Posts by NeonMadman

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

Oh I have read them, and I did plenty of my own research.

If that's really true, then it should be a simple matter for you to provide specific citations of the Fathers where they advocated a doctrine of reincarnation. So far, you haven't provided one.

Then you'll turn around and say it ccomes from "Theosophy" sources and is out of context.

If what you provide are simply references to Theosophy sources and/or are out of context, then, yes, I'll say that. If you provide actual citations to the Fathers that I can check out rather than "So and so said such and such" without specifying exactly where he said it, then I'll examine the quotations to see whether the context supports the argument that you are using the citation to support. It the quotation in context doesn't say what you are claiming, you can be certain I'll call you out on it.

You think I haven't been here long enough to know what kind of response I would get from my "own research"?

From everything I've seen so far, your "own research" appears to be on the level of JW research. You know, they have extensively researched other religions because they've read Mankind's Search for God? You haven't posted anything yet that leads me to believe you have considered this topic from any sources other than Theosophical literature that takes the position you are advocating, and that without supporting its own claims with appropriate references that can actually be checked by a discerning reader.

"Bing Bong" and invoking the 911 card is all you have left.

Interesting that you include that in a response to my comment, since I have used neither in my arguments. Straw man, anyone?

Sayonara, til the next time I feel like dropping a truth bomb on ya all

Still waiting for the first one.

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

And you've been proven wrong. Ignoring the evidence doesn't serve anyone well.

If we've been proven wrong, it certainly hasn't been by you. You haven't presented any evidence to prove anyone wrong. All you've done is to cut and paste from works that assert the same things that you do, making bald assertions without providing any specific references that can be checked (e.g., as I pointed out above, 'Justin Martyr taught so and so' but with no references to specific statements of Justin's to back up the assertion). You'll have to present some actual evidence before we can ignore it.

Fragments from the 2nd century don't prove jack shit.

Actually, they do. The cumulative weight of the manuscript evidence that exists is that the NT as we have it today is substantially the same as the writings that were produced by the apostles and their associates. If the Bible today doesn't teach reincarnation, then it didn't in the early centuries of the church, either.

The canon was carefully selected hundreds of years later to eliminate "heresies".

Not only is this statement false, but it shows massive ignorance of the history of the canon of the NT. The writings of the NT were accepted as Scripture even during the lives of the writers. At 2 Peter 3:16, Peter refers to Paul's writings as "Scripture." At 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul quotes Luke 10:7 and calls it "Scripture." Even if you take the liberal view that these were later works by other authors (a viewpoint with which I strenuously disagree), they would still be dated no later than the early 2nd century, showing that those works (Paul's writings and Luke's Gospel) were regarded as part of the "canon" even then - long before you are asserting that the canon was "carefully selected." The establishment of a formal canon by church council in the 4th century does not mean that the canon was unknown before that time. It's not like a bunch of bishops sat down one dey and decided to select a canon when up to that time, nobody had the slightest idea which books were considered Scripture. The majority of NT books were accepted as inspired Scripture from the time of their being written. What the church ultimately formalized at the council of Carthage was a canon that had already been known and accepted for hundreds of years. Maybe you should read some literature from sources other than this new cult you seem to have embraced unquestioningly.

Sound like a Cult in Brooklyn we know?

Your method of argumentation certainly does, as I pointed out in my previous post.

One thing about the Vatican, if they're covering it up, it's undoubtedly true.

Another bald assertion offered without evidence. To claim that if the Vatican's covering something up it means that it's true, you first have to prove that the Vatican is covering something up, and you haven't done that. If you can't establish the rest of your argument using real citations and evidence rather than naked assertions, then you haven't shown that there's anything to be covered up in the first place. I can claim that there are little green men living on Pluto and that NASA is covering it up, but to make the argument stick, I first have to prove that the little green men actually exist, and then, as a separate argument, prove that NASA knows about them and is in fact covering up what they know. The same process applies to your argument, and your cutting and pasting of assertions without meaningful citation fails to meet the criteria for proof that any reasonable person would demand.

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

Rather than claiming that the Church Fathers taught reincarnation and then offering a series of references to a Theosophical book, wouldn't it be better to offer the citations to the actual writings of the Fathers themselves so that their alleged statements can be examined in context? It's pretty clear at this point that you have no knowledge of the writings of the Fathers apart from what you have read in the publications of those who promote the same teaching that you are doing here. It's as if a JW wrote that 'Justin Martyr said so and so' and then referenced the Watchtower rather than Justin's own writings. If Justin really did say that the soul inhabits more than one body, as your article claims, then you should be able to point me to a specific citation in his writings that I can then look up and read in context to see if that's really what he said and meant, or if the Theosophist writer is just taking something he said out of context (or possibly even just making it up out of whole cloth) to support the conclusion he wants to arrive at.

Or, here's an idea - maybe you should do some research of your own rather than just cutting and pasting and linking articles from the publications produced by one side of the argument. This method really smacks of the JW mentality. They can't think for themselves so they just cut and paste from WT publications. Read some of the Church Fathers for yourself and see if you come away thinking that reincarnation was the predominant teaching of the early church. Here's a good volume to start with: http://www.amazon.com/The-Apostolic-Fathers-Moody-Classics/dp/0802456596/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1364411560&sr=8-1-fkmr2

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

Its also fair and important to state for the uninitiated that many of these Manuscripts are actually tiny with only a handful of words. The Rylands fragment holds but a few verses.

That's very true, but it doesn't change the fact that the text of the NT is enormously well attested, going back well before the 6th century. "Many" of the manuscripts fit your description, but certainly not all. We do have complete or near-complete manuscripts before that time, as well as many, many fragments documenting different parts of the NT text. There is even some scholarly buzz that there may soon be information released about some NT fragments that may date back even into the first century, currently under study. So there is no evidence whatsoever for any alteration of the text such as has been asserted by the OP. The NT is by far the best attested ancient document we have - except possibly for the Old Testament. If we can't rely on the NT we have today reflecting the actual original text to a very high degree, then we have no basis to accept any document of antiquity whatsoever, and we need to simply admit that we know nothing about the ancient past. And, again, I reiterate, reincarnation is not mentioned in any of the extant documents.

11

If anyone needs the unleavened bread recipe....

by Newly Enlightened in

jw
friends

sorry it's so late in the day with this.. if anyone would like the passover bread recipe:.

1 cup whole wheat flour, 2 tbls olive oil [extra virgin] 1/2 cup water.

mix.

NeonMadman

Does the flour need to be whole wheat? I'm going for the drywall flavor here...

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

By the way, Origen probably isn't the best source to use in discussing what the early Church Fathers believed. His doctrine was pretty wonky in a number of areas. Some scholars in the area of Patristics consider Origen to have been a heretic.

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

We have thousands of New Testment manuscripts dating back as far as the 2nd century, and not one mentions reincarnation anywhere.
Who is "we"? Lol... the Catholic Church? Sorry, but that simply isn't true.

Yes, it simply is true. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. "We" refers to the entire scholarly community. There are almost 6,000 manuscripts or parts of manuscripts of the NT in existence today. The oldest of these is currently the Rylands fragment, a portion of the Gospel of John dating back to about 125 A.D., only 30 years or so after the original was written (see http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence). Some of the manuscripts, to be sure, are held by the Catholic Church, others are in the possession of museums and universities. Most are available for scholarly study. None carries any explicit message endorsing reincarnation.

The New Testament is the most reliable of any document of ancient times in terms of the manuscript evidence for the text. Copies of the NT writings were circulated far and wide, even during the first century. It would have been impossible, even then, to have gathered up all the manuscripts and "changed the Bible" - how much more so 500 years later, when the text had been distributed even further?

We also have the writings of early church Fathers dating back to people who were contemporary with the Apostles, and again, there is no mention of reincarnation.
Sorry again, but that isn't true either.

I stand by my statement. As soontobe pointed out, Origen wrote against reincarnation, not in favor of it. The article you cite doesn't actually provide any quotations from Origen that supposedly advocate reincarnation, but relies on Gnostic sources, and even the quotations from them are not explicit regarding reincarnation. In fact, the Gnostics would have denied reincarnation, since their belief was that the flesh was evil and it was desirable to be freed from the body of flesh, not implanted into a new one after death. Even if you could find an odd Church Father or two who believed in reincarnation - and I don't think you can - that's still a long way from supporting the claim that " At the beginning of the Christian era, reincarnation was one of the pillars of belief." Clearly anyone who held such a belief in the early days of Christianity would have been regarded as a heretic.

