Posts by David

49

Do religious people fear that their religion may be wrong???

by James Mixon in

because there are so many religions in the world and it is obvious that no matter what the truth is, a large population of people will be wrong about it.

we at one time believe we had the truth and 99% of the world population were in darkness, but i wonder about folks in other religions today.

speaking with a christian friend about this and he told me," that's for god to decide, i hope i'am serving god"...the sad thing about all of this if one die and still believe in his religion, he will never know he was in the wrong religion.

David_Jay

That is the problem with religions built upon and requiring assent of belief.

Not all religions are about believing something. Judaism and Buddhism are religions of practice. You can be atheist and be one or both (I have atheist friends who practice one or the other and know of some who practice both). Doubt and wrestling with central concepts are earmarks of Judaism, and there are forms of Jewish instruction regarding how and why to do this.

Not all religions have afterlife concepts, and therefore there are no reasons to worry they are wrong. Christianity seems to be peculiar in that it demands assent of mental belief in concepts that are supposed to be transcendent and defy reason. At the same time it often claims that doubt demonstrates unfaithfulness or even failure. Obedience and unquestioning are often requisites, and eternal punishment is always looming over the faithful just in case they think something incorrectly or fail in some way.

I have no reason to fear that my religion is wrong today, but Judaism also often teaches that it has no exclusive claim on truth anyway (or that there is necessarily a definitive truth in every matter). Thus I also don't go around thinking it is "right" either. It is what I do and how I respond to the universe, but it is just as much about being a Jew as it is about being in a covenant with the God of Abraham.

While I cannot speak for all Christians, the 11 years I did try it as a JW kept me in a state of constant worry and dread. I felt that my thoughts were not my own, that if I thought the wrong thing even for a split second that if I didn't immediately pray for forgiveness and repent that God would get me, especially should Armageddon begin before I could repent fully. Even though I had the "truth" as a Witness, I was in fear that I was believing hard enough or letting even a second of doubt in. It was always scary.

37

Circumcision....Perfect Adam....Uncircumcised....1st century Christians...circumcision ont required

by blondie in

jw
friends

i know this has been discussed many times, but i was watching a news story about female genital mutilation (not female circumcision) and segued mentally into why the hassle about male babies having to be circumcised, christians especially.

even the wts flipflops on this...... if adam, the first perfect man, not under the jewish law code, was given a foreskin by god as an aspect of his physical perfection, why then do so many "christian" people have their boy babies circumcised?.

if a health issue....why did god create the perfect man, adam, with a foreskin?.

David_Jay

First off, Judaism doesn't teach that Adam was perfect. It also doesn't teach that he lost his perfection. Neither situations occur at Eden in the narrative of Genesis according to Jewish exegesis.

Judaism does not teach that there was a fall from grace at Eden either and that death is a punishment for sin. These ideas and those of Original Sin being passed on from Adam are originally from Christianity. Death is actually seen by Jews as natural, and even as a type of reward of well-earned rest.--Genesis 15:15; 29:8; 49:29, etc.

Judaism acknowledges that circumcision did not exclusively originate with God and Abraham. It was the custom of the Semitic and Egyptian people that we descended from, and the narrative in Torah is likely linking an already-adopted practice of the Hebrews into its storytelling of the Abrahamic covenant.

Originally it was connected with marriage, performed as a rite of passage at the age of puberty, upon which the boy received a new name and, after healing, was considered purified for the marriage act.

Remnants of this practice are seen in the account of Moses' neglect to circumcise Gershom and Zipporah performing the rite in connection with a renaming ceremony.--Exodus 4:25-26.

The Jewish Encyclopedia adds:

The ancient Hebrews followed the more primitive custom of undergoing circumcision at the age of puberty, the circumcision of young warriors at that age signifying the consecration of their manhood to their task as men of the covenant battling against the uncircumcised inhabitants...After the settlement of the Israelites in Palestine, the rite was transferred to the eighth day after birth. In fixing the time of the initiatory rite at an age when its severity would be least felt, the Mosaic law shows its superiority over the older custom.

So it was not a health issue or even something originally ordained directly from God to the Jews. It was a rite we Jews inherited from our heathen days and later ascribed to our covenants with YHVH.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

TD,

The concept of "Bible prophecy" is not one of mainstream Christianity anymore either.

