Posts by King Solomon

16

Does the WT have spies here?

by logical1 in

jw
friends

does bethel have spies here that are exempt from the "no looking at apostate material" in order to "protect" the org?

i.e.

their job is to view apostate material so they can find out who they can send copyright infringement claims to?.

King Solomon

Amelia said:

but I do know my youtube account was closed before the guy whose video I mirrored got his closed so I do think certain of us get "marked" and are subsequently watched more closely than others.

It's highly unlikely the WTBTS files takedowns manually (i.e. after finding a video), as YouTube has automated the process to look for copyright violations (process is called Content ID). What happens is content owners (Viacom, NBC Universal, etc) provides videos which they own for YT to load into their servers, and they periodically automatically look thru uploaded videos looking for "fingerprints" (characteristic) electronic signals that indicate someone uploaded their stuff.

Some users have attempted to edit the video to make it undetectable to the Content ID system (i.e. by changing pitch of audio track, or tweaking images, etc), but it's not for novices.

494

Jesus wife fragment is a fake

by Christ Alone in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/21/gospel-jesus-wife-forgery.

gospel of jesus's wife is fake, claims expertscholar says papyrus fragment believed to provide evidence that jesus was married is a modern forgery.

karen king from harvard university holds the papyrus fragment that has four words written in coptic, which are believed to prove jesus was married.

King Solomon

NC said:

Some are mentally ill, and encouraging this could be very damaging, even dangerous. They don't wear signs. It IS unhealthy to hear voices.

Yup.

That's the thing that strikes me as problematic: you raise a group of impressionable young children seeing epic imagery of life and death struggles, power struggles between Gods, genocide, child sacrifice, brutality, etc and it's not surprising that a small percentage DO actually try to process it all, and they "break" as a result of the emotional abuse.

Others get caught up into conspiracy-theory thinking, drawn into bigger struggles and wasting time thinking about things that most individuals are powerless to do anything to control anyway (thinking about international power dynamics of Trilateral Commission, when you are pushing a broom).

And how ironic when the WT shows an illustration of a teen (modern-day Absalom) playing a violent video game, and condemns video games for encouraging violence; you have to wonder if WTBTS has EVER read the Bible? Heck, the 'Elijah vs prophets of Baal' account ends with the slaughter of 450 people, and people are completely desensitized to it, thinking, "sucks to be them, they should'nt have worshipped Baal"! It's the same type of extremist thinking that leads to suicide bombers, just a different flavor of religious extremism.

Truely, the Bible should carry a NC-17 or R rating on it: it is NOT for brittle personality types.

46

Did Abraham Have Schizophrenia? Hearing A Voice Telling Him To Sacrifice Isaac?

by frankiespeakin in

well if someone came to you saying they were going to sacrifice one of thier children to god because god spoke to them telling them to do so what would you conclude?

would you tell him to be faithfull to the voice and do it so they can become god's friend like abraham was?.

http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/pp/ch2.htm.

King Solomon

I remember reading that there were some earlier versions of the story that had Abraham carrying out the sacrifice of his son, but were changed with time in the move to eliminate the practice of child sacrifice (which is still found in the OT, with offering of first-born of animals and man). Although sanitized, vestiges remain throughout.

So in the Abraham/Isaac story, YHWH provides a suitable sacrifice for Abraham to use as a proxy; in that sense, it's the perfect dramatic foreshadowing for the idea of YHWH offering Jesus as a sacrifice to Himself to make up for mankind's Adamic Sin.

And if you think of it, both are basically YHWH engaging in "sacrifical masturbation", making a sacrifice to Himself. God is basically making himself "happy"!

494

Jesus wife fragment is a fake

by Christ Alone in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/21/gospel-jesus-wife-forgery.

gospel of jesus's wife is fake, claims expertscholar says papyrus fragment believed to provide evidence that jesus was married is a modern forgery.

karen king from harvard university holds the papyrus fragment that has four words written in coptic, which are believed to prove jesus was married.

King Solomon

NC said:

This thing about Jesus 'laying down his life' is always said with such reverence, and as an argument for doing things his way.

Oh, if it only WERE that simple....

The story is God was insulted when some underlings (angels and humans) dared question his authority, and the insult meant mankind incurred a debt, an obligation to God to atone for the sin with a guilt offering.

However, sacrifices must be suitable ("unclean" animals, or animals that bear a blemish needn't apply; it has to be a first-born, per God's sacrifical rules).

However, God was willing to pay back the debt owed by mankind to Himself, as He wanted to help mankind out of a jam. But rather than just forgiving the debt, he thought it better to have a perfect sinless angel assume mortal form to serve as the sacrifice to Himself. M'kay.

Never-mind that mankind or God didn't actually LOSE anything in offering his Son as the sacrifice (so was it REALLY a "sacrifice", if He didn't experience a loss?). Jesus was only "playing" the role of a mortal being, and returned to heaven after portraying the role of the sacrifical lamb: no loss.

And never-mind that sacrifice involves experiencing a LOSS in hopes of gaining more in return from God, so God covered the cost of sacrifice for mankind? Wow, whatta guy....

So God sacrificed his son Jesus to Himself, to pay back a debt on behalf of mankind; couldn't He simply have shown debt-forgiveness, and save a lot of hassle?

And all that rigamarole makes sense to some of you, how, exactly?

