Posts by peacefulpete

30

Friday crucifixion?

by rstrats in

it is my understanding that jws believe that the crucifixion occurred on friday.

however, luke 24:21 would seem to indicate that it couldn't have occurred any later than thursday.

how do you explain the seeming discrepancy?

rstrats...Mrk 15:42 seems to clearly identify the "Preparation" as "the day before the Sabbath." So you have seen a discrepency between verses now what? I thank you though for reminding me of this issue, I remember bringing it up at the book study the first time we went through the greatsest man book. Dispite my defence of the Bible from the Insight Vol. my research was greated with stares and grimmaces, students are viewed suspiciously. So your right, my first comment should have not insisted that The Bible asserts that he was hung on Friday, it does but other verses appear to differ.. The Church fathers and modern theologians seem to have opted for Friday as this is the obvious intention of the editor of the Gospels diectly after the council of Nicea. However the necessity of a three day motif surely is evident in both versions of the story coexisting in these tales. That this caused a minor difficulty with this story not perfectly matching the legend of Jonah was not recognised or perhaps the value of the "prophetic" resemblece was seen as of greater importance than textural harmony. Who knows? It's hash.

Edited by - peacefulpete on 13 February 2003 10:52:44

34

"Dead conscious of nothing at all" .....

by anti-absolutism in

.

when speaking to a jw the other day, i didn't really have a good explanation of ecclesiastes 9:5, where it says that the dead are conscious of nothing at all.. what is everybody's take on it?

peacefulpete

sargon..I liked your reference to the scene in the Life o Brian. (blessed are the cheesemakers) Remember how the Pharisee in the crowd followed up every statement made by Jesus with his own spin on it? He says something like "what he means is........." and we all laugh.

34

"Dead conscious of nothing at all" .....

by anti-absolutism in

.

when speaking to a jw the other day, i didn't really have a good explanation of ecclesiastes 9:5, where it says that the dead are conscious of nothing at all.. what is everybody's take on it?

peacefulpete

"Who but Marduke restores his dead to life? Apart from Sarpanitum which goddess grants life? Marduke can restore to life from the grave, Sarpanitum knows how to save from destruction." ANET 437d The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer. The doctrine of sleeplike death with hope of ressurection was alluded to in other very ancient Mesopotamian cults. The teaching became explicit in the Persian Zoroastrianism. The author of Ecclesiastes was expressing a comon conception of death shared not only by Jews but many of their neighbors. Immortality of a soul was also current thought but typically among the primitive cults of mesopotamia reserved for the nobles to whom it was granted by the gods.

30

Friday crucifixion?

by rstrats in

it is my understanding that jws believe that the crucifixion occurred on friday.

however, luke 24:21 would seem to indicate that it couldn't have occurred any later than thursday.

how do you explain the seeming discrepancy?

peacefulpete

If you are a JW or former one and still have Greatest Man book check it out and you will find the expanation you seek. Yerusalium had opened this discussion with the reasoning on Luke's statement that explains why it is not in disagreement with the other passages that establish that a sabbath was upon them at nightfall the day of the crucifiction. I don't have the desire to research the matter for you.

48

If Time were running in reverse would we know it?

by D wiltshire in

if "time" is running backwards i dont see how that we would ever know, perhaps some clever physicist could devise an experiment to find out for sure.. some theoreticians have suggested the reason the arrow of time runs from past to future is tied intimately to the expansion of space.

since einstein special theory of relativity we have come to see that "time", space and speed are all relative.

we now more correctly speak of "space-time" instead of just space.

peacefulpete

I also would like to learn more but was lazy and so was hoping you would do the leg work for me to refute my comment. It was on NPR this morning.(3 minute summery of conclusions with interviews of once skeptical astrophysicist) Sorry I will later tonight search "w-map satellite" and see what comes up. I may be even spelling it wrong as I heard the name not read it.

