical of the NWT usage of "Jehovah" in the NT. I am suggesting that a) the NWT insertion of "Jehovah" in the NT is itself an instance of bias that is extraordinarily significant and b) BeDuhn's insistance that the NWT is the least biased translation notwithstanding borders on the pathological.
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Another 1975 coming soon
by fade_away ini heard some analysts on the news recently saying that at the rate the us is falling and china rising, it is expected that china will be the super power within the next 30 or 40 years.
if that happens then i guess there will be another mass exodus of jws from the wt despite what new light they come up with.
but if the witlesses are right then that means god must intervene and the great tribulation and armageddon is coming in less than 30 or 40 years.
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Sulla
30-40 years from now, if we're still here, we'll just be in time to see Zefram Cochrane create the first warp drive!
Sorry, Charikio, warp drive isn't operational until 2063, fifty-two years from now. It is amazing that the generation of 1914 will also see warp drive!
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"All Scripture is inspired of God and Beneficial" .....
by smiddy indid you just take that scripture at face value ?
beleiving it to be so ?.
was" all scripture is inspired by god" written down at that one time ?
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Sulla
One issue is how to think of what "inspiration" means. The JW/fundamentalist viewpoint is that inspiration basically means the authorship of each book is God himself, with the writer being merely the instrument. This is a reasonably new innovation; the concept has historically meant something different. Inspiration relly attempts to convey the idea that the work tells us something that is true.
There has always been a conflict perceived between the OT and NT. The orthodox claim has been that the OT stories really are inspired in the sense that they really do tell us something that is true about the identity of God, the same God who raised Jesus from the dead. As such, we cannot cut the OT away from the New, neither can we suppose that that God revelaed there is other than the God of the NT. Yes, that makes for difficult reading at times.
There is a distinction to be meade, then, between the writings that are inspired and the ones that are in the canon. The orthodox assertion is simply that everything in the canon is inspired -- tells us important and true things about God. It is not a claim that all the writings are histories (as we now understand the term) or that they are all even non-fiction (Esther, for example, is quite loose with some facts) and include myths (creation and the flood, for example).
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What if Christainty is right?
by mankkeli ini was just wondering, what if afterall, christainity is right, what if there would be a ressurection, what if the heavenly hope is a valid aspiration god has set in place for faithful servants, what would be the hope of about 1.3million apostate dissidents who turned their back on the jw brand of christainity, where would they be?, some here seems to represent the anti-christ depicted in the bible, but what would be their hope, would god out of his abundant mercy shield us somehow and what would be the rationale behind his protection?.
life as we presently live it is confusing, the future as perceived is unpredictable, we may think our corpses are deemed to serve as manure, but whereas what if there is really life after death.
how would god judge those who seem to have spat on his face?, would he view us as mere victims of abundant hypocrisy in a confused world?.
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Sulla
You made a mistake there. You asked whether Christianity was true and then you started talking about JWs. If Christianity it true, then being a JW is spitting in God's face. If the JWs are right, then Christianity is false. Simple as that.
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96
The New World Translation Quote from an Elder
by howdidtihappen inyou've probably heard this before, but at a meeting last night the elder called the nwt the "rolls royce" of bibles.
i'm new to the jw bs (and as soon as i can break away, will do so.
) but do they also believe they have a superior bible to anyone elses outside the religion?
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Sulla
Jason BeDuhn is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, and Chair Department of Humanities, Arts, and Religion, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana, an M.T.S. in New Testament and Christian Origins form Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Study of Religions form Indiana University, Bloomington.
By the way, Dr BeDuhn has taught Greek for years. He has the necessary qualifications to express his viewpoint. Can you best that?
Can I best that, woderment? Cute. The qualification is one that would justify his evaluation of "bias." I simply point out that the NWT is quite infamous for placing YHWH in many places in the NT without a shred of justification except their own bias against the divinity of Christ. To understand that the JW bible does exactly this and stil find a way to claim it is the least biased translation out there is a perfect example of missing the point. For that matter, the selective use of brackets within the NWT is a similar case -- words like "other" may be legitimate readings, but placing them into the text itself is pretty cheesy.
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96
The New World Translation Quote from an Elder
by howdidtihappen inyou've probably heard this before, but at a meeting last night the elder called the nwt the "rolls royce" of bibles.
i'm new to the jw bs (and as soon as i can break away, will do so.
) but do they also believe they have a superior bible to anyone elses outside the religion?
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Sulla
A fellow named Jason BeDuhn wrote a small book outside his expertise a few years ago that claimed the NWT was the most unbiased translation out there. The Dubs really get geeked up over that, but his opinion is shared by nobody else with any qualification. To be honest, it isn't clear he is really qualified to hold that opinion; and suggesting that the 300 cases where the JWs insert "Jehovah" into the NT is not a profound bias is inexplicable.