Being exposed only to the doctrine of the Watchtower and learning about the Bible and other religions through its filter can create what I call the "Marie Antoinette Effect." Especially upon leaving the JWs and rejecting all religion (which can be a fine thing to do), a problem can occur that we are left believing that all religion is like what we were exposed to from this very American, anglosphere-centric, Adventism-based cult. Many ex-Mormons born into that religion have a similar experience sometimes.

The idea that the Bible has a foretelling of world history in both the Old and New Testaments has been rejected by all mainstream Christianity. The Holocaust was the turning point for the revision of much Christian theology. Christianity's direct and indirect involvement in the Shoah led to the Christian-Jewish dialogues that began around 1950. Originally started (and actually initiated) by the Catholic Church, the dialogues created reform in all forms of Christian religion, even indirectly initiating Vatican II which changed Catholicism forever.

Teachings like supersessionism and rejection of the Jewish exegesis on their own Scriptures have been officially done away with in mainstream Christianity. This includes the idea of a foretold "march of nations" predicted in Daniel and other books. Such ideas actually played a part in the anti-Semitism that led up to the Holocaust, and thus the idea of such a forecast of Bible prophecy was dismissed from all major Christian denominations likely before most of us here were even born. Even the so-called "70 Weeks Prophecy" of Daniel has recently been rejected by mainstream Christianity as a prophecy about Jesus. For instance, the Catholic Church now teaches the exact same view on the 70 weeks as does Judaism.

But many of us who grew up in the JW world and left religion entirely are quite unaware of these changes. They didn't happen in Watchtower-land, and we weren't taught exactly about what was really happening in the real world of theology. Rejecting religion often means not keeping up on what really changed.

So we sometimes leave the JWs thinking that all Christians believe in Bible prophecy regarding the earth. Some still do, like the other cults that keep predicting a date for the end of the world. Like Marie Antoinette of whom legends says was unaware that people who had no bread to feed their children would at least surely have cake to give them, ex-JWs are sometimes products of being just as closed off from the real world of religion. Some of the reasons we might become atheist may not even be a thing in any other religion, but coming from a closed off society we can sometimes be like Marie Antoinette.

One friend wrote me that if Bible prophecy isn't really a thing, then he can't be an atheist anymore because that is the main reason he rejected God. I told he could still be an atheist even though Bible prophecy is not a real thing outside of the Watchtower and a few Fundamentalists Christian movements. The fact that the Bible isn't anything like the Jehovah's Witnesses taught doesn't automatically mean God exists. It only means Bible prophecy also doesn't exist.

Thus moving to Mars or living anywhere in space cannot invalidate a concept that doesn't exist.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

Well, isn't the question about whether colonizing Mars an invalidation of so-called "Bible prophecy" the subject at hand? There would have to be such a thing as Bible prophecy in the first place, no? If one can prove that there is no such thing, isn't that still part of the same subject? That was what I was doing (if you followed along from the beginning).

Only Christians like the JWs believe in such things as the Bible foretelling and mapping out the future of the earth. It isn't taking the OP off topic if one proves that there is no such thing to begin with.

What may be the problem is that there are some people I've met that want the JW concept of "Bible prophecy" to be real, as if the Jews really intended such a thing. But when you offer critical analytical data from Judaism to show that such a concept is of Gentile origin, that makes some people uncomfortable. Some people need the "Bible prophecy" concept to exist as an intention from us Jews in order to have something to "prove" their current convictions about how wrong "Bible prophecy" is.

There is no such thing as the Gentile concept of "Bible prophecy," ergo colonizing Mars doesn't invalidate something that doesn't exist. Christians made up the concept of a "march of nations" and a foretelling of the earth's eternal future being in Scripture.

At least for our Jewish Scripture, it has no such "prophecy," which is what I was pointing out. And someone raised points about establishing this, so I answered.

The OP raised a question about a concept that is moot because there is no such thing as "Bible prophecy." Colonizing Mars can't invalidate something only Fundies and JWs say is real.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

Punkofnice,

The Jebusite and Canaanite people likely merely merged with the Jews. The Hebrew Scriptures are a liturgical work (not historical nor a basis for Jewish theology). The narratives of Jews "conquering" these people is neither historic nor archeologically sound, and while we Jews know these things aren't literal reports, people prefer the Gentile Fundamentalist Christian interpretation over our explanation of our own writings. This is legendary politico-narrative explaining in religious terms how a heathen people "disappeared" once the Davidic dynasty made worship of YHVH the state ( and therefore only legal) religion in the Fertile Crescent. They didn't really go anywhere. Jews are partially composed of these (and other) Semite peoples.

