Posts by kepler

76

Anthony Morris III... Did he really serve in Vietnam? Something doesn't quite add up...

by Calebs Airplane in

born in 1950, he apparently became a regular pioneer in 1971.. but wait.... let's just say that he enlisted (or was drafted) in 1968 at age 18.... depending on the branch of service, he would have to complete anywhere from 2 to 4 years of service.

yes, duty in hot combat zones was usually limited to 6-months at a time but you still had to serve a total of 2 to 4 years depending on the branch of service.

assuming he only served 2 years, he would have been 20 years old and discharged by 1970.... how did he get witnessed to, complete a book study, become an unbaptized publisher, get baptized and then become a regular pioneer in less than year???.

kepler

I was never a JW, but I did serve in the military in the 1960s, but not in VN. When I listened to the Morris video on neutrality and then looked at the discussion of what was the nature of his service, I did bemome interested in the question and then made a couple of inquiries myself with my own veteran's e-mail group.

Before proceeding any further with this discussion, I should say that there is fellowship as well among veterans of military service. Assuming that Mr. Morris as an 18-20 year old did service in Vietnam, from my perspective he is entitled at least to the benefit of the doubt in that regard and a hearing for whatever formative experience he might have had as a result. As crazy as the careers of the alumni of my own unit turned out to be, or conduct in chain of command, we have exercised the same welcoming attitude in gathering our kindred together after the fact. But still, I've got questions.

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On another forum, there arose a controversy (imagine that!) about the background of a Vietnam veteran who was born in 1950, served in Vietnam in 1968 to 1970 (?) and then changed to a conscientious objector. Like a lot of us sixty or older, he is a very opinionated gentleman about war and the civil order, serving on the governing board of an organization with a passive-aggressive stance, not to mention its Millerite apocalyptic views...

Anyway, his story never fully adds up. As near as his critics/sceptics can re-construct, he might have served at Long Binh as a medic, but then returned to the States after objecting to a second tour. See the attached article about "Tony" (cited above).

Now my recollection of army terms of enlistment and draft in the 1960s have faded with the decades. But when I heard people wondering about his story, I figured I needed to get my memory refreshed as well.

Could someone get two rotations into Vietnam when they were drafted into the army as described below?

If the guy was a medic, would he have been signed on longer? Three or four years? Could he have enlisted?

Would a military judicial record remain somewhere regarding Anthony Morris the 3rd that would shed more light on this?

"Kepler"

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Answer from one of my friends from service days:

From my recollections: You had a six-year committment. If you were drafted, you served two years active, two years active reserve, and two years inactive. If you volunteered, you served three years active and three inactive. If he was a draftee who became a medic, he would have had time to serve one 12-month stint after training and then might have been offered an opportunity to volunteer for a second tour. If memory serves me, one of the benefits(?) of being a draftee was that if you survived one 12-month tour, a return tour was voluntary. I think something else is at play, perhaps akin to Stolen Valor.

If he served, then there are military records on file, but they should be confidential.

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Well, this is Kepler again, summarizing.

There is some record of Morris's term in service (born in 1950, in and out supposedly from 1968-1970), but it is mostly hearsay and difficult to verify.

Was he in the service? Was he in the army or marines? Was he in Viet Nam? Was he at Long Binh? Was he a medic?

If he was any of the above, why was he asked to serve a second tour in Vietnam at penalty of prison term?

The only scenario I can think of that fits is that he volunteered for a service with a term longer than two years ( e.g., three) and rotated out of VN after a 12-month tour of duty. From what our two-man consensus is is that he was up for re-assignment, but the Vietnam assignment was optional or voluntary. It would be more likely that at the end of the tour, the individual in this situation said he wanted out - period. Everything else is more conjectural.

During the VN war period there were hosts of incidents such as the one vaguely described - and many of them I remember reading about in local papers as well as the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. While service records are largely confidential, judicial proceedings such as described could reach the light of day.

Clearly, Mr. Morris argues against war or combat, citing his personal experience. But his personal experience is not elaborated in any detail and he relies for argument on the authority of his present position. How an end to everything will allay the fear that he spoke of... well... Has he done that well allaying fear in his own house?

