There's no special significance to the fact that the lyrics fit, it's just that the two songs have the same meter, and the same pattern of syllables per line. The lyrics to Amazing Grace also work with the melody of the Gilligan's Island theme, for example. Hymnals take advantage of this factor all the time; indexes in some hymnals often show a named pattern that can be used with a particular hymn.
NeonMadman
JoinedPosts by NeonMadman
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So I was letting my mind wander during the closing song tonight....
by Shador in.... and i noticed that you can take the melody for song 135 and plug in the words to "amazing grace" and it fits perfectly.
odd..
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New Prince album quite interesting for JWs
by JimmyPage inyou've probably already heard that prince is calling his new album "follow the slave".
but a closer look at the track list raises even more eyebrows.
check out these song titles: "100 invisible years".
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NeonMadman
Larry Graham and George Benson are on the album?
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1st Century GB... Peter
by leaving_quietly inwas there a 1st century gb?
jws say, it was centralized in jerusalem, and they use acts 15 to prove it.
however, today's wt study shows something interesting.
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NeonMadman
Acts 15 describes a one-time church council to resolve a doctrinal issue. There is nothing either stated or implied indicating the existence of an ongoing "governing body"in the manner understood by JWs today. The elders and apostles came together, resolved a problem, and then went about their business again. Anyone who argues for the existence of a first-century "governing body" needs to find better evidence than Acts 15.
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Guy Pierce Memorial Program
by lambsbottom inforgive me if someone already posted this but here ya go:.
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http://www.sendspace.com/file/udl79c.
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NeonMadman
I wonder what the reaction would be if a rank and file JWwho died had a colorful brochure giving his life story made up by his/her friends and family for the funeral? Do you suppose they would be accused of "glorifying a creature?"
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1993-2014 THE BEST OF WATCHTOWER LETTERS PDF
by WatchTower87 in1993-2014 the best of watchtower letters pdf.
instruction: press the 'skip ad' button top right, you should then see the download screen more easily.
no virus ;-).
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NeonMadman
*Comment deleted after I figured out how to get the downloads to work*
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2014 Convention Program is up on jw.org
by factfinder ina new book for children on friday?.
a brochure about god's organization on saturday?.
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NeonMadman
Saturday afternoon's closing talk almost sounds like it could include the release of a new version of the Proclaimers book. Not entirely out of the question; the book is now 21 years old. It would be surprising to see them release another expensive-to-produce book this soon after the new Bible, though.
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WT Video on how to handle JWs contemplating suicide
by Oubliette inhttp://www.mediafire.com/watch/cvas6fcrc9zca94/shepherding_instructional_suicidal_widow.avi.
i just watched beginning of the recently leaked video produced by the wtbts allegedly instructing elders how to treat jws contemplating suicide.
i am so apalled i cannot even begin to describe it!.
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NeonMadman
In the "Good" example, they quote Jeremiah 29:11 out of context and apply it to Mary. It's not a text about Christians, it's about the Jewish captives in Babylon in the 6th century BC. Not that it's unusual for JWs to take texts out of context, but this one gets used that way so commonly among non-JW Christians that I found it amusing to see the JWs doing it too. Minor point, I know...
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edx-Course --> Early Christianity: The Letters of Paul
by fastJehu inlink to the course: https://www.edx.org/course/harvardx/harvardx-hds1544-1x-early-christianity-927.
intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rj3nxoyt7k.
it's my first time for a edx-course and i will try "early christianity: the letters of paul".
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NeonMadman
"I hereby affirm that my prophecy will be correct, JFK will be shot dead near the end of the 60s in Dallas. Cheers, Dixon, 5 May, 1958."
Technically, that would be an incorrect prophecy, since JFK was killed in 1963.
But I see what you are getting at.
I only claim I would then believe (with high certainty) that note was written after Kennedy was killed and it would still take quite a bit of evidence to convince me it was written before JFK was shot. Do you think that is the wrong conclusion to draw?
I suppose I could see why you would accept that as a prima facie conclusion. What I think bothers me about the statement is the phrase "with high certainty." The problem, again, comes down to the question of whether one accepts that prophecy is a real possibility. You've said that you acknowledge that as being so. If that is the case, why necessarily conclude in an a priori fashion that the prediction almost certainly could not have occurred as claimed? If there really is no anti-prophecy bias at work, then the information should be evaluated as to its claims, not dismissed as being highly improbable.
