the boys in our area are out at crownsville asembly hall in md today i understand for their school.
bro sam herd is doing the honors of instructing them in the ways of jehovah- a brotha for a gb=== i love it.
so how was school today and what is the latest - i know there are some elders out there lurking .
i thought jemimah had a part in the school and had mentioned something about child abuse policy in the outline. oh yeah here it is:
I have been asked to handle a 35 minute item at thewhen's your school jemimah? i hope you are able to share your impressions.
Kingdom Ministry School for elders to be held at the end of the Year
Interestingly it is called "New Procedures for protecting the Congregation from Child Abuse" It will be a manuscript talk based on t
he new elders textbook.
mox
just wanted to know if any of you have read the entire bible?
- i remember that it was mentioned in the congregation many times that this would be a requirement that we were to read the bible in its totality at least once and especially as elders!.
i myself never had the time (or energy) to read the scriptures from cover to cover.
various COs admitted the number of those on the servant bodies who had read the bible was about half everywhere you went.
mox
a new book has been written about yet another jw child molester.
this was done by his son who has become a talented writer.
i wish to share an article reviewing the book that he sent to me and the link is:.
i get the impression that the JW connection is not a very big part of the story - is that right?
mox
perhaps one of the most problematic psychological traits of humans and other species to analyze by methods of statistical analysis is motivation.
last summer, my colleagues at the university of minnesota published a joint paper with me that started a new field of science known as chronosociobiology, which is a study of social systems over time.
our first study was done on studying the motivation of jehovahs witnesses for a 50-year period.
something else i just noticed that is easy to see in expat's graph is that peak-to-peak increases are less reliable than avg-to-avg increase. special month campaigns cause those numbers to fluctuate in ways that wont be meaningful to your analysis. if you can get the avg numbers, use those instead.
mox
i know these topics have been well-covered in many places.
this is just me wanting to compile a list of concise reasons why i am sure the wt interpretation of the deluge is untenable.
this is my first draft.
hillary_step: thx. i actually had not heard about this find. but you're right, i was deliberately avoiding adding too many items that relied on radiocarbon dating. in fact, i believe most of my questions can be answered using science from 100 years ago. (note however that radioactive dating as a practice is about a hundred years old. C14 dating came later.)
homer simpson: "hmmmm.... cheddaaar goorge..."
friday: i have tried to be fair and cover and all points concisely. i apologize if i was too brief.
i believe there are two points on the table. 1) the water canopy 2) indications in the biblical text of the global nature of the Deluge.
water canopy
i did kind of skip over the water canopy a bit, merely stating that i thought your use of logic about what you thought was a reasonable way for god to cause rainfall was inconsistent with earlier comments. after all, couldnt your arguments be easily swapped? like so:
You have to admit that God had the capability to DIRECTLY transfer some of the animals into the ArkYou have to admit that God had the capability to make it rain in a LOCAL area, just like rain normally does.
Did God have a REASON to cause it to miraculously rain out of a cloud for 40 days and nights? No he didn’t, and because of that it isn’t reasonable to go that route with one’s logic.Did God have a REASON to flood antarctica and south america and transport animals out of there? No he didn’t, and because of that it isn’t reasonable to go that route with one’s logic.
all i want to illustrate is that the biblical text, taken alone, allows for a variety of interpretation and therefore our extrabiblical knowledge can be useful in determining which is more likely.
i hadnt really wanted to go into much more depth regarding the viability of the water canopy and thats why i had left it at that. however, if you wanted to have further exchange on that subject, maybe you could tell me a few things:
1) do you think the bible's description of 'the waters above' allows for alternate interpretations? e.g. clouds?
2) how is it that 'the Bible indicates that the Flood’s source was the earth-enveloping canopy?'
3) do you think that there is extrabiblical evidence for the water canopy?
if you could answer one or all of those, i would have a better idea where to go with that discussion. thanks.
textual evidence of global nature of Deluge
here are the verses, just in Chapter 6, that i think someone might use to support a global nature (NIV):
vs7 "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air."
vs13 "I am going to put an end to all people."
vs17 "I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish."
Now you quoted the first one, and demonstrated that 'move along the ground' implies land animals, and i agree with you. perhaps you did not notice, because again, i was being brief and didnt call attention to it, that I had used the last one: 'every creature that has the breath of life in it' in vs17. now this sounds much stronger, doesnt it? especially the entire verse, which even mentions 'all life under the heavens' and 'everything on earth.' surely you would agree that we cant take those verses at face value but must rather apply a little reasoning to exactly what the author meant by 'all' and 'every' and 'everything.' please understand i am not arguing that the bible is in error here. i believe this is a perfectly valid literary device in hebrew. to use absolute words with unstated and implied qualifications. in this case, we all agree that some unstated qualification are 'except those in the ark' and 'except marine life.' cant we perhaps add 'except those outside the known land' and still be perfectly within the bounds of the language? surely we would make that application to pauls words regarding the good news at Rom 10:18:
'Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.'
Interestingly, the original recipients of this message would have no need to add qualifications to pauls use of 'all the earth,' for in the limits of their geographical knowledge, the good news probably had gone into 'all the earth' and it is only later extrabiblical evidence, geography and archeology that forces us to add the qualification 'all the known earth.' similarly, a multitude a extrabibilical evidences force us to add qualifications to the global words in the Deluge text.
and also, i assure you that you did not hit 'a sore spot.' i objected to your line of questioning because i was presenting the views of the majority of modern christian scholars and asking why you wanted to fight against other christians. by speculating about what I believed, i really felt you were avoiding my point. since that was really the only reason i addressed you originally, as you will note, to offer 'hopefully a more Christian viewpoint,' and since you havent yet addressed that question, i was frustrated with your attempt to turn the question around. i would still appreciate it if you would try and meet that question in my first post to you more directly.
thanks.
mox
i know these topics have been well-covered in many places.
this is just me wanting to compile a list of concise reasons why i am sure the wt interpretation of the deluge is untenable.
this is my first draft.
hi h_s. thx and pls add any comments on my original post. im looking for input.
friday: your having god warp animals around and now youre talking about what kind of rainfall is 'reasonable' for god to make. cant you see a certain inconsistency here?
With exception of the obvious, namely those upon the Ark, “Every existing thing that God had made” takes in every living creature, doesn’t it? So how is it that you say that the Deluge account doesn’t require that the Deluge destroy all mankind?and yet even literalists dont think 'every creature that has the breath of life in it' includes marine life. do you? certainly there are many cases where the bible clearly uses words like 'all' and 'every' in ways that are less than absolute. im sure i dont need to furnish examples.
That’s why you’re probably of the opinion that the Flood didn’t cover the entire globe, or completely disbelieve it altogether. (I can’t remember if you accept the Bible or not.)why does it matter what i believe? i was simply relating what the majority of christians believe and asking why you wish to hold to views that oppose them all.
mox
i know these topics have been well-covered in many places.
this is just me wanting to compile a list of concise reasons why i am sure the wt interpretation of the deluge is untenable.
this is my first draft.
friday, if i may come back into this thread to respond a bit. your ravings about dendrochronology hardly require comment and i doubt whether alan will oblige. hoewever i would like to make a few points from hoefully a more christian viewpoint.
until quite recently historically, christian scholars have tried very hard to harmonize the bible with the natural sciences. they have not felt it nessecary to make appeals to arbitrary miraculous explanations for biblical history and authenticity, as you did when discussing the 'transportation' of animals to the ark. this is for a few reasons:
christians generally believe that the natural world is one of the testaments to god and, along with revealed truth, forms a consistent picture of our creator. (Ro 1:20)
not too long ago, the understanding of the natural sciences was limited enough that we could pretty much take the bible at face value and fit it into our scientific knowledge without much difficulty. in fact, the bible has been of great assistance to archeology, for example, in advancing our scientific knowledge. scientists generally regarded the bible as part of the framework of truth and considered science to be, not replacing it, but merely adding to it.
the bible itself is open to many interpretations. the text in the account of the Deluge, for example, does not require that the Deluge be universal, neither geographically (covering the whole earth) nor anthropologically (destroying all mankind.) what is more, the account gives no reason to multiply miracles arbitrarily, and to do so is reading into the bible something that is not there. i wont make detailed argument for this point, since it should be clear to you that a great many christians accept this interpretation of a local Deluge without difficulty. As in countless cases the evidence from one Testament, nature, has added to and refined the christian understanding of the other Testament, the bible. in fact, we would have no understanding of the bible at all without science, for the study of ancient languages itself is an extrabiblical science, without which the bible would remain dead. the fight, friday, which you and other fundamentalists seem determined to wage, is not between the bible and science, as you would like to believe. but it is between christian and christian. why do you persist in stubbornly making war with your brothers?
