Oroborus21

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Posts by Oroborus21

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  23

  Undeserved kindness versus Grace - does it matter?

  by misspeaches in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  just wondering if its just me or not.... does it matter to anyone else that the wtbts changed the word grace to undeserved kindness in the nwt?

  in my opinion having changed it to undeserved kindness they use this as a way to guilt trip people into always doing more more more!

  where as grace is just grace.

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  Oroborus21

  Greetings,

  In the words of Freud(?), "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

  some read too much into things and give the boys at Bethel a little too much credit. the NWT translators rendered it "undeserved kindness" not in pursuit of any agenda other than their doggedness to butcher the poetry of the scriptures with a too literal translation.

  What is really amazing is that most Witnesses do not understand that what the rest of Christianity refers to as GRACE is what Witnesses call Undeserved Kindness. They refer to the same thing in theory but each term has its own nuances and connotations.

  Undeserved Kindness is off-putting, distancing, it reminds humans of their place in cosmology. We bestow undeserved kindness upon a stray dog when we toss it a morsel or rescue it from an icy river. (And unfortunately, that is how the term seems to place us in relation to God, as Witnesses, who should be thankful for their salvation.)

  Grace on the other hand, in addition to being more beautiful, is intimate, enfolding, it is like God taking us into his arms. It seems more loving.

  So in my opinion Grace would be a much more preferable term.

  But we shouldn't make too much of a fuss over these things since they are English words anyway. We shouldn't forget that the scriptures were not written in English so to whine about word choice and translation is like complaining about how one person describes a rainbow or a sunset as it may differ from how another might describe those things.

  -Eduardo
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  22

  What was in the unopened package on "Cast Away"?

  by John Doe in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  did you feel conned into watching the silly thing and never finding out???!!!

  that one drove me nuts.

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  Oroborus21

  Not sure what was IN the package,

  but the package itself was a METAPHOR

  -Eduardo
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  2

  Is this a New site? Wikipedia.org?..Has JW info...

  by Snoozy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this site has a lot of info about the jehovah's witnesses.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jehovah's_witnesses.

  snoozy q

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  Oroborus21

  the wiki entry is pretty good, though slightly pro-JW and slightly lacking in critical material. that is a very nice chart on the Eschatology.

  -Ed
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  20

  Is Time Speeding up? The Schumann Resonance

  by Gill in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from what i have been reading recently, time has been steadily speeding up, and measurably so, according to the measurements of the schuman resonance.

  we now fit more or less, 18 months into a 12 month year.. apparantly, this is supposed to continue up until the 21st or 23rd december 2012. at this point the earth will be at the end of its 26,000 year cycle .

  we on the earth orbit the sun.

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  Oroborus21

  Oh and then there was Buddha Boy who was going to meditate for 6 more years and expected to reach enlightenment (become a Buddha) in 2012.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4479240.stm

  but the latest is that he has gone missing :-)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bamjan

  -Eduardo
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  20

  Is Time Speeding up? The Schumann Resonance

  by Gill in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  from what i have been reading recently, time has been steadily speeding up, and measurably so, according to the measurements of the schuman resonance.

  we now fit more or less, 18 months into a 12 month year.. apparantly, this is supposed to continue up until the 21st or 23rd december 2012. at this point the earth will be at the end of its 26,000 year cycle .

  we on the earth orbit the sun.

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  Oroborus21

  
  Howdy Gill:

  Never heard of this Schuman Resonance but it sounds interesting. I don't actually put stock in these things, however, it may interest you to know that thus far I have found at least 5 different "phenonema" pointing to December 21, 2012.

  1. The McKenna Time Wave Zero - which spikes to infinity on that date

  2. The Mayan Calendar - which ends & begins a new age on that date

  3. The reversal of the Sun's magnetic poles the next time this occurs will be about that date (occurs every 11 years)

  4.The Tree of Life ("Sacred Tree") - The Sun crosses the Axis Mundi (the exact Galactic plane) on that date

  5. Suntelia Aeon - When the Sun rises out of the Mouth of the Oroborus (the Milky Way)

  As I say, I am sceptical of any real significance for 12-21-12 but just for fun, I adjusted my "birthdate" on my profile so that the counter is a count-down to that date.

  -Eduardo

  PS: edited to change the Earth's magnetic pole flip to the Sun's. the Earth's flips also but I have to research the cycle and see what the experts are predicting for it
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  71

  It's High Time I Introduce Myself

  by Lady Liberty in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  it's high time i introduce myself.

  i feel like i know many of you already, just by daily reading your posts over the last year.

  you all have been a support to my husband and i, even though you were not even aware we were even here.

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  Oroborus21

  howdy LL:

  what an interesting story and we look forward to your participation on the forum, welcome!

  just wanted to make a note that the pyramid symbol is not exclusively used by Masons and doesn't prove anything about Russell possibly being a Mason.