21

Misapplication of Matt. 25:40 in Watchtower Study on Sunday

by The Searcher in

sheep & goats.

jesus said, "truly i say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me".. exactly to whom was jesus addressing these words, and who were his "brothers?.

the subject matter of matthew chapter 25 deals with christ's judgement of all humans, and verses 32 & 33 make it crystal clear that there only two groups standing before him - 'sheep' and 'goats'.

kepler

The restricted interpretation of "brothers" is a typical Joseph Russell raising by one's own bootstraps interpretation that leaves 2000 years of Christianity twisting in the wind.

The authors of the lesson naturally enough assume that there were brothers in the audience before Jesus distinct from some undetermined segment of the audience meeting the sermon's words with deaf ears.

Then, we are led to believe that the institutional church went "apostate" at some temporal point left to the imagination or given rhetorical needs of a moment. With this earthly body no longer Christian, it is then left until Russell and his successors to ride to the rescue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thereafter, any charitable or loving consideration among the Rutherford corporate legacy is supposed to be the only legitimate manifestation of what Jesus was referring to. Odd the absence of hospitals and teaching institutions even there. I guess that institutional charity must have been another examle of the apostasy.

Never mind that when Jesus was asked to explain the concept of my brother's keeper, he gave the example of a Samaritan traveller attending to his Judean neighbor beaten and left for dead by robbers; the Samaritan who had no affiliation with Jesus or knowledge of his presumed mission.

Coming from outside the fold, sheep, goats or whatever, my most frequent contact with this passage is an exhortation to participate in mission efforts for people who were stricken by disaster: flood, famine, fire, war or whatever, with only the understanding that the mission could reach them, not whether they could produce a fellowship card.

If that was a misunderstanding, I am not interested in finding out about the correct version - nor passing it on to anyone so wrongfully engaged.

70

New YouTube video - Anthony Morris warns us against the horrors of higher education

by cedars in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzcneuuajvg.

.

cedars.

kepler

Cedars,

I realize that the 1970s US television sitcom "All in the Family" had a trans-Atlantic background, but did I just watch a casting call video for a re-make?

Actually, I liked Carroll O'Connor in that role. He reminded me of a couple of my high school teachers with roots and accents in the Queens. Mr. Morris has something of that but not have the same delivery. The new Archie? "Archie's New Place"?

About points Mr. Morris was trying to make. For sure he didn't like the idea of a youngster enrolling in a higher institute of learning and studying Philosophy I or II. I suppose "I" leads to the other.

Like others posting, I confess I never took a philosophy course in college. But I suspect that many university graduates that Mr. Morris might encounter from day to day, students who went on to study law did. And that's probably where Mr. Morris's lament is based:

"How can you go out and get a decent, case-winning lawyer without having to bear the indignity of dealing with someone who might have had an exposure to philosophy (& ETHICS)? Why can't I find people to staff the legal department who have been trained to do and to think exactly as I say?..." A variation on Diogenes.

Hard enough already; but a pity to think that things could get so de-railed that some kids manage to get nearly all the way through Harvard with the elders standing helplessly by... Tragic.

Like I said, some of my high school teachers, who were also in a non-ordained religious order ('brothers"), used to grouse about us high school students going off to SECULAR colleges and possibly learning hostile viewpoints. But they were at least consoled that there were our religion's non-secular alternatives all over the country. Maybe half of my classmates did actually go to places like Fordham, St. John's, Dayton, Xavier, Notre Dame, etc. Had Morris been a different kind of executive, like the one's that apparently abounded in that "satanic" organization for centuries, then maybe things could have been better all around.

Shoot, it isn't just the RCs. Take a look out what's going on in Utah. And there are certainly other types of parochial schools and private universities around: Lutheran, Presbyterian... people you can knock on the doors and tell them about the Truth from theocratic sources.

You reap what you sow.

Aside from colleges, one of that crop of teaching brothers founded the high school a year or two before I went to it. He and people on staff founded several before they were done. Why doesn't Mr. Morris do that with the resources at his disposal? Oh, I know... Too busy spreading the Truth - and his place in it.