This is why the text says these groups were never driven out. It is merely a liturgical narrative, meant for liturgy. Jews ARE these people. We didn't come upon ourselves and conquer ourselves in war.

The Ezekiel "oracles" (not "prophecies" that foretell events as if our prophets were mediums, a concept Gentile Christians invented and believe in) are describing why the plan to trust in Egypt's help will not save Judah from Babylonian attack and exile. Egypt is "reduced" to its legendary "plague-like state" of the Exodus in a series of symbolic pronouncements (which is what an "oracle" is). If it did foresee anything, it was merely that Judah's political intrigue with Egypt proved to be unhelpful in time of crisis. Nebuchadnezzar proved more powerful than this union between Judah and Egypt. But this may have been written during the events of political failure or merely have been a smart forecast based on reading the political scene well. It isn't the literal prophecy Christians claim it is, and anyone with a critical thinker would have the smarts to look this up in a Jewish commentary to know that.

I reiterate: the Christian idea that the Bible is some sort of magical book that works like a crystal ball to show people the future is reducing it to a grimoire. The Gentile obsession with spiritism has never been totally eradicated from Christianity, and so Christians have attributed magical powers to liturgical books of a people that despise fortune tellers or those who claim they can foresee the future. The Tanakh is not a Magic book that forecasts the future.

These are not prophecies of the future. Blame your mistaken view that they are on Christians who can't let go of their heathen and pagan ways that they need to make Jewish writings into a Magic 8 ball. When you do that, or course the so-called prophecies which Christians claim are there fail. They weren't prophecies to begin with.

It isn't Jewish writings that have failed. It is Christian claims that these are prophecies that are failures. Stop listening to them. Crack open the Jewish Study Bible and go through the critical analytical discussions there for a historical and current look at how Jews understand these texts. Would you listen to people who can't read Chinese explain ancient Chinese legends to you? Why listen to Gentiles explain the Bible to you? They can't even read Hebrew. They have to have it translated for them to read these texts, and often they won't translate them according to the ways Jews would. It's not smart to listen to people like that about the Hebrew Scriptures.

12

The wages of sin...

by joey jojo in

somewhere in the bible it says; the wages of sin is death.. just death.

not pain or anguish or agonising illnesses.

so , why do we have to endure all of the heart-breaking torment that goes along with life?

David_Jay

In Judaism, death is not a punishment. It's just part of life. You live it, you die, you rest.

Just like your being born into this world is not a reward for doing good in a previous life, dying is not a punishment because you did bad.

This is one of those ideas from Christianity that totally screws up a person's view if they read the Jewish Bible through this lens. It's also a reason a dying messiah was not acceptable to us. To redeem us from a natural part of life, a doorway to rest, is not redemption.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

Waton,

While originally a hope that the Davidic dynasty would be revived after the fall of Babylon, the Messianic concept developed as a sort of response to the Seleucid period, the events of which lead to a new dynasty in the Hasmoneans.

While the Maccabees did restore liberty of worship to Jerusalem, the ideal peace spoken of by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Zechariah that would come via David's dynasty (and perhaps run concurrent with the eschatological Olam Haba or the World to Come) did not develop once the Temple was re-dedicated (the first Chanukah).

Enter the Gemara and the Midrash, rabbinical commentary that would introduce the Jewish tradition of an individual known as "the Messiah." While originally seen as a ruler who would redeem Israel, unlike the Christian concept of "redemption from sin," Jewish redemption is the concept of liberating all Jews to return to Israel to live as freemen. Once seen as a single person, eventually the Messiahship was divided into two personages, a king in David's line and a priestly Messiah.

With the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth and Shimon Bar Kokhba on the world scene, the Messiah concept got further divided. It became solidified in Jesus by Christians who claimed that the Messiah concept was central to the Jews, and fluid after the Bar Kokhba revolt ended in Rome banishing all Jews from Israel.

While the Messiah is still not central to Judaism, the concept remains fluid for Jews, with no uniform theology. For some Jews there is still an expectation for an individual figure in the line of David who will being this redemption about.

