Posts by peacefulpete

9

they do accept blood after all

by wonderer2003 in

thought this might interest some of you, sorry me if this page has already been talked about, but i just found it and thought it very interesting....

http://www.stnicholasla.com/blood.htm found here.

the resulting decisions based on this arbitrary classification are breathtaking examples of inconsistency.

peacefulpete

Sorry for all the typos, I could only see 2/3rds of the screen while I was posting.

9

they do accept blood after all

by wonderer2003 in

thought this might interest some of you, sorry me if this page has already been talked about, but i just found it and thought it very interesting....

http://www.stnicholasla.com/blood.htm found here.

the resulting decisions based on this arbitrary classification are breathtaking examples of inconsistency.

Interestingly the Persians also prohibited the eating of blood and declared that " blood had the soul in it" just as the Bible does. The the Bible does. Acts 15 represents a greatly distorted account of the rift between Jewish Christianity and Paiuline christianity over the isssue of of Jewish law and practice. The "decision" made was to encourage nonjewish christians to voluntarily exercise restraint in the more volatile matters such as eating blood and meat offered to idols. The passage itself makes clear that the issue is not one of divine prohibition but one of consideration for the conscience of the Jews. (Acts 15:5,20-21) Verse 21,29 are translated in my interlinear "hold back from" things sacrificed to idols and blood and things stangled. Stangulation was the method used to sacrifice to certain Gods. So the really it is a repetition of the "sacriced to idols phrs phrase. Verse 21 makes clear that the reason for this was so as not to offend or stumble Jewish converts or potential converts. In 1 Cor 8 Paul makes even clearer that this matter of eating things sacrificed to idols was nothing of importance to God but may stumble weak ones especially those with jewish backgrounds. Reasonably then, eating of blood was not a law binding upon christians at the time of writing the NT. It rather was encouraged that all hold back from stumbling the jewish converts.

20

Update...Letter from Wt

by peacefulpete in

not long ago i started a thread about how my wife & i sent letters to the society but received no response, well we got one.

my wife wrote a letter asking about the similarity between pagan mystery cults and christianity, especially she mentioned the eucharist meal of bread and wine representing blood and body of dying saviors such as mithras and dionysus.

their response was: .

peacefulpete

Alley..thanks for your concern but I have read the sites you posted. Hooberus also has made much noise about the defence made for the uniqueness and originality of Christianity. In fact the WT reply we received is very much the same twisted logic. "It's exaggerated, It's coicidence,It's the Devil".

I do not have a scanner, sorry. Other than more "encouragement" to stay away from the world and in the pen, that was the substance of the responce. They did say she could discuss this matter with the local elders if she needed more encouragement. We laughed. If we tried to discuss this matter frankly and honestly we would be labeled apostate (officially) and loose the limited contact we yet have with our families.

19

Is it Scientificly possible for God to hear my prayers??????

by JC in

how do we explain the trillion sets of instruction that make up our dna???????.

how the dickens did all that information get there??.

its things like this that goes around in my head very often!!........

peacefulpete

JC..if you are truly seeking answers to your questions about genetics READ SOMRTHING DON'T WAIT FOR INSPIRATION. Dawkins book, Climbing Mount Improbable is a great start.

55

RAPE & GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

by JT in

these are two words that are truly hard to use in the same sentence- i have had the opportunity to work with rape victims since leaving wt and i is unreal-.

in the old testament the god of the bible requires the woman to scream out, even if no one heards her- now this is an interesting bible verse- .

consider this ---here you have a woman or child who is under divine judgement to scream even if no one heards them in the village.

peacefulpete

The seemingly odd ruling in the OT about "rape" is because rape was not the issue, it is about property ownership.(woman owned by father or husband) The "law" only pertained to married or betrothed women. Virgins that were unengaged were free for the taking. The punishment for "taking" an unmarried Jewish woman was to pay the father for the loss in wages he would now recieve for her on the virgin market.(bride price) and marry her. If she was not an Isrealite, she was fair game. There are of course other passages that represent later ideas.

23

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 6-22-03 WT Study

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 6-22-03 wt study

may 1, 2003 wt page 19

wt quotes are in red (or quotes).

peacefulpete

gopher and blondie..I agree of course about what you have said. It is the villifying and generalizations of people that disturbed me. It is also true that the emphasis tward proselytizing at the expence of practical assistance has in part numbed the average JW tward the needs of others. Those who leave the org. show their true natures by what they do without the direction of the WT. Many are no more giving of themselves then when JWs, some are very active in humanitarian works, most are average Joes and Jills who do what is expected of them and no more.