Personally, I think college age a little late for shutting the barn door on becoming "an evolutionist". Circumstances being what they were, I was pretty willing to defend that idea by seventh grade just thanks to the public library. In high school, our freshman year biology was taught by a brother of a teaching order and the text was prepared by writers of similar background, probably priests at one of those institutions fore-mentioned. Between studying Mendel's genetics and classifications of orders and species, it was hard for someone not to draw conclusions other than what alarmed Mr. Morris.

Later on, our freshman year homeroom teacher (religion and English) went off to work at a mission school in Uganda for several decades starting during Idi Amin's reign. Our high school valedictorian went on to a career in biology, teaching and doing research at university level. He then retired on proceeds from turning out editions of his biology texts. A few years ago he told me he s regularly sends to the Ugandan mission a crate or two of his books for our old teacher's classes.

I'd rather that than pamphlets for their laundry room.

109

Early Civilizations and Bible Chronology

by xelder in

kepler

mP,

After mulling it over over night, have a question about your three graphs from the Vostok Antarctica weather station.

I presume that the information for 250,000 years is based on sampling ice cores. In effect you take out a cylinder of ice which at the greatest depth includes samples of water with bubbles of air and dust....

How can you tell what the temperature variation was?

The easiest method that comes to mind is make a backward derivation from the CO2 and dust in the atmosphere, unless there is some way to determine the amount of CO2 in the water when it froze. CO2 in solution is dependent on temperature, but fresh water is going to freeze at 32 F.

If you use the CO2 content to predict the temperature, than the method is definitely going to predict global warming for the climb to the present day at 0 years.

109

Early Civilizations and Bible Chronology

by xelder in

kepler

mP,

Looked at your charts above. I don't understand your last one, but I can draw some conclusions from your charts from Antarctica (Vostok).

Since the present is "zero" on the independent axis and it tracks for about 250,000 (?) years, it appears that temperature and CO2 track very well. Dust seems to do what it wants.

As to other mechanisms, there is a long term eccentricity variation in the earth's orbit, the perihelion shifts in inertial space cyclicly, and the polar axis precesses over about 25,000 years... But the semi-major axis is not wont to change much. So in effect, you can have extremes in the southern and northern hemisphere. Currently we have a near circular orbit, but with northern summer at aphelion rather than perihelion. The measures over 250,000 years could represent some cycles where southern hemisphere summer occurred at perihelion in an eccentric orbit. I don't know that. Yet data I've seen for the 20th century indicates that CO2 levels trace closely at Vostok and Hawaii with summer-winter variations. Also, sea temperature increase results in loss of CO2 storage capacity. And that's one reason for concern.

The trouble is, the chart does not go all the way to the present time. CO2 concentrations are ~380 ppm; not 300. First time I saw that data was in a circa 1978 atmospheric science text starting from the 19th century. Extrapolating to the current day was linear. But if you looked at it on the scale of the graph you supplied, you might call it exponential. I don't know what the Antarctic temperature is currently, but there have been some Rhode Island size icebergs calfing from the ice shelves lately.

109

Early Civilizations and Bible Chronology

by xelder in

kepler

Etude,

After I hit the submit button, I had some of the same thoughts. While there is a lengthy argument in these posts in support of accuracy of Biblical chronology citing dispersions in radio carbon dating, it was not fair to say that the topic is about that specifically. And the further we get into the question of CO2 variations, the closer and closer we get to another topic - global warming. That's one that some of my veteran friends love to argue about, but Biblical chronologies seldom come up in that context.

I should also say that in order to have a debate, you do have to have a pro and a con. And it is fair enough to argue in behalf of a Biblical chronology that is inherently accurate with the best case available. Otherwise everyone that is sceptical is arguing against a very poorly sewn straw man. So I hope that some of my own rhetoric is taken with a grain of salt.

I am writing from a coffee house table right now; so I don't have hard copy references in front of me. But going back to early civilizations and Bible chronology, as important as radio isotope methods might be, I think much of the case pro or con rests with how early civilizations recorded their own events and COMMUNICATED with each other.