Since monarchies have been rejected by most of modern society, some Jews see the Messiah as a concept personified. With the return of all Israel to its native soil, all humanity will "acknowledge God," and peace will reign everywhere. Whether this will involve a religious experience and any supernatural occurrences is still a matter of debate. It is also not agreed upon that any of this has a connection with Olam Haba. The Messianic concept is also still not central to all Judaism to the point that not all Jews today embrace it.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

Finklestein wrote:

Bible prophecy is fictional mythology, therefore it has no relevance to anything in these modern times toward humanity now, other than its historical reference.

You are SO RIGHT! Even from the Jewish viewpoint, this whole idea that the Scriptures foretell the future is Christian nonsense. Maybe the New Testament claims to do that, but Jewish Biblical "prophecy" isn't really about foretelling the future. It's about speaking up for justice sake in the name of God.

While Jews look forward toward the Messianic era or the World to Come, there are no specific foretellings beyond a general forecast of this hope. The Messianic ideal is for the most part post-Biblical (Old Testament, that is). Since most people today would never allow themselves to be ruled by a monarchy, it is likely that the Messiah-concept is a personification of a future period where humanity is able to achieve peace and prosperity, or at least the Jewish hope that such a time can happen.

But this notion of the Scriptures being used like a crystal ball or tarot cards in foretelling the march of world powers, etc., reducing Jewish Scripture to the realm of heathen and pagan magicians, witches, soothsayers and the like, I find disturbing and telling about some of the religions that promote this. The Jewish Prophets were not mediums but people who believed God was supporting their cries against injustice.

Leave it to Christians to reduce the Tanakh to the low depths of a grimoire.

22

This might be a good week to start a conversation about Jeremiah 29:10

by George One Time in

at this week clam meeting, jeremiah 29:10 is discussed:.

jer 29:10—how does this verse demonstrate the accuracy of bible prophecy?

the mistranslation of this verse is the basis of the idea that the jews spend 70 years in exile in babylon.

David_Jay

Of course, people are free to believe whatever they wish. I can only offer the critical view.

However I do sense that the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses sometimes lingers with many who leave. They feel a need to find an interpretation, a truth or enlightenment that goes beyond the simplicity of a very ancient text that was never written with an intention to be used outside Jewry.

This, IMHO, is the big "trap" of some Christian movements and interpretations, and maybe of much of religion in general: the teaching that there is some secret, some "magic," in texts that mean one thing to the people who wrote them but must be ignored in favor of the "hidden insight" promised to people who will believe anything but the original explanation.

I understand that Christians are attempting to make these texts fit their view, as a collection of texts that point to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. Because it is difficult to make the texts acquiesce to this through the original intentions, a plethora of differing and conflicting ideas must be offered by people who will argue their view about a text they cannot even read unless it's translated into a language they understand.

While I don't claim that Jesus was just some accident that has no place in God's providence, I can't ignore that if you have to make the Hebrew texts say something the people who wrote them never intended, you have made your own religion a trap.

I don't believe people need religion to fulfill their place in life and the world. Even as a practicing Jew, I think a lot of it can be just plain harmful.

But I also think it doesn't have to be. If you are going to choose the religious path, why can't it be done with critical thinking? If the Jew can do this, can't the Christian, especially if they are claiming to have greater enlightenment and understand the Jewish Scriptures better than the Jewish people do?

People who choose religion sometimes design their own trap. All truth has to come from their religion. They have to be totally right. It's all or. nothing. Again, to me, IMO, that's a trap.

If you really want to be enlightened, why not choose actual enlightenment? There's critical study of Scripture that, believe me, if you just study it will make you far more enlightened than what you were as a JW. True, that magical feeling and high of knowing something only a select group knows won't be there. You probably won't have a lot of definitive answers either. You won't be special by what you know, true. In fact, you will know nothing different than what millions other know or can learn.

But it will be true. It might mean changing your views from a literal interpretation of Scripture to one that shows it is something less than history. But if you are looking for religious truth, isn't honesty about what you're studying and practicing enlightening enough?

If it doesn't stop Jews from worshipping God (and millions of Christians) to know what these texts are really about, why do you need the Bible to be something it isn't? If you need to make the Bible into what it isn't to keep your beliefs intact, then maybe it's not the critical view of Scripture that should be rejected.

You may not need religion, but if you choose to have it, you shouldn't choose a trap. But believe what you wish. I won't stop you.

3

Holocaust Memorial Day

by zeb in

the 25th april is commemorated in israel as holocaust memorial day.. google "times of israel"..

David_Jay

Actually, Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) ended today at sundown. This year it began at sundown on April 23 and just ended here where I live on the East Coast of the USA.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay