Posts by proplog2

67

Who really is Babylon the Great?

by sinis in

i know the wts says it is false religion, but if you read daniel, jeremiah, and revelation it shows that babylon the great is actually ruling over the ten kings.

how can "false religion" rule over the kings of the earth?

it seems that babylon the great might actually portray a real government.

proplog2

It may have been the opinion of some early Christians that Rome was Babylon the Great but that is not an adequate explanation. They admittedly get into trouble when they try to explain the beast that she rides and which eventually destroys Babylon the Great.

It is clear that Babylon the Great represents some political entity. Watchtower writers have gotten way off the mark with their construct of a "world empire of false religion". At first they fell for the erroneous protestant notion that the harlot was the Roman Catholic Church. Later they changed that to include all false religion. To prove that idea they used a process of elimination argument which is very easy to disprove. They claim that since she has intercourse with all the nations of the earth she can't be a political entity. This claim is false because it ignores the same relationship Tyre & Ninevah are said to have with all the nations of the earth. The Watchtower develops this process of elimination argument by saying that religion is absent from the mourning of Babylon the Great. This is circular reasoning that assumes that religion was part of the scene in the first place.

On the other hand the preterist arguments don't eliminate the possibility of a Babylon the Great on earth today. In fact there is an entity that fits the description of Babylon the Great. The richest entity that has ever existed is the United States. In case you haven't paid much attention to the world situation most of the nations on earth resent the mono-polar world dominated by the USA.

The Wild Beast the USA is trying to ride is the seventh manifestation of the series of empires that started with Egypt. 1. Egypt 2. Assyria 3. Babylon 4. Persia 5. Greece 6. Rome 7. Russia.

Russia??

Yes. Russia became the seventh not the Anglo/American. Westerners don't understand the significance of Moscow as the third Rome. The west tends to think of the Roman empire as centered on the City of Rome. The center of gravity of the Roman empire was really in the east/Levant. Constantinople fell much later and the Russians proudly declared themselves the inheritors of the Roman Empire.

Revelation says one of the heads of the beast (7th most likely) appeared as though slaughtered to death. But its death stroke got healed and it became an eighth king. Is it just coincidental that the USSR died in 1991 but is now beginning to show it's old menacing behavior. The USA keeps pushing NATO (a military alliance) right up to Russia's front door. The Kings who have not received a kingdom (former soviet republics) are gradually forming alliances with Russia against the USA. True Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova have recently turned toward the West but that is all the more reason the remaining tyrants are worried that the price they may have to pay for befriending the USA is that they will be removed in some kind of "color" revolution.

The "bomb" that will explode in the USA will be a Russian effort to distract the USA from its plans in the Caucasus. The Moslems will be convenient scapegoats. It will be the Russians who benefit.

Cui Bono? Who Benefits... solves the crime.

The Preterists have it wrong. Tim Lahaye (Left Behind Author) has it WRONG. The Watchtower has it REALLY WRONG. I am positive I have it right.

47

How Do YOU View Ex Elders On This Board?

by minimus in

jw
friends

do you think that if a person was an elder that when he comes on these boards, he still thinks and acts like an elder??

?

proplog2

I look at former elders like I look at former German SS men. They ALL did some bad stuff and behaved hypocritically.

Elders tend to have an ass-licking temperament. I don't get along with that type. I'm not an organizational man.

I hate politics and those who engage in it... even though I know it is a necessary evil.

I AM not and never was in any situation an ALPHA MALE and so I detest hierarchy again - even though I know it is necessary.

I believe X-Elders have a greater responsibility to use their leadership to expose the wrongs they were privy to. They need to serve some time.

43

WHO WAS RIGHT/WRONG: JESUS or PAUL?

by Terry in

jesus didn't exactly explicate hebrew scripture the way paul did.

jesus was like an undercover agent, a mole, using a small network to accomplish a spy mission.

paul or jesus?

proplog2

The purpose of law is to guide by establishing acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

The law has served its purpose when it has been integrated into ones nature - through habit - (written on one's heart).

Jesus is alleged to be such a person.

Unfortunately the law of Moses was a wacky accumulation of traditions and practices of Middle Eastern Nomads.

Jesus cut through all of that by saying that there is basically one law which is to love.

I don't think Paul was out of harmony with that. Paul was dealing with political situations in various congregations. A lot of his actions were situational and we don't have the facts on the situations he was in.

Sure he was for depriving certain members of fellowship. What should a congregation do with a "child molester" for example.

23

A question for my atheist friends.

by PaNiCAtTaCk in

i can certainly understand why many turn atheist but what would you tell your 5 year old daughter who was conscience but dying on a hospital bed looking into your eyes?

would you be inclined to give her some hope of a better place even though you didnt believe it yourself?

thanks in advance!

proplog2

While lying as a policy is bad - sometimes its a good strategy.

I still console elderly JW's by telling them the end is very near. Of course it is...

We will all get "IT" in "THE END".

63

Semi-Fluff - What is your favourite Science Fiction Book?

by Clam in

for those of you who like science fiction - what is your favourite science fiction book, or indeed film?

proplog2

I read very little fiction. But I did enjoy World of Null-A by Van Vogt.

It is based on General Semantics.

43

WHO WAS RIGHT/WRONG: JESUS or PAUL?

by Terry in

jesus didn't exactly explicate hebrew scripture the way paul did.

jesus was like an undercover agent, a mole, using a small network to accomplish a spy mission.

paul or jesus?

proplog2

Auld Soul:

Too bad we can't travel in time and settle this. However, we can still make a case for the probable person Jesus was. Great movements don't take off without a person having a strong belief in what they were doing. Jesus may have been a mad man. But to deny that he intended people to follow him is the least probable scenario. He had a major impact on civilization. That kind of impact in a day without mass media outlets required an extraordinary person. Jesus worked the crowd.

Paul, too, was dynamic. Whatever you may believe it was, he did experience something powerful while he was on the road. I believe it was some kind of input our civilization needed.

I don't believe in God but I do believe that in this multiverse there are advanced intelligent beings that have evolved past our level and serve as preservers and mid-wives of planetary cultures.

43

WHO WAS RIGHT/WRONG: JESUS or PAUL?

by Terry in

jesus didn't exactly explicate hebrew scripture the way paul did.

jesus was like an undercover agent, a mole, using a small network to accomplish a spy mission.

paul or jesus?

proplog2

Jesus fullfilled the law. He believed that the law had served its purpose. "If you love me you will observe "My Commandments".

Paul was clearly following in Jesus' footsteps by fighting against the Judaisers.

There is an interesting book "Why The Jews Rejected Jesus" by David Klinghoffer. (Doubleday 20050

In this book he makes the very strong claim that the document at Acts 15 concerning circumcision was the founding of western civilization.

If the Christian Congregation had stood firm on circumcision that would have been the end of Christianity. Christianity would have been just one of many Jewish Sects and it would have died. The ruling that ended circumcision made it possible for Christianity to take hold in the the Gentile World. It made it possible for Christianity to have such an impact that people for a thousand years identified themselves as Christians not as Italians, Germans, Greeks etc.

It's amazing how JW's read that document at Acts 15 as primarily a statement on eating blood. Paul was happy to get out of Jerusalem with a settlement of the circumcision issue. He never seemed to like the suggestion that Gentiles compromise by keeping a Kosher table.

The first 2 Chapters of Galatians are interesting in this regard. Paul does not speak highly of his trip with Barnabas to Jerusalem. Apparently he made it back to Antioch before the Letter from James reached them. Paul was upset that Peter quit eating with the Gentiles as soon as the reps from Jerusalem arrived.

I think Klinghoffer makes a valid point. Western Civilization which is Christian got underway with the council at Jerusalem. Was this providential?