Since Egypt, Asia Minor and Mesopotamian civilizations of the mid 2nd millenium communicated with each other in Akkadian and left permanent stone or clay records, these are very compelling arguments pro or con for a Biblical chronology. When I would look for a book on Egypt, Assyria or Babylonia in a bookstore or a library, I noticed that the older the book was, the more likelihood that the chronologies were longer. In the 19th century prior to deciphering Mideast literatures other than Hebrew, it was just generally assumed that the Biblically derived chronologies would bear out once some notion of what was written on obelisks and stellae was worked out. So far as I can tell, that did not prove to be the case.

Just what is a Bible chronology for early civilization is also a moving target. To illustrate, if you compare the assumed chronological appendix in the NWT with say that in the New Jerusalem Bible, you have events in Egypt associated with the Exodus in variance by 300 years. As a result, you have the Exodus arriving in the promised land amidst the Egyptian New Kingdom's empire in that part of the world, stretching into Lebanon and Syria. Egyptian battles of this era are recorded not only by the Pharoahs or kings, but by the veterans of the wars themselves.

One possible reason for the discrepancy is the assertion in Kings that Solomon's temple was commenced four hundred years after the Exodus from Egypt. If all the accounts of the Judges were sequential rather than parallel, it would be possible. But the argument for Biblical chronology assumes that such dynastic confusions could only happen in other places - like Egypt - places where stone records survive.

Eventually, of course, there definitely were kingdoms of Israel and Judea, but how they got started (or with an Exodus), is a matter of controversy. Candidate pharaohs you can find in mummies in museums. You can't find a trace of an Exodus of 100s of thousands that wandered forty years and took off with borrowed pottery and jewels.

Despite divine interventions in Joshua's behalf, and complete eradications of places like Ai and Jericho, the narrative says that Joshua still had much unfinished work in the conquest when he died. The record indicateshe conquered several cities several times. Archeology indicates that Jericho and Ai were not inhabited circa 1200 BC. The stories of their desolation might have been provided as explanations for ruins that had been ruins longer than accurate national memory.

Even by Exodus chapter one, you could argue that the narrator of the book was describing workers who were employed not at Ramses capital but at Neccho II's. And oddly they seemed to be engaged in "royal" construction work more associated with Babylon than with Egypt. They speak none of sandstone or granite, but plenty about making mud bricks.

In Genesis there are supposedly camel caravans and the Philistines were already there. As best we can tell today, Phillistines were part of the Mycenean Greek expansion post Trojan war.

My copy of "What the Bible Really Teaches" says that Job was written about 1500 BC and the NWT appendix, claims it was Moses who was the author. Job had camel caravans too.

One of the things about Babylonian and Egyptian records is that they are replete with commercial transactions. I wonder how many 1000 BC camel caravans they mention?

Does anyone sense any anachronisms in these descriptions?

8

Inconsistency: Tower of Babel vs. space program

by tootired2care in

several years back i remember listening to a public talk.

the title of the talk escapes me; but one of the points (albeit wierd) that was brought out, is that the part of the mytholgy behind the symbol of apollo was defiance of god.

he made this jump by linking apollo with ishtar (nimrods wife) wife somehow...he used this point in connection with the nasa space program to make the point, that the space exploration was a defiant action against god, as a modern day like nimrod account.

kepler

Didn't seem to mind the pyramids either.

Subsonic transport in the stratosphere with turbofans seem to have an approval too.

More by far head for the scrap heap than are downed by angry lightning bolts.

The Bible does not acknowledge a difference between space and the stratosphere.

Nor does it have a proscription against launch of artificial moons.

From a modern perspective, it looks like that if you build a "tower", over specialization of the builders will result in a proliferation of languages. Half the time I didn't understand what my co-workers were trying to tell me...

10

Wtbts was an NGO w/ UN, what about the other Harlots?

by notjustyet in

wtbts was an ngo w/ un, what about the other harlots?

i was driving down the road today and was running the scenarios of jw folklore and how it is wrong, wrong, wrong!.

for some reason i drift over to the un wtbts ngo ( i know right?

kepler

Why would the WTBTS become a UN NGO?