108

Why is the Bible wrong?

by StinkyPantz in

this primarily goes out to other agnostics and athiests.

this week i got into two interesting conversations that i will admit that i was ill prepared for.

one was with a jw friend of mine who wanted to know why i thought jw's were wrong.

peacefulpete

hooberus...No paul did not write the gospels. The 4 (4 chosen to represent the Pythaorean oncept of completeness according to church fathers) were selected from the 80 or so Gospels circulating in the second century and edited after the Pauline letters were written and eventually accepted. How many times did Paul quote from them? none. How many times did he refer to them? none. The only time he "quotes" Jesus it is a verse not in the Gospels. Of course the last supper allusion might be viewed as an exeption except that the only place it is found is in Luke 22:19,20, and these verse do not appear in the oldest copies of Luke.. It was added late perhaps in the 4th century to corroborate Paul's claim that Jesus instituted a Paganesque Eucharist. (Remember that the eucharist of bread and wine representing blood and flesh of a fallen Savior predates Christianity by centuries.) The evidence of revision to a more Pauline form of Christianity is all over the Gospels. Before drawing more conclusions read some of the suggested books on this subject. If you do the research you say you will do, you will find that the early writers rarely quoted the Gospels. Some of our books were not quoted from until the 3rd century or later. Many quotes are not from the books we now have and many are quotes from books not now viewed as inspired cannon. It gets real messy if you seek proof of the Bible's inspiration from these sources. It requires filtering out unwanted facts and retaining only examples that seem to support your arguement. Of course many Christian apologists do this unconsciously.(benefit of the doubt)

30

Friday crucifixion?

by rstrats in

it is my understanding that jws believe that the crucifixion occurred on friday.

however, luke 24:21 would seem to indicate that it couldn't have occurred any later than thursday.

how do you explain the seeming discrepancy?

peacefulpete

I'm sure by your question that you are already aware of the scriptures used to conclude that Jesus died on Fiday and raised Sunday. If not lok it up in the Insight volumes or something. This matter has been settled by the church since it's inception. It also has been argued for centuries that some verses seem to contradict this. This is not surprising to someone like me who sees the Bible as the product of multiple editors. My statement means that this is the standard interpretation of the scriptures. It is possible that this represents another example of pagan syncretism not at first universally accepted by the time the final drafts of these books were put down in writing. I have no desire to rehash hash.

19

Listening To The Answer To Your Prayers

by MaudeW in

i've always been curious about this.

i'm an ex-jw with serious god issues but enough about me.

in all the years i was a witness, i was always taught the proper way to pray.

peacefulpete

Selective perception at work. For if God answered this man's prayer by inspiring the self sacrificing rescue workers to come to his aid, why did He not do the same for the old woman down the street who drowned because all the rescue workers were circling this man's place. If He had sent a flying chariot like he did for Elijah and this was video taped by the neighbors I might be inclined to think this was an answer to a prayer rather than simple human goodness and self sacrifice resulting in this man's life being spared. The human explanation does not require I ignore the old woman who drowned praying because the workers were too busy helping others.

13

Virgin Mary or verging on the ridiculous?

by Abaddon in

vandals have torn down a fence post in australia's largest city, sydney, which devoted catholics had begun to flock to because they believed it projected an image of the virgin mary.

this combination picture shows a woman reaching to touch the fence post (image on right).

the picture on the left was deliberately shot out of focus to show how it resembles the virgin mary from a distance.

peacefulpete

It' a world wide epidemic..on the news afew months back a peasant man in southeast Asia who baked dinner roll sized breads made a great deal of money charging people to see the Buddah that had miraculously formed in his oven. Miracles are all around you you just need eyes of faith to see them.

11

Consciousness and Quantum Spookiness

by D wiltshire in

im sure most know something about quantum physics.

it is weird but very accurate, they say it is the most accurate theory that we have.

it predicts mathematically how atoms will act, and what electrons and photons will do.

peacefulpete

New age gurus have seized upon this burgeoning science and have cleaned up due to the public's sketchy understanding of this esoteric science and our hunger to believe we are immortal. The Skeptic Society and other science magazines have debunked this hogwash and misrepresentation of quantum physics in recent publications. Mysticism sells but it also smells.