  Pyramidology was very hot at the turn of the 19h Century and Russell was caught up in it and used his own take on the phenomenon along with what he read others claim about the Giza pyramid to try and bolster his own chronological teachings, etc.

  take care, glad you opened "Pander's Box"

  remember what Pandora managed to keep inside the box and what was still left.....

  HOPE

  -Eduardo
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  17

  What would happen if all of the WTS in-house attorneys quit?

  by truth_about_the_truth in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i was wondering, if the wts legal dept.

  got overwhelmed with lawsuits and their volunteer attorneys at bethel decided that they couldn't take it anymore and decided to leave bethel, how would this affect the society?.

  would the society have to consult outside attorneys?

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  Oroborus21

  Greetings:

  MinisterA: dumb comments. Many JWs are highly intelligent, many already possess keen legally bent minds, and besides that, many of my lawyer colleagues are not that bright so there is no correlation between being an attorney and being especially brillant, though most are smart. and for the record I was an active JW when I took the LSAT (it isn't really a "pass/fail" exam), got into Law School (actually my being a JW at the time helped me get into law school and was especially noted by the professor who wrote my letter of recommendation) and when I passed the Calif. Bar (the hardest one in the U.S.)....moving on...

  the WTS has bags o' money so paying either JW lawyers (still not a whole lot of them) and non-JW counsel is no problem and never will be a problem

  as others noted outside counsel are already used and used all the time....

  finally, it is the ethical duty of every lawyer to engage in some free (or reduced-cost) pro bono publico legal work if they can afford it and this pro bono work is often done for charitable organizations and religious orders, so many JW and non-JW lawyers are happy to include such work among their other clients and many firms are happy to allow one of their attorneys to do some pro bono work since it makes the firm look good. Since many of the cases that would be lodged against the Witnesses would likely be in the realm of first-amendment and civil rights, this would be even more likely to happen. So I don't think that lack of counsel is ever going to be a real problem for the Society.

  -Eduardo
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  MSN in Blog Style now?

  by Oroborus21 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  .

  is it just me or is the main msn website now in a blog style?.

  -eduardo

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  Oroborus21

  Is it just me or is the main MSN website now in a blog style?

  -Eduardo
• 
  49

  Isaac Hayes quits South Park, apparently over Scientology episode

  by DanTheMan in

  1. social
  2. entertainment

  story here.

  lol, all the hell that that show has given to xtians and jews over the years, and he never batted an eye.

  cultists are a sensitive lot ain't they?

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  Oroborus21

  Yup, it looks like they caved to the pressure. The on-screen program guide listed the Trapped in the Closet episode tonight but instead they ran the film festival. too bad
• 
  185

  The Watchtower Society killed my website

  by Elsewhere in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  you can thank the watchtower society for this.. here is an email from my hosting company:.

  unfortunately it appears your site/account was involved in violation of using copyrighted material involved with watch tower bible and tract society of pennsylvania.".

  as a result of this abuse and activity, we will be unable to reinstate this account for any reason.. in addition, due to the nature of this abuse and the risk of transferring sensitive or illegal content if we were to provide you your files, we will be unable to provide with backups.. it is unfortunate that this has occurred, and we are aware that more than likely this was not your intent to host, however the fact remains it did exist and complaints were made.

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  Oroborus21

  Jourles,

  I don't think there is a difference. I would consider the BOE to be the same as internal company memos. Regarding the IM website, the copyright holder of internal memos (presumably these companies) COULD assert a copyright claim. whether the web-host (Tucows) would be liable is whether it fell under the protection of the DMCA and whether it was aware of the copyright infringement. Perhaps after receiving a complaint Tucows makes the web owner remove content. After all the site has been in existence since 2002 and only has 2466 memos online. But that might be due to it not being well-known or more probably due to the fact that most internal memos are boring as hell and not entertaining or interesting.

  Not too mention the fear that employees should have about posting such internal memos because if their identity is found out they will be fired.

  We must remember though that at the heart of copyright protection is the economic protection. We have copyright in the first place so that the creator/owner of a creative work (using the word creatively loosely of course) will be protected in exploiting that work to their financial gain. If the copyrighted material has no intrinsic economic value, (which is why things ultimately fall into "public domain" because they are deemed to no longer be economically valuable after a certain period of time), then a court of law is not going to allow the copyright holder to prevent others from using such valueless material.

  The WTS has legitimate claims regarding its copyrighted works such as publications. Even though this stuff is not technically for sale or commercialy exploited. For example, the child custody pamphlet. By having to request this from the Society, it increases the chance that such a person would make a donation to the Society or be a member or otherwise support the Society. Thus there is economic value in protecting its distribution. Even the Flock book could be found to have economic value.

  RE: the BOE letters, I would find it dubious to claim economic value for these and it would probably hinge upon the actual content of the BOE letter. Letters with content that would harm the Society financially would probably be given copyrighted protection and those that didn't might not be awarded such protection.

  -Eduardo