Look for documents produced and activities undertaken during the 1991-2002 period. For example:

PDF]

In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation :

www.swissbankclaims.com/pdfs_eng/WatchTowerBible.pdf

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT. FOR THE EASTERN DSTRICT OF. OF NEW ...Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (Swiss Bank Litigation). Proposed ... COMES NOW, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, ( hereinafter ...

In this instance, the WTBTS legal office submitted a plan to obtain funds from the Swiss sources based on the deaths and sufferings of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Nazi period from 1933 through to the end of WWII (1945). The plan, available as a PDF, describes briefly how funds would be used to educate the public about how JWs suffered at the hands of the Nazis. No provision is made in locating survivors or relatives of the deceased victims. Contrast this plan with a similar plan submitted by a NY Jewish group.

Acting as an NGO organization gives some leverage for such proposals. And I presume that that is what the organization wanted and obtained. Most likely there are other proposals and NGO activities in the public or not so public record that involve activities other than checking out UN library books.

60

Do Jehovah's Witnesses know what happened to them in 1954?

by Terry in

1954: the year jehovah's witnesses stopped worshiping jesus christ.

watchtower charter: http://www.jehovah.net.au/books/1945_cha..._wtbts.pdf.

did you know that from 1879 until 1954 the writings of c.t.russell, j.f.rutherford, nathan knorr and the watchtower's own charter all agreed that jesus christ was worthy of worship?.

kepler

Yes, an added note.

What cast me into outer darkness was the answer to a question about what I had learned in school the previous December weekend.

I said I noticed how Luke 23:39-43 was translated in the NWT.

That cost me everything.

60

Do Jehovah's Witnesses know what happened to them in 1954?

by Terry in

1954: the year jehovah's witnesses stopped worshiping jesus christ.

watchtower charter: http://www.jehovah.net.au/books/1945_cha..._wtbts.pdf.

did you know that from 1879 until 1954 the writings of c.t.russell, j.f.rutherford, nathan knorr and the watchtower's own charter all agreed that jesus christ was worthy of worship?.

kepler

Terry,

Your topic here gives more definition to a fuzzy picture I had been wondering about. I couldn't put my finger on it.

In initially addressing issues on line here, I have used the pamphlet "What the Bible Really Teaches" as a jumping off point, a book that to an outsider like myself throws a whole lot of Biblical references at the reader. If a dream in Daniel can trump a Gospel in doctrine, well what could I say? But I would ask "What does this all mean?"

In the midst of this I was doing some independent research - and I located the transcripts of the 1954 (!!) Walsh trial where Franz and other officers testified in a court in Scotland. To my surprise I had discovered that the Brooklyn crew testified to their belief that Jesus was the Archangel Michael. It was news to me. And here I was taking all of this instruction ( on behalf of my ex) where no expense was spared to point out the error of thinking that Jesus was part of the Trinitiy ( whether I personally believed it or not).

But where did it say what they believed?

In an Appendix of the book.

Why?

Because it fit into the concept of corporate organization in heaven - or an army - or a corporation - and a battle was coming up with Satan. There had to be a chain of command. Besides, in an epistle it was suggested that Jesus or Michael had a voice like a trumpet.

This was it? No wonder this book was not up front about its beliefs.

In one of the few times I had attended a Sunday service back in the spring of 2009 with my ex, I was struck by the WatchTower text for the day. It was an examination of "stumbling" in Matthew - and in questioning people were encouraged to say how willing they were to cut off their arms or cast their eyes out. I did not observe any missing limbs or sensory organs. In passing, Christ's Sermon on the Mount was mentioned - and the text referred to his theme of "Blessed are..." as something I remember quite well in its strange condescension.

"Nifty."

I had assumed that the organization was not just Bible based, but lost in a sea of apocalyptic pronouncement based on the Old Testament. I hadn't stop to consider or even sensed that power and devotion were being concentrated on a present day institution.