20

Update...Letter from Wt

by peacefulpete in

not long ago i started a thread about how my wife & i sent letters to the society but received no response, well we got one.

my wife wrote a letter asking about the similarity between pagan mystery cults and christianity, especially she mentioned the eucharist meal of bread and wine representing blood and body of dying saviors such as mithras and dionysus.

their response was: .

peacefulpete

Not long ago I started a thread about how my wife & I sent letters to the Society but received no response, well we got one. My wife wrote a letter asking about the similarity between pagan mystery cults and Christianity, especially she mentioned the eucharist meal of bread and wine representing blood and body of dying saviors such as Mithras and Dionysus.

Their response was:

(1) Reading worldly materials raises "insidious doubts". "Christians do not need to make a study of mythology." Included was a photocopy of a QFR that said "it would be foolhardy, as well as a waste of valuable time, for Witnesses to expose themselves to false religious literature...true Christians are commanded to shun apostates...As LOYAL Christians let us hold to God's standards, feeding our minds on what is true and righteous, and holding appreciatively and LOYALLY to the CHANNEL from which we first learn Bible truth."

(2) Christians would never have copied the pagans because they were demonized.

(3) Jesus was a historical person.

The first point is nothing more than "Information Control", a standard method of high control groups (cults). This is when you control the information a person is allowed or encouraged to accept. Access to non-cult sources of information is minimized or discouraged through guilt or invoking a sense of loyalty. A legitimate organization will allow people the freedom to think for themselves, read whatever they like, and talk to whomever they choose in order to arrive at their own decisions, where as a destructive mind control group will want to do the thinking for people.(paraphrase of Steven Hassan's book "Releasing the Bonds")

The second point is nothing more than conjecture shaped by ignorance of the wide variety of Christian practice and theology prior to the Roman Catholic Church. A quote from the letter about the eucharist sacrements, "As you know, Jesus borrowed the bread and wine symbols from the Passover celebration, a much older part of the true worship of Jehovah. It certainly was not done in imitation of pagan worship." Can anyone remember bread and wine representing flesh and blood of a dying savior being part of the passover celebration? We can't either.

The third point, while certainly a good topic was not relevant to the question. Interestingly however, they provided two photocopies from the Encyclopedia Britannica and Will Durrant's book, each of which renounces the non-Christian references to Jesus as frauds or irrelevant to the issue of an historical Christ. I wonder if they read the article in full or just liked the one line from these articles that they quote in the wts and Greatest Man book. Obviously much of this response is due to a large number of letters from readers questioning whether Jesus actually existed.

Additionally, they refer to a comment in the insight volume under the topic "gods & goddesses". It says "the mythologies of the ancients ECHO various parts of the Biblical record...also the religions of many ancient peoples included the worship of a god placed in the role of a benefactor who dies a violent death on earth and is then restored to life. This may suggest that such a god was actually a deified human wrongly viewed as being the promised seed. (Gen 3:15)" I missed this acknowledgement when looking for evidence that they were aware of the work of religious historians that have cataloged hundreds of pagan parallels to Bible stories. The explanation that the Devil heard Gen 3:15 being spoken and from this was able to summize the great divine plan and preemptively create counterfeits is ridiculous of course. The interpretation of Gen 3:15 as referring to a messiah was not until late Judaism.

Comments and questions welcomed.

23

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 6-22-03 WT Study

by blondie in

comments you will not hear at the 6-22-03 wt study

may 1, 2003 wt page 19

wt quotes are in red (or quotes).

peacefulpete

I have to voice in about the "lack of love" thing. What can be learned from sad situations, like the story of the woman in the nursing home, is hat rather than the JWs being morally superior they simply resemble the rest of the world. The next congregation may have showered her with attention when this one seems to have dropped the ball. Are JWs less loving than other peoples? No, they are just not superior to other people.

11

More thoughts on war

by l3gi0n in

ants fight wars.

i dont know if any of you know this, but this came as a supprise to me.

ants employ propaganda, deception, and skilled surveillance and mass assaults singly or in combination to overcome their enemies.

peacefulpete

I think that it's the "your with us or agaist us" politics that concern ost of us in America. War is unfortunately probably going to be with us for a long time. The fact that we desire peaceful resolution to differences does not erase that fact that a few people act more like rabid dogs that need to be put down. If the international community gets it's act together and creates a more effective forum for intervention before these mad dog types can gather armies, war will be less an issue. When on rare occasions it becomes necesssary, war in these situations will be short lived and contained. This latest Iraq war was a tragic blow to international peace efforts. It is more and more apparent that personal adgendas and narrow political views drove our leaders to a war that should not have happened. America was sleeping and far too trusting. Much like the conditions within the JWs.

11

Can fanatical religious people really be open-minded?

by be wise in

this is the main question really for any religious org.

according to them do it gods way and close your mind to your own logic and reason and that of the worlds (given to us by the very god they believe in).

or be an independent thinker and reason stuff out according to the watchtower satan influences independent thinkers and they warn against it as this is the devils way of doing it.

peacefulpete

When the illussion no longer works, then more objective thinking takes over. By "works" I mean that it no longer buffers the person from pain. Usually this happens when they personally are hurt by policy or personalities within the org.