I believe it was. It seems as if there are forces that are effective in the evolution of Earths culture that are from outside of the Earth. Little tweaks that push humans in the right direction without interfering too much in the natural course of events. Kind of like the butterfly in the Amazon that starts a hurricane.

34

C.O / D.O leaving the `truth`???

by jambon1 in

jw
friends

this is probobly a long shot & i doubt it`s happened but does anyone know if any circuit overseers or district overseers have ever left.

if so, in what circumstances?

proplog2

What was Maximus. I thought he was a DO.

14

Can you really believe everything in the Bible?

by proplog2 in

if we take the bible at face value we are confronted with a serious problem.

how do we know when god is telling us the facts and when is he just telling us something he thinks we are capable of understanding?

this is not quite the same as the argument that god lies on occasion.

proplog2

If we take the Bible at face value we are confronted with a serious problem. How do we know when God is telling us the facts and when is he just telling us something he thinks we are capable of understanding? This is not quite the same as the argument that God lies on occasion. Those situations where it speaks of God putting falsehood in the mouths of false prophets are considered minor points by the "true believer" and they believe they can easily explain them away by manipulating the exact translation of some of the terms involved.

The problem I’m referring to is found at Exodous 32:9-14

9 And Jehovah went on to say to Moses: "I have looked at this people and here it is a stiff-necked people. 10 So now let me be, that my anger may blaze against them and I may exterminate them, and let me make you into a great nation."

11 And Moses proceeded to soften the face of Jehovah his God and to say: "Why, O Jehovah, should your anger blaze against your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a strong hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent he brought them out in order to kill them among the mountains and to exterminate them from the surface of the ground’? Turn from your burning anger and feel regret over the evil against your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac and Israel your servants, to whom you swore by yourself, in that you said to them, ‘I shall multiply YOUR seed like the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have designated I shall give to YOUR seed, that they may indeed take possession of it to time indefinite.’"

14 And Jehovah began to feel regret over the evil that he had spoken of doing to his people.

Take a close look at what is happening in this situation. The most straight forward explanation of this scripture is that Jehovah acts crazy- mad without considering all the consequences. That doesn’t make for a very pleasant picture of the person who in his omnipotence and omnicience created everything in the universe. An apologist is immediately tempted to explain this with some kind of personal theory about God’s objective in the situation. For example it might be asserted that God was testing Moses in some way. Perhaps he was testing Moses’ commitment to leading the Israelites. Or some may claim that Jehovah was teaching Moses a lesson in showing mercy. Maybe one or another of these claims is true. But, the Bible doesn’t say. These tales are spun because if you take it literally it makes God look bad.

There is a catch 22 to all of this. If you accept one of the invented explanations you have started a game of croquet with the queen of hearts. Grab a flamingo mallet and try to hit the hedgehog balls. At the very least you must now consider the possibility that every situation in the Bible may or may not be designed to teach some lesson and therefore not to be taken literally. For example how do you know that the Genesis story of creation is a real representation of the facts or is it trying to illustrate some principal such as the headship of man over woman. Or consider the Battle of Armageddon. Is God really going to destroy 6.5 billion people, thus admitting he produced an unreliable prototype? Or is he going to later get talked out of it - teaching humans a lesson in mercy.

This is not an attack on those who believe in the Bible. It is an attack on the dogmatic approach JW’s and other fundamentalists take in explaining the meaning of the Bible. For me, personally, this means I can pick and choose the parts of the Bible I want to believe.

15

Why would god create magnificent angels and then create puny humans?

by nicolaou in

so god wants to share the gift of life and creates his son and myriads of other powerful, angelic creations to to share eternity with.

these are rational, intelligent self-aware individuals with awesome capabilities.

they can travel the universe in moments and are blessed by the literal presence of almighty god.. then he makes us and sticks us on a rock.

proplog2

God must like the smell of shit. That is the one consistent thing we produce.

It's just abslolutely incoherent. What more proof do you need that we really evolved.

Don't just flush it. Smell the aroma. Admire the variety of texture and shape before it swirls away.