Nor does finding a verse or two in the NT that, when taken out of context, might be compatible with the idea of reincarnation, prove your case. If you think text has been removed from the Bible, you need to offer evidence - tell us which manuscripts out of the 6,000 have the missing verses. The articles you have been linking to are long on assertion and very, very short on substantive proof. And make no mistake, in making claims such as this, the burden of proof is on you, not on those who disagree with your assertions.

34

The Church's Biggest Lie

by ProdigalSon in

think you've sorted out the mess that christianity has become?.

ever wonder why the other 2/3 of the planet doesn't believe the utter nonsense of "resurrection"??.

chew on this, christians:.

NeonMadman

Reincarnation is a fact. That it is no longer a part of today’s Christian beliefs is due to one power-hungry woman who had all references to reincarnation in the early Bible removed.

What was that thing that skeptics keep throwing at Christians about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence? We have thousands of New Testment manuscripts dating back as far as the 2nd century, and not one mentions reincarnation anywhere. We also have the writings of early church Fathers dating back to people who were contemporary with the Apostles, and again, there is no mention of reincarnation. By the 6th century, when reincarnation was supposedly "removed" from the Bible, the canon had been fixed and copies of the Bible were distributed throughout the civilized world. Are we to assume that one "power-hungry woman" had the ability to gather up every copy of the Bible in the world and change them all so that not even one manuscript remained that reflected this "pillar of belief" of the early church, and also somehow managed to alter all the writings of the early Fathers? You might as well try to alter the Bible today by gathering up all the copies and changing them.

Even the Gnostic gospels, which were about as mainstream to Christianity as the average issue of the Watchtower, don't reflect a belief in reincarnation. The "facts" stated in this article are simply false. The Chalcedon council did not endorse reincarnation, nor was it a topic of discussion there (or did the "power-hungry woman" somehow alter all the records of that council, too?). Whoever wrote this article is either massively ignorant of church history or is simply being deceptive.

Or is this supposed to be like the old joke, where someone claims that reincarnation was taught in the Bible but was removed by the church, and when asked how he knows that the church removed it, answers, "Because it's not there."?

18

Memorial Invites from Door to Door?

by NeonMadman in

jw
friends

is this the first year that the jws have been out aggressively handing out memorial invitations from door to door?

i've been out for about 12 years now, but as i recall, congregations used to receive a relatively limited number of memorial invitations, and they were pretty much reserved for bible studies, good rvs, inactive persons, and others who had some sort of connection to the organization.

they were not just randomly handed out from house to house - that was what the "special talk" invitations were for.. it occurs to me that this might be an attempt by the wts to pump up the memorial attendance so as to maintain the illusion of continued growth.

NeonMadman

Is this the first year that the JWs have been out aggressively handing out Memorial invitations from door to door? I've been out for about 12 years now, but as I recall, congregations used to receive a relatively limited number of Memorial invitations, and they were pretty much reserved for Bible studies, good RVs, inactive persons, and others who had some sort of connection to the organization. They were not just randomly handed out from house to house - that was what the "special talk" invitations were for.

It occurs to me that this might be an attempt by the WTS to pump up the Memorial attendance so as to maintain the illusion of continued growth. If the general public was not aggressively invited before, and now is being invited, it would likely result in a higher total attendance. However, it skews the comparison with prior years, since the public was generally not solicited to come back then. With growth in developed nationd becoming flatter and flatter, might this just be a way of convincing the rank and file that Jehovah is still 'speeding up the work?'

14

Question For Elders - Am I being Paranoid?

by The Searcher in

i gave the talk last week on the meaning of the memorial emblems in the 'b' school.

(included subtle 'seeds' as well) i was puzzled to see a member of the service committee come in as part of the spectator group, because he never leaves his family to come into the 'b' school.

(i was wondering if i'd been deliberately assigned the material, to test me).

NeonMadman

It might be that, but it seems more likely to me that they are watching the person conducting the second school. Is it being conducted by a ministerial servant or a newer elder? If so, they are probably having more experienced elders sit in to observe how he is doing and offer advice.