NeonMadman

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Posts by NeonMadman

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  34

  The Church's Biggest Lie

  by ProdigalSon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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:.

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  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
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  34

  The Church's Biggest Lie

  by ProdigalSon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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:.

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  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.
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  11

  If anyone needs the unleavened bread recipe....

  by Newly Enlightened in

  1. jw
  2. 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.

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  NeonMadman

  Does the flour need to be whole wheat? I'm going for the drywall flavor here...
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  34

  The Church's Biggest Lie

  by ProdigalSon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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:.

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  3. 
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  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.
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  34

  The Church's Biggest Lie

  by ProdigalSon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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:.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  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.
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  34

  The Church's Biggest Lie

  by ProdigalSon in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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:.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
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  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."?
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  18

  Memorial Invites from Door to Door?

  by NeonMadman in

  1. jw
  2. 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.

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  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?'
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  14

  Question For Elders - Am I being Paranoid?

  by The Searcher in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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).

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  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.
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  6

  This somehow just seems so wrong ....

  by cptkirk in

  1. social
  2. humour

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  NeonMadman

  Yeah, it seems like there should be something in that white box...
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  2

  for CoCo - you'll get it

  by Hortensia in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  oh for god's sake - edit, edit, edit!.

  today's crossword had the following clue: penultimate word in a fairy tale.

  the answer?

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  NeonMadman

  "Ever" is usually the penultimate (second to last) word in a fairy tale: "...and they lived happily ever after." I'm not sure what the problem was?