114

The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?

by Recovery in

i noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.

if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.

this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.

King Solomon

Etude said:

The one we're discussing, whether and if it's a circular earth on a circular ocean or a spherical earth must exclude the mention of "corners" as a support for assuming that the ancients believed the world was flat and having corners.

What we're discussing is not new, as resolving that same conflict between various scriptures drove Prof Ferguson, a rabid protectorate of the literality of the Bible, to propose this model of the Earth in 1893 (of course, this was long before we had aircraft, satellites, etc):

THIS is what holding onto 3,000 yr old science gets you, making you look like a fool for trying to grasp onto ancient cosmology, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You thought the Luddites were bad? This is bronze-age-era Luddism.

17

free telephone and $10 internet= if you qualify in USA

by moshe in

yes, i discovered this program thanks to an obama supporter in cleveland.

if you are low income or receive a government program like food stamps, then you can get a free cell phone with 250 minutes and maybe even a $10/mo broadband internet connection.

with the economy being so bad, there is no reason to give up a phone and internet, which you need to find a job and get back to work-.

King Solomon

Never a JW said:

I agree with you about your implying the lack of objectivity from many radio and TV shows with conservative or ultraconservative tendencies. However, you missed something, the list of stations with low-intellect listeners can be completed by adding the much longer list of lefty tendentious shows on TV and radio. At times you seem a man of high intellect, not in this thread though.

Soooo, because I limited my comment to AM infotainment trash-talk AM radio (and you DO realize that, per the OP cut-and-paste, that "Kim Komando hosts the nation's largest talk radio show about consumer electronics, computers and the Internet"? Her show IS found on the same AM talk radio stations that often carry the raving-mad talk radio shows). Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a liberal or moderate AM radio talk show, let alone a host that gets the ratings of these "conservative" ranters.

114

The Bible-- Full of Errors And Inconsistencies?

by Recovery in

i noticed in the "magic" thread many former jw's no longer adhere to the bible as the unerring and accurate word of god.

if you feel this way, can you please list any specific reasons/arguments as to why not.

this thread isn't for debating purposes, but simply for listing.

King Solomon

etude, remember that the Bible was written over centuries by many authors (and editors, AKA redactors), who attempted to modify the depiction of cosmology based on the best knowledge of their day (whether Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, or later Babylonian). A similar modification is seen with the belief in the soul surviving death, where some sects (eg Essenes) didn't believe in a soul, and hence the Bible presents a contradictory view depending on where you read. The same occurs with the theodicy issue: it's ala carte, where a selection is presented so readers can pick their own to fill a need.

That's a problem with even Aesops fables, eg "look before you leap" or "he who hesitates is lost" are both on offer. Of course, Aesop didn't claim his words to be divinely-inspired, so it's not an issue. The Bible claims to have Divine YHWH telling his message to prophets, and presumably an omniscient would see logical discontinuities conflicting with His prior writings, and avoid the problem.

There's many ways to depict the Hebraic view of cosmology, but here's another which shows the model as it pertains to the Creation account and Flood:

PS Leolaia explained the problem with the story of Job, where subsequent redactors attempted to "resolve" what they saw as issues by a bit of "editing", but often created more problems as a result of "too many cooks spoiling plot by introducing continuity errors.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/233839/2/JOB-Was-He-Used-As-A-Gambling-Pawn

(The dead sea scrolls also reveal many similar redaction efforts, a problem for Biblical apologetists)

17

free telephone and $10 internet= if you qualify in USA

by moshe in

yes, i discovered this program thanks to an obama supporter in cleveland.

if you are low income or receive a government program like food stamps, then you can get a free cell phone with 250 minutes and maybe even a $10/mo broadband internet connection.

with the economy being so bad, there is no reason to give up a phone and internet, which you need to find a job and get back to work-.

King Solomon

Small potatoes, folks.

The bad news is the obstructionist GOP foot-draggers have virtually guaranteed that the guys (like Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo) who amongst other things, were responsible for ripping off billions in local gov't revenue, will never be prosecuted: anyone ever heard of MERS?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/an-extremely-long-metaphor-to-explain-mortgage-chaos-20110101

15

Calling Out Jehovah's Name

by God_Delusion in

if you're in trouble today, don't panic.

all you need to do is yell out at the top of your voice, "jehovah!".

well, that's what many jehovah's witnesses believe.

King Solomon

Calling YHWH's name as an incantation is practicing magic, since the name of YHWH was once considered so powerful that speaking it out loud could cause YHWH magic to occur. In fact, Moses attributed his magical power to calling upon the name of YHWH to overpower the black magic of his opponents.

However, per Recovery, JW theology maintains that miracles aren't being performed today, so it's not going to work, and if it DID work, the source of the phenomena is not YHWH, but Satan.

See, JWs want it both ways: they say there are no miracles being performed today (to excuse their inability to provide signs and omens), but that there ARE some miracles (ala bedrack, horshack, and to-bed-me-go).

14

BILL NYE (the Science Guy) on Creationism

by Terry in

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/bill-nye-creationism-science_n_1908926.html.

.

bill nye (the science guy) wonders aloud how creationism can provide anything but confusion..

King Solomon

The people who most need to listen to that message likely will only dismiss it (and Beakman's, if he could speak!) as liberal elite brainwashing from PBS.