mox
below is an email from a bro i know who has a website to help jws get scriptures and materials they may need, in it you will find the society comments and his own.. .
dear jem this a letter i received from patterson, this morning.
i would appreciate your comments as i know you work on the ****** desk in london.. cheers .
as indicated above, issues surrounding copyright and the internet are far from clear and there are many factors that can come into legal consideration.
from http://fairuse.stanford.edu/library/faq.html :
What is fair use?moxFair use provisions of the copyright law allow for limited copying or distribution of published works without the author's permission in some cases. Examples of fair use of copyrighted materials include quotation of excerpts in a review or critique, or copying of a small part of a work by a teacher or student to illustrate a lesson. New issues about fair use have arisen with the increased use of the Internet. At the time of publication, a bill is pending in Congress concerning whether fair use provisions will be extended to appropriate users/uses of copyrighted Internet materials.
When is copying is allowed by fair use provisions of the law?
There are no explicit, predefined, legal specifications of how much and when one can copy, but there are guidelines for fair use. Each case of copying must be evaluated according to four factors:
* The purpose and nature of the use--If the copy is used for teaching at a nonprofit institution, distributed without charge, and made by a teacher or students acting individually, then the copy is more likely to be considered as fair use. In addition, an interpretation of fair use is more likely if the copy was made spontaneously, for temporary use, not as part of an "anthology," and not as an institutional requirement or suggestion.
* The nature of the copyrighted work--With multimedia material there are different standards and permissions for different media: a digitized photo from a National Geographic, a video clip from Jaws, and an audio selection from Peter Gabriel¼s CD would be treated differently--the selections are not treated as equivalent chunks of digital data.
* The nature and substantiality of the material used--In general, when other criteria are met, the copying of extracts that are "not substantial in length" when compared to the whole of which they are part may be considered fair use.
* The effect of use on the potential market for or value of the work--In general, any use that supplants or diminishes the normal market for the original work is considered an infringement, but a use does not have to have an effect on the market to be an infringement.Although all of these factors will be considered, the fourth factor is the most important consideration in determining whether a particular use is "fair." Where a work is available for purchase or license from the copyright owner in the medium or format desired, copying of all or a substantial portion of the work in lieu of purchasing or licensing a sufficient number of "authorized" copies would be presumptively unfair. Where only a small portion of the work is to be copied and the work would not be used if purchase or licensing of a sufficient number of authorized copies were required, the intended use is more likely to be found to be fair.
perhaps one of the most problematic psychological traits of humans and other species to analyze by methods of statistical analysis is motivation.
last summer, my colleagues at the university of minnesota published a joint paper with me that started a new field of science known as chronosociobiology, which is a study of social systems over time.
our first study was done on studying the motivation of jehovahs witnesses for a 50-year period.
a few things:
i understood from your research that you were advancing the idea that geomagnetics had an influence on religious fervor, not neccesarilly that it was the major influence or that one could make prediction based on the geomagnetic periods. is that so? if you are making predictions, can you make some more quantitative statistical predictions?
i had thought you were saying before, and i agreed with you, that the hours per publisher was a much better indicator than growth or baptisms. why have you switched to growth % in these pages?
i am generally a little skeptical of periodicity arguments just because there have been so many false alarms. remember a few years ago the trend in palaeontology when so many researchers were trying to find multi-million year periods in extinction events based on galactic movement and such. i dont think anything ever came of that though it looked convincing in its time. still, i am very interested in your research and would spend time looking at it more thoroughly.
mox
i know these topics have been well-covered in many places.
this is just me wanting to compile a list of concise reasons why i am sure the wt interpretation of the deluge is untenable.
this is my first draft.
simon: i like the point about using parables to make a point. since a large proportion of christians today seem to believe that christ is the son of god but NOT that there was a global deluge, i can only assume that they have also found a similar explanation satisfactory.
gambler: 2370 BCE, october or novenber. we cant say exactly.
oldhippie: thats a very good question and one that was seriously considered about, oh, 200 years ago. other good questions would be: why so many dead mammoths and not other animals too? why do the mammoth corpses show signs of a struggle and broken bones? why do the radiocarbon dates obtained from the mammoths show a range of dates over several millenia? the belief that mammoths prove the Deluge is so outdated that even the WT is very careful when discussing them, not to state that the mammoths died in the flood, but only that some have suggested that they did.
mox