Suppose in this scenario, Dixon had accumulated a group of followers prior to 1963 who touted the possibility of a president being shot dead in Dallas at that time? What if these followers believed in Dixon's prophecy so strongly that they were willing to undergo personal hardship or even death in order to spread her message far and wide - a message that, if it was false, they were in a position to know was false? Suppose, further, that the government considered these followers to be a problem and so began to suppress them, even violently? Would things like this happening before 1963 change your view of the possibility of the prediction being a real prophecy?
Are you saying unicorn and fairies are a-priori impossible but the existence of god, angels etc. is not?
No, that's not where I was going with that at all. I was trying to gague your openness to actual prophecy by seeing whether you would put real prophecy in the same basket with things like fairies and unicorns, or whether you actually considered it a real possibility.
And of course, your remarks about unicorns are correct; some might even use the term of a rhinoceros.
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edx-Course --> Early Christianity: The Letters of Paul
by fastJehu inlink to the course: https://www.edx.org/course/harvardx/harvardx-hds1544-1x-early-christianity-927.
intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rj3nxoyt7k.
it's my first time for a edx-course and i will try "early christianity: the letters of paul".
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NeonMadman
Here's another book you wont like Neon:
islamic-replies.ucoz.com/Bible_Books/22916607-Jesus-interrupted-Bart-D-ehrman.pdf
I've read some of Ehrman, and I'm not impressed. His data are excellent, of course. The man is clearly a scholar of the highest order in terms of his historical and textual research, but his conclusions strike me as being pre-determined by his agenda. Textual criticism is a well-developed science, and gives us good reason to believe that the New Testament we have today is very much as it was originally written. Ehrman acknowledges as much in some of his works, but takes the fundamentalist-like position that if there is any doubt whatsoever as to what the original manuscripts said, then we have absolutely no idea what they might have said. When we can trace multiple lines of manuscript evidence back to a largely unified critical text, it seems unfounded to claim that some unknown changes might have occurred in the earliest times that altered the text somehow in major ways before the manuscripts even began to circulate. It also seems to me that if Ehrman wants to assert such a thing, then the burden of proof is upon him to demonstrate it. This is another case of the "extraordinary evidence" fallacy, in that he subjectively has set the bar so high for "extraordinary" evidence that it could never be met by any evidence. Nothing short of a signed, dated, time-stamped original would satisfy him. Really, if Ehrman is right in his claims about the New Testament, then we have no idea whatsoever about any document, person or event in ancient history, since there is no evidence available that would meet the criteria he demands of the NT.
Numerous books have been written refuting Ehrman, of course, but the authors who wrote them don't become media darlings as he has.
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edx-Course --> Early Christianity: The Letters of Paul
by fastJehu inlink to the course: https://www.edx.org/course/harvardx/harvardx-hds1544-1x-early-christianity-927.
intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rj3nxoyt7k.
it's my first time for a edx-course and i will try "early christianity: the letters of paul".
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NeonMadman
Neon: I assume we are discussing here a letter that is claimed by someone to be written before 9/11?
No, I intended both the statement the way they were written, does that influence your answer?
Well, of course. If I simply found a document that described the events of 9/11, with no prophetic claim being made, then of course I would regard it as having been written after the event. That is not the case with the Gospels.
In 1964, I read a best selling book called A Gift of Prophecy, about Jeane Dixon. The book made the claim that Dixon had predicted, as far back as 1956, I believe it was, the assassination of JFK. Now, obviously, the book itself was written after the assassination, but it claimed that there were publications and documents that showed Dixon had made the prediction before the event. If one of those documents was produced (and, in reality, I'm not sure any ever were), it would be illegitimate to dismiss it as having been written after the fact. We would have to evaluate it claims on its own merits.
I'm certainly not advancing Jeane Dixon as an example of genuine prophecy. The book I cited contained a list of her predictions for the future, which I once evaluated many years later. As I recall, she had about a 10-15% accuracy rate, which probably most anyone could have achieved based on current events plus a bit of common sense. The most significant events that she predicted (World War III in the 1990s, the rise of a great world leader bringing a golden age in the 21st century) were completely off the mark.
Just the same, if you do believe that genuine prophecy is possible, I am wondering if there is any instance in history that you think might represent an example thereof?
No, I do not know of any. I know many instances of claimed prophecies, but none of them can be confirmed. If you ask me of the closest example I think i would say something like eg. nostra damus, but the problem here is what is being said is to vague to not be a coincidence.
Then I am curious on what basis you believe that prophecy is possible. Are you saying that prophecy might really happen, and some day we might also discover real fairies and unicorns? I agree about Nostradamus, by the way. His "prophecies" are written in such vague language that they could apply to almost anything, or nothing. It's impossible to know because of their non-specificity. Unlike Jesus, who was quite specific about what would happen to Jerusalem.